OOPS! or, A Mistake of Two Races

a short story by Tergonaut

<<Diagnostic sequence initiated. Diagnostic program activated...>>

There were memories. A wondrous planet, beautiful in the pure natural state it was in, where the native sentients used only what they had to for their survival, and they always gave back to the environment what they took, never allowing the balance to be disturbed...

<<Diagnostic scan complete. All systems are nominal. Activation sequence beginning...>>

But then, there was a change. The beauty, the wildlife, the sentients, all dead, save for a select few of everything that somehow survived. The sentients desperately built a strange, unnatural device that would not save themselves, but rather, it would save their world's genetic legacy...

<<All systems are activated and are running at full efficiency. Awakening consciousness...>>

The memories consummated into one fact: IT was that device, a creation designed to make sure that their world would live on. IT knew what it was to do. There was no mistake. IT began to flex out of the shell that it was contained in...

The archaeologists had just opened up an underground tunnel that seemed to have been made by advanced technology. As they examined the interior, one of them went to the end of the tunnel by himself to see what was at the end of it.

What he found was perhaps the most important discovery of all time for the race of humanity. They were not alone.

There was a huge chamber at the end of the tunnel that was filled almost completely by a sort of egg sac. Inside the egg sac was a freakish creature that seemed to be awakening, and as a single spidery leg pierced the sac and pushed out towards the archeologist, he ran and screamed for anyone to help him.

The creature came entirely out of the egg sac, and it dug into the earth above it, heading to the surface.

Hours later, there was an emergency conference being held at Washington, where a team of scientists were summoned to explain what they knew about the alien creature that was making its way across the countryside, where it had already crashed through several farms and public residences.

The head of the team had the lights turned off, and a slideshow began, with the first picture being of the creature itself. "Now," commenced the head scientist, "you will notice that the creature, which we have termed 'Envoy', resembles a four-legged insect of gigantic proportions. Note the bulbous sacs attached to the underbelly. Next slide, please."

The slide shifted to a picture of the creature standing side-by-side an average human being. "As you can see, the creature stands at approximately fifteen stories tall, and it is three times as wide. It has an incredible mass, and some parts of it are astoundingly dense, as if-"

The slide shifted again, and there was a quick *whack* as the head of the team whopped the machine operator's head with his extendible pointer. "I wasn't finished, lunkhead!"

The scientist cleared his throat, and he pointed at the newest picture, which showed a detailed picture of one of the sacs that had been seen on the underbelly. "As I was saying, some parts, namely these egg sacs, are amazingly dense, but not with anything that has been documented before in a living creature."

One of the representatives of one of the smaller countries at the end of the table asked, "What are you inferring, you batty scientist! Out with it! After all, we're not all amazingly intelligent and resourceful people like yourself! What does it mean in the human language?"

This brought on some scattered laughter, especially from the heads of the bigger countries. All of it stopped the instant the head scientist's pointer slapped against the table with incredible force. Once he had achieved silence, he continued. "They are filled with pure genetic data! The genetic structure of the egg sacs suggests that they can form in a fully-functional example of the creature that gave the genetic sample. In essence, they are instant clones! All that is necessary is for the creature to squirt a powerful enzyme into them, and then they will hatch!"

Someone at the end of the table asked (this time in seriousness), "What do you suppose is the purpose of this creature and these, er, instant clones?"

The scientist seemed quite pleased that the governmental types were calling upon his professionalism, but he laid it in front of them. "This creature, by all probability, is a creation of an alien race to reproduce every single species on their planet and repopulate this world with their lifeforms!"

"Is this some sort of hostile takeover?"

The scientist shook his head. "No, but rather a way of saving their species, as well as an effort to rebuild their world on ours! They might have created this thousands of years ago, and they had seen this planet as the perfect world for their plan, as there were no sentient species at that time. They might have rationalized that they were saving their entire planet, and had not considered that humans would gain sentience by the time their plan would come to fruition!"

There was much mumbling about the table, but one voice stood out. "What shall we do? Where is it going?"

The scientist whacked the machine operator again, as he had fallen asleep, and the next slide came up. "The creature seems to be taking a path directly towards this city, where I do believe it will release the egg sacs, which will begin to spread the genetic data over the entire world, replacing us and our world with a duplicate of their ecology, their world!"

There was silence as everyone in the room grappled with the situation. Did humanity have the right to destroy a long-dead race merely for the sake of their survival, or should they let the alien creation change their world, most likely killing off all of humanity and Earth in the process?

But then the conscientious wrestling was over, and everyone had made their decision. "Call in every armed force we have. Tell them we're going to destroy the Envoy!"

The creature shambled toward Washington, noticing the living creatures that were forming in front of it, but not really caring. All directives urged it on to the designated spot, where it would bring the good of the ancient race back into existence.

The National Guard, S.W.A.T., Marines, every elite military/paramilitary group was there. They had every conventional weapon at their disposal, and the mobile artillery units recalibrated to target the Envoy more fully. They would have to pound it, and pound it hard. All of Earth depended upon it.

The commander of the whole operation gave a signal to a large piece of equipment, which was basically a huge missile launcher on wheels. The driver gave a thumbs up, shouted, "Here comes Papa!" and all of the missiles flew out of their tubes and flew toward the creature. They collided, exploding with pure destructive force, and a huge cloud of smoke obscured the vision of the assembled soldiers for a few minutes before clearing to reveal that the creature had been...

Unaffected. There was no indication that the missiles had even touched it.

The commander felt a little angry, but he ordered the troopers armed with the hand weapons forward, and they opened fire with rifles, pistols, bazookas, anything that was man-portable. All of the shots struck the creature's skin, but to the commander's flabbergastion, they *bounced* off!

He got red in the face and ordered the tanks forward, as well as the helicopters and everything else they had. A flurry of missiles, shells, and bombs struck the creature in various locations, but none of them had any effect! In fact, the creature seemed to be completely oblivious to the fact that the best hardware that the U.S. military had to offer was being used on it!

The commander was so mad at this prospect that he pulled out his own pistol after he had recalled the heavy hardware, and he ran in front of the creature, unloading the weapon into the Envoy and shouting, "HAH! FELT *THAT* ONE, DIDN'T YOU!" just before he was squashed under the leg of the alien-made creature, which made a note to itself that it had crushed one of the strange humanoid animals that populated this world, and continued on its designated course.

The world held its collective breath as the leaders of the world (after evacuating as much of America as they could) decided what to do next. It was a vote that was unanimous, in favor of dropping nuclear weapons onto the Envoy in an effort to save Earth. The brave pilots were selected from the very best (of course), and families in old bomb shelters watched broken-down televisions as a computer-generated graphical depiction of the pilots' flight and attack of the creature commenced. The bombs were dropped, the explosion was magnificent, and the pilots were just getting out of range of the dangerous blast when a secondary wave lashed out faster than they could go, and they were obliterated.

Unfortunately, the explosion, in combination with the radiation it released, caused a chemical reaction in the egg sacs which had not been seen by either human or alien. This chemical reaction was basically the most powerful bomb in existence, and the effect of this powerful weapon blowing up was that all life on Earth was completely wiped out, and the egg sacs could not release their genetic data, as it had been the fuel for the explosion. The end result was that, due to the lack of foresight on the part of both the mysterious race that created the Envoy, and humanity itself, both civilizations, races and worlds were completely annihilated.

Tough beans, huh?