Adventure in Outer Space

(An essay written by a 14 year old lad, in 1995, on four pages of ruled notebook paper, and preserved by his Dad for 15 years before being published on the Internet. You can call him a budding science fiction writer in the Ray Bradbury style!)

If only I had told the truth I would not have been in this mess. When I was eighteen I joined the Space Fleet. This was in the year 2010. After our training we were all given Alpha Fighters. These fighters were to be used in war only. They were very powerful, had breath-taking sped and would run on only one canister of protoculture for about 20,000 miles.

We were all given our assignments. Mine was to visit the planet Angel One, which was an earth colony, now run entirely by women – and jettison a few tonnes of rocket machinery for some woman professor’s hare-brained scheme of using rocket propulsion to counteract the effects of anti-gravity in a spaceship. I was the only mild chap in my squadron, so as a result I was tapped for this useless assignment.

We were told to blast off at 2300 hours exactly. We were given strict instructions by our squadron commander not to deviate from our course. At the precise time we all blasted off from our propulsion stations.

We dodged asteroids and space junk and soon we all go onto our courses. The screen in front of me suddenly came on. It was my squadron commander. “How are you doing?” he said in Esperanto 18. “Fine, sir,” I replied. He cautioned me to be careful of some mid-space aurora borealis and shut off. Angel One was located in deep space, where there was mostly radio-active matter. One could see flashes of gamma rays.

After half an hour of furious flying, which was totally unnecessary, I came upon an abandoned Stardeck. Just at that moment the screen came on. “Sticking to your course?” asked the commander. “Yes, sir!” I replied and shut off.

Since there was plenty of time left, I felt that maybe I should explore the Stardeck. I docked my ship and got out. Not a soul was there. There were signs of laser burns on the body of the ship. I got out my emergency vehicle which was folded up and pressed a button. It turned out to be a ‘Cyclone Raider’, which is a powerful motorcycle used for very rough terrain. I got on and zoomed into the darkness of the ship. I switched on my halogen blasters and the hall was bathed in light. I gasped. The ship was completely stripped of its machinery. There was only some green fungi-like matter on the walls; which was glowing like a gold and sulphuric acid mixture. I turned to leave. The door was getting covered with the fungi. I blasted at the fungi with the laser cannon on my bike. Nothing happened. ‘This is a death trap!’ I thought.

I gunned my bike and shot through the door. The fungi seemed to grab at me and my bike. When I reached my ship, I got another shock. The docking man outlet was completely covered with fungi; the fungi had been growing ever since I got in. Then I understood everything. The fungi grew only in the presence of humans and gradually lived on the humans and everything they had touched. It was a horrible way to die. I quickly got in and aimed my proton cannon (which was the most powerful laser on my ship) at the green mass and blasted away. Nothing happened. I had to think of something soon.

Suddenly I had an inspiration. I diverted all my protoculture power to the laser cannon and also hooked up the rocket machinery. I got into my cockpit and pressed the button and prayed. Something happened. – a think blue ray of light emanated from the mouth of the laser cannon and cut through the green mass. I cut a square big enough to let my ship through. I almost finished cutting the square, when I noticed the power draining fast. I quickly switched off the laser, changed to humanoid robot formation and punched at the square. It fell off and I quickly zoomed out and heaved a sigh of relief.

I had learnt a lesson – Never lie!

© Philip Rajeeth/published in HubPages by Pratonix