Big Splash
By Robert Lynch
The world’s navies circled the area. Ships from all nations jostled around the coordinates that the alien spaceship was headed for. The middle of the ocean.
The clouds parted and the ship slowly lowered towards the ocean surface, hovering for just a few seconds above the water then plunging into the depths.
“Were they supposed to do that?” John asked.
“Maybe they don’t want to talk to us.” Captain Monroe replied.
After another 30 minutes a small capsule surfaced. Smoke rose out of the capsule as four aliens emerged, coughing and waving something around. Gently they were ushered to the Gerald R. Ford, the American aircraft carrier designated as the place of first contact.
The aliens warbled to each other in their language, waving the thing wildly as the humans around them spoke. Microphones on Captain Monroe piped the warbles to the NASA supercomputer, which was running a translation program.
Inside the meeting room the aliens stepped forward to the delegation, the lead alien wore a plethora of ribbons and decorations. The lead alien warbled, looking at the delegation. “Good evening.” The thing said, apparently it was a universal translator. “We bring good tidings from the Webulon Republic. It is our hope that this meeting will be the first of many beneficial communications between our people.”
“It is our hope for that as well.” The American delegate said. “Welcome to Planet Earth.” The alien translator warbled once he had finished speaking.
“Before we start the formalities,” One of the lesser decorated aliens said, “We wonder if your people might be able to winch our ship back to the surface.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged.” The delegate said. “We did wonder why you decided to land in the water.”
“We did not want to show favour to any one country or area.” The second said. “This is a little embarrassing, but we didn’t expect to sink. The density of liquids on our home world is higher than here on Earth, we did not check the density of your sea water…” He looked at the lead alien, “Because apparently it would have been a waste of time.”
“Well,” the delegate said, “We would be more than happy to retrieve your ship. We should look at this as an opportunity to show you that we are more than happy to help out a neighbour in need.”
“My thanks ---” the second alien was cut off by a large explosion which shook the ship. “Oh, for Flegian’s sake.” He turned to the lead alien. “Did you leave the toaster on again? If you poison all the Earthlings like you did the Proxians your daddy isn’t going to be able to bail you out this time.”
Thick wafts of yellow gas began to emerge from the sea. Screams filled the air as the navies of Earth scrambled to apply gas masks. Thousands died.
“Umm…” the lead alien said. “The ship was sinking; it was my last chance to have a waffle before the meeting.”
END