Chapter 12 - Unwanted guests
"TODD!" Victor yelled at him as he took off his suit's helmet. "What took you so long!?"
"You know how long it takes to close these damn doors." Todd retorted. He looked about and saw the commotion, of his shipmates floating about and working in overtime.
"I see you guys noticed the alien craft."
"No, in fact we're just trying to hide for your surprise birthday party." Victor said with his usual supreme sarcasm. They floated over to the cupola module. Inside was the the 180 degree viewports, through the seven windows that usually gave you a great view. Right now, they were all closed up, following procedure for an emergency. "YES WE NOTICED." Victor continued, pulled up on a monitor, the current state of ISS. "As you can see, that little power failure earlier prevented docking overrides, and a whole manner of other things." He flipped to another screen in the command module. "Not only that, but that damn ship is sending us all of it's information, and the computer can't handle the Alien data format." He turned back to victor, and turned stern. "Unless we can stop that ship from transmitting, we're going to lose all systems within an hour."
"Alright, I get the point." Todd said, usual smug look wiped off his face. The stakes sure were higher now. "Where did they dock?"
"Here." Victor pointed at the layout, "At PMA 2."
The International space station was divided into a lot of smaller modules, some were russian built, but most were U.S. or E.U. Built. The southern side held the the docking node 'Harmony' and to either side was the 'Columbus' and 'Kibō' Laboratories. Connecting the southern half to the center was the 'Destiny' Laboratory. The center of the whole space station was aptly named 'Unity', and it connected to the airlock he had just entered from. The 'Cupola' Module was located on the 'Tranquility' module, and the northernmost side was dominated by the russian station parts.
"How is it possible that these have the exact same docking port size as us?" Todd inquired. Victor looked over at the largest computer screen and pointed at the one with a large warning triangle with the words 'Imminent system failure' in red. "Okay, I can take a hint." Todd floated down to the connector module, took a left to the docking port that the craft was docked at.
There were no windows where the manual override was located. So all that truly separated him from a gruesome fate with a large, snake monster with neurotoxin, and three inch claws, was half an inch of metal. He gulped, and kept working.
"ALRIGHT EVERYONE!" Victor bellowed through the intercom. "Set your watches to ten minutes, if we can't save our ship… Our home, before the systems go offline… We've been ordered to abandon ship."
"Abandon?... Okay todd. Time to get to work."
A few minutes, and a burnt fuse later, and Todd was no closer to detaching the craft. The others had no luck either. Phil got electrocuted, and Andei almost caught the station on fire. The last few minuted approached agonizingly quick.
"Alright… It's been nine minutes." Victor said with a grim sound over the intercom. He lost his regular sarcasm. "If we're no further to getting a solution, we need to abandon ship. Now."
It wasn't very often that Todd admitted defeat. But this time. Victor was right.
Unless.
A glint of an idea sparked in his brain.
Picking up a microphone, he asked Victor,
"Why don't we try calling them?" A brief moment of silence before Victor responded.
"That has to be single-handedly the worst idea anyone has ever had." Victor stopped, and sighed. "And besides you know the procedures regarding extraterrestrials. No communication until superiors approve, and ya-da ya-da, so on and so forth."
"Well let's ask them." Todd replied.
"What?" Victor sounded worried. Todd turned the mic to communicate with mission control.
"Mission control, What would you say is our primary order at the moment?"
"To reduce civilian and crewman casualties by a possible destruction of ISS?" A gravel voice replied.
"Thank you mission control, that's all" He turned the mic back to Victor. "They said Yes."
"Wait what-?" Victor was cut off mid-sentence.
Todd floated over a few meters to the console that was receiving the Alien data. He looked through it, to try and find some sort of communication device. The ship was feeding too much to read however, so he turned his eyes to the communication array.
It took some fiddling, and a bit of luck. But he finally found a frequency that picked up some jargon. In a few short seconds, he would be first man to speak to aliens.
"Sonrey. We're in deep, deep trouble." Milbo said. His large pale green face was a lot whiter. Sonrey didn't bother responding, because it wouldn't matter. In a few moments, whatever monsters lie beyond that airlock would be able to probe, dissect, and mutilate whatever they wanted with their bodies. "Is it possible to detach?" Milbo asked fletcher.
"Not with the damage we've taken. We're lucky to have docked." He said.
