Xeranium, the gift and the curse. It was once the source of our unimaginable wealth and the embodiment of our dreams. However, it turned out to be a poison that spelled our doom.

And when I said poison, I meant it in the literal sense of the word.

Where do I start? There are so many things to say about this element, I can write an epic poem. Like what Homer did with Odyssey. And Iliad too.

Let's start with the facts, then. You see, Xeranium is a soft, malleable metal that is gold-white in its purest form. Its symbol is Xa in the Periodic Table, and its atomic number is 120.

A rare element, Xeranium was discovered in Lambda Draconis in the late 26th century. When the suits at Anglo Far-East realized its potential as a near-limited form of energy, they purchased the exclusive rights from the United Nations to conduct mining operations.

Some scientists protested at the move. Xeranium was alien. Without further testing, we'd never be sure if it was safe for widespread application. But the benefits outweighed the risks. The UN had just put down a rebellion on Mars, and it was facing yet another economic downturn and energy crisis. If the political elites were to hang on to power, Anglo Far East's mining proposal seemed to be the only answer.

I was one of the first chaps who signed up. My name - Nicholas Chua - never looked so good as a signature on paper. The well-dressed recruiters told me LamDra was the land of the free and the home of the brave, but really I just went for the money. You see, being a poet while nuking burgers for a fast-food joint in East Baltimore was alright. But at the end of the day, it wasn't going to cover my rent. So I hopped on one of those star freighters with two hundred people on board. I never looked back. I had tears in my eyes.

Turned out, that my dream was a short-lived one. LamDra was a rocky planet devoid of life, and the dreary landscape came into view as soon as we landed. As the cargo ramp lowered, it became evident my time on LamDra would be anything but pleasant.

The brochure didn't mention anything about mercs with electrified batons. But there they were, confiscating our passports as soon as we disembark. They herded us to an assembly hall, which bore a striking resemblance to Jessup Correctional Institute in Maryland. I'd know, because half of my cousins were long-time residents there.

They hurled orders at us, asking us to get in line and take off our clothes. So we did. After all, nobody was in the mood or position to say no. We all signed the contract, but no one read the fine print about waiving our freedom. Heaps of clothes piled up while they handed crimson red jumpsuits to us. Those stern-faced mercs paced the hall, making sure we were obedient.

Lights went out at nine. From my bunk bed, I could clearly see the guard towers with infrared sensors skimming the perimeter of our hundred-acre compound. I wondered who, or what, was Anglo Far-East trying to keep out? LamDra was such a remote and desolate shit planet. Who was gonna come here and rob us?

The next morning, an eighteen-wheeler hauled us to Pit Nine. It was a magnificent sight - I stood over the open pit, ten kilometers wide, with my jaws fallen down. Around me, wheeled loaders and bipedal walkers were bustling about with large and small loads. Meanwhile, the continental excavators on the horizon were uprooting tons of soil by the second. I realized at that moment that I was no longer in Baltimore.

"Atten-tion!" yelled the merc sergeant. His beard was so red, that we called him Erik the Red. We formed a line and anxiously waited for our next order.

They handed each one of us a pickaxe and sent us off. We were Juno Squad, which really meant junior punks. Our job was to manually dig tunnels that branch off the main excavation. Big mining machines were reserved for experienced miners, not us newcomers.

Fair enough. After all, what was life without hard labor? I huddled up with the rest of my crew inside the steel-caged elevator. The clumsy diesel engine started chugging. The journey to the bottom of the pit seemed forever. Once there, we came across yet another world, one that was marred by dangerous working conditions, overbearing heat, and pungent subterranean odor.

Armed with respirator masks and white safety helmets, we began chipping rocks from the boulders. And that was pretty much our life for the rest of the year.

Whenever we ate in the mess hall, we were reminded by the blasting, discolored TV screen what a better place this world had become. Thanks to our labor, two billion tonnes of Xeranium had been extracted to power cities, trains, starships, and gigafactories. Anglo Far East's stock price quadrupled. The UN Economic Growth Index reversed and bounced. Everywhere from Earth to Mars, things were finally looking up.

Secretary General Arjun Lee-Mohamed came into the press hall. He was accompanied by the CEO of Anglo Far-East, Jean-Jacques Brettagne.

"My fellow citizens, it was only a year ago when we suffered wars, poverty, and famine. But we came together and overcame these challenges. Today, we stand strong. Humanity's golden age is coming. I can assure you that our future is going to be nothing but wondrous."

"You believe this shit?" I asked Ned Flannegan, my pit buddy. The mine operated a buddy system. Down there, you and whoever was assigned to you had to look out for each other. I had probably saved Ned's butt more than once from collapsed tunnels, but he never seemed grateful. But then again, any mentally healthy person wouldn't have signed up for this mining job.

"I guess," said Ned. He downed his chowder, dinner roll, and a blackened banana in a matter of seconds. A trail of ants was picking up his crumbs.

"It's all glory and fame for these people," I commented. "Me, I prefer to keep it simple, you know?"

"Sure." He stood up and went to refill his Coke, leaving the ants behind.

