March 15th, 2190 – the day that I doomed the Dinosaur Planet.
But first, we had to find this world. I do not remember much about how FMM UV-32 was discovered or why we decided to land on that world. I was not even told about it till I thawed out from the freezers of cryopods and floated into the cafeteria.
Dr. Scythia Draks came to me and started talking about how she and the ship’s captain discussed about the planet when it was a mere pale blue marble. Methane levels rose and fell like it was breathing, the atmosphere akin to Earth’s during pre-human times, the existence of carbon itself – all important pieces for life.
Yet, Scythia whispered all of this during breakfast. The cafeteria already held a reservation for an informal lecture, Caesar in Egypt, taught by the ship’s captain – Turan Choks.
That man knew everything, too much.
I should have asked her how she persuaded Turan Choks. Scythia had always been confident yet headstrong. But I could never get an honest answer if I had the chance to ask. She always kept giving him the credit for discovering the planet.
Soon, the expedition crew went into the dropship.
***
Turan Choks came up to me and said, “It’s your lucky day, son!”
The original although unofficial field security, Kamoya Mbua, had severe frostbite on his hand. After being given a simple briefing about not removing the helmet because it’s FMM UV basic protocol, a commandment in all deep space exploration, I entered the hanger bay and saw the dropship.
It was too familiar for me as I seen these birds fly over my colony – a now-decommissioned combat dropship. The car-sized gun still hung underneath the cockpit. The barrel muzzled and the honeycomb rocket pods emptied. Orange patches scattered across the gunmetal floor with some patches spat onto the dark green interior walls. If this bird were back in the colony, an armored vehicle could easily slide in the back even with the eight-manned team. I sat down and took a breath.
Entering the atmosphere has and will always be the most dangerous part of space travel. Ships, offworlders and merchants alike, torn apart like presents and crashed blindly in the colonies. Entire apartments flatten in seconds. Worse, entire parts of the city were engulfed in white flames if the ship was still decelerating from deep space.
Trying to think about something else, anything really, I looked to my left. Dr. Scythia Draks praying. She held a little copy of the Quran in one hand, and prayer beads slowly cycling around in the other. I looked to my right, Agatha Ravan tenderly holding images of her family. Tears formed a small pool in the bubble helmet. Then finally, I looked straight.
Turan Choks sat there. Sitting right next to him, a large box rested despite the occasional turbulence and bounce of the dropship. It stood out no differently than the other research equipment boxes. But I accidentally locked eyes with him.
He was smiling.
He bore a big smile as if he was going to tell me something eagerly. A dirty secret, an interesting fact, another lecture. But nothing came from those ghastly teeth. I completely forgot he had a black mustache hanging on that tanned orb. The smile started to stare at me. Digging into my skin, I couldn’t take it anymore.
The orange patches, bullet holes from insurgents decades ago, became my companions for the time being.
***
The entire ship shook. The engines winded down.
A thin yellow line emitted softly from the tiny window into the cockpit. It hovered over us like a beam. A muffled voice came from the same area and darkness suddenly ceased the light. The warning light roars as the cargo door slowly opens, flashing red in the void. But soon, the entire hold washed by the mighty light, blinding many members of the expedition team.
And soon, the world revealed itself to us.
Black soils, a mixture of volcanic ashes and humus, made up of the floor of the world. Ferns and horsetails dominated the landscape, primitive flowers and long-forgotten plants break up the monotone of green. Monkey puzzles and fat cycads crowned with orange cones towered over. Far in the distance, a dead volcano loomed over the land. A massive hole on the granite mountain as if it has been shot by the earth and left for the vultures of erosions.
We stared at the antediluvian painting in front of us. No one dared to take a step. The entire world laid out more like a museum display than a real place. Ravan mumbled that we might accidentally pierce through the canvas.
Unexpectedly, a red dragonfly buzzed loudly in front of my face. I stared into its big green eyes. The first encounter with an alien. The dragonfly zipped around my head, heavily interested in the other dragonfly following its every exact moment than the alien inside. Soon as if it got bored, the dragonfly flew away from me and back to its world. I took the first step onto that world, following the dragonfly like a pilgrim. The others followed my lead, but I saw one person staying behind.
Turan Choks looked down at his wrist. A tiny green light blinked. He lifted his hands, gripped them around his helmet, and detached it off of his suit. He took in a deep breath. Scythia rushed over.
“What are you doing?!”
Turan Choks stood there. Not moving at all. Scythia’s face dropped down, her eyes grew larger. Turan Choks rolled his shining head over to Scythia.
“Just enjoying the breeze, Dr. Draks.”
