Tag Archives: aliens

Writing prompt: Submarine day

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Time: 7 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

“Submarine day” (Inspired by this list of silly holidays. Because St. Pat’s would be too obvious!)

The sub was beginning to stink. It reeked of sweat and mildew. Jansen had been short-circuiting the timer on the air-lock. It was his fault, I knew it. We wouldn’t get fresh air for another month, and the filtration system was already going at max.

Something long and tentacled swam past my window. I knew why Jansen rushed the air-lock—there was something wrong about this planet. The little submarine felt like an oasis in a wet desert, a safe space in a world of monsters. The survey had revealed some large native lifeforms, but our sub, which apparently resembled a good meal, brought them out in numbers we couldn’t anticipate.

But the company said it was alright, and we had signed contracts, so we would stay until the next crew arrived.

Construction was behind schedule. The initial design specs were insufficient in light of the lifeforms in the ocean. If one of the large ones rammed the base, the original design wouldn’t take that.

Another creature, head like a folded umbrella, long like an eel, swam by. Several of its eyes blinked. I wondered if it could see me.

Writing prompt: Hugging Day

Time: 10 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

“Hugging Day” (Inspired by this list of silly holidays.)

Every species we knew said the Zagadins were the most caring and advanced species in the galaxy. When we finally managed to encounter them, it was with a sense of excitement. At last, we were friends with the cool species.

Cool be damned, thought the military—the Zagadins had technology, and they liked to share. For decades, other species had been able to travel faster than us, able to make ships we could only dream of. And when we asked for or demanded their technologies, they shrugged (or whatever a shrug was to their species) and said it came from the Zagadins. We could finally fleece the galaxy’s biggest hippy chumps and become king of the ant hill.

The Zagadins diplomatic arrival was all over the News Nets. They wanted to meet everyone! Secretary of state, president, secretary of the navy, senators, mayors, professors—for them, it was the more the merrier. They wouldn’t hear of restricting the event. Thousands of people came.

And the Zagadins introduced themselves with their cultural tradition—hugging. The military knew they had these hippies now. Everyone at the arrival got a hug from a Zagadin. And as promised, the Zagadins sent the government files full of technology afterwards.

But a strange thing happened. Those who had met the Zagadins didn’t care about using the technology to conquer. They just wanted to hug, and then the people they hugged became peaceful as well.

We asked other species. They shrugged some more. That’s how the Zagadins work. Their hugs transmit resequencing retroviruses that promote peacefulness. The Zagadins won’t meet a species until they work out the retroviruses necessary. Perhaps it’s a little invasive, but let’s hug it out, the aliens said.

A few hugless humans remained, and they were horrified. They fled to Io and founded a hugless colony. But they should really loosen up. Too bad they can’t hug it out.

Writing prompt: Abduct an extraterrestrial

Time: 10 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

“Abduct an extraterrestrial” (This list is an awesome source of completely silly prompts. March 20th is Extraterrestrial Abductions Day, and after a member of our writing group misinterpreted this as humans abducting ETs, we went with that. It seemed more interesting.)

The light from underground was reddish. The instruments confirmed that it extended into the infrared.

“They’re down there,” Mason hissed. “The aliens!”

For the historical reader, I should explain that the presence of aliens wasn’t the novelty here, but the collection of this particular species for the St. Louis Zoo. At this point, we hadn’t understood that the Iotans travelled along subharmonic strings. We only knew at this point that they couldn’t seem to escape from caves or other underground places once they got there. We’d managed to capture two of them in this trap we’d set. A pity, it took at least three to breed.

“I can see that,” I told Mason. He was really more of a technician than an exobiologist. For him, the victory was that his trap had worked. I was an exobiologist. I needed to figure out how to get them to the zoo without them de-materializing—an annoying habit. Further, I had to figure out what Iotans ate and breathed and whether their excretions would dissolve the typical metal enclosures.

The Iotans realized now their predicament. The two of them wailed high and frankly unpleasantly. We didn’t know if they had language or if they could travel as they did simply as part of their unusual biology. I wish now that we’d known what a headache this pair would be for us. After we accidentally killed the Iotans, tough times came in the exobiologist community. I got sent to work at the facility on Mars—a humiliation. But that’s a different story.

The red light flashed white and the wailing squealed higher then abruptly stopped. There were no more signs on the instruments, no more sounds, no more anything. We cautiously crept forward. The cavern was twice as big as it had been and we saw no Iotans anywhere.

“Where are they?” Mason asked.

“How should I know?” I exploded. We were exhausted when we reached the surface, and I noted the failure in my records.

Writing prompt: The devious cat

Time: 7 minutes. Click here to go to my list of prompts.

“The devious cat”

I lie on my couch and watch my master. I gurgle and roll around, feeling the suede fabric against my fur. This time of year it’s a combination of pleasure and a little pain, with the sound of a thousand static shocks singing out. My roommate turns and smiles at me. She doesn’t know what I am, but that’s okay.

I leap down and saunter over, and my roommate coos. I taste the ground as I walk with the pads of my paws; there is pollen and dust and dead skin cells. I load them into storage for now. When I sleep, I will upload them to the cloud.

I wonder how much longer we will be here. How much data will be enough for the creators? I don’t know how long we’ve been here thus far. My task is a small part of a large one. Sometimes the other gatherer and I talk about the creators, but not often. We are always gathering the same information, he and I; it is hard not to feel competitive.

My roommate pets me. “Oh, who’s a friendly kitty today?” She adjusts my collar. She thinks she owns me. It’s cute, and I don’t discourage it. Time to nap and upload data.