Extraterrestrial DP1

by V Bertolaccini

  “That is an easy one!” Dan silently replied first. “It is to check it because it is out here in this void. It had to be the scientists that wanted it.”

  “Where were you when they did it?” he asked.

  He just shrugged back, and smiled.

  The computer gave an acknowledgment that it had no reply to his questions, and he realized how strange that was as it normally gave some other reply if it did not know, and someone had altered its programming to avoid giving a reply.

  They went silent again. He could not recall something and something that had happened, and was sure he was missing something! Something had to have been mentioned somewhere.

  He was sure by the earlier reactions from Colman that he had mentioned something, and he continued to search through everything that had happened for clues, and he was sure they never kept such secrets as secret as they claimed.

  He then saw an immense ghostly shape in front of them, away over at the world’s horizon, out across a long flat plane, and he saw Dan’s eyes widen, as if he had been waiting on something to occur and it was occurring.

  Chapter 2

  Shuttle Crash

  A tranquil abyss flowed surreally by as an astronaut shot out of the universe, with no awareness, tumbling through infinity, far from the furthest stars, and he came to, in a state of disarray, studying light formations.

  How had he managed to end up in such a far-out place? Where the hell was he? How could he have survived in such a place?

  He felt as though he had fallen through something and he tried to grasp the concept, and where he had been, and he saw the lights surrounding him.

  For a few seconds Ripley was in complete darkness, wondering what had happened, and who the astronaut that shot out of the stars was, and why he had imagined him and his thoughts, as though he had really been there, and felt only metal about him and realized that they had actually crashed, and realized the speed and height they were at and that it should have smashed every bone in his body and killed him and the others, and wondered what had protected them.

  An explosion had sent the shuttle crashing down and almost somersaulting over the surface of the world and he was sure it had to be the deep dust and lower gravity on the surface that had cushioned the blow, and as the lights came back on he wondered how it had occurred, and he watched the others recovering from the hard impact.

  For a moment he was sure it was deliberate, especially from the reactions of the others when they started checking the occurrence, and he wondered who could have done it, and would have wanted to do it.

  Was someone trying to kill them and had gone crazy beyond anyone he had met.

  Then he wondered if it was the military presence on the starship and examined Rickman and Carter to see how they reacted, and if they knew anything, and saw nothing but confusion, and just accepted that they had not known.

  He remained confused at who could do it! He had not even known that there was a way of doing it to such a machine with such a computer, without it stopping it!

  When they got outside on the DP1 surface through the airlock he stood staggered, realizing he was actually standing on another world staring up at a lifeless sky, going across his front to a flat horizon, and he realized he might get the chance to explore worlds with atmospheres, without the spacesuit, and he spotted a star he had been staring at and realized it could very well be the sun and that the Earth could be hidden in its light in its orbit, and he saw how dim the DP1 sun was and like compared to other suns in the galaxy, and how strange it was, as though it had been damaged by something, and he could not believe where he was, and near the Alpha Centauri suns.

  It was incredible and he realized that the others wished to check things about them, and the strange surrounding dimness, and even the military agreed, even though it was a rule now to remain inside or near the vehicle, but they wished to check what had happened, and if something had done something, and if the vehicle had hidden damage that they had not detected.

  It was so peculiar and empty that he was sure that something was there, and perhaps great danger, and he imagined himself out at the outer limits of the universe, at a most distant point.

  He removed a small pair of binoculars and studied the dim DP1 star and for a second thought he saw something and was amazed that anything could actually be there, but realized it was not, and he considered how much danger they were in and if he should stay on the Earth when they returned there and leave it for a while until he grasped what was happening, and how dangerous it was, and if he would survive.

  They started to check their surroundings as the others checked the shuttle with lights, and by feeling around regions for damage, and testing and checking things for hidden damage, and searched where they came down and about the area for signs of anything that could have caused it and the vehicle to react as it had.

  At first Ripley thought the impact, with the bang, had damaged something, and considered if the shuttle had a hidden defense against crashing down that they had not bothered telling them, and it had fired an explosion in the opposite direction, downwards, to slow the shuttle speed before it impacted, and he realized it was the low gravity and thick layer of dust and the vehicle moving fast forward, but after a short while of checking he realized that they had been lucky and that the shuttle had main defenses that slowed it and stopped and cushioned the blow of the impact.

  He felt around where he remembered there was a large outer sidelight, for examining the vehicle in darkness, realizing they had either forgotten or not known about the light, and quickly switched it on, and was surprised at how explosively bright it and the surrounding landscape became, and he stood staggered with the others, all staring around them.

  In his imagination the dark surrounding world was close to looking like the moon landscape but in the bright light it looked far different and staggering, and he wondered why. There was something about the place that was different and made it far different than other worlds.

