Fallen Heroes

Every year we come together to remember them, our fallen heroes, those who died for us. We travel to this place from all over. From everywhere in the galaxy our ships will come.

We meet. We greet. We spend three days in silence. Then we party. Then we part.

For six whole days this planet knows people again. For six whole days, there is life in this barren world.

A silent life at first, in memory of their death. People are everywhere, yet we do not speak.

The biggest and the baddest and the loudest party ever starting on the fourth day. In memory of their life. In promise of our return.

There is dancing, and there’s drinking. There is drugs aplenty.

The beat of the music is so loud and so fast it gets all of our feet stomping the ground in unison. The planet itself becomes our drum.

We party we have fun. And then we part. This world falls into silence once again.

It used to be the radiation was so bad we could not possibly stay past the sixth day because of that. Anything longer than six days was suicide, pure and simple. Even as it was, the first countless generations of people who came here to this world to remember our fallen heroes the way that we still do this day and shall, they sacrificed much of their health in the process.

It is an honor to be chosen to come here. It is an honor and a privilege. It is a sacred duty.

The generations before us, who were poisoned worse than we, they knew well the cost of coming here to do their duty. They paid it gladly. Proud of the honor of being the ones chosen to represent their worlds in remembering our fallen heroes.

How could we be anything less than also eager to come? We, who suffer only just a little the effects of so doing?

The honor of having been chosen is every bit as great as ever was. Yet now there are so many more of us to choose among the honor has become most rare.

Some nausea is to be expected afterwards. Some few days of weakness. What matters that? A party like the one is held here every year would leave one ill and weak for days even if radiation were no longer a factor at all.

Someday, some year, it won’t be. With time enough, all the radiation will be gone.

Then we shall return. Then our children, our children’s children, someone will return. To stay.

Until the day that happens, we gather here. Once a year. We come to remember our fallen heroes, the ones who gave their lives for us, so that we might live.

We have come here for millennia. Shall come for centuries more. To remember our fallen heroes.

Three days of silence for their deaths. Three days of celebration for their lives and our return.

For someday… someday we shall return to stay. Some of us will come. Some of us, our children’s children’s children will be chosen to return.

Most of our people will forever remain upon the worlds that we have built since leaving. We could never all of us return to the home of our ancestors, but we will come.

We are far too many for all of us ever to live again upon this world where we began. But we will come.

Some will come to live here, and some will only ever visit. But we will come.

Someday this world will know again a life that lasts. Someday we people shall remain. Longer than the six days that we now do spend each every year in remembrance.

We remember our fallen heroes.

We come and we remember we will come.

As soon as we are able we will come and stay.

Someday, the Earth shall live again.