Don’t leave the solar system.
What a dumb message to leave. Imagine having the ability to travel in excess of the speed of light only to tell people to stay where you are. It’s actually quite arrogant.
“Hey look at us, we’ve figured it all out. You dumb idiots should stay here while we hit up the nearest interstellar pizza joint.”
Finally the tech next to me (Connors, is it?) shows some emotion and lets out a chuckle. We’ve been on site gathering readings from the landing zone for the past three hours and the other poor guy assigned to this shit job hadn’t said a word. The show of emotion only slightly quiets my suspicions that he’s a spook sent here to kill me when my work is done. Being told you’re investigating an extra-terrestrial object isn’t something that typically ends up on your resume. I’m thinking there isn’t a need for a resume after this job. I stop pointing my spectrograph at the object for a moment and turn to the guy.
“So what’s your deal?”
He’s sitting cross-legged in the dirt supposedly organizing the data I’m collecting. He wouldn’t even help me with the torch to heat the damn thing so we could get the readings. Somehow I drew the short straw doing all the manual work while he sits with his computer pecking away at the keys. It’s really starting to get on my nerves that he won’t at least talk to me.
I kick a rock towards him as my frustration grows.
“Computer-dude! What. Is. Your. Deal.”
‘Connors’ finally looks up at me.
“I’m here following orders. Collect the data and send it back to the FOB. I don’t know any more than you do. The quicker we’re done here, the quicker we can go back and eat. ‘Sides, this thing gives me the creeps.” He looks up at the floating object and I realize he’s telling the truth. He’s just another grunt like me doing what he’s told.
“Yeah, yeah – I just don’t get why the eggheads aren’t out here. If this thing isn’t spewing radiation like Gomez and Miller reported yesterday, why are they still sending guys like us to do their work. Know what I mean?”
He shrugs and goes back to the laptop. I think I’ve exhausted his vocabulary at this point.
The glowing section of the object I heated with the torch starts to dim. I switch over the mini display and register the heat. It still shows the surface temperature at a normal range, and for some reason the lizard part of my brain takes control of my arm. I reach my hand towards the metal to feel if the reading is accurate.
“Whoa! Whoa! Wait!”
My flesh connects with the metal and it’s not just not-hot, it’s cool to the touch. In the blinding desert heat it’s almost refreshing. Suddenly, I feel the urge to get closer to it. Maybe resting my face against it wouldn’t be the worst way to cool off…
As ‘Connors’ reaches towards me, my mind is engulfed by images and sounds from distant memories. It doesn’t take me long to realize they aren’t my memories at all. The images intensify to the point that my brain feels like it’s being cooked. A war, somewhere, between aliens that I’ve only ever seen in science-fiction movies flash through my mind with such ferocity I can’t comprehend what I’m seeing. Glimpses of death and torture; an invasion of some kind. Planets on fire with ships of all imaginable sizes fleeing as quickly as they can, only to be shot down in the atmosphere by even bigger, more menacing black ships in the sky, blotting out both suns. Somehow one ship escapes as the beings on board shout between their stations, desperately trying to make it through the blockade. The captain nervously looks at their crew members praying to their god for any ounce of luck. As the ship speeds through the debris and destruction of their fellow species, an opening in the sky appears and the captain screams for his pilot to make it. Their vision blurs as the world around them disappears. The jump is made.
I awake gasping for air. My head is splitting open, but I feel the cool metal edge of a table under my fingers while pushing myself up. Hands hurriedly push me back down and I rest my head on the pillow.
“What the hell was that?” I manage to get out through my dried throat. Was I intubated? How long was I out? I look for the medic assuming I’m back at the FOB with the others. I pray to God they don’t ask me to go back out to the object again. Haven’t I done enough?
It’s only then that my vision clears and the familiar military tents are not what I see around me. The cool metal walls are impeccable and show almost zero curves or edges. I follow them up to the ceiling and the walls continue to curve in a circle around me.
“Oh shit,” I start to panic. I’m not back at the FOB. I’m…in the object? I have no idea. I look to the left and see a robot standing over me. Those hands I felt earlier, they weren’t human hands. “What the fuck are you?!”
A small orb floats from around the robot and hovers in front of me. The blue light that circles its “face” calmly blinks like a heartbeat. The voice that comes from it tries to be reassuring but I’m fairly certain I’m losing my mind at this point.
“We’ve been expecting you.”
Slack-jawed, I stare at this tiny float-y alien robot talking to me in perfect, accent-free English.
“Excuse me – what in the absolute -”
“Please,” it continues over me, “all will be explained shortly. For now, you need rest. We have a long journey ahead of us.”
Before I can see anything, the humanoid robot next to me clicks a button and a rush of drugs hits my veins. I can’t keep my eyelids open any longer, but I hear the tiny alien say one last thing.
“The Captain will be so pleased we’ve found the Redeemer.”
Writing by Adam 