He took a step forward and headed towards the rest of the expedition team. The other scientists watched as he wandered into the forest with his box in hand. They looked back at Scythia. She said, “Mr. Choks will be quarantined for 30 days when we get back to the ship to observe for any hostile pathogens.”
And following her speech, the rest of us ventured into the primordial forest.
***
I must have accidentally walked away or got distracted by something as I’ve ended up alone in the forest.
Outside of the dragonflies and mosquitos failing to puncture our suits, we really had no idea what we were looking for. Tentacle monsters could have been swinging through the branches like twisted mimics of monkeys, whom are already imposters of man. Two-mouthed beasts could be eating the undergrowth similar to ones documented on some colony worlds. Slender and thin six-legged predators could have been stalking us easy prey, we would have been naïve babies in their eyes.
As I trailed through the forest, occasionally getting my boot stuck in the thicket of ferns, I’ve saw something familiar to me. A large puddle of muddy water. Too large to have been a simple dent in the earth or even the mark of a fallen tree that now has become dirt.
I started to look around for any similar clues. Centuries old safari documentaries and scarred hands from farm work were my only tools. There was a clearing between two redwood trees, the last original inhabitants in the newly transformed lands. Quietly, I moved towards this. Dented saplings and torn ferns marked the entrance to a fern pasture ahead.
Then I saw her.
Standing right in front of me, a massive Stegosaurus grazed on a patch of ferns. Red plates adorned her dark green back. Large hard osteoderms broke up the pattern of the wrinkly, tan scales. Her arms were sprawled out to support the massive belly. Her tail dragged on the back and her spikes swayed in the wind like tall grass. She lifted her tiny head and looked at me with her large red eyes. She was simple yet curiosity rang in those eyes.
Suddenly, something grabbed my shoulder and pulled me towards the brush, spinning me around in the process. It was the worst fate imaginable – a smiling Turan Choks with his hand open.
“Good job, son!”
I attempted to shake his hand but my own hand gripped something else. I looked down.
A double-barreled rifle.
The finished oak still strong despite being hundreds of years old, the smooth metallic barrels that could cooled your sweaty palms in the jungle heat, and the clean crack action that sung in your ears amidst an unmelodious choir of mosquitos and dragonflies. Engraved in gold, I saw the old gods of Earth. The wise elephant, the noble lion, the mighty tiger– all of them stared at me.
I was the only kid in the entire colony to have seen one of these animals. A smuggled rhinoceros being transferred between cargo ships. We all have seen footage and pictures, but most of us never went to one of those traveling zoos. My colony was considered too dangerous for such treats. We always had whispers and rumors from the untrusty kid about seeing an elephant or a rhinoceros. He always had an uncle who worked in those traveling zoos. I was seen as one of these kids despite having no uncles or aunts.
This dinosaur might as well be like them.
Turan Choks didn’t even ask me if I knew how to use a rifle. He simply said be careful of the double triggers, it would kick harder than anything you’ve ever shot if you pulled both. I aimed the rifle down and looked at the Stegosaurus. She was still grazing through the ferns.
Then breaking through the brush, an exhausted Dr. Scythia Draks came towards us.
“Collecting evidence is critical, but this is the most extreme form!”
Turan Choks turned around to her, “Doctor. Have members of your team collected flowers, and saplings, and ferns, even the dragonflies and the mosquitos around us?”
“We have, Captain, but our specimens are numerous. We can easily see with our own eyes that a removal of one plant or insect would not harm the ecosystem. But we have no idea what that organism plays!”
Turan Choks looked back at the Stegosaurus, grazing careless, and return his gaze to Scythia, “The organism is an herbivore. A large one. A potential ecosystem builder.”
I chimed in, “There was a large puddle I found, I believed it was made by the Stegosaurus wallowing in the mud. The cows used to do that back on the colony.”
Dr. Scythia Draks exclaimed, “That organism is not a Stegosaurus, but it is important that we should not shoot it. We have no idea about the fauna of the world outside out that very creature. We could be in the midst of a biotic interchange, even an extinction! We had them occur without our knowledge for billions of years and we will have them billions of years after we are taken by extinction itself. But if you shoot that organism, it would seal the fate of not just that individual but the entire world!”
Turan Choks stood for a moment. The Stegosaurus striped some ferns and called in the distance. The captain lifted his head back to Dr. Scythia Draks.
“You are correct. That organism is an imposter, an imitator of Stegosaurus. Thus, the organs could be more akin to us mammals than the saurian and birds of Earth. And we can’t observe everything without piercing through the skin and flesh of that subject. You cannot study blood and organs without interacting with the subject. Even the simplest and non-lethal ways like the draw of blood and a scan from a machine requires that great step.”
Dr. Scythia Draks replied, “That is very true. But, we do not have the bigger picture of the organism beyond what we see right now. Why commit needless murder if anything, we could start following the organism and documenting them with this.”
