by Tristan Vick
Danica smiled. She raised her shiny metal fist high in the air and brought it down with a definitive blow to his head.
Zallek’s lights went out like a bulb, and he hit the dirt with a harsh thud.
Casually bending over him, Danica threaded her metallic fingers through a tuft of his white hair. A subtle smile forming at one corner of her mouth, she trudged off into the desert, schlepping Zallek’s limp body behind her like an oversized ragdoll, his feet leaving narrow traces in the sand.
3
A Pembroke Corgi paddled his stumpy white legs as he floated weightlessly across the passenger cabin of the Ares III’s civilian section. Although the little animal was treading quite vigorously, he wasn’t getting very far as he tried to make his way across to the other side, where his owner was strapping into their assigned seat.
The orange-tan corgi with white legs, who wore a doggy-diaper for zero-gravity strolls through the spacecraft, was tethered to his owner by a long, elastic leash. With a short tug on the leash, one moment the corgi was swimming in place and the next he accelerated across the expanse like a fuzzy tetherball and landed safely in the arms of his master; an older gentleman of Asian descent.
Captain Drange did a double take of the little flying furball and then glanced back over his shoulder at Karina with a look of equal parts surprise and curiosity. “Is that a dog?”
“Four legs, an elongated snout, and a cute fuzzy face,” Iwasaki said in a droll voice. “Looks like a dog to me.”
“You’ve really got to tell me how you convinced NASA to allow this.”
“Simple,” Karina said. “The world is ending. The Ares III’s mission is no longer simply to resupply Mars Colony One but to save the entire Human race.”
Drange nodded. He knew that getting off the planet couldn’t have been easy. Not with the Avatars of Hastur, or whatever they were calling themselves, monitoring all human activity. But before he could inquire as to the specifics, Thompson beat him to the punch.
“How did you even manage to get off the surface of the planet with those...things...watching every little move?” she asked. Thompson titled her head toward the display on the wall that showed the news footage of the alien beings who referred to themselves as emissaries for some god-like being named Hastur. They’d arrived on Earth roughly a year ago and had proclaimed Earth as one of the spoils of this galactic conqueror. But what he wanted with the planet was anybody’s guess, seeing as he’d never made his presence known except through his three avatars.
The reaction to the extraterrestrials ranged dramatically and you had a fair bit of crazy on both ends of the sociopolitical spectrum. Cults sprang up almost overnight and entire groups began worshipping these aliens as celestial supreme beings.
At the same time, governments wanted to learn more about where they’d come from. What their biology and physiology were. And how they manipulated natural law with such ease.
Scientists wanted to study them and often sent teams to try to collect any samples or data that they could, but the aliens proved resistant to any kind of social interaction that they themselves didn’t instigate. Through it all, the one thing that became abundantly clear was that they weren’t here to make friends with the Human race.
After the third month, the aliens held a summit at the United Nations, inviting all of the world leaders to attend—they promised to reveal what they called “The Great Plan.”
As presumed, the world took keen interest in what the aliens had to say, and every leader and diplomat, as a sign of good faith, attended the summit.
Not even ten minutes into her speech, the golden alien female, who often referred to herself in the third person as The Voice of Hastur, switched tacks and, to the dismay of millions of television viewers tuning in live, ordered all the world’s leaders, diplomats, and ambassadors in attendance to kill themselves.
Over half of the world’s leadership was wiped out in the blink of an eye. This sparked panic and numerous countries immediately declared war on the aliens.
Protestors flooded the streets carrying signs which read “Go back to where you came from,” and “Deport the illegal aliens.”
Eventually protests turned into movements; movements gave rise to underground militias; and finally, the people rose up to take their planet back.
The war did not go well. One of the aliens could control time. To what extent, though, nobody knew. The larger, winged figure seemed impervious to nearly everything thrown at him, including a desperate nuclear attack that wiped out Phoenix, Arizona. But the woman, with her doll-like appearance and porcelain skin, was the most vicious of them all. Nobody could even get close to her without succumbing to her seductive persuasion.
