This is the story of the havoc wreaked:
As the pod descended from the spaceship,
Trev thought to himself. ‘Why, oh why, did I think that this trip to the edge
of the solar system was a good idea. I had a good life on earth, as a general
consultant for a waste disposal company. A murmur beside him awakened him from
his thoughts. “2 more minutes till we hit the surface.” Said Chris. Chris was the medic on the ship. Trev
wasn’t sure why the captain had sent Chris down with him to the surface, as
identifying asteroids, and understanding what minerals could be found, was not
usually a job for the medic. But then again, this was an uncharted asteroid for
resources, so maybe the Captain was just being safety-conscience. Either way,
Trev wasn’t a man who would argue. He would much rather be sipping Gin on the
Glass deck, or discussing resource management with the crewmen and captain,
than down here on the surface. He also knew, that if he didn’t argue the
captains decisions, he would be drinking or arguing a lot quicker.
A series of hisses from air escaping as the
pod descended told Trev that they would almost be touching down. A beeping
sounded, and Trev felt the thrusters quick in, to slow the descent. A minute
later, and the pod hit the ground, and the door opened. Trev had been wearing
his flight suit since they had entered the pod those few minutes ago. A radio
buzzed in the pod. A slow southern drawl filled the pod, “Y’all okay down
there? Over.”
Chris quickly responded into the microphone
within his space suit. “All good, ready to initiate observation. Over.”
“Okay, captain and safety officer has
confirmed. You may initiate spacewalk. You have three hours before the asteroid
will deviate off course too far, and we will have to eject from it. Over.”
“Okay, see you in three hours. Over.” Chris
turned to Trev and nodded. Trev turned to the door, and stepped out onto the
surface.
A barren wasteland met their eyes. The
shiny surface extended in all directions. Trev took a minute to study the
surface. He took a device from his trouser pocket, and shoved it straight into
the ground. He stood again, and looked over his shoulder at Chris. The medic
was examining the pod, making sure that there were no major problems with the
craft. A beep alerted Trev back to the device in the ground. He knelt, and
examined the screen on the side.
“Hmm”-murmured Trev, “It is an Ataxite.
Rare, very rare. High in Nickel, Iron and Cobalt.” He radioed up to the ship,
“How are our supplies of Iron, Nickel, and Cobalt? Over.” The radio was quiet
for a minute. “Our supplies of each of those substances are good Trev. Lets
just leave a beacon on this one, record it for the boffins back on earth, and
get the hell outta’ here. Over.”
“Sure thing. We’ll head back up in a-“
“Actually, Trev, I’m picking up strange
readings a few klicks away. Can you check it out? Over.”
Trev was quiet for a minute, his chance for
a quick getaway dashed in front of him. “Okay, lets go Chris. Get out the
carts.”
An hour later they were travelling across
the surface at speed. Trev looked
up as they traveled. He saw the giant ship above them, only visible by the
stars that it blocked out. He was amazed by human ingenuity sometimes. But then
he looked at BBC News back on earth, and was almost sickened by what he saw
happening there on a daily basis. Killings, bombings, lies. Trev now remembered
why he went on this mission in the first place. A voice in his head said, “Approaching the site of the
readings, be wary guys. It’s showing some pretty strange readings up here.
Over.”
“Sure thing. Over.” Replied Chris. Trev
looked ahead, and frowned. There was nothing, just flat surface still. “Okay,
we are here Trev.” Said Chris. He stopped the cart, and stepped down into the
dust. Chris stood there, slowly turning around occasionally. “There’s nothing
here. It’s the same as where the pod landed.”
“You sure,” replied the ship. “Use the
reader Trev, maybe something is underground.” Trev replied with a grunt, and
got out of the cart. He walked away from the cart a few meters, and shoved the
device into the ground again. It was not in the ground ten seconds, before it
beeped. Trev was surprised; usually there was a good few minutes for the device
to recognize the elements within the ground. He looked down at the screen, and
gasped. “It’s water, solid water. We are standing on an Ice lake.” He turned to
look at Chris, who showed no sign of surprise. “Aren’t discoveries of Ice on
asteroids common place?”
“Yes they are, but usually the asteroids
they are found on are smaller, and are solid ice balls. This is a lake of ice
on an asteroid made up of other elements. This is very unusual, I assure you.”
Chris shrugged. Trev removed another device and pointed towards the ground. He
looked at the device, and said aloud, “ One hundred meters deep, and 200 meters
wide. It also seems to have some kind of solid mass in the center.” He looked
up at Chris, and this time Chris did look surprised. “Lets have a look at
what’s in there!” he said loudly.
Before they activated the drill on the
cart, a voice in both of their helmets said, “Better think about heading back
guys, we’re nearing the ejection point.”
“Sure, we just going to be 10 more minutes
here, then we’ll make a move.” Said Trev. He motioned to Chris, and Chris
started the drilling. While that was happening, Trev collected a few samples of
the ice. As he added the ice to his resource box, a loud noise from the drill
took his attention. “Warning: Hitting unknown object. Warning: Hitting unknown
object.” Chris knelt down at the screen. “That’s strange. It seems to be some
kind of biological tissue down there, but that’s impossible. No life could
survive here in space.” Chris looked at Trev, waiting for an order to do
something. However, Trev was stunned. How was there biological life here, on an
asteroid, in the middle of space? “Better call this in.” He said. As he raised
his arm to contact the ship above, he glanced at the hole that the drill had
made. There was a small amount of dark liquid coming out of it. Trev shook his
head, believing it to be a trick of the light. But, he looked again, and there
again, was more black liquid, coming from the hole. He turned and alerted
Chris, but as he looked back, the liquid coming out had doubled. It was now
streaming out freely. He also noticed, that somehow this liquid was defying the
gravity of the asteroid and slowly climbing up the drill, and where the liquid
touched the Tungsten steel of the drill, it decayed, cracking and dissolving
the metal. Trev said slowly into his mic. “Heston, we have a problem here. “
Chris tapping Trev on the shoulder finally
removed him from the trance. He said nothing, but pointed towards Trev’s feet.
A powerful stream was heading towards his thick cosmonaut boots. Trev slowly
stepped backwards, but the stream suddenly doubled in speed, rushing at him, as
if he was attracting it. Trev just turned and ran. He reached the cart, while
Chris was trying to move the drill back away from the hole. “Leave it Chris, we
have another on the ship.” Chris just left the drill and got onto the cart. As
Chris got on, Trev hit a button on the console, and the Drill arm dropped from
the cart, and hit the ground with a hefty ‘thud’. Trev jammed his foot onto the
pedal, as the cart sped away from the dark corrupting liquid.
Unbeknownst to either of them, a small
string of dark liquid hung from the rear bumped of the cart. As the vehicle
trundled along, it slowly began to move up the metal of the car, heading for
the two humans in the cart.
As Trev and Chris stepped out from the
descent pod, into the prep area on the ship, a huge cheer greeted them. “We
didn’t know what happened, you said there was a problem, and then your mic
turned off, and we couldn’t reach you. We thought you had been attacked by
space yeti’s.” Said Heston, with a grin. As others stepped forward to make sure
everyone was okay, Trev didn’t notice the small black smudges he left after
every step he took. He also didn’t notice the smudges begin to pool, and slowly
move towards a vent on the floor. Trev finally didn’t notice the black smudge,
begin to grow as it reached the vent, transforming itself into a worm-like
shape. Trev didn’t care, as he finally had his gin, and could sit and relax for
a while.
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