The sleek stealth reconnaissance ship cruised along at a low altitude just above the 13th north parallel. On cloudy and moonless nights like these, it was easy to fly low without being seen, even without use of the external cloaking mechanism. Tonight the fog was fortunate, because the stimulon fuel cells had been acting up since Neptune. Engineering Officer Ghorf was quite certain that unforeseen electromagnetic interference from the ice giant had caused issues within the self-charging fuel cells; he had yet to discover a way to reverse the process, so for now the crew had to rough it with minimal comforts. None were happy about it. There were purple tentacles throughout the ship and every cranial antenna was vibrating with stress.
Leader Bolodo’s writhing and gelatinous tentacled thorax was settled into the captain’s recession on the bridge, and his large eye was firmly affixed on the infrared viewing screen that was scouring the ground below. It was more than just his cranial antennae picking up on the disgruntled feelings of his crew. Bolodo had earned his accolades through his keen sense of danger. Even among the most disciplined who served the Space Glob, mutiny was always a possibility, and especially when discomfort was involved. As Bolodo’s mother had often told him, “Trust is a sapien trait. Squirgs respond to power.” She had been a wise squirg.
Leader Bolodo was hoping that this mission would be over very quickly and the crew could return to Mothership Epsilon, just beyond the reaches of this primitive solar system. Orders were to retrieve one male and one female sapien from earth, a planet that was overrun by billions of the vermin. The subjects would be retrieved via tractor beam, then stored in akinitos jelly until arrival at the Mothership, at which point experimentation and implantation would promptly begin. All in all it was a routine abduction, but Bolodo was in a hurry to get it over with.
As the cruiser quietly approached the dark coast of a large island, Leader Bolodo scanned for lifeforms near the water’s edge. He couldn’t help snarling with delight as he found one of each (male and female) entirely alone just off the beach. He brought the ship in to hover very low, discovering that each of the subjects was inside a boat. Bolodo was familiar with boats, the strange primitive water ships used on this planet, whose surface consisted primarily of water. Unfortunately, these boats had roofs that would have to be removed before the tractor beam could be used.
Hoping the magnetic cannon was functioning at full power after the brush with Neptune, Leader Bolodo inserted an index tentacle into the device’s control plug. It powered up quickly, so first he targeted the boat that contained the female. The magnetic cannon made quick work of ripping off the boat’s roof, like the simple removal of a leaf from a tree. The female was looking up at the craft and screaming (a strange sapien behavior) when the tractor beam began to pull. Before a minute had passed, she was inside the receiving dock of the ship. Her obnoxious screams hammered the echo drums of every squirg aboard until finally she was safely absorbed into akinitos jelly chamber that would preserve her until arrival at the Mothership.
Leader Bolodo then positioned the ship over the boat containing the male subject. On the infrared screen, the sapien could be seen running around inside, as if alarmed by the commotion caused by the female’s abduction. The magnetic cannon was activated again, quickly removing the boat’s roof and exposing the sapien within. Then the tractor beam was extended and the male subject was retrieved. He wasn’t screaming like the female, so Leader Bolodo was able to visit the receiving dock personally to inspect the new arrival.
He was surprised when he arrived to find not a single creature, but two. The young male sapien had curled beneath his arm a tiny pink animal, the likes of which Bolodo had never seen before. It had the appearance of a pig, which he had studied in the academy, but it was so much smaller than any of the pig images he recalled. The male subject held the pig protectively, as if they were two unlikely friends. The sight was quite hilarious to Bolodo, and all his tentacles turned green with amusement.
After activating his voice filter and setting the dial to sapien english, Leader Bolodo addressed the subject. “Do you speak?” he asked loudly of the sapien. The subject nodded his head, in an affirmative gesture that Bolodo recognized, so Bolodo asked another question. “What’s your name?”
In a quaking and curious voice, but with a strange lack of fear, the boy replied, “My friends call me Jimmy.”
