Extraterrestrial DP1

by V Bertolaccini

  “So it could be anything?”

  “The most common assumption is that it is a greeting signal/message to other races – and perhaps directly to the Earth – perhaps put there for humans someday to discover and trace the origins of, to this world where it came from, which was properly discovered in the decades before the creation of Starship S1.”

  “So have they traced where the signal is coming from?”

  “Just before we arrived the signal vanished! We searched this dark empty world with our most advanced technology and we searched for anything we could but we have not found anything, and it looks as if whatever is here is hiding from us, and we have not found anyway to locate it.”

  “Even after the Russian discovering something?”

  “Correct! There was nothing detected there, and his description of the extraterrestrial was virtually incomprehensible! He clearly had not properly seen it in the dark. Now they believe there is something in one of the shuttles, and it was detected when all the shuttles arrived here, but they were not able to detect where it was, and it now seems to have hidden itself from being detected!”

  Chapter 6

  Parasite

  It remained carrying out endless alterations to its composition, remaining invisible in a state it formed into, to hide itself away in an enclosure in the back of the shuttle, when it had seen the humans, and Ripley and the others, while they had been completing their repairs to the crashed shuttle, realizing they would not accept it as a human, and had remained there as the shuttle had flown up to the Antarctica, staggered at the speed, and realized it could not penetrate the solid almost impenetrable shuttle shell.

  Desperate to survive and check out the life forms and their immense energy source, without being detected.

  The cold sun of its dark desolate world was on the horizon and it still drew little energy from it, and its shape occasionally glowed as explosions of energy blasted out from its new formation, as its fight for survival continued, and it occasionally examined the shuttle’s power source, without being able to fully examine it through the shuttle shell, unable to grasp if it could even handle such force and discover a way to extract and absorb lower levels.

  For the first time it had met others and with powers it needed, which it desired for thousands of years, and it had kept itself in existence with vast amounts of methods, though slowly ageing and decomposing, with its dormant states extending, and it now for the first time it could recall had found a way of avoiding the approach of death, and its formation constantly altered as it controlled its individual parts to the degree of individual cells, creating energy, constantly stopping itself being destroyed.

  If it could not get a source of energy it desired it was sure it could alternatively get off the world and go to the world where they came from.

  When the Starship S1 main shuttle appeared ahead and other shuttles appeared around it in a circle it had been staggered by the amount of shuttles and the size of the Starship S1 shuttle, and that they had been surely searching the world, and wondered what they wanted there and if they were dangerous to its existence.

  It was then it had detected something scanning the shuttles in Starship S1 shuttle and had tried to analyze it but it had quickly changed its formation and had avoided being discovered and had escaped from the shuttle to another, but they had so much power it knew it was in great danger and its fight for survival had begun, but it needed an energy source and it grasped the opportunity to avoid destruction with everything it could muster and it formed itself into a new formation capable of not being discovered at the new shuttle.

  It sensed thoughts from the life forms and for some reason the cold world was unrecognizable to them and it wondered why and where they had come from with amazement and it tried to recall something it had forgotten a long time ago about the world, and it wondered if its world had altered from something, and why it had been there and had a hard time surviving on it, and it was staggered by its dangers and its formation’s fight to alter and be restored, and it wondered how it had been trapped on the world.

  From what it seen and sensed from the humans it started to realize it could not get aboard but it watched a human leave another shuttle near it and it became desperate and had swiftly left towards it and entered its spacesuit and mind and altered itself into surviving in a place in the human’s mind, allowing the human formation to have its own conscious and not know of its existence.

  It lowered its consumption of energy and altered to a near dormant state, and managed to adapt to its new surrounding environment, and sensed and felt the human’s strange thoughts of the black world and rock formations with fascination, and its emotions to it and what it thought it was, and it was staggered and contemplated the dangers of them and that it was trapped on such a desolate hideous world.

  It realized it had not made a mistake and it learned more and more of the beings as the human entered its shuttle and communicated with the others, and it realized the mistake it had made of being on the world, and gasped at the power they had, and sensed far more power existed, and it actually recalled something similar somewhere once existed.

  It began to realize it had not fully grasped the immensity of things and the outer universe, and what existed there.

  Its distant sun glowed more powerfully on a screen and it took comfort in its past experiences and existence and its ability to survive, and it examined everything in the shuttle with fascination, and tried to imagine where they came from.

  Their strangeness grasped its imagination, and it examined the other life forms aboard, which the being communicated with, and it gradually started to succeed in understanding what they did and wondered if it would survive.

