Silash was fiddling with baubles and gadgets galore as he struggled to discern what it was that he was seeing in his star diviner. It was a warning, but a warning of what kind he couldn't be certain. The only thing that he could really be certain of was that some shit was going to go down, and it was going to be messy.

He'd been trying to inform the Upper Echelon of this for several moon cycles, but each time, they told him he ought to just get over it, or they would laugh at him, or even still they would pretend like he hadn't said anything at all and just move on to another topic as if that is what he'd been talking about the entire time, never at all addressing what he'd originally inquired about.

It was definitely something though, and it was something bad. He looked again through the long, snaky structure connected to the massive crystal that took up a good thirty percent of the outside of the observatory. It served to capture and magnify the light from the skies and process it into something visible to the tauman eye, and as a result parsable by the tauman mind.

There were also of course Silash' numerous gadgets that could crunch and process all sorts of numbers and readings based on the crytal's outputs, but, as Silash liked to say to trainees at the Observatory, a picture said ten to the power of ten formulas. His own little joke.

Presently his gadgets and gizmos were absolutely losing it because something had perforated Nomachiato's galatmosphere and was punching through towards the surface at an alarming rate. Usually people at the Obervatory enjoyed such events and found them intriguing, but usually the size and volume of the things causing perforations were much smaller and weaker than... whatever the hell was happening here.

And so the Observatory was so abuzz and blaring with beeps, noises and sirens galore to the point that it was almost a terrible bore. Silash was starting to wonder if he was the kind of tauman that was cut out for science at this moment. Here he was, wearing his trusty white lab robe and staff, having absolutely no idea what the fuck was happening, what the fuck to do, what the fuck he could do, and who to even talk to about it.

And so he did what he always did in these situations. After all, though this was generally stressful and extreme, it also seemed like nobody else cared. To that point, why would he?

Silash cracked his neck and picked at some of the fresh living wood on his face. He was still getting used to how it felt, but he didn't mind it. It was surely time for him to start growing some on his face, at any rate, especially considering the amount of stress he'd been under as of late.

Silas walked over to a small cooler that was supposed to be for temperature sensitive rock samples and pulled out a tall cask of ale. He cracked it open and smiled, slurping it down like it was the nectar of life. Maybe things weren't so bad, after all. There was no way this was going to be even half as bad a deal as he'd been making it out to be. Who was to say whether the anomaly had even actually perforated? Nobody else seemed to believe him. Maybe the crystal, and all his formulas and devices and readings, were just wrong.

It had happened before.

It had happened countless times, in fact, wherein Silash had accidentally, unbeknownst to himself, either left a speck of dirt on a slide or accidentally typed in a wrong number or, in even wilder situations, overwritten his own database by sneezing in a particular fashion. So, with that, his warnings and upheavel weren't always... taken seriously.

So why should he take this seriously. Sure, he'd checked an rechecked and triple and quadruple and quintuple checked, but nobody seemed to believe him. In fact, instead, they'd just start bullying him! The Upper Echelon didn't take Silash seriously, probably because he didn't have a system. Which was all fair and good, Silash figured self-depreciatingly, but they'd have to believe him if something was really wrong, right? It wasn't like he was the kid in the popular fable 'The Little Tauman Who Cried SkinEater.' He was a serious, intelligent, well studied, hard working professional who'd just had some bad luck recently, and it was really no big deal at all. This would all smooth over.

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Silash pulled up a large box hooked up to several barnacles and fiddled with it for a moment. It crackled on.

"And folks here are here at the GifflenDome and the Wheezing Cornflowers are up 9.5 to 2 and are just stepping up to the evisceration station to -"

Silash balked as the anouncement cut off and a loud tone sounded.

"Hello, I'm Ghary Gharyson here with the Gifflenberg media newsroom. We're interrupting your normally scheduled programming-"

Silash groaned. What an absolute cop out, what a terrible bore! He was hoping to beat the Cornflowers, and not only were they up by over 7 points, but now he couldn't even hear the game thanks to this doofus, Ghary, and his newsroom!

