Space Opera

Space Opera

                The large ship beamed him down. He landed on the yellow planet with blaster rifle in his arms. There should be some more coming down soon to help him out. Within the sky lasers and blasters shot across, human ships fighting aliens in a massive airborne battle. When he landed, all he could think about was her. “I must find her, my one real love.” She was taken from Earth and brought to the yellow planet as a slave. “I hope she’s alive.” He was a lowly space cowboy, she, a royal princess. But they are in love, a soldier and a princess.

                He had memories of her come back to him as he made his way to the forest, their time together during space exploration in his little ship The Avenger. They spent months together exploring nearby worlds and moons, traveling the surface during the day by land cruiser, and spending their time together at night by candle light sharing intimate moments in The Avenger. The memories put a smile on his face and filled him with an intense urge to find her, love being his tractor beam to her.

                He reached the edge of the forest when two tall aliens emerged with beam cannons in hand. The man fired two shots, stunning and finally killing one of them. The other looked at his dead partner and shot wildly at the man, missing him completely. The man fired again at close range, killing the alien, cannon striking the ground, green blood oozing out. He recharged his weapon and looked up to the melee in the sky.   

                 A ship belonging to the humans became a ball of fire and quickly descended down to the planet, a trail of smoke left it as it made a crash landing sending dirt and sediment into the air. The man turned and looked behind him, several humans beamed down to the surface, they nodded to the man.

                The man closed his eyes and held his hand to his heart: “find her, where is she…she’s in the floating city in the forest.” With his course in mind he entered the forest. Tall blue trees stretched to the sky, massive ferns grew up out of the fertile soil. The man removed a light saber from his belt and cleared a path. His heart led him, but didn’t tell him about the danger ahead. There could be an alien around every corner, but he knew he would be safe. He could only think about her.

                She tried to stand up but the chain was not quite long enough to let her reach the window. “I know he’s out there, he’s coming to save me.” She was locked in a tall tower, chained to the floor. She looked out the window, but all she could see was the sky, blue with the occasional flash of red and orange. She could only look to the sky.  There was a massive war raging on, fought for her. The aliens declared war on the humans by abducting her. They demanded ransom; they wanted ships and weapons, but the humans were too stubborn to give in to their demands, too proud to not fight for one of their own.

                Within the floating city to aliens prepared for a standoff. They manned guard posts and patrol ships. The battle still has not reached the floating city. What she saw through the window was far off in the distance. They were close, but still had to fight through the wall of alien ships. The city was the last stronghold of the aliens. If the humans could take it then the war would be theirs. They would win. She prayed to see him again. Her only solace, knowing that he was close.     

Pets

Pets

            Finally the aliens landed on Earth, about one hundred years ago. They emerged from the massive ships and stood fifty feet tall. A war for dominance of the planet raged on. Many humans and aliens died.

            “I regained consciousness and looked to my right. A boy, couldn’t be much older than eighteen looked over to me. He was covered in blood. Strewn across the field were horses and men, so many men, death all around us. He whispered to me: “water.” I reached for my canteen when I looked up in horror. A giant alien foot came down and crushed me, ending my life.” This was all dictated into the soldier’s recording device, recovered from the battle field.

            The war continued for fourteen years. The aliens won and enslaved the humans for a period of time and then decided on something. Instead of working for them, which with their small size, comparably to the aliens, they could be better suited as pets. The humans took to this quickly. They didn’t have to work, they were pampered. Nothing was expected of them.

            While aliens worked to run the planet, humans were left at home Monday and Tuesday and were dropped off at a human only park for the rest of the work week. There they socialized and played, content with their new lives.

            While at the park the humans would discuss mundane details of their lives. One remarked to the other “well, we make great pets.” “Yes we do.” Said the other. They laughed.

            “But we don’t have any freedom.” Said a rather opinionated young woman. “Aren’t you at all dissatisfied with the way things worked out for us? We lost the war and now we’re reduced to cats! We lost control of our world and we can’t control our futures. We’re taken to the vet once a month and are dropped off here five days a week. This is degrading, we’re better than this.” The wire taps picked up the conversation and played it to the woman’s owner.

            Later that night…”We have a bit of a problem, you seem to be unhappy with the way things are going for you. Would you rather be enslaved by us, like the old days?”

            The young lady looks up to the massive alien and answers: “I would like to be free. I want to go where ever I want whenever I please. This is worse than slavery. “

            “I’m sorry to hear that. Well, it looks like you’ll have to be euthanized.” Said the alien. As he lifts his leg and was about to crush the woman. He falls over backwards choking.

            “I poisoned your dinner tonight. Your kind will no longer keep us as pets. There will be a revolution and we will be the victors, and I will be their leader. Tomorrow will begin a new era, humans will reclaim earth!” She exclaimed.

Metal Skin

Metal Skin

                A heart of gold pumps within his metal skin. He sits high atop his robotic steed, plotting his course. The sun is rapidly setting along the silver horizon. It will be seven hours before the second sun rises, enough time for sleep. Within his cyborg, steel and flesh, brain he thinks to himself:

                “Not weary enough for sleep, but I must. Can’t stop thinking about him, that quivering creep, stabbed him in the back like a coward. I seek vengeance, my blade will let spill his red life blood.”