  Chapter 7

  Extraterrestrial Confrontation

  For a moment Ripley thought something like an explosion had occurred and he searched around him, in the darkness in the shuttle, and about his shuttle pilot seat, and wondered what had happened, and why even the front lights were off.

  Eventually he reached up to where a small light with a switch on it was and switched it on, and a small glow confirmed Dan was in his seat asleep.

  For a moment the sky over the space vehicle was so peculiar and empty of stars that he was sure that it was not in the universe, or at the outer limits of it, at the most distant point.

  He switched another light, avoiding the larger bright light, to see only the interior about him, and he and Dan stared out at the surrounding darkness, and into visible landscape.

  He realized how dead the world really was, and like a world without any sun and with a million of light years of empty space between them and the nearest habitable worlds.

  White patches of ice gave faint glows and he spotted the S1 Starship shuttle and wondered why they had switched off their outer lights and he tried to recall what had happened before he had gone to sleep, and recalled nothing, and he now saw the world about them as a flat stretch of barren ground full of nothing but ice, space dust and rocks, vaguely resembling some large asteroid.

  “What happened?” Dan moaned, waking and trying to see, and woke himself further, as though he had woken from a hangover trying to recall the night before, in wonderment – and he shifted close up to the front window to look out further.

  It was strange to see all the scientists asleep, and not in sleeping compartments, with their lights out.

  Suddenly Ripley recalled something and falling asleep and was sure the lights had gone out and he realized for some reason they had all gone to sleep, and knew they would have put the lights back on, and realized something had put them all to sleep, and sat staggered by it.

  Was it the DP1 extraterrestrial, and where the hell was it?

  Ripley could barely think straight. The alien could be anywhere and have done something while they had all been asleep, and he quickly tried to examine the main computer, and if it had been affected by anything and if it had been altered in any way, and checked through the last recordings it had for a
nything, but only realized it had just been deactivated, and without closing down applications or going into sleep mode, and its energy supply had been turned off.

  “What’s happening?” Dan moaned, seeing his worried face.

  “Something turned everything off and put us to sleep!”

  “With some sort of gas?”

  Ripley realized it was the only method that could have been used, unless some other unknown method existed, and he checked the records of the air supply in the shuttle but found nothing, and checked the current air for signs of anything and found nothing, and sat back into his seat confused.

  “Perhaps there is some form of energy that can do it?” Dan replied, and started searching for its existence on his computer.

  He eventually gave up and sat back in his seat, and they watched the scientists awaken and start activating their equipment, and talking and trying to discover what had happened.

  “It could be confidential?” Dan announced silently, and started checked the computer records and communications of other shuttles. “It looks as though all the shuttles have done it! All their lights were off and their communications have just returned! They could have it there to use on us in some circumstances! The only explanation has to be its something to do with the DP1 extraterrestrial!”

  Ripley suddenly spotted Colman at the side of his eyes and him desperately contacting someone and using text messages to communicate, avoiding talking and being overheard, and he was sure it was of a confidential nature, and he wondered why he was so worried.

  “I’ve checked the S1 Starship shuttle about it,” Dan announced, completing what he was doing. “They do not know what happened! They never went to sleep and their outer lights only went out when it occurred, and they believe the DP1 extraterrestrial attempted to get aboard it and their vast computer defense system prevented it occurring!”

  Ripley felt glad it could not get on it, and wondered what the hell it was, and what it was up to, and how deadly it was. Whatever it was?

  It had not killed anyone and he was sure it was trying to escape from the desolate deadly DP1 world, and he wondered if they would find it.

  Suddenly confidential messages started appearing from the Starship S1 main shuttle warning them that they were enforcing a higher state of security and that any vehicle or person attempting to proceed further forward or damage their defense system would be immediately destroyed, and they all went silent, and all the other shuttle communications stopped as they all realized how dangerous the situation was becoming.

  Chapter 8

  Extraterrestrial Discovery

  The extraterrestrial sky outside their planetary shuttle was now so peculiar and intimidating Ripley sat dazzled and eventually kept checking the shuttle for any signs of damage and still saw nothing, or then signs there could be other future problems, and he wondered what would happen when their oxygen supplies ran out and how they would handle the situation if the DP1 extraterrestrial remained hidden away.

  After seeing the worried looks of the others he started to realize he could have finally blown it by being on the mission, and he firmly lowered the interior light level and put on the more powerful lights outside to see the region all about them, making the scientists in the room behind him all look out at the world, and he watched them staring out at the surrounding ice and rock, and he wondered how ancient the ice was as there was nothing really to thaw it.

  Suddenly the powerful outer lights dimmed and turned off and it returned to how it was and he realized the S1 Starship shuttle was now controlling the vehicles.