The four of them sat there in silence, wondering how this would turn out. Fletcher broke the silence.
"Hey Ozbon, look at this." Ozbon compiled and floated over. The last remaining panel on the dashboard was showing a long list of data. It was written in the same symbols on the ship that they had docked at. "I wonder what it means, perhaps-" he was cut off by something that caused all but sonrey to shriek in pain, and claw at their helmets.
"AGGHH!" all three screamed. The display of frantic bodies made sonrey sick. Luckily for his stomach, they stopped a half second later.
"What was that?" Ozbon looked around, tapping his helmet.
"I can't say. It must've been our helmets. Sonrey's is broke, so he must not have heard it." Milbo replied.
Before anyone could reply, the three of them stopped, faces Paler than the Mun. An ominous voice came over the headsets, heard by all but sonrey.
"¿ǝɯ ɹɐǝɥ noʎ uɐɔ ¿oןןǝɥ"
"Who is this?" Ozbon asked
"¡dıɥs ɹno ƃuıʎoɹʇsǝp ǝɹɐ noʎ 'ǝʌɐǝן oʇ noʎ pǝǝu ǝʍ ¿ǝɯ ƃuıpuɐʇsɹǝpun noʎ ǝɹɐ"
"I ask again, WHO IS THIS?" Ozbon asked, more concerned than the last. The voice did not reply. "Hello?"
No response.
"What in Kerbol was that?" Milbo asked, shaken.
"It was… Something." Fletcher said, But they all were equally confused.
"Ozbon, perhaps we should think about alternatives to staying in here." Milbo said. "We're going to run out of food, and we need to tend to Sonrey's injury. He might have a concussion." Sonrey admitted to himself that he was getting a bit of a headache.
"Well, what do you suggest?" Ozbon replied, "We let ourselves get tortured beyond belief by those, those, monsters?" Fletcher piped up,
"Maybe they just want to chat?" Skepticism filled the cockpit.
They argued for a few more moments. Sonrey had no input. Partially because he didn't want to, and part because he couldn't. He decided it was time that someone made a decision around here. He floated over from the charred window, and to the hatch lock, behind the cockpit controls.
"Sonrey! What are you doing?"
He didn't look back.
"Todd!" Victor yelled. "Come on! We don't have much time!"
Todd had gotten through to something, whether it was an alien, or a HAM radio on the earth, was anybody's guess. The time had run out though, and he needed to leave.
In the last few weeks, these metal walls had become a home for him. It was like a safe refuge from all people and crowds back on earth, from the bosses, co-workers… Parents. His parents never really believed in their son. The moment he wanted to become an astronaut, they told him otherwise. Every decision he made was countered, what to wear, who to date, where to live, you name it, his parents wanted control. But not up here, up here, the silence of space and his vintage cassettes was the control over him. A butterfly filled his stomach. They rounded the corner, where an injured Anton was flagging them down to get in.
Anton was Ukrainian, moved to Moscow as a baby, and was adopted by a pair of newlyweds. He never knew his real parents, other than the fact that his father died of stomach cancer, and his mother left him to go in pursuit of the life of luxuries.
Victor was Canadian, born to a military life. His father was a Lieutenant General, and his mother was a military nurse. Todd never was told how Victor's parents met, only that they hate each other now.
"Come on!" Anton yelled. "I'm told there's to be a party for us if we get out fast enough, no?"
The two of them were about fifty feet away from him when the lights all turned off, replaced by red warning lights. There was only two things that could trigger this: A lack of pressurisation, or an unauthorized ship entrance.
"Oh no." Victor whispered.
"They're on board."
"Sonrey!" Milbo floated over Sonrey. "Don't do this, We have no idea what those things on the other side are, They could have horrible diseases yet to be named by Kermanity, we don't even know if they breathe in the same as us." Sonrey paid no attention to him. It was about time that action was taken. "Sonrey, think of us! Your friends! Don't do this!"
Sonrey shook his head.
With one swift movement, the Door opened up, and the cabin was filled with what must've been oxygen. He locked the door into its docked position, and suddenly, sparks flew from the door.
His eyes adjusted to the unfamiliar surroundings. The inside was large. Really Large. In comparison to him, the room would fit five of him stacked. There was a panel of some sort, smoldering. Elsewhere, the craft seemed to go on and on. Fletcher floated behind him, holding out a lit match.
