Fleeing from the Cephalopod

Greetings to everyone, the following story was inspired by the digital art of @xpilar, I invite you to visit his blog. The picture that motivated this story is the following.

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Fuente

Fleeing from the Cephalopod

Daniel and Kenichi were advancing at full speed flying over the ocean, a little more than a meter separated the ship from the agitated surface of the water, they fled in a frantic race, to avoid being impaled in the enormous spikes of a giant cephalopod of L583h, one of the moons of the gas giant L583, located eighty light years from Heracles.

The enormous beast, which had nothing to do with the cephalopods coming from the Earth, its name came only from its similarity with them, it was a species of octopus that could reach two hundred meters long and twenty in diameter. It advanced fiercely, extending its long tentacles, ending in sharp spikes, in the direction of the ship that was trying to escape from it.

-How did we get into this? -asked Kenichi agitated, as he maneuvered the ship in zigzag, trying to avoid the envelopes of the creature.

-I'm sorry I didn't mean to bother you, but it's almost impossible to distinguish these things from the colonies of crystallophores in the background, - replied Daniel, clearly distressed and frightened.

-And you couldn't think of anything better than trying to tear off a piece of his head believing it was part of the colony, -added Kenichi clearly annoyed.

-Why don't we get up, we won't be able to escape him if we keep flying flush with the surface, -asked Daniel, clinging to the seat.

-We can't, the engine compartment hasn't finished draining the water, only when it's finished we'll be able to fly, - answered Kenichi.

-Activate the deflectors or shoot him with something, he's going to catch us! -cried Daniel, terrified at the proximity of the cephalopod.

-This isn't a damn military ship, we can only try to escape! -replied Kenichi.

At that moment a signal was activated on the panel in front of them, indicating that the vertical impulse engines were already in line. Kenichi ignited them, a blue glow began to be emitted from the bottom of the ship and a cloud from the water that was vaporized from the intense heat began to rise from the surface of the water, decreasing as the ship ascended, taking a trajectory that drew an exponential curve.

As it rose from several of the beast's tentacles, some of its spikes were projected like arrows, in the direction of the vehicle, hitting one of them on one of its sides and causing it to stagger violently. Several alarms went off on the dashboard, while a cloud of yellow smoke began to emanate from the impact.

-Damn it, he's hit us! -exclaimed Kenichi, to a paralyzed Daniel. One of the hydraulic lines broke, I'm going to isolate that sector of the ship, we'll take care of it when we get out of the atmosphere.

The ship continued its vertical ascent, until it left the atmosphere of L583h and took distance from the satellite.

-This is all your fault Daniel, so it will be you who will go out to make the repairs so you can return to Cepheus, maybe that will teach you how to differentiate a giant cephalopod from a colony of crystallophores, -said Kenichi, while Daniel, silently, was getting ready to leave the ship to do the work.

The next time they ventured to steal fragments of crystallophores to sell on the black market, Daniel would be careful to use the ship's scanner to avoid confusing his colonies with sleeping cephalopods again.

Text of @amart29 Barcelona, Venezuela, August 2019

Other stories from the Time and Space series

• Cerberus
• Underwater Companions
• Ultraviolet Visions
• Obstacle Race
• Stranger
• Trackers
• At the Mercy of the Elements
• Typhon's Great Regatta
• Immersion
• Elias
• Free Fall
• Fleeing from the Cephalopod

I can only thank @xpilar for allowing me to use his digital art in my publication and for motivating my creation. Thank you very much @xpilar

Thank you all for visiting my publication, I hope your comments and I appreciate your support, until next time

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