Today I am combining a couple of writing challenges into one. In addition to having at least one daily submission to continue with the Monthly Author Challenge, I am also using this as my submission into @mctiller's short story contest where the writing prompt is:

People on another planet discover Earth holds life.

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Click here for rules of @mctiller's challenge and a chance to win 5 STEEM

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Discovery on the Blue Planet

by Meredith Loughran

"How strange." Genax sat up in her chair and tapped the monitor as if her action might adjust the data streaming across her screen.

Golang paused from his lunch to look in her direction. Half bored with this star system, he would take just about anything for a diversion. "What is it?"

"There's got to be something wrong with our thermal imager. I'm getting high heat signatures from that baby blue planet. I'm going to do a topographic ultrasound."

"Why bother? What could possibly exist on that tiny... pffft can we even call that a planet? Come on."

Genax rolled her eyes. "Stop being such a snob and think of this as a fun adventure into the unknown. Look, there is a huge amount of Dihydrogen Monoxide."

"Ooh, Dihydrogen Monoxide, Dihydrogen Monoxide - there must be life forms if there's Dihydrogen Monoxide!" Golang teased, raising the pitch of his voice to be high and squeaky. "You've got to stop obsessing that there's life on a planet because they've got water on it. Think about it: what's so exciting about amoebas? Nothing."

"Just humor me, okay? We've got nothing better to do."

Licking the last remnants of his lunch off of his fingers, he turned in his chair and pushed a couple of buttons on the console to make a course correction for the blue planet. "Happy now?"

Gen smiled and clapped happily. "The air quality is pretty toxic but there is a lot of terrain that will support our ship. Why don't we land...over there?"

He shrugged and switched to manual steering.
Upon landing on the strange little planet, they were greeted by a mass of complex organisms wearing inanimate dressing and pointing metal things at them.

"Oh," Genax cried with glee, "aren't they adorable? Can we keep a few?"

Golang shook his head then scanned the primitive human species, oblivious to their measly weapons. "The only thing I see here is lunch."

This short story is brought to you because my goal is to achieve the Monthly Author Badge on SteemitBoard

I hope you enjoyed the story

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