Popsicle

Gateway62 wasn’t due to go offline, so its sudden disappearance was alarming to everyone at GateCorp. It had been ten years since they last lost a satellite that wasn’t a scheduled destruction. Then, two of their own had collided due to faulty software. The problem was immediately rectified, and those responsible were fired. If GateCorp could have imprisoned them for negligence, they would have, but incompetence apparently wasn’t a criminal offence, despite costing the company millions through damages, fines, and the loss of a regular client.

This time, as far as anyone could tell, Gateway62 hadn’t collided with theirs or any other company’s satellites. There’d been none nearby. The orbital paths of all satellites were carefully tracked to prevent such incidents as space grew busier and busier. And GateCorp themselves now boasted the highest safety record among all satellite companies since the incident ten years ago, making the likelihood of a collision even more improbable. Their pledge to reduce space debris was one they took very seriously, not only for their public image, but for gaining new clients as well.

Any satellite they destroyed was brought down in a controlled zone where debris could either be collected or would burn up in the atmosphere. But that hadn’t happened to Gateway62. The delayed heat images hitting the screens after the satellite went offline showed the dish was in pieces. It had definitely been destroyed, but how or why was unknown.

The satellite’s small and durable backup location beacon, however, had survived, and all eyes were now on its signal as it drifted off course alongside thousands of tiny fragments. Initial tracking suggested the wayward debris could be on a potential collision course with several other satellites in the vicinity. GateCorp needed to immediately warn everyone involved. A disastrous chain reaction in space was the last thing anyone needed, especially with a shuttle currently in orbit and several new billion-dollar clients being touted.

As phone calls were being made, a collective confused gasp took ahold of the GateCorp Command Room as new images revealed a solid unknown object drifting near Gateway62’s previous location. Whatever hit it, it wasn’t another satellite. The object in the latest images looked tomb-shaped. It could have been part of an older station still stuck in orbit, or something lost during a space walk, although both options seemed highly unlikely.

The shape did resemble a discarded rocket, but they were all tracked, and none were currently in the surrounding area. Was it possible one had been missed? It seemed extremely unlikely given the attention to detail everyone in the various space programs displayed. Mistakes in space could cost hundreds of millions of dollars, so they didn’t happen often.

Also, despite it being difficult to judge from the images, the object appeared smaller than a rocket. Whatever the strange unknown object was, there was now little doubt in anyone’s mind that it had been responsible for the destruction of Gateway62.

The space shuttle Pioneer was informed of the Gateway62 incident, and brisk calculations fortunately showed that they were safe in their current location from any wayward debris. As part of their mission, they were in space to run tests on a new high-resolution camera designed to take exterior photos of the International Space Station and any other orbiting bodies in order to aid with maintenance and emergency repair work.

After GateCorp had shared their images of the unknown tomb-shaped object with the United Space Agency, Pioneer was asked to point the experimental camera in the destroyed satellite’s direction. The United Space Agency had been just as stumped by the object as GateCorp, and a swift check with other agencies across the globe drew more shakes of the head.

No-one was claiming ownership.

As the five-strong shuttle crew were safely out of harm’s way from the orbiting satellite debris (that was now being fully tracked), they were only too happy to have a unique test subject for their camera. They manoeuvred the shuttle into a new safe position and aimed the ridiculously expensive camera where Gateway62 should have been. The images it relayed back to the United Space Agency and GateCorp were beyond remarkable…

A decision needed to be made, and quickly. Another shuttle couldn’t be launched in time to retrieve the alien body captured by the Pioneer’s camera. The Pioneer was already nearby, and while the manoeuvre to reach the body was potentially risky and off-mission, it would change everything we knew about, well, everything! Many within the United Space Agency considered it worth the risk, despite their risk-averse nature. History was calling out to them. Life as we knew it was about to be re-examined.

