Panspermia [Prologue]
Title: Panspermia
Author: zetastation
Beta: matturemuser
Pairing: Belldom
Setting: England, 2052.
Rating: PG-13 for this one.
Warnings: language(s) lol and… hm… this is an alien fic :o but it is NOT crack.
Summary: “Panspermia is the hypothesis that life exists throughout the Universe, distributed by meteoroids, asteroids, comets and planetoids.”
Feedback: Yes, please <3
Disclaimer: I don’t own Muse. This is a work of fiction and it never happened.
Author’s Note: I spent all those days off working on this new fic. My eyes are hurting and I have this annoying headache, so I hope all my hard work will be worth it. I created a new language just for this fic (based on Zulu and Portuguese, with the necessary adaptations) and it was not easy, okay?! D': I thank ludelic for giving me the idea for this story moooonths ago! I finally felt inspired enough to start writing this. I know aliens fics are not everyone's cup of tea, so please, but there are people who like it, so whoever read this I hope you enjoy it <3
Instructions - read this, it's important!: so, I said I kinda created this new language and I actually use it in this fic. Don't worry, it won't happen very often in the next chapters. There are two versions of the first scene, the first version has speeches in the weird language and narrative in English. If you're using a computer to read this, you can see the translations just passing the mouse over the italic line. If you're using a phone to read the fic, I'd suggest you to pick the second version (the one under the 'English version' cut just after the end of the first scene), because I don't know if the translations would work on everyone's phones (it doesn't work on mine). Also, if you're interested, there are a few links spread throughout the text, samples of sounds or ref pictures.
Enough of babbling! XD I hope you'll enjoy it, and please, let me know whatever you think. Your opinion is important to me, so I can decide whether I'll keep dying doing researches or not <333
***
“Njen isihathi geja uze fika-si ku si ukHona, aTLaS?” asked the red haired navigator after pressing a few buttons on his spaceship’s control panel.
“28 imizu no 35 kweli, uSir,” replied the artificially intelligent computer system in a robotic voice.
“Kuze sithu ihubane?”
“Manhe jeso vele dhula-si nge Ibhan Ikelele, kho-sha-si uze ihubane okuhanya.”
“Ugh, leli kuba kanja kanne! Kho kwama-si sha?”
“Funa jeso kho, uSir. Si vele kube-si no modi somotho, ephene kho ube-si andla onele uze fika uPhaba.”
“Modi somotho? Kowa kugani?” The navigator looked inquisitively at a big green luminous ball inserted in the center of the panel. A weird sound emanated from the ball, as if it was searching for some information. The humanlike quirked a red-haired eyebrow and tapped on the edge of the panel, waiting for the answer. “aTLaS…?”
The ‘searching’ sound ceased and aTLaS soon answered, “Izathu, uSir, kowa ngathu kho kube mIa fayel kho-yeke-za.”
“Kuze fushane kini fayelende?” the manlike sighed and rubbed his brow, obviously predicting the answer.
“aTLaS-lib 7.6.3, yukumisa mBoni, uSir. Abe a yeke tholake, aTLaS-lib 10.1.1.”
“oJeso?! Kowa Ia yeke kini zolo! Kugani kini beka lisusa?!” the red-haired man growled in frustration. “Kuze kini yingha? Kini kho kuba-za enesi abe amye sonto edlu... Ia uthola jeso iYa lilisusa kini zulelo lapho buya-si uze iHaya.”
“Ie uthola-za jeso kuba-za uMgane, uSir.”
“Thula, aTLaS.” the navigator couldn’t help chuckling before looking ahead, observing the huge star in the center of the solar system. He sighed in awe. The biggest star in his system was a mere red dwarf, nothing compared to the one he was observing now.
He reclined in his comfortable command chair, put his slender arms behind his head and looked at his surroundings inside the cabin navigation.
There was a huge control panel before him, with countless tiny green, red, yellow and blue lights, twinkling in a curious pattern; there were also many buttons, small and big ones, most of them placed near the green ball in the middle. There were two more navigator chairs on each side of his, but they were empty.
That was pretty much what existed inside that cabin.
The journey continued in silence for some time, until they had passed Mars and began approaching Earth. “Abe kanja mizu lana phasi!” it was the first comment the humanlike made, visibly astonished by the blue immensity he saw. Even though his origin planet was four times bigger than Earth, he had never seen a planet as ‘blue’ as this one.
“Kuba kugani kan 70% phezulu uPhaba kube kava-za mizu, uSir.”
