Krishna kumar Mani - SFS2 - Science Fiction Short Stories

“An alien, sir?”

“Not an alien like in a science fiction movie! Think about it. We send animals to other planets to see what happens. It’s like that. Now it’s near the border and we need it for our own purposes.”

“Well how big is it? How do I identify it? Can it shape shift? Does it spit poison out of its eyeballs?!”

“No idea. Based on the agency’s report they say that it was one of the pets of the aliens. It may be similar to the size of a cat or a dog. You’ll have the army officers with you there to help you find and catch it. I’m sending you because the officers don’t have any idea about aliens. They might arrest a wolf! Or maybe they’d accidentally kill the real alien animal while trying to capture it. We need it alive.”

“So you’re sending me to go get this alien. When did I become the foremost alien expert? Why don’t you go?”

He ignored my comments and proceeded to speak. “Be careful when dealing with it. You’ll need tranquilizer darts, your whole team.”

“Even Doberman dogs are pet animals,” Ben said to me with a smile.

“Will this animal attack?”

“It could. I told you, be careful.”

I always carried myself as a brave person but the idea of an alien animal attacking me scared the crap out of me. Ben just laughed he had seen my worry.

The chief received another phone call. I prayed that the alien animal would be taken in by our army, heck even our enemy’s army would be better than me having to do it. Why is this crappy alien dog coming here to scare me? I wanted to cry about it, but I held together.

“The helicopter is waiting for you. I wish you all the best.”

When he shook my hand my hand was shaking due to fear. I visualized the alien animal in my mind over and over, each time it became bigger and scarier, more fangs, more poisonous, more deadly.

I walked directly to the helipad. There was no time to update Facebook. This was the worst day of my life. I scolded myself. Why did I choose this job? The chief hadn’t sent me to the moon like I’d wished, instead he decided to send me directly to hell. I still wanted to cry.

“You’re the man for the job,” said Ben. “That’s why I recommended you to the chief.”

I didn’t reply. I only cursed him underneath my breath. After a couple hours of flying, I relaxed a bit. Helicopter travel wasn’t the most comfortable thing I’d ever done but it would probably be better than facing an alien animal. I took some photos that I would put in Facebook when I got back. If I got back. We landed in the forest near a few tents. An army captain and other officers welcomed me. Based on their behavior, I could tell that they thought I was a great scientist.

“Steve is it?” asked the captain. “Your chief told us that you’re the most brave man they’ve got there. And also an expert in alien research. I didn’t even know they had a guy for that!”

He couldn’t have been more wrong about me. I was speechless and just smiled.

“We found the area. You’re in charge of the group and you are the authority, sir.”

Those 15 army officers saluted me. I felt safe because they were with me but my mind told me to be careful. The alien animal probably wasn’t small. Why else would they send fifteen army soldiers to fight it and capture it? It had to be big. I was certain that my chief had planned for me to die during this operation. One of the officers interrupted my thoughts and suggested that we got going.

We climbed in a vehicle with a covered roof. After about an hour, the vehicle stopped at the end of the road.

“Sir, from here we go by foot. We can split in three teams and go in three different directions,” said one of the officer’s whose name I hadn’t caught.

I was shocked by the idea to split up. If we split up we’d have only five people on each team. I might easily be killed by an alien. If we kept all fifteen together my chance of survival would be much higher. I knew what happened in the movies when people split up.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Lieutenant Johnson, sir.”

“Well Lieutenant Johnson, I am in charge here. I have the command and we’re not splitting up.”

Every officer looked surprised and looked at me questioningly.

“How can we catch it if we’re all together?” asked Lieutenant Johnson.

I was speechless for a while. I had to come up with a way to show them that I was brave. Suddenly I had an idea.

“We cannot split the team up into three groups because I need to be there when we catch the animal. I can only be in one team.”

“Sir, where do we go? If we go in only one direction we’re likely to never catch it. We’ll probably never even see it without splitting up.”

“We will wait here,” I said not showing my fear. “We will send one person in each direction and if they find it they will communicate it back. Then you all… sorry… we all will go there and catch it.”

“Sir, even though we’re army officers, I don’t think we’re quite as brave as you are,” said Lieutenant Johnson.

“What?” I said, shocked and thought of running to the base.

“No, chief. What I mean is that instead of sending one person per direction we should send two for safety purposes.”

I was afraid because that would mean there were only nine officers with me. I told myself that if there was any problem the vehicle was here and we could escape.

After two hours there was no news from any of the three teams. Evening was falling. And the work day had ended about an hour ago. But the army didn’t keep to office time. But I was. I was going to make damn sure I got overtime for this. I might even write a letter so if I died I better still get paid. 6 pm. Here was dark, too dark. I went over to Lieutenant Johnson and asked if there was any message yet. They still hadn’t come across anything.

I was starting to think of going home. Today there was a football game that I needed to see. I certainly wasn’t going to see it out here in the middle of the woods. I decided we’d wait for thirty more minutes and if they hadn’t found anything we’d go back and restart the search again tomorrow. I prayed to god that the animal wouldn’t be found. I prayed for god to save me, but we got the message that one team had spotted it. It was larger than a tiger, but asleep at the moment thankfully.

Once I heard that it was bigger than a tiger I almost passed out. I didn’t walk, I ran over to the army vehicle and took a deep breath.

“Alright, let’s get in the vehicle and move.”

The officers stood there not moving.

“Chief, we’re going to have to walk there.”

I finally got what was going on. I had to catch it myself. Maybe I was the bait or the distraction. Maybe that was all I was good for. We headed in the direction that the animal had been spotted in. I walked safely behind the officers. After thirty minutes of walking we came upon two of the officers we had sent out in search. They gave the signal so our people secured the perimeter. I didn’t see the animal because it was too dark. I walked up to the two officers and stepped onto a rock.

“Where is it?”

“Chief, you’re too brave!…”

“Yes, I know that but where is it?” I interrupted.

“You’re standing right on it!”

I was shocked and I froze. What I thought was the rock was the animal. My legs realized that the rock was moving. Everyone pointed their gun at it.

“What do we do?” There were two possibilities. Either the animal was going to kill me and eat me or the army was about to riddle me full of bullets. I was silent. I heard a sound from the animal. I had disturbed its sleep. I cried out loudly but they misunderstood and took it for an instruction to open fire. I closed my eyes and sent up a prayer.