by Carl Derham
*
The two astronauts had spent the last couple of hours gathering samples and it was now time to leave the asteroid and return to the shuttle. Captain O’Connell had placed one foot on the bottom rung of the ladder and with his left hand had reached up to grab the final rung and haul himself up.
“Holy…!” exclaimed a rather open-jawed Pitcher.
Robbie had brought the little ship in to land twenty metres away from the capsule, behind Captain O’Connell. Pitcher was already in the cockpit. Flameout shot his head round to see what had startled his partner, but all he could see was the inside of his helmet. In an effort to turn his whole body on the ladder, he lost his footing and went into a rather graceful, slow motion barrelling spin towards the rock.
“Mission control…Persius. Something big and black has just landed next to us and I don’t think it’s one of ours.”
Pitcher waited thirty seconds for the response, by which time Flameout had reached the surface and was doing a passable impression of an overturned beetle.
“Mission control…Persius. Are you receiving?”
A hatch started to open on the underside of the alien craft and a ramp slowly extended to the surface. Both sets of eyes were fixed on the top of the ramp, one of them from a lying down position, waiting for an almost certain first contact with an alien race. Flameout’s mind was racing. Famous or dead. Or famous and dead. Or dead famous. They all included being famous, so that was acceptable. Would it be humanoid, or would it be some slimy, indescribable blob of silicate, that would slide down the ramp and envelope him in a final and rather messy embrace? Pitcher’s mind was occupied with the conclusion that peeing in a space suit makes for an uncomfortable experience. Whilst all these thoughts were flying through their brains, at the top of the ramp a pair of red high-heeled shoes on the end of two extremely shapely legs appeared.
“Ugnh?” they grunted in unison.
Then the mini skirt appeared, above which flirted a bare midriff.
“What the…?”
As the pink crop top and red hair emerged, Flameout rolled over to look up at Pitcher, held out both his hands in the gesture version of Ugnh then rolled back over to see the young woman nonchalantly walking towards him.
“Sorry about the surprise entrance gentlemen,” Roberta said in her finest Irish lilt, “but I’m going to have to take that sphere that you found. Can I give you a hand up?” The drone held out a hand towards Flameout, who accepted graciously and was lifted to his feet.
“Now believe me, I know you have a million questions, but I cannot answer any of them, so don’t bother asking, okay?”
With that, the drone walked over to the hatch on the side of the capsule.
“In here is it?” she said, pointing at the compartment and tilting her head to peer around the capsule. She looked between the two rather confused pilots. No response was forthcoming, so she opened the door and saw the Generator tucked into the corner. She released the retaining straps and lifted it out, fixing it under her arm like a rugby ball.
“Say ‘hi’ to the president from me guys. Keep up the good work.” And with a cheery wave and that plutonium-melting Roberta smile, the drone headed back to the ship. The two men watched in incredulity, as she glided up the ramp and stopped at the top to send them a somewhat patronising thumbs up, then the ramp folded away and the door closed. They watched in disbelief as the ship silently lifted off, lacking any engine noise or plumes of dust, and in the blink of an eye, it disappeared.
Pardy had already fallen off her perch and was rolling around the floor, emitting uncontrollable squawks of laughter, and Oli was holding his sides as though his most vital organs were about to spill out all over the floor.
“Did...did…did you see their faces Robbie? That was priceless.”
Whilst Robbie could fully understand the amusement contained in the situation, and totally understood the Human need to laugh at one another’s misfortune, he couldn’t quite communicate that understanding in the same way as Oli and Pardy.
“Yes Oli. Extremely amusing.”