The mysterious alien was close to forty-feet tall and eight-feet wide in its frozen state. The size of a shipping container. Any bigger, it may not have even fitted in the Pioneer’s cargo bay, and any hope of retrieval would have been lost. As it was, it was going to be a snug but doable fit.

Its head was the size of a car door, and shaped like one too. The creature appeared to have something that could have been an eye in the centre of its massive head, but the high-resolution photos didn’t show any signs of a nose or ears. There was a slit that may well have been a mouth, but that was pure speculation for now while the alien was in its frozen state. The photos also showed an overly thick neck, which was triangular in shape. The alien appeared to have some form of limbs, but it would be a stretch to describe them as arms or legs. Tentacles maybe? There were seven in total, spread throughout its massive frame. The high-resolution pictures showed there were no digits, with each limb potentially having some kind of ‘sucker’ at the end.

The creature was monstrous, and magnificently strange. Unlike anything we’d ever seen, even in the deepest depths of our diverse and wonderfully bizarre oceans. Otherworldly, which seemed appropriate for something lost and frozen in space.

As expected, none of the instruments pointed in the alien’s direction suggested it was alive. The corpse appeared frozen solid. Dead to the universe. How it ended up in space could be a mystery never solved. How long it had been floating in the stars, however, was something already being considered. They needed to recover the drifting body first before any early estimates could be made.

An order was given from the highest authority for the crew of the Pioneer to salvage the alien body. They were not to touch it themselves, simply scoop it up (for lack of a better scientific term) and keep it contained within the cargo hold while they returned to Earth. They would be credited for the discovery, along with the personnel at GateCorp who captured the initial image. After that, however, anything involving the alien would be out of all of their jurisdiction.

The crew of the Pioneer slowly inched the shuttle nearer to the colossal body, matching its speed and rotation the closer they got. The Pioneer’s large mechanical arm was deployed and eased towards its target, while two of the crew aided in the retrieval.

Up close, they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. It was even more incredible than the pictures had suggested. The alien was comfortably three stories tall, absolutely dwarfing them. It was an ugly creature, looking like something out of a hellish nightmare, but nonetheless, this was first contact. That contact wasn’t going to be reciprocated due to the alien’s dead frozen state, but still, what an amazing moment. First contact with an alien.

As the mechanical arm eased its grip around the icy unknown lifeform, the two astronauts closely watched for any sign of damage. They couldn’t hear any breakage in the vacuum of space, and the pressure being applied was difficult to judge, so they simply had to carefully watch for any cracks in the alien’s frosty shell. When the arm had a strong enough grip without accidentally severing a frozen limb, it began to slowly draw the alien into the Pioneer’s cargo bay.

The whole process was agonisingly slow and tense, but two hours after initial contact, the alien was safely stored inside the Pioneer’s cargo bay, ready for transportation back to Earth. The retrieval was a complete success.

News of the alien was kept from the public for the first few months after its retrieval. Instead, the mammoth carcass was studied in a secure location. Top biologists from around the world determined that the alien had been dead for over forty thousand years, and had drifted through space from another planetary system. It had no sign of clothes or anything we’d consider hair. The slit was categorised as a mouth, but it had no teeth or tongue to speak of.

Its enormous body had several deep wounds lashed across it, which the scientists believed contributed to the alien’s death. Whether it had been in some kind of fight, or whether it was environmental damage of some kind, was unknown.

There was no obvious reproductive organ, and its gender couldn’t be classified. Its DNA was unlike anything we’d ever encountered and would have revolutionised medical science if we ever got our heads around it. When they carefully cut the alien open to take a look inside, its body was empty. There was no skeletal structure or organs to speak of. No one could come up with a good reason as to how the alien could appear to be intelligent life, yet have no organs or insides whatsoever. Had it always been that way, or had they been removed? The find was to remain classified as it was too unearthly to even consider. To add to the mystery, no brain was found either after the head was also sliced open.