Half a year after their arrival, the three of them had brought the Earth to its knees. All of the world powers pleaded for mercy. They tried to broker deals with the aliens. Radical militias fought in vain, hoping maybe to get lucky and find a weakness, but none was ever found.
Ten months into the occupation, a massive starship arrived in orbit around Earth. Soldiers in golden plated armor came down upon energy beams and began erecting all manner of machines. They sucked up the water. They took up plants, seeds, and soil. They plundered as much of the fertile world as they could. Then, within two weeks everything stopped. And all three omnipotent beings, along with their crews, returned to their ship.
That’s how Karina had gotten off the world. The aliens had gotten what they’d come for and, now the planet, along with the life that once thrived there, was dying.
As a parting gift, the aliens had syphoned the energy from the Earth’s core and had frozen it solid. The core turned into a solid ball of iron, stopped spinning and soon the entire planet would slow to a stop. Subsequently, the planet’s magnetic field was already failing. At the same time, the magma that was shed by the iron core came under the capillary action of the fissures opened up by the alien’s laser drilling, thereby setting off a chain of devastating volcanic eruptions.
The crew of the ISS had monitored the situation from above, but the damage had been done. The aliens’ tampering of the planet had sent Mother Nature into frenzied chaos. Now it was only a matter of days, if not hours, before the planet simply came to a lifeless halt and burned on one side while the other succumbed to an eternal frozen wasteland.
Once everyone was safely aboard the Ares III, Karina turned, secured the hatch, and attempted to release the docking clamps that joined the ISS to the Ares III. The automated computer voice informed her that: [*Auto disengagement failure. Manual override is required.*]
Karina’s head snapped toward Drange, and she shot him a worried look. Without thinking, she catapulted herself up the corridor making her way to the main airlock. Drange was hot on her heels as she entered it.
“We’re going to need to go outside to release the clamps manually,” she said, stating the obvious.
“You mean...I’m going to need to go outside and release the clamps manually,” Captain Drange clarified.
Karina reached up and grabbed the lip of the airlock’s entrance and using her momentum swung herself inside. Inside the small room were two space suits waiting to greet the two astronauts like a couple of old friends with their mannequin-esque poses and welcoming, outstretched arms.
Drange appeared immediately behind her and clasped onto a side-bar halting his free-floating motion. He eyed her sternly and she glanced briefly at him. Then, resolute in her mission, began prepping the suit. He reached out a hand and gently tapped her arm.
“You already have your mission, Karina,” Drange said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I’ve got this.”
She stopped what she was doing and bowed her head. She didn’t look up but he could see a lonesome tear squeeze from the corner of her eye and wobble off into the center of the room.
He reached up and gently brushed her cheek with his warm hand. She reached forward and clasped his hand in hers.
“I didn’t want to have to say goodbye like this.” She slowly tur
ned toward him, her body hovering in front of his as they clasped hands.
“I know,” he said in a soothing manner that, for whatever reason, seemed to help all her other worries melt away.
She looked up at him with those blue eyes of hers that reminded him of the ocean. Her teary-eyed gaze only seemed to enhance the effect and, in that moment, as they stared into one another’s eyes, they said a silent goodbye.
They didn’t speak another word but worked in tandem getting his suit ready. She helped him into the space suit and did a double and triple check to make sure he was all set to go.
“Well, this is it,” he said, shooting her his crooked smile.
She nodded but couldn’t find it in herself to smile.
With nothing more to be said, Captain Drange had begun to turn toward the hatch when he felt her hand on his arm. She reeled him back to her and pressed her lips to his.
After a long kiss, he blinked twice and stared at her with a stunned expression. “What was that for?”
“Let’s just call it a thank you.”
“I haven’t done anything yet,” he replied.
