The First City Falls - A Sci-Fi Short Story

1 Tidal Locking; Valley of Life

Knight-Warrant James F. Aelian
182nd Ritter Squadron, Legio IX RAPAX
Proximo, Alpha Centauri

"It is sad to think that all this... was a matter of taxes." –John Paul Helm, Assemblyman.

They called it the First City, while some others call it the City of Twilight. Perhaps it had been right to call it Humanity's light in the Dark Frontiers millennia ago, but now, it was nothing more than an agglomeration of ruined steel beams, some bent, some broken, mostly chipped, but all devastated.

The sun, particularly the largest—and closest—out of three in her skies, never set, yet never rose properly either. It sat on the western horizons of the city on one side, locked and constantly present... while on the other, far stretching to that side of the world, was the Land of Forever Night, and upon it were endless rocks and beasts that have never seen the light of day. They've evolved accordingly, these creatures: stalking in the depths of night with four sharp, hairy legs which held sharp claws, silent in step... the stealthiest predators, stalking the wild for any prey they could find. And they always found them. They chased and hounded them in packs, and most remarkably, they did so with sense of heat, smell, and hearing alone, albeit unparalleled. They were blind, but more importantly, they were deadly, and that was why they survived.

Imagine if they could see... they would've made the entire surface theirs to conquer. Maybe, they could've at one point after a million years and a dozen epochs made farms, settlements, cities, perhaps dream of the stars like we did. But they did not. They still roamed the Endless Night on the dark side of the planet, and have done so for millions of years, and perhaps, a million more.

What made us so different from them? These questions are often asked, and have often been answered without any provocation in the form of baseless assumptions. But whatever wonders the Night Stalkers of Proximo could perform, they were nothing compared to what would happen to the First City.

In the absolute darkness that made the Dark Side of the tidally-locked world, amongst the impossible cliffs and its giant shadows that surrounded the Valley of Life where the First City stood in its sunbathed but rinous state, They sat. And looked. And stalked.

In rebreathers and fur coats and camouflage nets, radios in hand and large rifles that could pierce the toughest of armored plates, two onlookers, humans by their shape, sat on the edges of the ancient Canyon. The city, dead, dead, but slowly going back to life amidst the ruins, well below them.

They spoke.

"The First City." Said one to the other, powerful optics above his eyes. "Perhaps it is the first to be built, but it also shall be the First City of Man to fall. We are now witness to this History..."

They both wore skin-tight pressure suits under their fur, and atop the suits were a small plate of armor above their chests, and around it, tubes of complicated breathing apparati not dissimilar from use in the void.

He looked upon the ruins, and he thought of how it had been sanctuary to millions, a place called home by families, of industrious peoples and honest workers.

"The Fates have spoken, Knight-Warrant." Said the other, a woman, though her slim and athletic feminine figure was hard to see under the thick fur, chest armor, and pressure suit under. She too was looking down her optics. She lifted them, revealing slant but large, beautiful, sharp eyes. "The augurs have also declared. Today, it falls."

"Such a sad fate. Had they complied..." said the Knight-Warrant. Coated in thick leather, the coldness around him made very breath a warm vapor. Though it did not snow; there was not enough water vapor in the air to form clouds. Aside from the Valley of Life, Proximo was barren, desolate, lost. The First City was the only thing that gave it meaning, aside from the rich minerals within its crust.