My job performance review was coming. I was thinking of asking for a raise. My supervisor, Kate Johnston, knew I was a hard worker. Maybe I could also tell her my plan to get the bipedal walker permit. That way, she'd be impressed by my work ethic and aspiration. And then I'd ask her out.

"Therefore," the Secretary-General continued, "the time has come for me to make the following announcement. Starting today, the United Nations will be renamed as the Federal States of the Constellations. Under this new banner, we shall expand beyond the Solar System and Lambda Draconis. Long live mankind! Long live the Federation!"

And the power went out.

Pitch dark. For a few seconds, the whirring of the ceiling fans was the only sound. Then Ned tripped over and spilled his Coke all over the floor. "Fucking hell."

Some of the miners laughed out loud. I tried to give Ned a helping hand, but I couldn't even tell north from south. Suddenly, I realized there was something else on the floor. Something scaly, slithering towards Ned at the soda fountain.

"Ned, are you okay?" I asked.

His scream cut through the dark veil. Before I could react, I felt warm and thick liquid splattered onto my jumpsuit. Then an object landed on my table top. I could only make out its silhouette in the dark.

The scaly creature - whatever it was - wiggled past me. Soon, it was out of earshot. Emergency powers ramped up just in time to bring back the lights. I found Ned's head sideways in front of me, yearning for helping.

Our compound went into lockdown. A female voice broadcasted security alerts with a blaring alarm sound. Us miners formed a line - part of the protocol - and hurried back to our dorms. Mercs with exoskeletons and pulse rifles darted past us. The radio chatter from their walkie-talkies was intense and in chaos.

A shootout followed. The whole time we hunkered down by our beds, we could hear gunshots outside our locked and barricaded door. I never expected to see battle, especially not on this forsaken shit planet. I certainly didn't know what was death until Ned's head got cut off. I cried and cried next to my pillow and even forgot to pray to our God.

Six, seven hours later, the alarm stopped. Dawn had returned to LamDra, and we emerged to find rubbles and human body parts. None of us said a thing - literally not a thing. There were no words to describe the horror, the macabre. Not even for a poet like me.

The night crawlers had left. The mercs suffered heavy losses but managed to beat them back. Roughly a hundred fifty people died that night - Kate as well. Our compound was also badly damaged. Ceilings had collapsed onto walls riddled with holes. The guard towers were also brought to the ground.

Who, or what, attacked us? And why? I suspected our company knew the answers. I always thought it was strange that our compound had soldiers and large-caliber weapons. It was more of a military garrison. Angle Far East knew this planet was hostile. They lied to us.

The mines were temporarily closed. We had no work, and since no work meant no pay, it made me anxious. But a part of me felt relieved. The mercs were stretched thin, no one could look out for us if we went out to work.

Meanwhile, Anglo Far East brought in reinforcements. Heavy troopers, gunship helicopters, and fast aerial bombers gathered outside our compound. They scoured the area and found the night crawlers' underground hideout. The mercs conducted Operation Azure, an eradication mission. Causalities were high. For days, I would see truckloads of badly wounded soldiers. It changed me. All that dying - what exactly were we protecting?

The best way to destroy pests was to bring their nest down. The mercs detonated dynamite around the site, and the entire underground cave system collapsed. That concluded Operation Azure.

I caught Erik the Red smoking at the loading dock. He had taken part in the operation, so I wanted to have a conversation. He was staring far, obviously shaken, his combat uniform covered in blood. Whatever had happened underground, he had been in the middle of it all.

So I approached him and interrupted his train of thought. "So, what's going on? Did we win or not? The suits won't tell us anything, you know. The suspense is killing me. Hell, everything's killing me."

I wouldn't say I provoked him, but I definitely could have been more sensitive with my timing. Erik the Red dropped his cigarette and burst into tears. Can you believe it? The meanest, baddest merc on LamDra was weeping in front of me. "They died, oh God, they all died!"

I gave him a shoulder to cry on. I thought it was the right thing to do. "You...you did your best."

"No, you don't get it." Erik stepped away with even larger, horrified eyes. "I left my people in there to die."

"Take it easy," I said. "Breathe."

"We found something down there. Some sort of scribbles in the underground hideout. Those creatures, they weren't alone. They had masters, old alien civilization that was here before us. They built this planet and then disappeared. I was reading the scribbles when the crawlers showed up, that's when I ran and left everyone else behind. HQ then detonated the dynamite. I was the only one who got out. They're dead because of me!"

He fell to his knees to keep weeping.

"It's not your fault," I said.

"Yes, it's their fault, the alien's fault. They build this planet to lure us in. This place is a trap!"

He then pulled out a gun on his temple. "God help us."

And that was it for Erik. The rest, I won't go into the details. I later learned his real name was Jason Vaughn, a policeman from Philly. We had our differences (lots), but we all made the stupid decision to come here. So in a way, that made us the same. Luckily, I didn't have to write a condolence letter to his family. I guess the company took care of it.