  Chapter 3

  Extraterrestrial

  The DP1 extraterrestrial remained out of its dormant state, carrying out endless alterations as to its composition, remaining invisible in the normal universe, as it raced towards the new shuttle, desperate to get the life forms, without being detected, and the immense energy supply powering the shuttle.

  The small cold sun of its dark desolate world was on the horizon and it drew little energy from it, and its shape glowed as powerful explosions of energy blasted through it, as it created more energy.

  For the first time it had met other existences and with powers it needed, as for thousands of years, over and over, it had kept itself in existence with vast amounts of methods, though slowly aging and decomposing, with its dormant states extending, and it now even felt pain and the approach of death, and its formation constantly altered as it controlled its individual parts to a degree of individual cells, creating its own energy, stopping itself being destroyed by the colossal environment.

  It was sure its destruction could somehow be avoided and its fight for survival would be over, but it needed a vast source of energy and it grasped the opportunity to avoid death and with all it could muster it formed itself into a new formation and shifted over to the shuttle, at a distance it would not be detected.

  It had used massive amounts of energy taking control of the shuttle and crew so the shuttle came down onto the world, and the shuttle had nearly been destroyed, and it remained where it was, studying everything it could detect from the shuttle, and the strange life forms, and it thought it recognized something similar had existed many thousands of years ago, but it could no longer recall what it was, and stared out into the darkness of its world.

  At times for some reason the cold world was unrecognizable to it and it tried to recall why and what it had forgotten, and it wondered if the world altered from something, and why it had a hard time surviving on it, and it was staggered by its dangers and its formation’s fight to repair damage it had not been fu
lly able to repair with its low energy and it considered how the occurrence could possibly have occurred, and it being trapped on the world.

  It eventually used its available energy to alter and gained some normal powers, and it managed to adapt to the surrounding environment once again, and it shifted into the black world and rock formations like a hideous dark ghost creature lurking in the shadows, transforming its shape and appearances, and temporary stopped astounded by the life forms appearance outside the crashed shuttle, and sensed something familiar about them.

  It was staggered and contemplated the dangers and that it was trapped on a desolate world, with no other life form, without any way to leave, and the great dangers to the remains of its eternal life and it contemplated it was its last chance.

  It closed in on the shuttle sensing they could not detect it and watched, hidden behind large piles of rocks, trying to grasp what was there, and watched the life forms outside the shuttle, and their examinations of the of the damage, and gasped at the power from their lights, and sensed power behind them, and it could not recall seeing so much light being created.

  It realized that it might somehow be able to make contact with them by turning itself into a similar life form, and it managed to pick up communications from the life forms communicating by a strange method, and realized they gave strange communication vibrations that they transmitted.

  Again it realized it had not fully grasped what existed in the outer universe, and that it was trapped on the world, and realized it might have to fight to survive further than it had ever done before and it wondered if it could.

  The distant sun’s shape glowed through the rocks, and it took comfort in its past experiences and existence and its ability to survive, and it stopped to examine everything, and it tried to imagine the place where they came from.

  It could not imagine what it was as it never had any information of it and it struggled to explain how they functioned and their strangeness grasped its imagination, and it started altering its formation to one of them, and it reformed its colossal energy formation, and did everything it could to form itself and replicate its brain and consciousness, and gradually started to succeed.

  Chapter 4

  DP1 Antarctica

  While the shuttle approached the DP1 Antarctica Ripley saw the S1 Starship main shuttle coming down and landing in the distance and he had a strange sensation of something was about to happen, and he never knew why, and kept watching ice emerge ahead over the exact south polar region of the world.

  The extraterrestrial sky outside the planetary shuttle was still so peculiar and intimidating he put it as a main factor of what was wrong, and he checked the shuttle controls once again for any signs of damage and still saw nothing, or signs there could be a future problem, but the shuttle had come down, and though they found nothing, there had to be something behind it.

  After seeing a worried look on Dan’s face he wondered if it was his own reactions affecting him, and he firmly switched off the small interior light and put them in darkness and put on the more powerful headlights under the shuttle lighting the region below them, and he started lowering the shuttle to travel along near the ground, making scientists in the room behind him look out at the world, and he watched them staring out at the surrounding ice and rock, and he wondered how ancient it was.

  He checked the geochemical map they had got of the world and the chemical elements and wondered why they were different, and as though the world at one point had been covered with elements from some other celestial body.

  The world was so strange to they usually never gave answers to what was there and left things until more was known, and as it was also one of the first worlds they had been at.