How the alien functioned was to be lost to ancient history. The discovery muddled our own knowledge of life. Everything we believed we understood about biology and life was thrown into turmoil. Some conveniently suggested that maybe the alien wasn’t intelligent life, maybe more like plant life in nature, but that didn’t fit the eye and potential mouth. A hybrid of some kind, maybe? Sadly, the answers were never going to be found.

After a year of slicing and dicing the alien while trying their best to keep the lifeform in its original state, a decision was made to inform the public of the find. Too many leaks had occurred to keep the monstrous creature under wraps any longer, and the United Space Agency’s authority was beginning to be undermined. The announcement of the unique and terrifying discovery shook the world. Many discredited the alien’s existence, even when a further decree was passed to put the creature on public display.

The scientists had discovered about all they could. With another hundred years of research there was a chance they’d still discover nothing comprehensible about the visitor from outer space. Everything about the alien was too, alien. They had no earthly idea what they were looking at, and nothing of the alien could be used for anything useful on Earth. Hidden cures for human diseases were not going to be found within the alien’s DNA. It was a marvel of medical science, but a little too magnificent for us. Maybe a live specimen could have been of more use, but considering the creature’s age and way of arrival, that was very unlikely.

Plus, no one wanted forty-foot aliens wandering around the planet.

An outdoor display in New York was created for the alien. A freak show of sorts. It was kept inside an impenetrable clear bubble where no one could touch the creature, and its current state could be preserved. Whether it could still spread any kind of alien diseases was deemed undetermined despite assurances that it couldn’t, so it was best for everyone if it was still under some kind of strict protection. Armed guards were stationed around the exhibit at all times. The alien sideshow quickly became the biggest tourist attraction in the world.

The whole time it was on display, the gigantic grotesque alien began to slowly regenerate under the sun. It began to recover from its lengthy time frozen solid in deep space, and heal from the deep wounds it had suffered, and the smaller ones created by the human examinations.

Darkrique the Galaxy Destroyer was to return once again and rule the entire Milky Way like it once had after forty thousand years of exile. And the first planet to fall under its powerful might was unknowingly currently taking selfies with it.

Terraroid

Everything fell apart so quickly. All the preparation, drills, emergency procedures, and contingency plans turned out to be utterly useless when disaster struck. Billions spent, then evaporated in an instant. It should have been a simple job: repair the communications antenna, then be on their way to fame and riches. A spacewalk they’d rehearsed a thousand times in the simulators. They could have waited until they were closer to their destination before initiating the repair, but why wait when the job was that easy? Might as well get it done.

Maybe it wasn’t easy for the everyman, but they were trained astronauts, professionals. They weren’t the one percent; they were the one percent of the one percent. Best in class. How many people had even been to space, much less been a part of such an important and potentially lucrative mission? It still felt impossible to Stern that this could have all gone so horribly wrong. But it had… and now he was stranded.

Stern wasn’t quite sure how he ended up sitting on the nearby asteroid. Events were a blur, but he theorised that muscle memory must have kicked in, the robotic nature of his repetitive training doing what it was meant to do. Or had it just been down to the basic human need to survive at all costs? Find a way. Now, on the asteroid, with some awareness returning, he dare not move. He could feel space’s need to reclaim him, and the ground beneath him softly crumbling.

He recalled the explosion, Thompson being shot one direction, him the other. The shuttle practically disintegrating before his very eyes, debris replacing what had been his home for the last six months. The accumulation of his life’s dreams was now transformed into tiny floating pieces lost in the black. He had to presume the other three members of the crew had died in the explosion; there was nowhere else for them to go. The tragic loss rushed through him as the realisation settled in.

He had seen Thompson’s suit depressurising, debris from the shuttle piercing multiple spots. Stern didn’t even have the chance to say goodbye to his friend of the last seven years before witnessing Thompson’s head burst. He hoped that part was his memory playing tricks on him, and that his friend suffered a more dignified death, if there was such a thing in the cold, lonely darkness of deep space.

Stern reckoned he’d find out for himself soon enough.