                The knight stops his horse and dismounts. He ponders his decisions, what choices he has and what he can accomplish. He’s confident in his abilities. He has spent many years training with swords and guns, honing his combat skills. His robotic augmentations further refine his abilities, advancing his human limitations.

                He reflects on his fallen comrade, the hand to the king Sir Grafton. He was assassinated by a revolutionary and the knight knows who that person is. He seeks revenge, the assassin will soon perish. At least he thinks he knows who it is. He got wind of the attack from a trusted ally who resides at the king’s castle. An email was sent to him describing what happened from his reliable source. The witness was hiding behind a curtain when he saw the assassination. The cloaked figure performing the horrid deed was identified based on his metal arm, showing underneath his robe.

                The cyborg knight will reach the castle walls in two days, that gives him time to train and to track down the assassin. He spends his mornings composing lengthy emails to his contact, wireless signals transmitted from satellites to the contact’s tablet PC. He wants to know everything he can about his enemy, where he goes during the day, his habits, everything he needs to be well prepared for his confrontation.

                He can see the castle walls in the distance; he is within half a mile, the robotic steed plots along, requiring oil and gasoline occasionally. By now the cyborg knight knows that the assassin should be preparing for a speech in his royal quarters. He can sneak in and eliminate the wretched being. He made it through security by flashing a phony badge of a long deceased diplomat. He dismounts and ties his steed to a nearby hitching post.

                He stealthy makes his way to the royal quarters, once again showing his badge.

                The assassin is startled as the cyborg busts in the door. The assassin is quick and draws his sword, as does the cyborg. They engage in a fight to the death, swords clashing and sending sparks flying. Tables and chairs are kicked aside. The assassin is a great fighter; he is more than a match for the cyborg. His sword slices the cyborg’s human flesh, but he is unfazed by the wound. His sense of revenge sends him into a violent rage. He attacks with reckless abandon, but he is careless. He leaves his neck unprotected. The assassin sees this weakness and attacks with a deft swing of his sword, cutting the cyborgs neck open, blood sprays out. The cyborg collapses, his emergency programs boot. His heart of gold pumps out life support chemicals.

                The assassin turns his back on the dying cyborg, confidant that his enemy has perished. But he is wrong. The cyborg slowly rises to his feet and thrusts his sword, stabbing the assassin in the back. “Just like how you killed my friend, with a cowardly stab in the back.” The assassin bleeds to death, Sir Grafton’s murder has been avenged.  

It's All About Perspective

It’s All About Perspective

                The salamander slept soundly under the decomposing log. His body expanded with each breath filling his tiny lungs with oxygen. He exhales through his nostrils and skin, the permeable surrounding skin also breathes. His home is a swamp on an undiscovered planet. The wet lands are home to a huge assortment of creatures, massive frogs and toads, painted and snapping turtles, the solitary moose and her younglings. The young moose eat swamp cabbage while fanning away the ever present fly. This planet is much like Earth, it has similar plants and animals although it is not necessarily a planet. It does not belong to a solar system, it’s not even part of the universe, it just is what it is, an ever expanding plane that lies within a laboratory experiment.

                The pseudo planet lives in a small petri dish within a government funded research lab. The scientists are pleased with their work; they have successfully created a multi organism supporting eco system, much like a Winogradsky column.

                One of the scientists turns to the other: “this experiment always leads me to the same incomprehensible question. If we have successfully created a self sustaining eco system then who created us? Are we also an experiment in some lab?”

                The other scientist turns around abruptly and responds: “We’ve gone over this; we are Torgones who evolved from Tigones. Nobody created us, we just came into existence billions of years ago as single celled organisms who evolved from macromolecules. It’s all about evolution. That’s how our plane came to be.”

                The scientist was partially correct, his species of bipedal organisms evolved from a different species who in turn evolved from a different, simpler, organism. But what he doesn’t know, or may never know, is that the plane he’s living on is the originator, the original side of the cube of life. Crystals take the form of seven different structures: cubic or isometric, tetragonal, orthorhombic, hexagonal, trigonal, triclinic and monoclinic. For this structure of life there evolved five other planes and they joined together to form a cube, floating in space. Prior to the evolution of the other five sides the original plane was just like a sheet of paper floating in space.

                Little did the scientist know, they created a universe within the plane they created, in the petri dish, under fluorescent laboratory lights. The salamander resting comfortably under a log contains a solar system within his left eye. Light bounces around within his photoreceptor cells to create shooting stars. Making up the solar system is of course a sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The very planets we were taught in school. Little did we know that our very existence relies on the continuity of the organism harboring trillions of others. Within that tiny eye there are enumerable chemical reactions going on, lives of trillions of organisms, along with weather patterns and traffic patterns. We may think our solar system is vast, but it all comes down to perspective. The scale of life as we know it may seem huge to us, but it’s very tiny to something else.

                Life all began on that plane in space, a flat surface floating delicately. But how did the plane come to be? We may never know that mystery.