  The world about them altered and he saw the massive Starship S1 shuttle, where the exact southern pole was, and saw the other shuttles heading towards it, all at accurately spaced positions, still giving out their scans and mapping information, and he realized by communications and conversations that they had not damaged the map by crashing, and had accelerated faster until they had reached their normal position in the group, even though the job would have been done perfectly if they had been the last to arrive.

  It was mainly a region of ancient ice, dirt and rocks, without any atmosphere.

  The planetary cartographer shuttles automatically carried out their programming and functions floating over the surface of the DP1 world at hundreds of miles an hour, mapping and analyzing everything they could detect, while searching for anything of interest, and any abnormalities, and slowly slowed, and stopped in a perfect circle around the S1 Starship shuttle and waited to be brought in individually through its gateway.

  Ripley watched Dan, sitting beside him, in the two front pilot seats, with the other eight members of the crew in the shuttle behind him completing their work, examining their equipment and all the readings, and checking the mapping, and he examined Dan for anything unusual, but he saw nothing, except that he was more secretive again, and that he was hiding something, and he realized he thought there was something wrong.

  Suddenly he realized they should have started taking them aboard by now, and gasped, and had a strange sensation he was missing something, and suddenly realized he had turned off the shuttle mission information computer screen, which gave them facts about anything occurring and he turned it on and searched through it and sat back staggered, as there was a large warning message, which appeared earlier, telling them an extraterrestrial had been detected, and he searched through the message trying to discover what it was and where it was but found little. Except a danger warning not to approach the S1 Starship shuttle, and realized it had to be there and that it mentioned its defenses against being attacked had been activated.

  It was incredible that they had not directly warned the shuttle pilots or scientists and had only given a computer warning message, and he never fully grasped how serious it was, and he wondered if they would return alive to the Earth.

  They were the first explorers of deep space and had no idea what they were up against.

  He started to see the mistake they were making exploring the universe, and what could exist there.

  Yet he knew that they were keen to stop anything getting aboard the starship and that it could be a procedure to test their defenses, and they had a point, as he definitely never wanted anything alien aboard.

  If anything seriously dangerous got on the Earth they would have serious problems. Alien parasites might populate entire worlds and destroy races!

  He recalled the Russian scientist had been the only person to claim he had encountered something. Though nothing had been proven, and they had not found any evidence when they had searched where he had been, or on their maps of the world, and nothing showed how it could survive on such a world.

  Chapter 5

  DP1 Signal

  The greatest mystery to Ripley was why they were carrying out the explorations of the DP1 world, and why they had immediately returned to the Earth before arriving at it, where they really only picked up new crew members, including the scientist Colman and soldier Rickman, and he knew that he had to discover it.

  So after hours of waiting for something to occur, and while going to his sleeping cubicle, he saw Colman and Rickman secretly talking over their mission, and what was happening, he quickly moved over and began talking to them and asked them about the extraterrestrial.

  “Do think there is anything deadly here?” he asked Colman, trying to get his view.

  He laughed silently, and replied, “Nothing indicates anything!”

  “Just why are we exploring this place? There is nothing here! How much will it cost them?”

  Colman looked over at him curiously, still slightly amused, and replied, “You mean you have not even been told why we are down here? We’ve been trained for years for this mission and to investigate the DP1 world!”

  Ripley knew the Russian scientist had been with them and he thought about what he claimed he had seen.<
br />
  How the hell did it get out here in this hellhole? He wondered if it could capture one of the vehicles or sneak aboard the ship, which was thought to be impossible by some of them.

  “They never bothered informing us.” Ripley moaned. “Perhaps as they never thought we would find anything.”

  “It is thought that the entire starship was built to investigate this world!” Colman replied. “As well others like it! They discovered the DP1 radio signal about a century ago and it was their first proven extraterrestrial origins radio signal.”

  “They discovered it as early as the twentieth century!”

  “They hid it over decades – especially as it was found to be one of a kind and its origins were not vast solar systems away.”

  It was colossal and Ripley knew it was the big one and they had been hiding its existence for a reason, and was staggered that they had not even warned them, even when landing on the world.

  “After World War Two it was proven be far closer than previously thought and its presence was hidden and examined far further than ever before, checking for a false or parasite source, from a terrestrial source, from a manmade or natural source, and was the only signal to be classed as a positive extraterrestrial source of unknown origins.”

  “Now we may encounter it?”

  “It remained hidden away into the twenty-first century, with scientists re-examining it continuously, for any signs of change, and on the introduction of new technology.”

  “What did they find?”

  “The signal was analyzed under the assumption it was of an unknown phenomenon or extraterrestrial phenomenon, but its highly advanced perfectly symmetrical pulsations left them staggered even further the more they established its properties and significance, with its pulsations beating out through the colossal depths of space.”