“Ie nazi, aTLaS. Kuba kanja obala!”
“Izathu, uSir. Ie uthola-” Suddenly a loud alarm echoed through the small cabin. All lights went red and the spaceship started oscillating, as if it was struggling to stabilise again.
“aTLaS, kuthi kube vela?!”
“uSir, zileni Iwento phutha-za.” the system’s voice was steady, in contrast with the worried tone in the pilot’s voice.
“Goba?!” he pressed a few buttons, but the spaceship couldn’t stabilise. Instead it just began to quiver uncontrollably, already entering the Earth’s atmosphere. “Oh, indle! Si kho iYa-si sala ku kowehla kha zileni Iwento! Goba leli vela-za?!” Once again the system emitted a searching sound, barely audible over the loud alarm. “Kani sesha aphendule jeso kini kho ube!” he shouted, very concerned about the future of the spaceship and himself.
“Kini ohana yeke mIa fayelende fayel, uSir?” the calm, robotic voice asked.
“THULA!” he then noticed a bright light from outside and when he looked up at the large windscreen, he saw fire swallowing the spaceship’s nose. “Oh, mIa... oJeso abe phutha nge zulelo friji?! SI IYA-SI UKUSHA!”
“Zulelo friji kube kho-wazi-za, uSir.”
“WAZI!” he pressed the cooling system button, but nothing happened. He could feel the air inside the cabin getting hot.
“Wazi thikhi zulelo friji kho kube tholake yeke fushane fayelende fayel, uSir. Kini kwama iYa ku uLayo no wazi zulelo friji kiniku ona kini kwama mIa yeke. Kuba bambe, Ie fuka.”
“CANSI!” he quickly got out of his chair planning to go enable the cooling system, but he couldn’t walk with such heavy turbulence. “Qaleso...” he complained and sat back on his chair, firmly pulling the safety belt tight.
The fire had increased and the humanlike lost sight of the outside where flames consumed the whole front of the spaceship. The tremors became worse with every second of the uncontrolled descent and his stomach churned when he felt the vehicle falling vertically.
“Abe into kan jeso Ie kwama ze nge kini, uSir?” the program asked.
"Kho." he held firmly on the armchairs, his whole body tense, his frowning face coated in sweat.
Suddenly the red-haired humanlike regretted volunteering to visit the Earth.
***
[English version]“How long until we get to our destination, aTLaS?” asked the red haired navigator after pressing a few buttons on his spaceship’s control panel.
“28 minutes and 35 seconds, sir,” replied the artificially intelligent computer system in a robotic voice.
“What is our speed?”
“Now that we have crossed the asteroid belt, we have slowed down to the speed of light”
“Ugh, this is too slow! Can’t we just speed up?”
“I’m afraid we can’t, sir. We’re already on the economic mode, otherwise we won’t have enough power to get to Earth.”
“Economic mode? But why?” The navigator looked inquisitively at a big green luminous ball inserted in the center of the panel. A weird sound emanated from the ball, as if it was searching for some information. The humanlike quirked a red-haired eyebrow and tapped on the edge of the panel, waiting for the answer. “aTLaS…?”
The ‘searching’ sound ceased and aTLaS soon answered, “I’m sorry, sir, but the reason is not in my outdated files.”
“What’s the version of your library?” the manlike sighed and rubbed his brow, obviously predicting the answer.
“aTLaS-lib 7.6.3, factory setting, sir. There’s an available update, aTLaS-lib 10.1.1.”
“What?! But I updated you yesterday! Why do you keep resetting your setting?!” the red-haired man growled in frustration. “What’s your problem? You were not malfunctioning until a few weeks ago… I think I’ll reformat your system when we go back home.”
“I thought we were friends, sir.”
“Shut up, aTLaS.” the navigator couldn’t help chuckling before looking ahead, observing the huge star in the center of the solar system. He sighed in awe. The biggest star in his system was a mere red dwarf, nothing compared to the one he was observing now.
He reclined in his comfortable command chair, put his slender arms behind his head and looked at his surroundings inside the cabin navigation.
There was a huge control panel before him, with countless tiny green, red, yellow and blue lights, twinkling in a curious pattern; there were also many buttons, small and big ones, most of them placed near the green ball in the middle. There were two more navigator chairs on each side of his, but they were empty.
That was pretty much what existed inside that cabin.