Whatever miracle had occurred allowing him to end up sitting on an asteroid was no doubt extraordinary, but it was only a temporary reprieve, a pause before the unavoidable. They had been a million miles from home and in the middle of fixing the very thing that allowed them to communicate with Mission Control. They wouldn’t know where he was. No one was coming to rescue him. And even if, by some miracle of all miracles, they were, it would take at least six months. With no food, no water, and an hour’s worth of oxygen left in the tank, that was going to be a stretch. There was no avoiding the undeniable reality of the situation: Stern was going to die.

Accepting that knowledge, Stern considered that there were really only three options for how to spend his last hour. Option one: cry away the rest of his oxygen and curse the high heavens for how unfair this all was. He was only forty and had a gorgeous girlfriend waiting back home who he planned on marrying. A beautiful house. A loyal dog. Incredible friends. Shares in Astro-mining Corp. A lifetime of happiness had been inexplicably snatched away from him, and he was entitled to be bitter about his loss.

Option two: kill himself. Why delay the inevitable? His colleagues were dead, and no one could save him in time… it wasn’t even going to be a close call. There was little left to live for within his last hour of air. Why slowly suffocate when he could just remove his helmet and get it over with quickly?

The final option was to spend the last hour alive reminiscing about a life well lived and focusing on the remaining positives. For starters, he was the first human ever to set foot on an asteroid. That honour was originally going to be his commander’s, but circumstances now meant the privilege was his. Whether it would ever be known to the rest of mankind or not was irrelevant; he was the first. Stern took pride in that. Also, as the explosion sent him spiralling away from the shuttle, and they had already travelled deeper into space than anyone else, he now held the sole record for being the furthest human from Earth. No one in the history of humanity had travelled further into the stars than him. If you’d told him that would be his greatest accomplishment twenty years ago, he’d have snapped up the accolade, no questions asked.

And, as Stern sat on the asteroid contemplating these incredible achievements, a third was added to the list, one which, quite frankly, blew the other two out of the water, as he watched a small creature crawl across the asteroid’s rocky surface… he’d discovered alien life!

He couldn’t believe it. Stern’s hands automatically shot to his face to wipe his eyes in disbelief, but his helmet stopped the action, resulting in a clunking sound, which fortunately didn’t send the critter scampering away. Instead, he wiped the visor as if his vision had been impaired, but it hadn’t. Sure enough, there was an alien creature crawling across the stones directly in front of him. Proof we weren’t alone in the universe.

Stern awkwardly shuffled in his suit, angling himself for a better look at the small, wondrous creature. On closer inspection, the critter somewhat resembled a baby terrapin and was the same size. It had a hard, unblemished, reddish-coloured shell on its back, and an ugly, screwed-up face. It looked angry. The Terraroid, as Stern named the creature (it was his discovery, after all, so he got to name it), had a single eye and an oddly shaped mouth, but no nose or anything that could be considered ears. Its four mini feet appeared flat with a bizarre texture, but Stern couldn’t get a good enough view to examine them further.

“Hey,” Stern automatically spoke aloud, as he had when his dog ran up to him, or when he saw a wandering cat in the street. It instantly occurred to him that he probably should have led with something more poetic or profound for first contact with an alien race, but he’d be dead within the hour, so did it really matter? Plus, ‘hey’ was surely universal.

“I come in peace,” he said with a joking smile as he uttered his first proper sentence to the alien life. That one felt more fitting for the momentous occasion; he was sure his superiors would have been pleased with the choice. He even did the little greeting wave as he said it, which got the Terraroid’s attention.

The critter turned towards Stern, its head tilting to the side as if it recognised the presence of something else on its rock for the first time. It began to crawl towards him at a pace greater than the astronaut thought it would be capable of. He lowered his hand onto the rock, angling it so the creature could crawl onto it, then lifted it for closer examination.