Grabbing from bag, she revealed the camera like a sword. The lens flicked in the sun. She had a massive smile on her face. Turan Choks once again thought to himself. His eyes darted between Scythia, the Stegosaurus, and me. He gazed at me holding his rifle, and then he returned to Scythia.
“Photographic evidence can be a useful tool. Galaxies that we will never set our feet in, bacteria that we could never see naturally, and dozens of animals moving through trails and forests that we could never observe. At the same time, we have countless images of alleged ghosts, fabled apemen, and sea monsters made of shadows and waves.”
I spoke up, “But we’re a scientific team.”
“The Piltdown Man was made by a scientist, my son, but I doubt the scientific community will doubt our evidence. We have provided nothing but credible and interesting data. Even with flora and fauna we have right now, they would most likely not question the photo of the organism behind us right now. Yet this organism will raise eyebrows. Not from skepticism and jealously, rather the converted and believers.”
Dr. Scythia Draks replied back, “Captain, I understand where you are coming from. I truly do. And I think if we provide enough photographic and videography evidence, only the most pessimistic will push back but they will be seen as the fringe. And we have three credible eyewitnesses right now."
“Our own eyes could easily be doubted. We have corrected one of these eyewitnesses about the organism not being a Stegosaurus. And with that aside, despite us seeing, hearing, and even smelling this organism, it will move away from us. Disappear into the forest like a ghost even when they knock down trees and uproot prairies as they melt away in the thicket. The okapi and gorilla were seen like this, and only pieces of them proved their existence to the eyes of the Western scientists. As you said, this might be the last of their kind. We do not know when we will come back and scavengers and predators alike do not wait for us.”
And soon, their discussion slowly blurred together, a monotone orchestra, and I turned my head back at the Stegosaurus. She trudged and soon bellowed loudly. Her head tilted and listened for any calls. After a few minutes, she dropped her head down and resumed eating. Suddenly, another Stegosaurus emerged from the forest.
The two Stegosaurus called to each other and slow danced in a circle. A polite greeting and they continued to feast in the fern prairie. I looked back at Dr. Scythia Draks and Turan Choks, knee deep in their debate as if the entire world paused around them. Scythia placed her camera near me some time in their discussion, and the rifle laid beside it.
I took a deep breath. A hiss came from my suit, and dropped the helmet on the ground, and I laid my cheek on the butt of the gun. I cocked back the hammer on the right side and aimed down the sight.
The Stegosaurus accidentally locked her eyes onto me. The shining of the rifle caught her attention, interested in the harbinger of her destruction. I closed my eyes before I pulled the trigger.
A sound of thunder in paradise. Bat-like pterosaurs flow out of the trees, ostrich-like ornithomimids fled through the forest, and pig-like synapsids surged across the fields. I opened my eyes and saw the corpse of the Stegosaurus. She had her head and arms down like she was in prayer. The other Stegosaurus stared directly at me. Studying me, and soon fled no differently than the other animals of the world.
Turan Choks would soon congratulate me for my decision and propped me right next to the Stegosaurus with the rifle in hand. He grabbed Scythia’s camera and told me to smile. The flash was the last thing I remember before going back to cryo.
***
It has been 70 years since the first disobedience of man rippled on the Dinosaur Planet, and the first death brought into the innocent world by man has not been forgotten – all done by my own hands.
I’ve always wondered if I should have picked up the camera instead. Took a photo of the two Stegosaurus instead of taking the one’s life but I honestly doubt that anything would have changed. Merely knowing the planet’s existence, knowing the methane levels bubbling doomed the inhabitants of the world. A fate they could have not even known about.
Perhaps, I am placing the blame on others and not myself, but even then, what if I had the frostbitten hand instead of Kamoya Mbua. I knew the man – a gentle soul who sadly left this world so I doubt he would done it. It is best not to speak ill of the dead. And everyone else of that expedition team has passed away but me. They all died going back to FMM UV-32. Unknowingly exiled from the world by an untold decreed and killed for their trespassing. Agatha Ravan from Centralian jungle virus, Dr. Scythia Draks driven mad upon a massacre at some ancient temple, Turan Choks vanished like a ghost. No signs from him or the tracker chip.
I doubt that man is dead, but I don’t want to go back to that world to go on a snipe hunt for some dust. Perhaps I should go back. If I show DinoHunt Corp that photo they’re using for their first hunting tour, they might give me boarding. Probably quietly pay my hospice for using my face for these past five years. Yet, no one really knows who I am.
The heart monitor beeps and the oxygen tank sharply hisses as I stare into the pitch-black void. No stars to be seen from this ship. Staring into the future that is coming for me.
