Aliens?
Shanna Murchison
A friend of mine asked me to write a story for their son which had a moral lesson in a non-preachy way, and this was the result.
Brothers Robert and John have the adventure of a lifetime when their spaceship goes out of control in an unknown galaxy....
Robert and John were two average teens living a normal life. Well, almost normal. The year was 2025, and space travel had been perfected. Anyone, whatever age or nationality, could visit any planet in the known universe.
So far, no intelligent life had been found on any other planet, and scientists were beginning to give up hope of ever finding anyone.
One wet July day during the school holidays, the intrepid pair decided to take a weeks' holiday on another planet.
With typical teenage rebelliousness, they ignored their father's warning of, "Don't go today. High solar winds are forecast."
They promised to wait until the winds had calmed down a bit, but as soon as their father had left for work, and their mother had gone off to do some shopping, Robert began to pack up some food and supplies for the journey.
"We don't have to listen to Dad. We're old enough to decide things for ourselves. We'll be back before they ever even notice."
"Great! I can't wait!" said John, who began cramming their spacecraft, the INTREPID, with all their camping gear.
Then John sat down at the controls. "Here, I'll put in the co-ordinates. Oh no! I forgot, the fuel gauge is a bit wonky."
"Dad fixed it. Just give it a thump."
John did as his younger brother had suggested. "Check. Right, where d'you wanna go?"
"Anywhere. I've heard Prometheus 3 is ace. It was discovered in 1997, and the camping and sports are meant to be great."
"Sounds good to me. Prepare for take-off," said John.
"Can I do the countdown?"
He rolled his eyes, then grinned. "Oh, go on, you big baby."
"Five, four, three, two one, ignition, blast off!" Robert said excitedly.
He and his brother didn't get to use the family interstellar craft nearly as much as they wished. Though the craft was mainly solar-powered, it required liquid nitrogen for the lift-off and landing, and Dad always kept reminding them how expensive the fuel was.
Once they had left the upper atmosphere, John tapped the coordinates for Prometheus 3 into the Intrepid's computer.
But now the ship lurched, and began to shudder violently.
"What was that?" Robert asked the computer anxiously.
"Nothing to worry about, Robert. Just a little bit of turbulence," the on-board computer replied in a tinny voice.
"Confirm destination please, Hannah," John requested to the computer.
"Co-ordinates set for Prometheus 3. Hyperspacing to targeted destination."
As the ship went into hyperspace mode, cruising along at one thousand times the speed of light, the Intrepid began to judder alarmingly again.
"Hannah, run a diagnostic on all ship's systems!" Robert demanded as he was thrown from side to side in his chair.
The metallic voice responded, "Co-ordinates set... system. Co-ordinates have changed. Hyper-ing.... to new destination. "
There was so much hissing, crackling, and interference, that Robert and John could make no sense of the message. Their control panel now began to flash alarmingly.
"What did it mean, the co-ordinates have changed? John, what are we going to do?"
"Those solar winds Dad told us about must have shaken us up and wrecked the computer. We're going out of control. I've no idea where we're gonna end up."
"And I said we'd be home before they ever noticed we'd gone. Great. This is just great," Robert complained.
"Don't panic!" John hit a number of flashing lights on the panel, and the beat at it with his fist.
"Phhhht!"
"Shut up, Hannah!"
The on-board computer crackled and hissed one last time, and then went silent.
The ship now rocketed into hyperspace, and a high-pitched squeal deafened them. Robert and John tumble out of their seats, clutching their ears, and both were knocked unconscious.
The two brother awoke several hours later, and found themselves orbiting a startlingly blue planet.
"Wow, look at it!" Robert admired, never having seen anything like it before in his life.
"Yeah, I am," John sighed. "It sure isn't Prometheus 3. It's flaming red."
Carefully checking himself for injuries, he got up and went over to the navigation console, and checked the coordinates and the log for their space route.
"Oh no," he groaned every so often as he checked the data logs.
"What is it? Where are we?" Robert asked his brother as he dusted himself off.
"According to these calculations, we've just flown three-quarters of the way across the universe!"
"I guess we've gone a bit off course," Robert tried to joke.
"A bit!" John roared, looking at the star chart. "Don't you get it? We're lost! We're in uncharted territory. No one has ever visited this galaxy before! I don't even know if the ship can be repaired, or if we've got enough power to get back. We could be marooned here for the rest of our lives!"
"Or we could be famous. Think of the adventure!"
His brother glared at him by way of reply.
Robert wished he felt as positive as he tried to sound. "You'll get us back, I know you will. But as long as we're here, what's the harm in having a look around? It's a pretty awesome looking planet."
