Ficlets

They have no lawyers, and their women go topless

It was a very small planet. A classical army post from the times of the second empire, with one building big enough to defend the entire planet, and 2 landing areas: front for VIP ships and back for army and cargo.
Such planets became hot property once the war has ended. The main building was converted into a leisure dwelling, and in most cases – one of the landing areas was converted into a park or even a lake (if the owner could afford the water).
It was dangerous to land in such places uninvited. Not that anybody would attack physically, but those bastards had lawyers who could sue you for anything you had if you gave them a reason, and trespassing was a good enough reason.
But we’ve had a malfunction and we did try our best to contact the inhabitants, scanning all seven ethers known to man for two standard hours. The engineers said we had no choice, so we landed.
The hippies there were nice, but the metal-eating termites (developed by their ancestors during some forgotten revolution) were mighty hungry.

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