The journey continued in silence for some time, until they had passed Mars and began approaching Earth. “There’s so much water down there!” it was the first comment the humanlike made, visibly astonished by the blue immensity he saw. Even though his origin planet was four times bigger than Earth, he had never seen a planet as ‘blue’ as this one.
“It’s because more than 70% of the planetary surface is covered in water, sir.”
“I know, aTLaS. It’s pretty obvious!”
“Sorry, sir. I just thought-” Suddenly a loud alarm echoed through the small cabin. All lights went red and the spaceship started oscillating, as if it was struggling to stabilise again.
“aTLaS, what’s happening?!”
“Sir, the linear orbiter has failed.” the system’s voice was steady, in contrast with the worried tone in the pilot’s voice.
“How?!” he pressed a few buttons, but the spaceship couldn’t stabilise. Instead it just began to quiver uncontrollably, already entering the Earth’s atmosphere. “Oh, shit! We won’t survive the landing without the linear orbiter! How did it happen?!” Once again the system emitted a searching sound, barely audible over the loud alarm. “Stop searching for answers that you don’t have!” he shouted, very concerned about the future of the spaceship and himself.
“Would you like to update my data library now, sir?” the calm, robotic voice asked.
“SHUT UP!” he then noticed a bright light from outside and when he looked up at the large windscreen, he saw fire swallowing the spaceship’s nose. “Oh, my… What’s wrong with the cooling system?! WE WILL IGNITE!”
“Cooling system is disabled, sir.”
“ENABLE IT!” he pressed the cooling system button, but nothing happened. He could feel the air inside the cabin getting hot.
“Automatic enabling of cooling system is not available in the current version of data library, sir. You can go to the reactor and activate the cooling system by yourself or you can update me. It’s quick, I swear.”
“FUCK YOU!” he quickly got out of his chair planning to go enable the cooling system, but he couldn’t walk with such heavy turbulence. “Damn it...” he complained and sat back on his chair, firmly pulling the safety belt tight.
The fire had increased and the humanlike lost sight of the outside where flames consumed the whole front of the spaceship. The tremors became worse with every second of the uncontrolled descent and his stomach churned when he felt the vehicle falling vertically.
“Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?” the program asked.
“No.” he held firmly on the armchairs, his whole body tense, his frowning face coated in sweat.
Suddenly the red-haired humanlike regretted volunteering to visit the Earth.
***
***
Alone in the laboratory, Dominic carefully observed the 3D projection of the fossil that some of his paleontologist colleagues had found a week ago in a remote area of Canada. According to their research, there was a great possibility that the fossilised species could be the long sought-after ‘missing link’, the bridge between humans and apes. Finding the missing link would fill the holes of the evolutionary theory.
Although Dominic was tasked for helping in this new discovery, he was not a paleontologist or an historian; though he was many other things. The 29-year-old man had a degree in biological sciences with specializations in the fields of genetic, evolutive biology and physiology - not to mention his curiosity for engineering, something outside of his official studies, but which interested him as much as his main areas of research.
His job here with the new fossil, was to sequence the genes and compare them with that of humans and apes. However, even though the fossil had been found buried in the frozen ground in conditions of extreme cold - which helped to preserve the DNA - it had suffered the hardships of weather and time, breaking up and getting infected by microorganisms over the millennia.
Thankfully technology had improved significantly since the early 2010s, getting to a point where it could mostly recover said fragmented DNAs.
There was no one around, everyone had left but Dom, who decided to go further with his investigation. The figure Dominic was looking at that moment was an holographic projection on the center of the big table on his laboratory. When he looked at the digital numbers on the translucent table surface, he found out it was already half past ten. Ignoring the late hour, Dominic stepped closer to the hologram, analysing it and then glancing down at the table, where some numbers had just shown up with a beep. And another one, and again.
“What’s that…?” Dominic muttered to himself, frowning and noticing several numbers appearing fast, one after the other, being followed by an annoying beep sequence for each new number.
He placed his forefinger over the surface, just above the numbers, and slid up, revealing some sort of menu. Before he could even think of inserting another command, he felt what could be the beginning of an earthquake. The whole building trembled disturbingly, making Dominic hold tight to the edges of the table just to maintain his balance. He heard clanking as some of his tools fell to the floor and the lights began failing. The whole episode barely lasted ten seconds.
Dominic took more than a minute to recompose himself. Panting hard, he looked up at the table; the hologram had gone and there were missing numbers where previously there had been several. Observing his surroundings, he found many tools scattered on the floor along with a weird, green fluid leaking from a test-tube, what made him sigh in annoyance because he’d have clean all that mess later.