"Hmm, I suppose yor right. And they might even have fuel and other things to help get us back home." John checked the controls and piloted the spaceship into a closer orbit.
"I'll run a scan and find a place to land," Robert offered. "I have to check the gravity and atmosphere before we decide to become great explorers."
"Here, you check the ship's systems. I'll run the scan, and land it if it's safe."
"All right, but no mountains this time!" the younger of the two boys warned his companion. "Remember then we went to Chronos 4, and got stuck in an avalanche?"
They both giggled at the shared memory of that exciting trip, before turning their attention to their information displays.
Robert got the computer rebooted and back on line, while John carefully examined the data from the sensor array and finally declared, "It looks safe to me!"
"All right, take her in, but remember, no mountains."
John manoeuvred the craft in closer, and went through his landing checks one more time. "Flaps down, reducing speed--"
As they dropped down to about 200 metres, they looked around at the beautiful scenery marveling at the exotic plants and wildlife in every color of the rainbow.
A bright flash blinded them, and the craft began to spiral out of control.
They hit the ground with a metal-splintering thud. Robert and John hung on for dear life as their emergency ejector seats jettisoned them out of the wrecked craft. They soared through the air, and tried to brace for impact.
But they now found themselves plunging into a strange, blue-green substance. They could still breathe, due to their inhalers, but the cold ooze seemed to weigh them down. They unbuckled themselves quickly from their seats, and kicking their legs and flailing their arms, they managed to get to the surface, and headed for the brown strip ahead of them that they took to be land.
At the edge of the blue-green substance, they were able to scramble to their feet, and looked around to see where the Intrepid had landed.
Suddenly, a figure came out of the trees. The two screamed. It was an alien!
They had never seen anything so hideous in their lives. It moved towards them menacingly, and another bright flash blinded them for a brief moment.
"Run, Robert, run!" John shouted, as he began to sprint up the beach towards their ship. They ran past it, and hid in some strange vegetation.
They watched in terror as the alien inspected the craft. It poked, prodded, and circled around the Intrepid several times, before firing the strange blinding weapon again at the craft.
"It's going to destroy our ship if we don't do something. Then we'll never get home!" John whispered to his brother.
"I know what we can do," said Robert. "I saw this in a movie once."
As the alien probed the craft, it suddenly jerked its head up at the sudden noise.
Robert and John charged out, waving two large branches and yelling at the top of their lungs.
The alien fell down on the spot.
"It fainted, I think," guessed Robert. "In the movie, the alien ran away."
"Who cares! Let's just get out of here!"
John went in through the main hatch, and got out the repairbot. John left Robert to supervise the robot, which quickly welded all the damaged pieces of fusilage back together again.
John went inside and rebooted the computer once more, got it to run a self-diagnostic, and set the coordinates for home as quickly as he could.
"Finished," Robert called from outside a few minutes later.
"Then get in and let's go!"
"Wait! We can't go yet!"
"Fine, you stay here with that disgusting thing, then. I'll go home on my own," John said sarcastically as he prepared to close the outer hatch.
"You don't get it! It's what I said before about being famous explorers. Let's take the alien home so the scientists can study it," said Robert.
"You can't be serious,"John shouted. "Bring that horrible thing aboard? No way! It's dangerous! Look at the ray gun thing it had!"
"It's okay. We can hold it in stasis until we get home," Robert reassured his brother. "Look, it's the only way we'll ever be able to convince Mom and Dad and everyone else back home that we are telling the truth, that there really is life on other planets!"
John's eyes widened at that thought. After a moment, he nodded. "Right, grab it then. Oh no. Move it! Here come more!"
"Set the tractor beam and get ready for take off."
Robert levitated the alien, and put it in a stasis field, just in time before the other aliens stormed up the beach, all yelling and waving their weapons.
"That was close," John sighed as they ascended into the sky.
He set the coordinates for home, and they made the hyperspace jump with no difficulties at all this time.
Once he was certain they were smoothly cruising home, John looked over at his brother, who seemed completely fascinated with their revolting new companion.
"You know, Robert, you don't often have many good ideas, but taking this alien back home was a stroke of genius. We'll be famous.
"And you're right. If we had gone back home to Epsilon 7 with tales of creatures with only two arms and two legs, two eyes, and pink skin, they would have said we were crazy for sure."
Robert patted himself on his green scaly back with all six of his arms, and grinned, flashing four rows of razor-sharp pointed teeth.
"I can't wait to get home to show Mom and Dad. Wait until you see the look on their faces when we tell them we've found an alien!"
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