SHORT FICTION HUMOUR
Incident On Solar-3
An alien scientist’s anthropological study goes badly wrong
We touch down at 1469753.23, February 13th 2019, 04.47 in the local time measurement. This is an estimate. There isn’t a direct correlation, what with the constraints of the space-time continuum and the physics of relativity.
The place we landed was not our initial destination and was not the best option in my highly-valued scientific opinion. My plan, as the senior official on this mission, had been to land in Solar-3’s capital city. London.
My carefully constructed mission plan collapsed when the pilot, Ja-El, aborted touchdown. He said he hadn’t travelled 128.16 light-years and negotiated a treacherous asteroid belt to spend a month living in constant drizzle and a temperature of four degrees C.
Unfortunately, the pilot has operational control during the landing phase. Ja-El piloted the craft south until he located blue skies and a winter temperature of 20° Celsius. The city he stumbled upon is known as Valencia in a region called Spain.
However, my assignment remains the same. I will spend thirty days observing the backward indigenous population of Solar-3 and no egotistical pilot taking me to the wrong city is going to prevent this important…