But first he walked towards the big window in his laboratory. The curtains were closed, of course. He always kept them closed while working, so as not to get distracted by anything from outside. He was an intelligent guy, but knew he was easily distracted, so he always chose to close the curtains and he worked better when there wasn’t anyone around.
When Dominic pressed the button on the wall and the curtains rolled up, he was struck speechless by what he saw.
The laboratory where Dominic worked was located in an area far away from the city, practically in the middle of a forest. Considering the hour, it was impossible to see anything out there, but after the earthquake a flickery bright, orange light was coming from outside, illuminating the dark landscape. He saw rows of trees burning and wondered what actually had happened. He had not had heard anything during the trembling because the whole building was fitted with a sound proof system.
His eyes followed the trail of flames and caught sight of an unidentifiable object burning in the forest. “What...” he narrowed his eyes and approached the window even more, just to try to see what that strange object was. “Could that be a meteorite?”
He tried to fight against the urge to go out and investigate by himself. He really tried, but he couldn’t.
Dominic was a curious being by nature, and he convinced himself that going to investigate would be the right thing to do. He worked in a laboratory, after all. He could do a quick scan beforehand and make the work easier for his geologist friends.
Before leaving the building, he donned a protective suit, so as to avoid contaminating the object - or end up being contaminated by it.
It was a long, uncomfortable walk from the laboratory to the location of the object. He finally reached the trail of flames and followed it into the trees. The closer he got to the destination, the more he feared it was not a matter of meteorites.
He saw certain… ‘things’ that could not be classified as fragments from the rock - unless the meteorite was made of bent iron and metal sheeting with serial numbers.
Dominic slowed down and gulped when he realised he was closer to the object now. He tried to convince himself that it was not as obvious as it looked, because the obvious thing to him at that moment was that he was witnessing an unsuccessful landing of an… unidentified flying object. He shook his head, trying to get that silly thought out of his mind. After all, that could be only an aircraft… Right?
He kept walking for a few more meters and finally caught sight of the back of the… ‘aircraft’. There was more burning wreckage along the path, more huge white pieces of metal. The aircraft had an unusual design, something that Dominic had only seen in sci-fi movies and comics.
It was small - in comparison with Boeings - it looked more like a white scramjet plane, but with longer wings (one of them had been ripped off, probably due the impact) and a more circular body.
“God...” Dominic held his breath while approaching the wingless side of the supposed aircraft. It was then that he noticed the name ‘aTLaS 763’ written in large letters just above the opening where the wing was supposed to be. “What is it?”
The fire continued to burn around the aircraft. Dominic could still see the trees on fire and he suddenly felt guilty for not having called the fire department before going to investigate anything. But it was already too late; he was there, standing before an unknown spaceship. Yes, ‘spaceship’, because it definitely did not have a human design.
Without even realising that his feet were moving, Dominic found himself already squeezing through the opening on the spaceship’s side. He activated the light system of his suit - sort of a lantern on each hand and on the top of his head - since darkness was all he could see. When he illuminated the place, he found only a mess of broken pieces of something that he couldn’t recognise.
Entering the spaceship, he continued his investigation. He walked further in the direction of the frontal part of the vehicle until he came upon sort of an open gate. Dominic crossed the opening and realised he had arrived at what must have been a navigation cabin because he saw a huge windscreen where he could see the outside.
Stepping closer the window, he heard a noise; it sounded like a whining.
Dominic froze.
Another sound. Something was moving.
Dominic was sweating bullets by this time. He thought of running, but his body didn’t respond him; instead he just felt his legs going weak. Dominic just had the strength and courage to turn his body towards the ‘whining thing’. While he slowly spun, the light from his lantern revealed him two feet, two legs, one arm, a torso, another arm.
And a human face.
Dominic exhaled loudly; seeing a human was a relief, after all. He censured himself for thinking like a child, waiting for something fantastic to happen. Now that he thought better, this probably was a new aircraft design, possibly still in testing phase, that’s why it crashed there.
He approached the injured red-haired man curled in one of the corners of the room. “Uh, hello? Are you okay?” It was the first thing he said as he crouched down and placed a hand on the man’s shoulder.
“Kho...” the man whined and Dominic frowned.
“Where are you from? Russia?” he asked once he had no idea what the man’s language was.
“Kho… Sisi...” he stirred and tried to stretch his body, and when he did it, Dominic saw a patch of blood on the man’s tight white suit, just below his last rib.
