I Caused The War

Late To Work

Hectaar hesitated, but cleared his throat and kept on going, "It is expected that most planets will not accept Mars's raised prices as the Martians's government is known for always being a bit... over. Letania trees will stop being spread Multiverse wide and it was always considered a weed in Mars. This could cause the extinction of the Letanias all together."

Lofty's head kept snoring while the other asked, confused, "So, you're saying the extinction of Letanias is extremely... bad?"

Vilgrin roared exasperatedly, "Have you ever payed attention to all the classes we did to achieve the highest seat in Star Travellers? Letanias are vital for the survival of all the oxygen-run planets in the Multiverse. It communicates with other trees, as soon as it is placed in the right soil, to produce oxygen. Two of these precious trees are in Earth itself, helping the planet to survive while disguised as what Earthens call 'Willow trees'."

I was sceptical, "This is all what you EXPECT to happen. You realise it might actually not happen."

Stacy opened her mouth to reply but then someone appeared right there in the middle of the conference table. That someone was blue-skinned and had wavy, black hair in an aqua dress.

Stacy exclaimed, "Ally!!"

The two embraced and the strange Tarian turned to us, eyes wide with fear. Stacy explained, "This is my friend, Allyona Tamerly." To Allyona, she said, "Tros la Star Travellers. Wui la ru dil har?"

Allyon cried out in English, "Oh! Oh! Come save me home, it drowning. The horrid Scaldians!"

Lofty jumped up, both heads crying in unison, "Scaldians?!"

Allyon wept, "Scaldians bring water, too much water! They drown us. Merciless Scaldians!" She suddenly let out a shriek, "Scaldians look like you! You are Scaldians. Small Scaldian but Scaldian!"

Vilgrin and I jumped away from Lofty as she grew to her full size, tall but still reasonably thin. Both heads had a violent look on their face now, as she headed to the Portal Room. Vilgrin broke into a run after her, shouting, "Lofty! Stop!"

Hectaar sighed at Allyon, "Lofty's never approved of her kind. Now that they're attacking you, she is ashamed and wants to stop them. Now, don't be silly and sit down properly on a chair."

I waited politely until Allyon sat down on Vilgrin's chair and then exploded, "What happened? Aren't Scaldians known for having the least water in the Multiverse?"

Stacy snapped sternly, "Don't push Allyon, there's a lot of stress on her, now."

I dipped my head in a gesture of apology.

 It was true, Allyon was nervous, I could see that. So was Stacy, she hadn't said a word until then and I knew it was because she was thinking about her friends on the planet still. Star Travellers had to learn to control their emotions in times of distress and to be able to act calmly. 

Vilgrin came back after a few moments of silence, breathless and holding an unconscious Lofty. She had shrunk down to her normal size and promptly fainted when Vilgrin had cracked her over a head. 

He shook his head, "Lofty's gotta learn to control her emotions more. At this point, we'll have her fainting all over the place."

Hectaar said quietly, so that we had to strain to listen, but with authority, "Vilgrin. You, Lofty and Allyon head to Tara to sort out the Scaldian situation. Make sure Lofty isn't too excited. I'll have Stacy and Joanne go to Earth to try to figure out the main problem, seeing as it's their home planet. I myself will take a look at Killy's alarm clocks, just to see what all the fuss is about."

Everyone, except Lofty, agreed with a nod and a salute and hurried towards their portal in the Portal room. 

Before I stepped into the swirling Portal, I admitted to Stacy, "I really think there's no use in sending us there. Earth is a perfectly fine planet."

Then I was in the portal and light poured onto my face. Instinctively, I reached up for the lever but stopped myself from pulling it. If it was pulled, it would bring me back to the Star Travellers own custom planet in the middle of the Multiverse. 

That was the only way to get there.

 Instead, I waited for the light to clear and was zooming through space in a small, round capsule that was decoratively painted with the colours blue and green. Windows were on either side of the capsule so I was able to see outside to where dozens of other capsules were travelling. 

In front of me and Stacy was a tablet. It had a search bar right in the middle. Hurriedly, I typed 'Earth' in because if we failed to enter the exact place we planned on going to quickly, we could accidentally zoom thousands of hundreds of light years away from our actual destination.

 As we waited, Stacy took out a notepad and pencil from her pocket, jotting down something in her messy writing. I pretended not to notice that she wrote down my name and took out my iPhone 300 instead. 

I tapped it and immediately it opened, scanned my face to unlock and a hologram poured out of it. I swiped horizontally to get to the right page before selecting Multiverse Maps. The hologram enlarged and showed the map of everything around us with a self-customised yellow dot to show our location.

 We were currently passing Pluto which meant we were definitely close. The next moment, the dot flickered to keep up with our fast travel and appeared again to be a few millimetres from a bright red Mars.

"It's extremely interesting how Multiverse Maps reduces thousands of miles to merely a few millimetres."

My head jolts up and hits the ceiling, I didn't know she had been watching, "Hey! Quit it!"

"What?" She blinks innocently.

"Oh, just drop it." I rolled my eyes, "See, we're near, now. Didn't take long, did it?"

"No." She says simply, "But I never said it would."

I bite my tongue to stop myself from explaining I was asking a rhetorical question. I open my mouth to comment on how close we are again as our little dot zooms straight towards a green, blue planet. 

There is a rush of light and, caught of guard, I jump so when the sphere opens in the front, I fall out headfirst, hands grappling for my phone which also decided to do a dive. 

Stacy steps out after me.

 It's only when my hands close around my phone that I realise we are falling from the top of Mount Everest.