It probably wasn’t correct protocol for first contact, but Stern didn’t know what was. It wasn’t something they were taught, nor something he had ever expected to come across. As far as he was concerned, he was writing the rule book as it happened. “They should study my ways,” he muttered to himself, as he aimed the miniature extra-terrestrial closer to his helmet.

Upon closer inspection, his first instinct had been accurate. Barring the colour and the lack of a few facial features, it looked exactly like a baby terrapin. If he had seen the creature in a tank at a friend’s house, he wouldn’t have questioned anything beyond its colour. That got him thinking… were terrapins aliens? Had they arrived on Earth at some point and evolved from the thing standing in the palm of his gloved hand? What a crazy thought.

Before he could consider the possibility any further, the Terraroid moved towards his index finger and bit down hard. Its large, sharp teeth, now on full display, didn’t look remotely proportional to its body. Why on Earth did it need teeth like that?

Stern was briefly amused by the critter’s overly aggressive actions before the bite morphed into a focused gnaw, and the very real possibility of the Terraroid piercing the glove entered his mind.

The Terraroid had clamped down hard and had no intention of letting go as its teeth continued to grind at Stern’s thick glove. He tried to gently nudge the critter aside with his free hand, but incredibly, the thing hissed at him and went right back to biting. Stern couldn’t hear the sound of the hiss, but there was no mistaking the familiar action, despite its alien origins. If the situation wasn’t so spectacularly bizarre, he’d have been getting flashbacks of his ex’s grumpy cat anytime he tried to stroke the damn thing.

Eventually, the Terraroid willingly let go, but only because its attention switched from Stern’s glove to his helmet. It leapt like no terrapin Stern knew of, and its tiny feet clung to the front of his helmet like suction pads. The critter’s teeth further elongated as it sunk them into the reinforced helmet, giving Stern a closer view of the terrifying fangs as a small crack threatened to slowly form. It was going to eventually break through.

He tried swiping the Terraroid from his helmet, but it didn’t budge. He couldn’t get a grip to lift it off either, as the creature continued its tunnel-vision task of breaching Stern’s helmet and, as a byproduct, killing him. The time for niceties was over. Gentle wasn’t going to cut it anymore, as the small crack on the first protective layer of his helmet grew.

Stern flicked the creature from his visor, sending it spinning back to the asteroid’s rocky surface. He could now add, ‘first to flick an alien,’ to his growing list of accolades. However, there was no time to muse over the absurdity of the flick, as the stubborn creature pounced back onto his helmet and continued its relentless assault.

Stern’s next flick wasn’t aimed at the deck beneath him, as he ruthlessly sent the Terraroid corkscrewing into space, giving it a triumphant look as it floated away from him. Remarkably, the creature’s little legs began to swing in a swimming-like motion as it propelled itself back towards the asteroid. It wasn’t the only one on the rock to now forgo the niceties, as its eyes looked ablaze and its teeth once again grew. It was coming to finish the job.

SPLAT!

There was no sugarcoating what Stern did. He wasn’t going to allow the creature to pierce his helmet. There was no escaping that his time was almost up, and he was going to die no matter what, but not at the hands of some fucking asteroid terrapin with a bad attitude and ridiculously oversized teeth. He squished the critter between his gloves, exterminating it like some overzealous fly that wouldn’t stop invading his personal space while he was trying to eat.

“That’s right, first to kill an alien too!” he victoriously shouted to absolutely no one, or maybe to the whole universe.

In truth, it had been a silly move. He was lucky the large fangs didn’t pierce his glove with the force he slammed his hands together. But there was also another reason it hadn’t been advisable…

The rocky ground beneath Stern shook. It felt like a vibration at first, before it visually started to look more like an implosion. Large mounds of rock and stones sank in on themselves and then were replaced by something altogether different… hundreds, if not thousands, of Terraroids.

All reached the rocky surface with a single goal in mind as they swarmed Stern, their teeth biting every part of his suit while his body trembled beneath the protective layer. He couldn’t help but wonder, in his final moments, if he’d accidentally just started some kind of intergalactic war.