"Well, it's oxygen alright. I think we can take our helmets off."
They all took off their helmets, and the ever familiar smell of burnt metal came back, as well as the whole craft turning a dark red, with what must've been emergency lights.
"I think they noticed us." Milbo said with a cocky smile.
"Maybe I could look at their control panel, wherever that is, see what I can see." Fletcher looked about. There were loads of them, all flashing the same red lettering.
"You do that" Sonrey said, "I'll look about for something to stop this bleeding." He motioned to the back of his head, where the cut was still open.
"Sonrey, might I have a word with you?" Ozbon motioned to float to the side. He looked like a mix of fear, curiosity, but most of all, alive. It was the first time since they were kids that he looked to be enjoying himself. They stopped by a closet of some kind.
"What would you like to talk about?" Sonrey asked.
"Well, it's rather embarrassing, but." He sighed "Back when that... thing attacked us, I-I Wanted to apologize for losing my temper. I've been in many near death situations, but…" He paused, as though trying to gather his words. "Out of all those, never once were one of my friends in danger."
Sonrey took a deep breath of the alien air. "Wow. I-I never knew how much we mattered to you. After all these years, I had thought we had just grown too far apart." Sonrey cracked a smile, "But don't worry, if we all end up going down, at least we'll go down together." He playfully punched Ozbon's shoulder.
"Sorry to interrupt your bro moment, but it looks like we have another real big problem here." Fletcher pointed to the panel he had been fiddling with.
"It looks like these guys siphoned all our information from our ship's computer, Flight data, blueprints, everything."
"You've got to be kidding." Ozbon looked over at Fletcher.
"Wish I was, partner, but these letters are definitely ours."
He was right, the lettering was intelligible, but the data was overflowing the craft.
"See what more you can gather from that panel." Sonrey said with a nod. " Ozbon and I will take a look about." They both grabbed their helmets, and began to float off. "Oh, and one more thing," Sonrey stopped. "Don't split up."
Back in the craft, Todd, Victor and anton had gotten situated for the emergency ride home.
"The other two ships are already starting their descent, we've got to hurry this up." Victor looked at anton, as he was frantically working to go through the undocking procedures.
"I'm sorry sir, But, ship is experiencing system overload. It's preventing us from detaching." He replied.
"Keep working then. But make it quick." Victor turned to todd,
"You alright there, Kid?"
Todd was deep in thought, looking out the viewport that sat directly in front of him.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking what to tell everyone when we back home." He looked out at the sun as it drifted out of view from the Earth's horizon. Victor put his hand on his knee, and gave him a fatherly look.
"Me too kid, Me too."
A few moments of silence passed, with Anton almost finishing up the last of the procedures.
"All ready?" Anton put the binder back into the overhead shelf. "Hope you remembered all your things."
Todd and victor did a quick pat-down of themselves, and Todd froze in horror.
"No-no-nononono! I left it in my bunk!" He unbuckled and began to open the hatch.
"TODD! GET BACK IN HERE! WHATEVER YOU LEFT ISN'T WORTH YOUR LIFE!" Victor yelled, making a vein pop in his forehead. Anton leaned forward in the capsule.
"Now I have to redo the procedure!" He muttered something that sounded like 'Chertov idsuot'
"Listen, This is my only worthy possession in the world. I need my Rubik's Cube."
"YOUR WHAT?!" Victor was flabbergasted. "What if those things are on board? They might have half-a-million diseases! We Can't just take you back to Earth if you could kill the whole population!"
"Then leave without me! I have nobody who cares for me on earth." Todd began to float into the ship.
"Should we leave him, Victor?" Anton asked.
"No. We'll wait." he replied
Sonrey and Ozbon were in awe at how large the ship was, much larger than most buildings on Kerbin. The two of them floated by sparking panels, only lit by the ambient red warning light. The two of them found a section that extended up, and they floated up.
It was a tight fit, but they finally got into the room. It was a room surrounded by computers. Each was flashing a series of messages in the strange symbols.
"What a strange idea. Putting all the computers in one room. Makes no sense." Ozbon said, looking about.
"Strange yes, but it helps us. Tell Fletcher to meet us up here." Sonrey replied, and Ozbon called him over his headset.
In a few short moments, fletcher arrived.
"Wow. It's a maze in here." Milbo poked through the corridor.
