Let’s take a walk around this new place, outside Nautilus. I can hear the sound of a waterfall nearby. In front of me is a forest, mostly of what seems to be like pine trees. The weather is quite pleasant neither too hot nor too cold. At a distance I see some rocky hills and small spring of water flowing, probably it comes from the waterfall or might be river too. It will take around an hour or two for Nautilus to regain enough charge to at least lift off the ground, then we can resume our flight while charging the cells to its full capacity.
I wonder what kind of life could we find here? After all it is an alien planet probably something fiercely like those in the movie series “Alien” or may be something less dangerous and more friendly, probably intelligent too, like in the movie E.T.. This place is lonely, it has been just 10 minutes and it’s so calm and quiet. Generally back on Earth we find forests filled with the noises of various insects or chirpings of birds and here it’s so silent. I can hear the winds blow through the leaves and that’s the only sound. How strange that the trees are almost the same as in Earth and yet there are no birds sitting on its branches. Except the trees the planet is so life less. May be there is life on this planet and I am stuck on some isolated forest probably. I think it’s time, for us to wrap up and get back to Nautilus. I don’t want to spend any longer in this desolate land.
All of a sudden there is a growl and I hear a sudden hussle in the forest. Okay! I think that’s our cue we should get back to the spaceship and start our engines. I hear a second growl with a large thud as if something fell on the ground. I need no more proof, I am sure this planet has a life form, much larger in size compared to humans on Earth. As I turn back to have a glance at the forest while heading towards the ship I can see something moving on the rocky hill.
Out of curiousity I pause to see what sort of life form is it. It came out of the forest and is standing on a rocky boulder of the hill. The rocky boulder is not much far from our ship. I finally get a clear view of the alien or rather the animal. Out of utter shock and disbelief I watch. It’s bipedal, long tail like a cedar tree, overall a huge structure and the head, it somewhat looks like a T-Rex from Jurassic Park movie. It’s greyish in color with red strips making it look fierce with big sharp teeth. Pieces of meat and ligaments with blood over its mouth is visible. Probably it just had a snack. The head of this animal has some colorful feather like projections more like a rooster.
We are back in the spaceship and we better start of our Engine before this animal comes after us. Ignition on, launch in T-10 seconds. Probably the animal has seen the spaceship because of the engine start and smokes released of Nautilus’s booster rockets. It’s slowly taking its steps towards us down the hill. By now we are off the ground and Nautilus is in flight rising up from the ground. Faster man!! Faster.. We are 50 feet above the ground but still it isn’t enough. The animal is taller than that. Nautilus keeps ascending to about 100 ft., now it feels safe from here to watch the animal. The animal is just below Nautilus with its jaws open, probably roaring, we cannot hear him as it’s sound proof inside due to the thick material out of which Nautilus is made.
I rather not hover above his open jaws, as I have low charge it can fail any time and drop right inside his mouth. His jaws are big enough to swallow Nautilus in one gulp. Although what I fear is much more worse. He may not swallow us in one go and rather try to chew us with his big sharp teeth and then swallow us. I bank Nautilus in the left and move ahead at a tremendous speed. We are flying at very low altitude. It will take some more time for the cells to recharge and ascend to higher altitudes the gravitational pull is same as that on Earth. This will consume quite a lot of solar charge.
It’s been a couple of hours we are travelling at Mach 3 speed probably the fastest any jet can go, back on Earth. SR-71 blackbird, a retired U.S. spy jet has a record of flying at such great speeds almost around Mach 3.5. Well Nautilus can go much faster than that when fully charged and probably you know by now, this ship is capable of Warp Drive and intergalactic travel, although there is some problem with the navigation system maps or else we wouldn’t have been here in the first place. You can see below, there is the huge ocean. The only ocean on this planet and I have just discovered a small half submerged mountain in the ocean, more like an iceberg. I think we can land there for sometime till our solar cells are fully charged. I don’t trust the land any more, it’s got big Dinosaur like creatures.
The Nautilus has landed on the rocky terrain amidst the ocean. It’s quite large actually. Probably 150 ft in length and has a smooth slope on its sides, but I dare not step out as it is too smooth and I might slip into the ocean water unable to climb back. No, I don’t want to imagine the creatures beneath the ocean after seeing a land specimen so large.
Nautilus is measuring mild tremors on the landscape. I hope this is not a part of underwater volcano. I can now feel the jerks on the nautilus itself. Its frequency is increasing now. Above all wonders the control system screen of Nautilus shows my height from the water level and that it is slowing reducing. Actually pretty fast now. I Just need one place to sit and calmly recharge my spaceship and what a planet this is, already sick and tired of it. I again start the engines and start rising from the landscape.
Suddenly I can see a huge splash below and a large triangular object very close to the landmass I am on. It’s not a perfect triangle actually it’s curved on one side, much like a shark fin only a 100 time larger than sharks. I better not waste time speculating what all these peculiar objects are and start my steady ascent. The triangular shark fin like object is now racing towards our landmass. May be it is a shark, so large!!! Probably has seen us too or else why would it come running towards us.
By now the land mass has submerged and we are again in the flight mode quite high above the sea level. I believe we are at a quite safe distance and let’s have a look below. Oh My God!!! It is a shark like creature. To be very specific a Megalodon C. Well of course you won’t see that back in Earth now, it’s been extinct for about 60 million years, but it thrives here in the ocean. Huge teeth of Megalodons are found all over the Earth’s oceans. They were the unbeaten rulers of ocean once back on earth, ancestors to Great white Sharks, used to feed on large whales and plesiosaurs.
Now to give you another surprise here’s the next wierd part. The landmass we landed on had completely submerged itself just to rise up again from the water with a long neck and a comparatively smaller head filled with small sharp teeth. It is trying to fight off the Megalodon C. Okay, now that makes sense. The shark was trying to attack this beast and not us. This beast seems to have four flippers with a similar cedar tree like tail much like the T-Rex we saw on land. It has a long neck and small head. A plesiosaur!! Another extinct species!! Is this planet a den of all the extinct species on Earth? The shark is probably 100 ft long and so is the plesiosaur. Just that the shark has a larger jaw and plesiosaur has a small one. Probably the scientist back on Earth are right. Plesiosaurs feed on smaller preys like fishes and Megalodons on larger preys like this plesiosaur itself.
The attack of the shark is much fierce and the plesiosaur has succumbed to its injuries. The shark is taking off large bites from the belly of the plesiosaur, and letting it bleed to death. A final stroke, the Megalodon tears of the long neck from the body. The water by now is crimson red and the shark grabs the plesiosaur by the belly in its jaws and dives down deep into the ocean depth. The water is red and the sunset make it look much more reddish and pieces of the flippers and the neck along with the head of the plesiosaur floats around the restless waters. The mouth of the plesiosaur is still moving a little, it’s like as if it’s choking on something.
Finally the movement of the jaw stops as it lays dead afloat on the ocean with its eyes wide open. Suddenly the neck also gets pulled down below, the splashes on the water signify smaller sharks have accumulated in that area ready to feast on the leftovers of the plesiosaur. Nothing gets wasted in the nature, unlike us humans back on Earth wasting foods. Our solar cells have been charged fully and also it’s sunset I think we should take off from this god forbidden planet now and get back to Earth, our home.
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