Alien Autopsy by Robert Freese

General Brummer hastily moved through the various security checkpoints. Retina scan, voice scan, fingerprint scan, everything that identified him as General David Scott Brummer was scanned and confirmed before each successive entry point allowed admittance.

Finally, at the last checkpoint, two giant steel doors slid open. On the other side waited Colonel Richard Manners.

“Welcome, general,” the Colonel said with a quick salute.

“Is it real, Dick?” the General asked, cutting right to the situation at hand. Colonel Manners noted how haggard the General looked.

“It’s real,” Colonel Manners confirmed.

The General mumbled something inaudible and rubbed his temples.

“And on my watch, too,” he said, looking up at the Colonel with tired eyes. “Give me the rundown.”

Colonel Manners spoke as he led the General down the long hall.

“At twenty-two hundred hours an unidentified aircraft was detected flying low in our restricted air space. Three jets were immediately dispatched to investigate. When communications with the unidentified craft failed, we assumed hostile intent. Our pilots were then instructed to engage the unidentified craft. The craft was brought down swiftly.”

“Any civilian witnesses?” General Brummer asked.

“Hard to say but doubtful. The incident occurred in restricted military air space. The likelihood of civilian interception of the incident is highly improbable.”

“Highly improbable or not, we can’t chance that some kook with a camera and too much time on his hands didn’t see the incident and record it.”

“We already have men on it,” the Colonel assured. “We also leaked a mention of the incident to the press.”

“What are we telling the press?” The General’s head ached. He wished now he had slept during the flight to the base instead of worrying the whole way.

“That a defective satellite came down and interrupted regular training maneuvers.”

“Won’t that just stir up more attention to the situation?”

“Not as much as saying we shot down an alien aircraft.”

The semblance of an exhausted smile fluttered across the General’s tired face then quickly faded.

“Has the craft been identified?”

“We have people sifting through the wreckage right now. They have strict orders to contact me immediately if they discover anything important.”

“Do we know anything yet?”

“I have not yet been to the crash site myself, but I’m told the craft is like nothing ever before seen. Our first reports definitely identify the craft as being extra-terrestrial.”

General Brummer shook his head silently. His stomach knotted up and he winced at the sudden sour rush of bile in the back of his throat. He coughed, cleared his throat.

“What about the craft’s pilot?”

“Dead, but the body survived the crash intact. The specimen was taken directly to autopsy room A. Doctor Anwar and Doctor Teague will conduct the autopsy. They are with the body right now.”

At the end of the hall they stopped at an elevator. Colonel Manners punched the numbers of a code onto a keypad and the elevator doors opened. Once they were inside the elevator car, the doors closed and they began a slow descent downward.

“What is it like?” General Brummer asked in a quiet voice.

“Excuse me, sir?”

“The alien specimen, what is it like? Does it have a giant cranium with an exposed brain, or bulging eyes on stalks? Does it have antennas on the top of its head? Is its skin olive green in color, or blue like the sky on a clear day?”

Colonel Manners smiled uneasily, then replied, “I’ve not yet seen the specimen, sir.”

“I wonder,” the General started solemnly. “Is this thing, this alien creature, going to change the world as we know it, or will we be instructed to merely brush it under the rug without a word, like so many other worthy discoveries?”

“I couldn’t say, sir.”

They rode the rest of the way in silence.

When the elevator doors opened, they entered a short white hallway. The only sound was the clicking of their heels on the white tile floor.

They entered through the door marked with the big, red “A.”

“Doctor Anwar, Doctor Teague,” Colonel Manners said. “This is General Brummer.”

“Gentlemen,” the General said, shaking hands with both doctors.

“This is truly an amazing discovery,” Doctor Anwar, the older of the two doctors, said excitedly. “The first ever specimen of an actual alien life form.”

General Brummer was conscious of the creature lying on the nearby autopsy table. A thin white sheet was draped over its inert body.

The autopsy room suddenly felt very cold to the General. His skin prickled, tingled behind his ears and down his neck. He stood less than three feet away from an actual creature from another world.

“Any possibility this thing could have introduced any new strains of viruses or diseases into our atmosphere?” he asked, his brow furrowed with concern.

“Negative,” Doctor Teague assured. “None of our preliminary tests show any active bacteria on or within the specimen. Actually, its tissue is already showing signs of decomposition, as well as rigor mortis.”

“Just as our own bodies do at the time passing,” Doctor Anwar excitedly added.

General Brummer stared intently at the specimen on the examination table.

“You can take a look if you like,” Doctor Anwar said with a grin. He reminded the General of a child with a new toy.

Stepping closer, the General felt his heart rate quicken. His mind was racing with numerous questions.

What did the alien look like? Would it resemble the creatures from so many countless late night movies and pulp science-fiction tales, so hideous its countenance would forever haunt the remainder of his days?

Or would it be the face on an angel, a soft calming visage that would enlighten his days simply from the knowledge that such peaceful beings co-existed in the same universe?

Was it friend or foe, a good will ambassador from another planet or an information-collecting spy, readying its army for an invasion?

All these thoughts and more spun wildly about the General’s head as he reached for the sheet blanketing the creature.

The Colonel’s cellular phone sudden beeped to life, startled General Brummer.

“Colonel Manners,” he barked into the phone.

Taking a breath, General Brummer reached out and pulled the sheet off the alien specimen.

He was taken aback, quiet for several long moments.

This, he thought, was not what I expected.

“It’s humanoid,” he said aloud.

“Quite,” concurred Doctor Anwar.

The alien shared many of the same features the General saw every time he looked into a mirror. It had two eyes, a nose and a mouth. The head was smaller and the ears were a little lower.

The body was of medium build, but tall. The skin tone was lighter, paler, and dark hair, the color of which the General had never seen, covered the thing’s head.

This is not at all what I expected, the General thought to himself.

“They have identified a piece of the aircraft,” Colonel Manners exclaimed excitedly.

General Brummer and the doctors turned to look at the Colonel.

“As impossible as it sounds,” the Colonel said. “They are positive that both the aircraft and the pilot have come all the way from Earth!”

The General felt as if he had suddenly been struck full in the chest with a sledgehammer.

A visitor from Earth! The planet they had long thought dead, long thought uninhabited any sort of intelligent life.

The idea of a visitor from the barren looking planet was almost too fantastic to accept.

General Brummer just stood quietly and stared at the alien creature while the doctors readied their cutting utensils for the autopsy.