“But you will,” she said. She finally managed to smile, one last parting gift, and then kicked off the side of the wall and floated back out of the airlock.
Karina closed the hatch behind her then peered through the view portal of the airlock door and watched him. He put on his helmet, twisted it till the magnetic lock clicked into place creating an airtight seal. Then he reached up and depressurized the room.
Turning one last time to catch a glimpse of her beautiful face, he raised his thick glove to his visor and saluted her. She saluted him back. “Requesting permission to go for a walk,” he said through the helmet comm.
She touched her earpiece and with tears in her eyes, replied, “Permission granted, Captain. And godspeed.”
CLIMBING OUT OF THE airlock and onto the hull of the ship wasn’t much of a challenge, but Captain Thomas Drange needed to get to the docking arms which were latched onto the ISS and pry them free.
As he floated down the length of the Ares III’s hull, he looked up at the huge alien vessel hovering over the planet like a domineering citadel. It resembled the One World Trade Center back in New York City—in shape, if not appearance—and was just beginning to peek over the horizon of the planet. It hung vertically rather than horizontally as you’d imagine a ship of that configuration to hold in a fixed orbit. But even from this distance, he could tell the structure was huge. A feat of engineering that humans had yet to achieve.
“I’m closing in on the docking arms now,” he said into his helmet’s comm.
“Copy that, Captain, my captain,” replied a voice.
Captain Drange paused, an expression coming over his face as though he’d just seen a ghost. Then, as his astonishment gave way to a larger, ear-to-ear grin, he asked, “Alice? Is that you?”
“In the flesh, big brother.”
“What in the world are you doing up here?”
“Figured I’d have a better chance of not ending up on some cold slab with a dozen alien probes crammed up my tuchus by putting as much distance between me and them as possible.”
“That’s my lil’ sis,” Drange said, his smile widening. “Always able to put a smile on everyone’s face with that quirky sense of humor and that winning personality of yours.”
“The truth is, I knew you’d need all the help you could get.”
“Is that so?” Drange asked. He chuckled to himself as he came into position over the malfunctioning docking clamps. Unlatching his tether, he hooked his safety line to the ISS portion of the arm, since it gave him a better foothold to address the malfunctioning areas.
“Well, big brother, it seems Karina needs to talk to you. But I’ll see you when you get back.”
“Yeah,” Drange replied, “see you soon.”
A brief pause followed and then Karina’s voice came back onto the comm. “How’s it going out there, Captain?” she asked.
“It would almost be a perfect evening sky if not for that phallic eyesore floating out there, reminding us that we all just got ass-raped by a bunch of world conquering aliens.”
“Copy that,” Karina replied, ignoring his colorful, yet undeniably apt, description of their current predicament. “So, what’s the damage?”
Drange looked down at the arm and studied it. Then he reached around to the tool kit that was secured to the side of his suit with good old fashion Velcro. With a rip, he plucked off the tool kit from his utility belt and then set it beside him on a portion of the docking clamp. It snapped into place with a magnetic clack and latched onto the metal surface of the station.
“I’m in position now,” Drange said, opening the tool box and pulling out the tools he needed.
Out of nowhere came a bright flash. He shielded his eyes then looked up. The alien vessel had jumped away. At the same time the entire planet began to swell like a beach ball being fed too much helium.
“Are you seeing this?” Drange asked.
“We’re seeing it,” Karina’s voice came back over the comm. A long pause was followed by an order. “You’d better get to work on that arm,” she said. “I don’t know how much time we have.”
“Already on it.”
Captain Drange worked furiously on freeing the clamps, but they didn’t want to budge. Another bright flash caught his attention and he looked up in time to see a quarter of the planet rupture into outer space. Large chunks of debris the size of entire continents spun out, freed from gravity.
“No, no, no,” he said to himself as he forced his eyes back down. One problem at a time, he told himself.
