Chapter No.32. Unexpected.

We strapped into our G-chairs to come out of hyperspace and decrease our velocity to achieve a high orbit around a habitable planet orbiting Tau Ceti. As soon as Janet and Sharon got out of their G-chairs and hustled to the command station, they immediately began scanning the planet.

"The planet is approximately 1.5 times the size of Earth," Sharon said. "The atmosphere definitely contains oxygen and water vapor."

"I think there's something in orbit around the planet. It's hard to determine what it is from here."

"Keep an eye on it," I said. "If it moves, we're out of here."

As we approached the planet and made a breaking burn, we decided to stay in our G-chairs just in case we needed to make a fast exit if the aliens threatened us.

They didn't. After achieved orbit, we began a thorough scan of the planet and the object in orbit.

"That's definitely a saucer craft," Janet said. "but it's not moving."

"The planet has continents and there is evidence of civilization," Sharon said. "Although, I'm not picking up much in the way of movement."

"Stay alert. We don't want to fall into a trap."

"If there are aliens down there, they must be hiding," Sharon said. "I'm seeing a main metropolis, but it appears to be inactive."

I rubbed my jaw. "Interesting. Maybe you were right about the aliens becoming extinct."

"That saucer ship doesn't appear to be active," Janet said. "Infrared scans are negative."

"Good. I doubt that we could outrun it."

"If the aliens took billions of humans to this planet, they're definitely not here now."

"Try to see if you can get better imagery of the surface. Maybe they're hiding."

Sharon tried high magnification but found nothing that would indicate that there was a large group of humans or aliens on the surface.

"We'll have to go down there, but not until tomorrow."

I was somewhat surprised, actually baffled, by the fact that none of the women visited my bunk for midnight sex. Maybe they were too tired or possibly on edge about a possible alien attack. Oh well, it was probably better under the circumstances that they didn't come to me.

Next day came and I decided to take Sharon, the planetary astronomer and Bridget, the exo-biologist, down to the surface. I armed with a laser rifle and gave laser pistols to both Sharon and Bridget.

I flew over the metropolis several times to hunt for a safe landing spot. I finally sat the shuttle down in what looked like a large parking lot. There were several transparent bubble vehicles parked near a large conical building that had rings of windows around it.

Since there was little evidence of anyone being home, I decided that we would go out without wearing bio suits. We exited the shuttle and moved toward the building. The weather was warm but not all that humid. The gravity was slightly higher than what we were used to, but it was not that bad.

A human female wearing a scruffy white cloth dress approached. She was barefooted and her long bleached blond hair was unkempt. I assumed she was old, but her face was that of a young woman.

"Who are you?" she asked, squinting at us in the garish orange light of Tau Ceti.

"We're from Earth. We came here because we were told that humans were taken here by aliens as food."

"Yeah, those bastards choked on it," she said, disgust twisting her otherwise pretty face.

"How many of you are there?"

"Maybe a thousand, give or take," she said. "Some went off into the forests, but probably got eaten by the grumps."

"Grumps?"

"Yeah, they're crazy critters with sharp teeth. They can bite your head off easy enough."

"What happened to the rest of the people that the aliens brought from Earth?"

"The aliens ate some of them and fed some to the grumps."

I turned to Sharon and Bridget and shrugged. "That's stupid."

They just blinked. Bridget pointed to something moving across the parking lot. "What's that?"

"The grumps are coming!" the woman cried and then ran off to the building. I pulled the laser rifle from the shoulder sling and power it up. Sharon and Bridget powered up their laser pistols.

The one grump soon became a herd of growling crazed raptor-like creatures showing plenty of teeth.

"Get back to the shuttle," I yelled before I shot at the lead grump. The laser beam drilled a hole through its head, and it fell, spewing black blood.

Sharon and Bridget fired at the grumps that followed. I motioned for them to get in the shuttle while I continued shooting. I just barely got into the shuttle and closed the hatch before the grumps arrived. They crawled over the shuttle trying to gain entry with their claws.

I energized the magnetic field and activated the plasma shield. Grumps ignited and ran off screeching in pain. I decided to fire the engines so that we could get out of the mess, but grumps tried to hang on despite being set ablaze. I accelerated up into the alien sky, which got rid of the remainders.

"I don't think we'll recommend this planet as a vacation getaway."

"Very funny," Sharon reacted with a mock frown.

"I thought she was kidding about the grumps," Bridget said.

"This is what happens when one intrudes on mother nature," I said. "The idiot aliens that came to Earth to herd humans as food stock paid the price for that foolishness."

"What are we going to do now?" Sharon asked.

"We may as well go back to Earth. There's nothing we can do about this planet. It might be habitable for humans, but it would require killing an entire species off to render it safe."

We arrived at the ship and I parked the shuttle in the hanger deck. After it compressed with air, we got out and headed to the crew deck.

We joined Janet and Natale at the command station.

"What happened down there?" Janet asked.

"We got attacked by grumps," I said.

"Grumps?"

"Yeah, they're nasty ugly animals that have sharp teeth and claws and they prefer humans as food."

"I thought it was aliens who were eating humans."

"They were, but the grumps had other plans. There are some humans down there, but no where near billions."

Janet swallowed hard. "We haven't seen any movement from the saucer."

"Wait a moment!" Natale cried. "The saucer is moving!"

"Oh shit!" I reacted.

"It just accelerated away," Natale said.

"Trace its course," I ordered.

"It's gone," she said. "I have a plot of the course they took."

Janet began a computer extrapolation of the course that the saucer took on a background of the stars nearby. After several minutes, she had a possible target system.

"There's another K-class star about 25 light years from our location. I'm not sure it has any planets other than a big gas giant."

"Are we going there?" Natale asked.

"Let's try to reason this out. First of all, we didn't see any aliens on the surface and if we believe the woman who confronted us, there's only a thousand humans. We have to assume that aliens came here because there was a saucer craft in orbit."

"Unless humans took it over and came here in it," Janet proposed.

"Yes, that's a possibility. Maybe humans were on the saucer and saw our vessel and decided to take a powder and go to a planet they know is habitable."

"We really don't know who was on that saucer," Sharon said.

I blew out a disgusted breath. "Yes, you're right. The only way to find out is go to the planet we think they're headed to."

Janet turned to her station and began an inquiry. "We could get there in two days if we start the burn within a few minutes."

"Let's do it!" I said.

We strapped into our G-chairs and braced for the burn, and when it was completed, we were plunged into darkness again. What happened next surprised me.