Alfredo the Cowardly T. Rex - Chapter 1

He imagined himself shuffling through a pile of bones, being the terrifying dinosaur that he knew he was born to be. The mighty Tyrannosaur, on the spaceship to destroy all who inhabited it.

Or at least, destroy this stinking mess on the ship’s floor. He was pulled from his daydream to remember he wasn’t a terrifying dinosaur, but a typically terrified one. And the pile of mangled bones below his feet was simply an old floor-brush.

It wasn’t Alfredo’s fault that the Council put him on Janitor duty. Of course, maybe it would be helped if he hadn’t jumped away at the first sight of the Gharial. Or the raptor. Or pretty much any dinosaur that decided to present themselves as a hologram or screen.

He remembered them being more scary, like they all had extra horns growing out of their eye sockets.

On janitor duty, he didn’t have to see other dinosaurs, the council said. But of course there was that one chancellor, who wanted whole-heartedly to have him on the army.

Shot that idea down, they did. And thus, he was taken from a draft to be a potential officer to the unseen dinosaur that cleaned the floors. How they’d laugh if they realized he was a tyrannosaur. Fredo grumbled to himself quietly, his tail lashing against the ground as he turned. He put all his pressure on his floor-brush and scraped off what must’ve been what was left of the army’s new trainees that day.

Maybe he should be glad he wasn’t put on the chancellor’s army. He couldn’t imagine being worked so hard.

He inspected the sludge closer and realized it wasn’t an unfortunate compsognathus. It was rather something he’d rather not think about. Simply not knowing what it was made Alfredo uncomfortable. He brushed it away quickly and swept it off the edge of the floor and into the pool that all the mariners used. It sunk to the bottom and Fredo hoped it would just stay there.

He continued sweeping until he tripped up on something protruding from the floor. He took a few seconds to catch his breath before turning to angrily huff at it.

It was just a small dome of metal with a blue light flickering on and off. Alfredo stared at it and then stopped. “Wait a second…”

It beeped. Could it be… a communicator? He lowered his body to it, and tapped it with the tip of his nose. If it could just…

Then it turned on. Blue light flared out and flashed up over the floor. Alfredo jumped away and quickly regretted it. He fell to his back, then his side. He had to push extra had with his claws to get back onto his feet and by then he saw a dinosaur staring and blinking at him. The communicator was projecting the hologram while floating in the air. It probably just captured his every move.

“Y-yes?” he stuttered.

The dinosaur, an archeopteryx, cleared its throat. It then glanced at Alfredo from top to bottom. It giggled and Alfredo realized it was a girl. “Well, excuse me,” she laughed. “I mean, I’d imagine her to be talking about a tyrannosaur, but I never expected her to be talking about a janitor…”

Alfredo stood up trying to stand as upright as possible without falling. “And what’s wrong with being a janitor?”

The archeopteryx stopped, lifting her beak. “Absolutely nothing, Sir.”

He never expected to be called sir, and enjoyed that pinprick of happiness at those words. “Well, who’s this ‘her?’ What’s she been saying about me?”

“We’ll get to that,” she replied promptly. Alfredo could only see a bit of what her feather colours would be, due to the blue overtaking much of her form. He saw tinges of green and brown through her feathers.

“What else is there to talk about?” Alfredo asked with a hint of worry. Did he just throw some important science experiment into the pool?

“Nothing.” The dinosaur lowered her beak to gaze directly into the camera on her end. “I’m Marzine of the Guard, if you were wanting to know.” She then turned to her left and seemed to ignore Alfredo for a few seconds. “You don’t talk much, do you?” she asked idly.

Alfredo shook his head.

The archeopteryx didn’t respond but instead grabbed a tablet. “Alright,” she said. “I’ve just sent a Tylosaurus to your location.”

A Tylosaurus? He imagined the creature, with a pointed snout, and teeth just as sharp. Tylosaurs were even larger than him by a whole ten feet. Being large was one of his only comforts, showing he at least had something more than smaller dinosaurs. Those with better minds than his. But Tylosaurs were only swimming dinosaurs. And Alfredo was clearly not.

“Hello?” she finally asked and Alfredo snapped back to attention.

“Yes?”

Alfredo thought for a moment. “I can’t necessarily swim,” he said quickly. “I think it’d be better to send a land animal?”

Marzine thought for a moment. “Touché. Well, I’ll just call him off.”

Alfredo sighed. “Thank you.”

“But don’t expect me to send anyone small.”

Wham. There went his hopes of feeling slightly secure. “Then… what will you send?”

“Acrocanthosaurus,” she replied immediately. She tapped at her tablet with long clawed fingers. Her neck feathers rose. “You have no idea how hard it is to get a Tylosaur to stop what he’s doing, you know. Acrocanthosaurs? Much easier.” She turned to Alfredo. “So, he should be coming through the door in a few minutes. Hope she didn’t make a mistake,” she said, and then the screen fell away. The communicator dropped to the ground.

“Call complete,” it said in a mechanical voice. It then rolled into the hole in the floor where it was and fell away again. He heard the rolling clatter fade away.

Well, back to work. He cast a glance to the doorway and saw nothing. He bent his legs to the ground to pick up the floor-brush and was stopped by a clearing of a throat.

He whipped his head up to see a dinosaur with a cape draped over his shoulders. His feathers formed a crown on his head. Stripes ran up and down his back in fiery hues. His skin was a far more neutral tone, like dust.

“Oh!” Alfredo said. “Sorry…”

It was an Acrocanthosaur. His pointed snout was bent into one of disapproval. Was that what it was? He certainly seemed to be sniffing. “You’re this Alfredo that they’re looking for, I assume?” He sounded stuffy, like he either had a cold or some serious entitlement complex.

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“My commanding officer has sent for me to take you to her,” he said. His spines raised high above his head, sticking out among the feathers on his back.

“And what’s your name?” If he was so contemptuous about Alfredo’s name, he better have a name that was a little less ridiculous.

“Glad you asked, food sir,” he said with a wink of his orange eye. “It’s Starlittia the fifth. From the Rega family out in the 42nd cluster.”

Great. At least it was twice as ridiculous as he’d imagine. He tried not to laugh at his name, but nodded. “Alright. Then I suppose we’re headed to…” He scrabbled for a proper title for Marzine. “Officer Marzine then?”

“Captain, you mean,” he said.

“Captain then,” Alfredo said, quick to cover up his mistake. “Well, are we headed to her?”

He scoffed. “If we didn’t, I’d be frozen for insubordination.”

Frozen? Alfredo shuddered. “Let’s go, then.”

Star nodded. “We should.” He then started running down the halls, and Alfredo was forced to follow.