The Interplanetary Visit

The Great Escape

Ken sighed, he was to return to Jupiter once he completed his mission. But first, he must establish contact with one of the other planets, at least. He dreaded going back with his knowledge that he was not Jupitian, yet, it was home and safer than being on Earth.

So far, his pod was just short of reaching Mars' communication systems. Mars had kept a low profile for all the years, keeping most of their civilization underground. They destroyed Earth's space probes successfully a few years back without being detected. However, since then, Mars had not dared to extend their communication systems too far, for fear of detection. As neighbors, they knew the Earthlings better than any of the other planets. Once discovered, Earth would establish contact with them, and after some time, probably rob them of their planet. So far, the other planets made contact to Mars and Mars had never sent a single transmission if it was not to answer the other planets.

Sending too many transmissions would expose themselves. The PEIDB could easily trace the transmissions, and triangulate on their civilization. And already, PEIDB had shot down many Martians, and Mars was not ready to lose more Martians by sending them on missions. In fact, Earthlings were famous throughout the galaxy for their unnecessary killing and exploitations.

Ken sighed again. His pod was initially to be equipped with long distance communication systems and extra power boosters for interplanetary traveling. But as luck would have it, he told the Jupitian engineers not to bother as he would do the long traveling in the Warship, which would also be able to transmit his messages much more clearly and with much faster transmissions. However, who would have thought that things would take on such a dramatic twist?

It was like being in a poorly written story, where everything goes wrong to keep the story going on.

The Warship had been destroyed in a surprise attack by PEIDB. His kind had totally underestimated PEIDB's offensive technology, despite suspecting that they had been stealing technology and reverse engineering them. He wished that the Warship had its shield fully powered, or had at least sent a distress signal to Jupiter, or any other planets before it was destroyed. Ken sighed, if he was living in a story, he hoped that at least the author would be kind enough to give him a happy ending.

He felt desperate and helpless, he had been de-adapting since his arrival on Earth to experience human emotions, which the Jupitians had experienced centuries ago, and now with the new revelation that he was not Jupitian, he wondered if his Jupitian family had the ability to adapt and de-adapt as they wished. As if being alone in a foreign place was not bad enough, he had now numerous doubts and questions about his own heritage. To top it all off, it was not the time and place to be addressing them.

Forcing himself to remember his past, he could only recollect gaps of his memory. He recalled that whenever the King and Queen of the time passed on or aged rapidly, he would question what was happening, and always he was told that he was the only one who was immune because he was genetically modified. Whenever he pressed on why he was the only genetically modified Jupitian, everyone else always told him that they had since lost the technology then. Vowing to uncover the truth, the Jupitian Prince made a pact with himself to go back to Jupiter one day and question the current ruling King and Queen, and to fill the gaps in his memory that he just could not recall.

And there was the visitor of whom he was most curious. Who is he? Or She? How did he know how to curb my memory? And how is it that I can still force some recollections? Is it wearing off?

Suddenly, the monkeys and birds kept silent.

They stood motionless staring up to the sky, when suddenly they ran back to the dense foliage behind and hid. Ken's ears twitched, his ultra-sensitive ears were picking up a high frequency humming noise. Through his ultra-focused eyes, he saw three black Plutonian pods approaching, flying directly before the rising sun for cover. Yet that did not stop Ken from noticing the PEIDB crest.