“Oh, shit...” Dominic hurried up to try to put the man on his feet without hurting him even more. Once again the red-haired man stirred when Dom lifted him up. They left the aircraft with some difficulty, but the worst would be the path back to the laboratory. “Please, stay calm. I know you can do it. It’s alright.” Dominic said to the man without even looking at him and not even caring whether he could understand what he was speaking or not. “I’m definitely going to help you.”
***
Author's Note 2: if you reached the end, don't worry, many things will be explained along the chapters! :)
Author: zetastation
Beta: matturemuser
Pairing: Belldom
Setting: England, 2052.
Rating: PG-13 for this one.
Warnings: language(s) lol and… hm… this is an alien fic :o but it is NOT crack.
Summary: “Panspermia is the hypothesis that life exists throughout the Universe, distributed by meteoroids, asteroids, comets and planetoids.”
Feedback: Yes, please <3
Disclaimer: I don’t own Muse. This is a work of fiction and it never happened.
Author’s Note: I spent all those days off working on this new fic. My eyes are hurting and I have this annoying headache, so I hope all my hard work will be worth it. I created a new language just for this fic (based on Zulu and Portuguese, with the necessary adaptations) and it was not easy, okay?! D': I thank ludelic for giving me the idea for this story moooonths ago! I finally felt inspired enough to start writing this. I know aliens fics are not everyone's cup of tea, so please, but there are people who like it, so whoever read this I hope you enjoy it <3
Instructions - read this, it's important!: so, I said I kinda created this new language and I actually use it in this fic. Don't worry, it won't happen very often in the next chapters. There are two versions of the first scene, the first version has speeches in the weird language and narrative in English. If you're using a computer to read this, you can see the translations just passing the mouse over the italic line. If you're using a phone to read the fic, I'd suggest you to pick the second version (the one under the 'English version' cut just after the end of the first scene), because I don't know if the translations would work on everyone's phones (it doesn't work on mine). Also, if you're interested, there are a few links spread throughout the text, samples of sounds or ref pictures.
Enough of babbling! XD I hope you'll enjoy it, and please, let me know whatever you think. Your opinion is important to me, so I can decide whether I'll keep dying doing researches or not <333
***
“Njen isihathi geja uze fika-si ku si ukHona, aTLaS?” asked the red haired navigator after pressing a few buttons on his spaceship’s control panel.
“28 imizu no 35 kweli, uSir,” replied the artificially intelligent computer system in a robotic voice.
“Kuze sithu ihubane?”
“Manhe jeso vele dhula-si nge Ibhan Ikelele, kho-sha-si uze ihubane okuhanya.”
“Ugh, leli kuba kanja kanne! Kho kwama-si sha?”
“Funa jeso kho, uSir. Si vele kube-si no modi somotho, ephene kho ube-si andla onele uze fika uPhaba.”
“Modi somotho? Kowa kugani?” The navigator looked inquisitively at a big green luminous ball inserted in the center of the panel. A weird sound emanated from the ball, as if it was searching for some information. The humanlike quirked a red-haired eyebrow and tapped on the edge of the panel, waiting for the answer. “aTLaS…?”
The ‘searching’ sound ceased and aTLaS soon answered, “Izathu, uSir, kowa ngathu kho kube mIa fayel kho-yeke-za.”
“Kuze fushane kini fayelende?” the manlike sighed and rubbed his brow, obviously predicting the answer.
“aTLaS-lib 7.6.3, yukumisa mBoni, uSir. Abe a yeke tholake, aTLaS-lib 10.1.1.”
“oJeso?! Kowa Ia yeke kini zolo! Kugani kini beka lisusa?!” the red-haired man growled in frustration. “Kuze kini yingha? Kini kho kuba-za enesi abe amye sonto edlu... Ia uthola jeso iYa lilisusa kini zulelo lapho buya-si uze iHaya.”
“Ie uthola-za jeso kuba-za uMgane, uSir.”
“Thula, aTLaS.” the navigator couldn’t help chuckling before looking ahead, observing the huge star in the center of the solar system. He sighed in awe. The biggest star in his system was a mere red dwarf, nothing compared to the one he was observing now.
He reclined in his comfortable command chair, put his slender arms behind his head and looked at his surroundings inside the cabin navigation.
There was a huge control panel before him, with countless tiny green, red, yellow and blue lights, twinkling in a curious pattern; there were also many buttons, small and big ones, most of them placed near the green ball in the middle. There were two more navigator chairs on each side of his, but they were empty.