"We nearly got lost a few times"
Fletcher got to work at looking through the mass information. Milbo looked about at the room.
"Huh. there seems to be a camera out there." He pointed at the screen.
The screen showed what looked to be the outside of the room they were in. I wonder what this stick does. The view moved to show a set of large solar panels.
"I think i got this." He fiddled with the controls, but his pilot instinct kicked in. He rotated the camera around until he saw their ship. It was definitely damaged and scorched, no way to leave in that hunk of junk. Rotating further, it moved to a view of what appeared to be the planet they had arrived at. It was a very large planet, but all they saw was a white fluff at what seemed to be a north or south pole. Lowering the camera revealed what they'd stumbled upon.
It was a large planet, much larger than Kerbin. But the size was nothing compared to the lights. The darkness that had fallen onto the planet turned it into a big light show, with a large cluster of them on a massive peninsula, surrounded by small seas and islands. Going further inland, the lights dimmed, and reached a point where none existed for kilometers at a time. The Planet had a strange blue-green atmosphere as you looked upon the horizon.
"Whoa." They all muttered. Despite the tiny computer screen, it was enough to be in awe of the planet. Fletcher shook his head, and went back to work. It reminded the other three that they should get back to work too.
"Okay, you two stay here." Ozbon pointed at Milbo and fletcher. "Sonrey and I will keep looking." They nodded, and the two of them went back to the computers.
Sonrey and Ozbon floated back down to the main level. They took a left, and continued on their way. On their way, they passed by an entire room of plants.
"Look at this!" Sonrey exclaimed, he pointed at one of the largest plants. There was a label, but it was in the strange symbols. it read: 'ʇuɐןd ɐǝd'
"Is it edible?" Ozbon inquired, poking at the plant with his space glove.
"Good question." Sonrey ripped off a stalk, and shoved it into his mouth… And immediately took it back out. "Yeach. These creatures have awful tastes."
"We should keep moving." Ozbon chuckled.
The hall stretched on and on. They passed strange equipment, and loads of cabinets, only lit dimly by the red lights. Strange objects floated about in the zero g environment.
"Hold on, I want to check in here." Sonrey stopped by what looked like a thin broom closet. The door slid open, and inside was some sort of bed. It had a strap that held the sheets on. But something caught his eye. A cube of some sort. Reaching in, he grabbed it, and began to observe it in more detail. It had a three-by-three grid, and what looked to be 6 colors.
"What is it?" Ozbon floated over.
"No clue. But it might be important." Sonrey tapped at the cube, and the column of colors began to rotate.
"Careful!" Ozbon hissed. "We don't know what that does."
"Perhaps it's a storage device of some sort?" Sonrey kept rotating the colors aimlessly. "We had really ought to get this to fletcher." Ozbon nodded.
A minute later, they were back at the control room.
"Find anything - or anyone?" Fletcher asked.
"We found this." He handed him the cube. "We think it might be a data storage device." Sonrey said.
"I remember doing things like this back home." Fletcher fiddled with the box. "If I'm correct, then there should be nine of each color, and to get each color to a side, you need to move the colors like so." He began to rotate the cube, slowly at first, but then he sped up, letting his brain do the work without thinking. The cube was slowly taking shape, In a few moments he would be done.
Todd frantically looked through his bunk. "No! Nonono!" He screamed. His rubik's cube was missing. All that was in his bunk now was a picture of his parents, and a Jell-o Cup. Todd racked his brain for an answer. Then a thought popped into his mind. "the Cupola Module!" He grabbed the Jell-o, Braced his foot against the nearest doorway, and pushed with all his strength, sending him flying toward the module.
Fletcher was nearly done with the cube, one turn away in fact, when he stopped.
"What if it's a bomb?"
"EAUGH!" The other three screamed and pushed away from the cube.
"You tell us this now, why?" Milbo screamed. Fletcher tossed the cube at Sonrey.
"Well don't give it to me!" A few seconds of hot potato, and sonrey ended up with the cube. Sonrey stopped. Something caught him out of the corner of his eye. He turned to look at at. And his heart stopped.
Todd was a mere moment away from the module when he saw it. Three tiny figures who were pushed out of the cupola module. He stopped dead in his tracks.
One of them screamed something, and looked at him. One thought crossed his mind:
"Aliens."