"We have reports that what looks to be an enormous meteor is cutting through the sky, and I do mean cutting through the sky, at least that's what it looks like, I mean, since the sky literally looks like it's bleeding. Folks, I wish I knew more than this, but this is absolutely every bit of information I have right now. Please, be careful. Stay close to your families. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT go outside. Stay sheltered where you are. Find the lowest ground you can. If you can get in a basement, well, that's going to be the ideal situation here. We're expecting severe shockwaves when the meteor hits, as well as a dangerous dust and debris that can cause lasting harm to you and your loved ones. I repeat, this is NOT a drill, I am SERIOUS when I say it is VITAL that you do not go outside, for any reason at all, until we have further information on this issue."

Silash put down his ale. Was this Ghary guy for real? Did this mean that his readings had, for once... been completely accurate? And did that mean that the Upper Echelon had been wrong to scold and ignore him for being concerned about this?

Ghary was still babbling on the station where Silash's game should've been playing, but he didn't care at this point. In fact, Ghary's nervous babbling almost seemed... soothing to Silash, because it was an indicator that, finally, he'd been right about something. Truly, he'd begun to lose a lot of confidence in himself as a scientist. He was thinking about turning in his robe! And yet here it was - the vindication that he had been completely right about what appeared to be a pretty serious issue.

And then, his sending conch started ringing for an unknown source caller.

"Hello? Silash here," he said, sipping his beer.

"Silash, how the FUCK do you sound so calm right now? Are you okay? Are you safe?"

Silash sighed. It was Vehlma, and she sounded like she was having a conniption.

"Oh, yea, the Observatory's a mess, I've got warnings and formulas out the ass."

"Silash, are you drinking?"

"Duh."

"I'm jealous. I'm over at my parents' house. Trapped, actually. And they're teetotalers."

"That explains why my conch didn't recognize you. Funny. I can't help but feel a little relieved that I was actually right about something for once."

"You've been right plenty of time before, Silash, the Upper Echelon be damned. And this is just evidence that they need to take what you tell them more seriously. I'm genuinely very concerned, though I am in outer Gifflenberg right now so probably am at less risk than you."

"That's good," Silash said as he sipped. "Look, Vehlma, I wouldn't be too worried. I mean, we're definitely in for some chaos here. Things are going to get... messy, I'll give you that. But it's nothing I won't be able to wrap my head around here, and the Gifflenberg government seems to have a good head on its shoulders. That mayor guy, talk about a great judge of character, seems like he'll steer us in the right direction. As messy as all this is, and as much as I wish the Upper Echelon had listened to me before, it's out of my hands now. Why not just, I don't know, chalk it up to being smited by Theseosus for bad behavior?"

"Silash!" Vehlma tsked. "Are you trying to convince me of that, or are you trying to convince yourself?"

"Um..." Silash sighed. "Maybe a little bit of both, if I'm being honest."

"That checks out. Look, I'm going to get going. We're going to play some poker to pass the time. Please be safe. Don't leave the Observatory, okay?"

"Pfft, when do I leave the Observatory, anyhow?"

"Silash, I wish you'd take this a little more seriously."

Silash downed the rest of his drink and sighed again. "Yea, I kind of do, too. But I think it's just that I spent so much time and energy trying to tell people about this, and it was like I was getting the response of essentially a brick wall of ignorance. And now here we are, it's happening just like I talked about and all my readings are even worse than I thought they'd be, and the galatmosphere is perforated and... and... oh, fuck it, Vehlma. I've got to say it. I miss you."

The other end was silent.

"Vehlma? Did you hear me?"

All Silash heard on the conch was waves. He groaned and slammed the conch on the desk.

"Fuck, that's embarrassing."

And then, everything shook. And there was a boom. And the Observatory whistled and cried with readings and warnings and endless error codes, and then everything shut off, and Silash was left there in the darkness.

He fell to the ground as everything shook again. And then he heard from somewhere outside a loud, dreadful crackling.