  He checked the geochemical map they had got of the world and the chemical elements and wondered again why they were so different and he started searching for it in a greater degree than ever before for signs of extraterrestrial life, structures, or anywhere the DP1 signal could have been created.

  If something was there it had to have somewhere or some form of environment where it originated, and it was as though the world at one point had been covered over with elements from some other celestial body.

  Other worlds were so strange to them they gave few answers to what was there and left things until more was known, and it was the first world of its kind they had been on.

  The geophysical map showed little and a variety of geophysical information and the world looked basically like an asteroid or moon in its interior and he tried to recall what they used to check it, and he recalled the scientists and shuttles had carried out many advanced methods, and gravimetric, seismic, magnetic methods, and carried out many searches, and the world was basically dead, and showed it had little and it confused them all in different ways.

  Where the hell was the signal from? Had they located the wrong world?

  Suddenly he realized that they might not want them to find it and that someone was covering up the real world!

  Perhaps the extraterrestrial was also concocted to cover it up and have them thinking they once were there!

  Something he barely remembered about the mission grasped his imagination! Why? He knew he had to grasp it.

  Why had they been so secretive about the DP1 world in the first place? Surely people should have known of it! Was the real world and species on it so deadly that they had another plan and never wanted anyone to know of it?

  They could be checking it from the starship, and never wanted anyone going near it, and if so they would be desperate to discover what was there, and they could easily have originally found more information than they had given of the real DP1 world and have deciphered the radio signal message.

  He realized he had to find out more of what was going on, and what this alien on the world was.

  Suddenly Ripley saw the vehicle moving forward and gasped, and wondered if it was the alien and if they would destroy the vehicle, and waited for something dreadful to occur.

  Yet he spotted one of the screens, where Dan was staring, and he saw all the vehicles moving towards the S1 Starship shuttle at the exact same speed and he wondered what was going on.

  He checked Rickman and Carter as they were the only ones doing anything, and were members of the military, and he saw something else was occurring, and suddenly an explosion of incredible magnitude blasted through the ground and the vehicle, and he searched for damage to the vehicle and out the front window to see if it hit the front, and looked over at all the other shuttles, and saw one further out and nearer to the S1 Starship shuttle than the others, and he saw it had been traveling faster.

  The area across its front had been hit by a colossal explosion from the S1 Starship, and it had immediately stopped, and he saw someone in a spacesuit escaping, and rushing out the vehicle, and saw a weapon on the S1 Starship shuttle being aimed at him, but the man in the spacesuit fell over the ground, and shuddered as though something was occurring, and his body was being influenced by something, and Ripley saw something shifting away from him, like a form of energy escaping from him, and it vanished into the darkness of the world.

  Chapter 9

  Aboard the Starship

  Ripley gasped as the DP1 world shot away into blackness on a small viewing screen in his Starship S1 quarters.

  He could hardly believe they had left, and it never felt like it as the engines and other sounds, including vibrations and shudders, had been reduced to virtually nothing, and he realized he had finally left the blasted world and was on his way back to the Earth, leaving the extraterrestrial, whatever it was, behind, and he was sure there was a better and proper star system they wished to explore on their next future voyage.

  What had been disappointing was the shuttle pilot, J Larsen, that the extraterrestrial had entered the body of never knew much of what had happened, and had only found himself doing strange things, which he even considered to be the effects of the lower gravity and strange environment of the DP1 world.

  In fact, he could hardly recall any of what had happened in any detail, and looked as though he could hardly remember who he was, and other basic things.
As though someone had wiped particular stuff out of his mind, for an unknown purpose.

  It made Ripley shiver thinking of what was out there and what the consequences of it would be.

  What Ripley had found out about what had happened had been that the Starship S1 shuttle crew had made the shuttles automatically move closer to it to properly analyze the shuttles with scans to discover what was aboard them, and while doing it they believe the extraterrestrial hidden in J Larsen had felt itself being scanned and detected, when they started to receive signs of its existence, and it attempted to get to the Starship S1 main shuttle before they got anything, and had taken control of the shuttle and J Larsen’s body, and perhaps thought it could enter the giant shuttle and hide somewhere, but had soon seen its mistake and had escaped.

  The strangest thing was nobody knew what the hell was there!

  Most doubted it even existed, and it was so much like a ghost sighting that some thought it was! What else could exist on such an empty black desolate world?

  An ancient ghost of something that once died there long ago!

  From what was actually discovered on the DP1 world the mission was a failure, and the world they had set their future extraterrestrial discovery and massive starship project on was empty, and even if the extraterrestrial was on the world it could never have sent the signal out, and their plan of one day announcing the existence of there being extraterrestrials on the world was ruined.