Captain Parker found his way to the sample chamber. In the past few minutes, there had been a lot of shouting over the microphone. Captain Parker's impatience was responsible for some of it, my fear was responsible for the rest. My shaking hands or broken voice made things worse. I had seen an alien for the first time and oh boy, was I scared.

The Captain bent to look at the vibrating creature inside the cylinder which was humming due to the vibrations. I wondered how he could manage to stay there with his head so close to noisy cylinder. How were his ears not hurting?

"It's beautiful.", Captain Parker said with wide-open eyes. I doubt having seen him happier ever before, his team had just found humanity's first evidence of alien life. He probably was too happy to notice the loud humming.

But his happiness was short lived. "Captain, the cameras are sensing another source of infrared radiation.", the lady on the microphone spoke, she seemed nervous.

"Is it another egg? I mean is it similar to the last sample? What is it? Answer.", the Captain's impatience seemed to have overtaken his joy.

"Negative, Captain. It's nothing like the previous one. It's apparently huge. And it's coming in our direction.",her voice clearly was trembling.

"What!? Wait I'm coming."he turned to me, "Looks like you were right about the egg and the mother, Doctor. It's no time to rejoice though. Don't do anything to the creature without my orders."

That was one of the times I hated myself for being right. The Captain's voice was heard,"Try to get out of the creature's way. Find out if it's after us or if it's just moving in our direction coincidentally."

There were a few moments of terrifying silence. Then the verdict was announced,"Captain, it clearly is after us. It's changing its path to move towards us. Our ship seems to be emitting mechanical waves of some kind. The thing is responding at a similar frequency."

"It...it has to be the egg Captain.",I intervened. "It's coming after it. We need to do something."

"You're doing nothing Doctor. Prepare the lasers! No spiny sausage fish is ruining my mission.",his voice was louder than ever.

"Bad call Captain Parker.",Dr Neils announced almost immediately. "It's pretty huge. About 80 metres."

"I don't follow your orders, Neils. I could get your pay scale reduced for that. Don't make me...what? What do you mean by it's 80 metres."

"Our cameras reveal a similar size, Captain. We need to do something quick, it'll be here in about about 5 minutes.", the lady's voice grew worse by the second. It seemed like she'd pass out any moment.

"We're not giving up. Everyone stay calm and be ready for what follows. We're not losing humanity's first evidence of alien life." The Captain couldn't cheer up anyone except him.

"You're putting everyone in danger, Captain. Release the egg back. You know the chamber could release unwanted samples back into the waters.", Dr Neils voice was heard.

"Captain, it's very close , what do we do?", the lady undoubtedly was terrified.

"We tell it what lasers feel like. Shoot.", the Captain ignored Dr. Neils.

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot! We can't risk water leaking into the submarine, the water is rich in methane. One spark inside the submarine and boom! Parker are you hearing this?" I'd never heard the Doctor sound that scared.

After a moment of silence I heard the worst word I could imagine.
"Fire!"

A slight shivering of the floor told me the lasers really had been fired.

"It's a hit, it's a hit ,Captain.",the lady said with renewed energy. "What!? No! Captain, it has been hurt, it has shed some spines, but it's still coming.

"Fire again."

"It's still coming, Captain."

"Again"

"It's coming faster ,Captain. It seems angry."

Dr. Neils interrupted"What are you waiting for Parker, you'll get everyone killed."

"Okay! Okay!...",the Captain stopped to take a breath,"Sample chamber get to work. Release the sample."

Before I knew it, the engineers loaded the cylinder into the sample collector, this time not to collect but to release the sample. I had a final glance at the egg. There still was an all spiny cylindrical creature inside the translucent cover, vibrating vigorously. I wonder how the engineers had managed to lift to the cylinder while it vibrated. The creature would return to the world of darkness, never to be brought to light again.

"Be quick!", the Captain roared.

I pushed the button. Compressed air was pumped into the cylinder as the
window to the darkness opened. The egg was pushed outward, the window closed.

"Done, Captain.",I said with a sigh of relief.

"Turn the submarine. Get out of its way."

The submarine turned with such speed that I almost lost balance and fell.

"It's a success Captain. We're out of it's way. It stopped by the egg. It's a success.",the lady seemed to be jumping with relief.

"Something ain't right.",Dr Neils said softly. "I'm quite close to it. It...it's attention is still towards you. It has made the egg stationary by holding it with its spines but it's turning its head towards you again and again."

The blood in my body which had just started to flow freely seemed to freeze all at once.

"It's moving again.",Dr Neils revealed."Quick, get going."

"Go", the Captain roared.

The propellers moved at full power. We were moving faster than I thought the submarine could.

"Wait, wait... turn back. I have a plan.",Dr Neils seemed more energetic than ever before. "Don't fear. It's not behind you anymore."

The ship turned back slowly.
"What...what the hell are you up to?", the Captain voice showed all signs of shock.

"I've taken the egg, it's after me now."

My brain seemed to explode...what. the. hell. How could the Doctor take a risk like that?!

"But I'm not sure how long I can do this. The fuel is limited."

"You'll get yourself killed. Get outta there."

"That doesn't matter. If we want to get rid of the creature, you'll need to do something. Shoot Sub-2 with the lasers.", the Doctor said that with no emotion at all. I felt every strand of hair on by body stand.

"Are you insane?! No. I'm not killing you."

"The methane in water will burn with the oxygen in Sub-2, the exothermic reaction may kill the creature."

"No! You'll die. I won't."

"Fine...I'll do it myself. Looks like I'll have to do this the old fashioned way."

"Captain, he has stopped moving. The creature...the creature. It's reaching for him. Captain it's crunching Sub-2."

My heart skipped a beat.

I heard Dr. Neils coughing into the mic. "So this is what it feels like...".

I don't remember what I did after I heard that. I'm sure I must have cried. Dr. Neils was compelled to used the lighter, a small part of me felt happy for he completed his wish of smoking once. The rest of me drowned in sorrow. I lost a mentor, a friend but our team lost a hero.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to find any other eggs. Fortunately, we didn't encounter any more of those creatures. Captain Parker spoke in cracked voice for the rest of the mission. He didn't tell, but I'm sure he had cried a lot. He must have felt sorry for his behavior towards Dr. Neils.

Our ship used the drills to break the ice and left for its return journey back to Earth. Once we were back, I got to know the official version of the story NASA had told the public according to which, the methane rich ocean of water was found to have microorganisms but nothing multicellular. We had no evidence to prove otherwise. The people were told that Dr. Neils died due to a leakage in Sub-2 followed by a spark which blew it up.

This removed the hero status from his name about which I was sorry but the people were better not knowing the monstrosity that gave us, the crew members sleepless nights.

I'm very very sorry for the delay in publishing this chapter.😞
Please let me know your thoughts on the characters.😁 Would you wish go dive into Enceladus? Please vote if you liked it and express your opinion in the form of comments😊.
THANK YOU FOR READING