“Captain, we have eleven minutes and thirty-eight seconds till we come around and that debris makes mincemeat out of us. You’ve got exactly eight minutes to get those clamps free and get back here before we bug out.”
“Hey, Karina, have I ever let you down?”
“No,” she said. However, the nervousness in her voice didn’t abate. Because she knew that if he couldn’t get the job done, she’d have to abandon him there and tear half her ship apart in the process. And that wasn’t at all ideal.
“Hey, Thomas,” Alice’s voice came over the comm again.
“Yes, sis?” he replied, never pausing from his work.
“I just wanted to say...”
“I know,” he replied, cutting her off. “I love you too.”
Karina returned to the cockpit of the Ares III and took her seat and strapped in. She glanced out the port side and caught a glimpse of Drange’s suit reflecting the sun’s light. Reaching down she flicked on the comm. “Captain Drange, it’s time. Get your ass back inside. We’ll drag the ISS to Mars if we have to. But you’re out of time out there.”
“I’ve got two more minutes,” he said in a low voice. Nearly every ounce of his concentration was on getting the clamp to release, which is why he didn’t hear the other half of what Karina had said. But he knew she was just likely cursing his stubbornness and giving him a piece of her mind. It didn’t matter. He knew what he had to do.
“Karina, you listen to me and you listen to me good. I need you to take care of Alice for me. You hear me?”
Another long pause and then Karina’s voice came back to him. “I hear you. Good luck, Captain, and we’ll see you over the rainbow.”
That was their little code for meeting again someday. Even though they knew it was a complete fantasy, like Dorothy finding the wonderful land of Oz, if it ever happened it certainly would be a nice dream.
“Same to you...to you all.”
Karina flicked off the comm and then sat back in her seat. After taking a deep breath, she announced to the rest of the ship. “Everyone strap in. We’re going hot in T-3 minutes.”
Outside the ship Drange unfastened his oxygen canister. His suit immediately began to warn him about his limited oxygen when he turned off the automated system. He had enough internal air to last two minutes; after that, it wouldn’t matter.
>
Canister in hand he carefully wedged it into the portion of the clamp where the gears seemed to be frozen. Taking a large monkey wrench out of the toolbox, he raised it high and then said to himself, “Hi-tech, meet low-tech.”
With a resounding clangor, he brought the wrench down on the nozzle of the canister with all his might, but it merely made a small tink. He then clamped the wrench onto the end of the canister and using as much leverage as he could muster, began to pull on it, straining against the resistance as hard as he could.
Beads of sweat appeared like dew on the surface of his face only slightly jostling whenever he moved his head. Eventually one of the plump droplets broke free and floated weightlessly inside his helmet. He did his best to ignore it and doubled his efforts on putting his back into wrenching the cannister free.
Without warning the metal buckled, a crack opened up, and the canister shot out a spray of gas.
Luckily, it was just the right amount to loosen the clamps and both ends finally released their grip of the Ares III. But the oxygen jet had also shifted the trajectory of the Ares III slightly off course.
“This is Captain Drange to Ares III. You’re free, but mind your trajectory. Now go on and get out of here. That’s an order.”
Cheers erupted around the ship and filled his earpiece. He smiled to himself, glad that his mission was a success.
Just as the applause was dying down, the Ares III’s thrusters ignited. The ship tore away from the ISS and pieces of shrapnel glinted and gleamed in the afterglow of the thrusters.
With a solemn expression, Drange watched them pull away from him. He raised his thick gloved hand as if to bid them a final farewell as they shrank into a white dot that gradually faded into the distance, only the bright blue glow of their engines alerting him to their position.
[*Warning: Sixty seconds of oxygen remaining,*] the suit cautioned him. He lowered his hand and then turned back to look at Earth one last time. As his final seconds counted down in the HUD display of his helmet’s visor, he looked up and watched the blue and green sphere he called home swell to an impossible size. It seemed he could reach out and touch home with his own hands.
