68. Panic

68. Panic
David chuckled softly, trying to lighten the mood. "I thought you’d enjoy being pampered by handsome men," Jarvis added. "I even thought—who knows, maybe one of them could have been your soulmate."
Smack!
A sharp flick landed squarely on Jarvis’s head, making him wince in pain once again. Rose glared at them with eyes as cold as ice.
"I’m warning you both: don’t you ever dare interfere in my love life again. Is that clear?"
Jarvis nodded quickly while clutching his head. "Okay, okay! We get it. We admit we were wrong."
Rose snorted in annoyance and returned to her desk. For a moment, the room settled back into silence as everyone began to focus on their work. However, that peace didn't last five minutes—
BEEP—BEEP—BEEP!
The office alarm suddenly blared at a deafening volume. The room’s lights shifted to a haunting, dim red. Everyone froze, their breath caught in their throats. On the main screen, the logo of the Space Research Division appeared, followed by a woman's voice that sounded tense yet strained to remain professional.
"Attention, all research staff. We have just received high-level emergency data."
A massive graphic appeared on the screen—a giant celestial object racing through the vacuum of space toward a tiny blue dot: Earth.
"A massive meteor has been detected on a direct collision course with Earth’s atmosphere."
"What?! A meteor?!" Rose's face instantly turned deathly pale.
David and Jarvis immediately burst out of their rooms. Sure enough, the terrifying news was already plastered across all the large monitors in the laboratory. The object was gargantuan, moving at a terrifying velocity, and was predicted to strike Earth in less than 48 hours.
"Does this mean... it's the end of the world?" Rose asked, her voice trembling.
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"No! That thing must be destroyed before it touches the atmosphere!" David cried out, his eyes burning with determination. "I’m heading to the physics lab now. We need to calculate its coordinates and launch a strike before it’s too late!"
David took off at full speed without waiting for an answer. Rose watched her colleague’s retreating back, her breath hitching in her chest.
"I almost forgot he’s a physicist," Rose whispered hopefully. "I just hope they can truly find a way to stop it."
That very afternoon, the atmosphere in the space and physics laboratories transformed into an intellectual war zone. Every advanced instrument was pushed to its absolute limit. David led the team to activate Project Aegis, a high-energy kinetic cannon designed to intercept deep-space threats.
"Target locked! Coordinates: Sector 7-G. Fire!" a senior researcher shouted from behind the control console.
A violent magnetic boom echoed throughout the facility. From Earth's surface, a plasma projectile tore through the sky, surging toward deep space at near-light speed. Rose and the rest of the staff held their breath, their eyes glued to the monitors showing the final seconds until impact.
BOOM!
A flash of blinding white light filled the screen. The projectile scored a direct hit on the meteor’s core. However, instead of shattering into pieces, the meteor appeared to absorb the entire energy of the explosion.
"What’s happening?!" Rose screamed.
"Impossible..." David stared at the sensor data, his face turning ghostly pale. "The internal structure of that object isn't made of ordinary silicate rock. It’s a Ferro-Quark composite—a solid particle with a molecular density ten times that of a diamond. Our shot barely left a scratch on its surface!"
The meteor continued its trajectory without slowing down. A wave of despair instantly blanketed the room. The world’s top physicists could only hang their heads in defeat; Earth's technology was not yet capable of penetrating such dense celestial matter.
Rose stood up, her breath coming in ragged gasps. She remembered her conversation with Lucas that morning. If human technology was powerless, then only alien technology could overcome this. She had to try every possibility; perhaps Lucas possessed the technology to solve a crisis like this.
"Where are you going, Rose?" Jarvis asked as he saw her grab her bag and bolt toward the exit.
Rose paused for a moment, turning back with eyes burning with fierce determination. "I’m not going to die a meaningless death here, just waiting for that rock to fall and crush us!"
"And what exactly do you think you can do?" Jarvis asked, bewildered.
"You'll find out soon enough!" Rose shouted as she sprinted out of the laboratory building. She had to find Lucas—right now.
Rose ran with all her might toward her apartment complex. Instead of heading to her own unit, she began slamming her fists against the door directly opposite hers.
"Lucas! Lucas! Open the door! Can you hear me?!" Rose screamed, continuing to batter the wooden door.
A moment later, the door swung open. Lucas appeared with a pair of large headphones draped around his neck. He pulled them off, his face etched with pure annoyance.
"Why are Earth women so loud? I was just about to relax! Come back some other time!" Lucas snapped.
"There’s no time to relax!" Rose grabbed Lucas by the shoulders, gasping for air. "You’re an alien, right?! Check your radar right now! A giant meteor is hurtling toward us and will hit Earth in less than twelve hours!"
The irritation on Lucas’s face vanished instantly. His eyes widened as he tapped a device on his wrist. A small holographic projection flickered to life, displaying a flashing red emergency alert in Orvantian script.
"What?! How did I miss this?" Lucas gaped, his body suddenly trembling. "I have to get off Earth right now! This is the apocalypse! My escape pod... I need to start the launch sequence!"
Seeing Lucas spiral into his own panic, Rose felt a surge of both despair and rage. "What is wrong with you? Don't you have any sympathy?! Your planet has technology far more advanced than ours, doesn't it?! Help us, Lucas! Save this planet!" Rose pleaded, her eyes brimming with tears.
Lucas stopped pacing and looked at Rose with a mix of guilt and confusion.
"Me? Help Earth?" Lucas shook his head quickly. "Whoa, hold on! It’s not that I don't want to help, Rose, but I don't have that kind of destructive technology! I’m only here on a traveling mission, not as a galactic soldier carrying planet-shattering cannons!"
"But you must have something, right?!" Rose pressed, her voice nearly breaking in desperation.
"I don't! But Liuz might!" Lucas finally blurted out, unable to bear her panic any longer.
Rose’s eyes went wide. "What? You know Liuz? Lucas! Tell me the truth!"
"Good grief, this romance of yours is such a headache! Why do I have to be dragged this far into it?!"
"Lucas, don't play games with me! Tell me where Liuz is, now!" Rose gripped the sleeve of his jacket, demanding an answer.
"Here! Just call him yourself!" Lucas shoved his sophisticated device toward her roughly. "I have to leave now. Look, I’m not a bad alien; at least I’ve helped you this much. But when it comes to a rock that size, I’m getting out of here!"