Anyways, he saw something and obviously couldn't live with it. I got scared. I seriously thought the same thing was going to happen to me. So I kept my mouth shut and never repeated the conversation with anyone else. I was just a normal guy who wanted to make money. People like me wanted simple things. We deserve happy endings.

The bad news didn't stop with Erik. In fact, the real disaster had just begun. Our air filtration system picked up something foreign. The analysis revealed ion particles emitted by Xeranium. That was strange. We always thought the gold-white metal was dormant. The next thing we knew, the fans stopped. The lights died out and our computers crashed and failed.

The engineers couldn't find a cure. The ion particles were corrosive and were attaching themselves to anything controlled by semiconductors. If we wanted the machines to keep working, we'd have to operate them manually. A couple of the guys went into the basement and rewired the air handler. The ventilation system restarted.

We got the essential life-support systems running, but without computers, nothing else worked. Excavators, loaders, walkers, starships, guns, and comms were all gone. We were back in the Stone Age.

Trouble came in spades. Just as we managed to hang out without the machines, people started getting sick. Their respiratory system would deteriorate without warning, and in 48 hours they were dead. Again, the tests indicated the same ion particles in their bloodstream. But instead of semiconductors, it was targeting cells. The disease was airborne and spreading.

We panicked. We ran back to our dorms and barricaded ourselves once more. But this time there was no running from the invisible threat. Everyone died and I eventually came out to seek help.

And help came. Like an answered prayer, a medical team from Luna arrived just in time. They went to work and set up a field clinic. It was clean, tidy, and well-equipped. They used medical instruments from the 20th century, which had no semiconductor chips. It was their philosophy to not rely on advanced technology as it could fail on an occasion like this.

I applauded this philosophy.

Me and the other sick ones were admitted. I was already experiencing fever, cold chill, shortness of breath, and seizure. In other words, the worst of the symptoms. I thought I was a goner.

Days, maybe weeks passed by before my conditions improved. No one knew how I made it. I was between short bursts of intense dreams, each one with a different scenario but always involved climbing a hill. When I climbed over the top, I woke up. The nurse who was holding my hand at the time had tears in her eyes.

They said Luna girls were the prettiest, and I endorsed this statement. Angela, who had brown hair and hazel eyes, took good care of me. She was polite and attentive. I did not deserve this.

Angela wiped my forehead with a wet cloth and checked my vitals. EKG reading was stable, which meant I was out of the woods. She smiled, feeling assured. I promised myself to get better and ask her out.

They were from Nurses Without Borders. Their mission was to serve underprivileged people throughout the constellations. The moment they heard about our troubles, they chartered a star freighter to come here. Well, I hope they bring me back to Luna afterward.

No more night crawlers had been sighted since Operation Azure. But given the irreparable state of the machines and the ongoing pandemic, Anglo Far East finally decided the shut this place down for good. Federal Navy cruisers came to evacuate those who were not sick. The rest of us were asked to stay put.

They were leaving us behind.

Except for Angela. She and her crew continued to work around the clock for us. But the patients, miners and mercs alike, continue to die one after another. Medicines, surgeries, therapies, nothing worked. I was the only one getting better. No one knows how or why.

Finally, the disease got to the nurses too.

Angela turned pale one morning. Her lips became purple as well. The next thing I knew, she dropped her clipboard and fell on the floor. I unplugged my IV and got off the bed to help her. She had no pulse.

I went to get help. But no one answered. The corridors, the offices, and the other sickbays - the same fate befell everyone else too.

I was the only person left on the planet. That much became apparent.

And since the comms are down, there was no means to contact the Solar System.

No happy ending for me, after all.

The mess hall was quiet and deserted like everywhere else. Even the once blaring TV screen was now dormant. To have the whole place to myself felt surreal. I scavenged whatever food and water there was. At the dining table, I ate like a caveman and thought maybe everything happened for a reason.

And then I remembered what Erik the Red told me. The scribbles. It wasn't so much of a reason but by a grand design.

I found some paint in the workshop next door and drew a face on my safety helmet. Two dots and one mouth. After you were created, I finally found a friend to discuss my theory with.

You see, Xeranium started as a soft, malleable metal that was gold-white in its purest form. But when used extensively in our generators and engines, it began to emit hazardous ion particles. In other words, Xeranium was poison, made for pest control.

The old aliens, whoever they were, regarded humans as an invasive species. To prevent us from spreading, they littered Xeranium throughout the universe, hoping we'd be lured to its attractive but deadly properties. Lambda Draconis was a bait station, not the dreamy new frontier we had wished it to be.

And now that Xeranium is widespread within the Solar System, our civilization is poised to wither from within. Soon, the Federal ships will stop sailing, and all the cities will stop functioning. Society will grind to a halt, but not before people die out. From Earth to Luna to Mars, our homelands will become graveyards that witnessed our naiveté.

The universe is hostile. There are forces against us, ready to squash our dreams as we venture deeper into the unknown. Heed my words: know your place and turn away from the stars. Do not hope and do not dream, instead be content with your minuscule existence.

Thanks for listening, you've been a great friend. I don't think we'll get through this, but at least I'll be able to go in peace. Keep your head down. May God have mercy on us all.