"Star Ships"

“Star Ships”

By John Smith

 

            “Welcome aboard every one! We are due in Boston in an hour. Please buckle your seatbelts and move all seats to the standard upright position. Air masks and barf bags are located under your seats. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight.” Randy Burns, the pilot of the aircraft said into the intercom. He put down the CB radio and continued driving the plane. Harold, the co pilot came through the curtains from first class into the cab and sat down. He was holding two bags of peanuts and two canned Sprites. Harold handed a pack of peanuts over to Randy along with a soda. Randy grabbed them, put the soda in the console and flipped on the switch that read AUTO PILOT. He opened the bag of peanuts and began to eat them.

            “So how are things with you and Barbra Randy?” Harold asked him while fiercely chewing on his nuts. Randy looked over to him with a gloomy face.

            “Same old same old. She keeps buying those damn pregnancy tests hoping that the doctors were wrong.” Randy replied. Randy and Barbra have been trying to have kids now for a little over two years. He went to the doctor’s office last week only to find that could never happen.

            “S**t man I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have even brought it up.” Harold said with regret. Randy looked over at him and smiled.

            “No don’t apologies. It’s okay. Life goes on I suppose.” Randy said. That was the great thing about Randy. He had the talent to take a completely s****y situation and make it sound not so bad. Harold looked up and began to stare into the black sky.

            “What the hell is that?” Harold said unbuckling his seatbelt and leaning forward to get a closer look. He squinted his eyes and continued looking, as it got closer.

            “What? What do you see?” Randy asked leaning forward to look out the windshield. What they saw was something of the unknown. The object had a large round bottom like a giant Frisbee and had what looked like a large gray dome on top of it. “What the hell is it?” Randy said as he reached down to the dash of the cockpit picking up a black pair of headphones that were plugged up to a black box shaped radio. He reached down and flipped up a switch turning it on. He looked over at the green radar beside of it to see if it was picking up the object. Nothing. Randy reached down pushing the first button.

            “Command Central? Do you read?” Randy said as he paused and waited for a response.

            “CC to flight 101! We read you loud and clear! Over!” A man replied on the other end of the line.

            “Can you please check to see if there are any other planes in the area? I think I see one, but the radar isn’t picking it up.” Randy said. Silence fell over the over the gentlemen and they waited for a response.

            “No. We’re not picking up any in that area. You are also the only flight we have scheduled to go through that route.” The man said.

            “Okay thanks anyway.” Randy said pulling off the headphones and throwing them back down on the dash. “They don’t know what the hell it is.” Randy said as he turned autopilot off.

            “Then what do you think it is Randy? You don’t think it could be terrorism do you?” Harold asked worried.

            “No I don’t think so. If anything it’s something out of a science lab or something.” He said. The object began to get closer and closer.

            “You know what they kind of look like? They kind of look like those Star Ships that my grandpa used to tell me about.” Harold said. Randy looked over at him strongly.

            “What the hell are Star Ships?” Randy asked with disbelief. Harold looked down at the ground and turned red with embarrassment. “What Harold? What are Star Ships?” He continued to ask.

            “When I was younger, my grandfather used to tell me stories about Star Ships. He saw them pass by once a year. He drew scotches of them. They looked like Frisbees. Something like you would see out of those old 1960s alien movies. They looked like spacecraft’s. When he told people about them they were convinced he was insane. He spent the rest of his life in the Arlington Home For The Mentally Challenged.” Harold told him. Rand began to burst out with laughter.

            “You can’t seriously believe that these are alien space ships! That’s insane!” Randy shouted with disbelief. He laughed hysterically at him before noticing it wasn’t just one but several more. There was one under them and one appeared from the clouds beside them. In fact, they were surrounded. Static began to come over the radio. It sounded much like that of a train track as a train ran over it with small words or phrases in between. What they could hear of the voices was not in English. In fact, it was not even a language. It sounded like an unworldly creature. A creature not from earth, but one from space. The ships began to grow closer and closer. They could see something at the very top of it where the cockpit was located. They had big giant heads and very thin bodies. They had big black eyes and sharp jagged teeth.

            “What the f**k is that?” Randy screamed as he leaped back in his seat with terror. The ships circled around them and the creatures began to laugh with delight. Then a giant white light appeared from above the plane. The two of them leaned forward and looked up at the light. It was another Star Ship. Only there was something much worse about this one. It was nearly ten times as large. It looked big enough to fit the entire plane and surrounding Star Ships in there. The plane stopped and began to slowly rise up until finally going into the mother of all Star Ships.

            A giant door closed trapping them inside. They began to look around as the creatures began to get out of their ships. They all circled around the plane and began to lick their lips.

            “Finally! We have dinner for the whole week!” One of them said as all the passengers screamed with terror.

Copyright 2013 by John Smith

Courtesy of The Enchanted Press

A division of TTP Entertainment

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Author's Note

Time for another Science Fiction story! Thanks all for reading and please leave comments and reviews!

Reviews

[Belle]

This is very entertaining and I really enjoyed it! Your characters are likeable and I readily identified with them. My only issue is that occasionally you've info-dumped a little (no worries, I'm guilty of it too!). For example, you said that Randy has a talent for making things sound better than they are, when really you'd already shown that through his dialogue and mannerisms. It just jars slightly and disrupts the flow of an essentially great story. Besides that minor quibble, this is fantastic and I wish you luck in the HHN contest!

[Jack Buckner]

Thank you for the kind words Bella!

[Bright Ocean Star]

This was very well written, John. Thank you for sharing it with us. I like the dialog between the pilots and the scene building that you did on this one. But pilots aren't supposed to talk about non-flight information in the cockpit--it's against safety protocols. Not sure that it doesn't happen, but you made this sound like they were going to sit down and watch a movie. It didn't make them appear very professional. Other than that, it was very entertaining.

[Jack Buckner]

Thank you!

[sonnie ibadah]

really good read john, i enjoyed it.

[Jack Buckner]

Thank you!

[Jon of York]

Not your typical friendly aliens that just want to phone home. Great read.

[Jack Buckner]

Thank you Jon!

[Tacitus]

Haha! I agree with KLGoode. Very Twilight Zoney! Harold and Randy are out of luck, lol.

There were some minor grammatical problems, but nothing serious. Overall, very fun story!

[Jack Buckner]

Thank you for reading!

[Lyn Anderson]

Nice. Definitely a twilight zone feel for sure. Umm, not sure a pilot would call a barf bag a barf bag, but nevertheless Bravo.

[Jack Buckner]

Thank you for reviewing KL!

[Bob Sherunkle]

That was great!Took me back to stories I read when I was younger(minus the cuss words!).Great write.

[Jack Buckner]

Thanks Bob!

[Leonard Birch]

Great read John. Look forward to anothery soon. :)
Leo

[Jack Buckner]

Thanks Leo!

[Leonard Birch]

It was enjoyable John

[Sami Khalil]

A fine story of good fiction. It was very enjoyable and brought back the days of startreck and starships...You make things plausible...Bravo................

[Jack Buckner]

Thank you Sami!

[Sami Khalil]

You are welcome...:)......................