That was pretty much what existed inside that cabin.
The journey continued in silence for some time, until they had passed Mars and began approaching Earth. “Abe kanja mizu lana phasi!” it was the first comment the humanlike made, visibly astonished by the blue immensity he saw. Even though his origin planet was four times bigger than Earth, he had never seen a planet as ‘blue’ as this one.
“Kuba kugani kan 70% phezulu uPhaba kube kava-za mizu, uSir.”
“Ie nazi, aTLaS. Kuba kanja obala!”
“Izathu, uSir. Ie uthola-” Suddenly a loud alarm echoed through the small cabin. All lights went red and the spaceship started oscillating, as if it was struggling to stabilise again.
“aTLaS, kuthi kube vela?!”
“uSir, zileni Iwento phutha-za.” the system’s voice was steady, in contrast with the worried tone in the pilot’s voice.
“Goba?!” he pressed a few buttons, but the spaceship couldn’t stabilise. Instead it just began to quiver uncontrollably, already entering the Earth’s atmosphere. “Oh, indle! Si kho iYa-si sala ku kowehla kha zileni Iwento! Goba leli vela-za?!” Once again the system emitted a searching sound, barely audible over the loud alarm. “Kani sesha aphendule jeso kini kho ube!” he shouted, very concerned about the future of the spaceship and himself.
“Kini ohana yeke mIa fayelende fayel, uSir?” the calm, robotic voice asked.
“THULA!” he then noticed a bright light from outside and when he looked up at the large windscreen, he saw fire swallowing the spaceship’s nose. “Oh, mIa... oJeso abe phutha nge zulelo friji?! SI IYA-SI UKUSHA!”
“Zulelo friji kube kho-wazi-za, uSir.”
“WAZI!” he pressed the cooling system button, but nothing happened. He could feel the air inside the cabin getting hot.
“Wazi thikhi zulelo friji kho kube tholake yeke fushane fayelende fayel, uSir. Kini kwama iYa ku uLayo no wazi zulelo friji kiniku ona kini kwama mIa yeke. Kuba bambe, Ie fuka.”
“CANSI!” he quickly got out of his chair planning to go enable the cooling system, but he couldn’t walk with such heavy turbulence. “Qaleso...” he complained and sat back on his chair, firmly pulling the safety belt tight.
The fire had increased and the humanlike lost sight of the outside where flames consumed the whole front of the spaceship. The tremors became worse with every second of the uncontrolled descent and his stomach churned when he felt the vehicle falling vertically.
“Abe into kan jeso Ie kwama ze nge kini, uSir?” the program asked.
"Kho." he held firmly on the armchairs, his whole body tense, his frowning face coated in sweat.
Suddenly the red-haired humanlike regretted volunteering to visit the Earth.
***
[English version]“How long until we get to our destination, aTLaS?” asked the red haired navigator after pressing a few buttons on his spaceship’s control panel.
“28 minutes and 35 seconds, sir,” replied the artificially intelligent computer system in a robotic voice.
“What is our speed?”
“Now that we have crossed the asteroid belt, we have slowed down to the speed of light”
“Ugh, this is too slow! Can’t we just speed up?”
“I’m afraid we can’t, sir. We’re already on the economic mode, otherwise we won’t have enough power to get to Earth.”
“Economic mode? But why?” The navigator looked inquisitively at a big green luminous ball inserted in the center of the panel. A weird sound emanated from the ball, as if it was searching for some information. The humanlike quirked a red-haired eyebrow and tapped on the edge of the panel, waiting for the answer. “aTLaS…?”
The ‘searching’ sound ceased and aTLaS soon answered, “I’m sorry, sir, but the reason is not in my outdated files.”
“What’s the version of your library?” the manlike sighed and rubbed his brow, obviously predicting the answer.
“aTLaS-lib 7.6.3, factory setting, sir. There’s an available update, aTLaS-lib 10.1.1.”
“What?! But I updated you yesterday! Why do you keep resetting your setting?!” the red-haired man growled in frustration. “What’s your problem? You were not malfunctioning until a few weeks ago… I think I’ll reformat your system when we go back home.”
“I thought we were friends, sir.”
“Shut up, aTLaS.” the navigator couldn’t help chuckling before looking ahead, observing the huge star in the center of the solar system. He sighed in awe. The biggest star in his system was a mere red dwarf, nothing compared to the one he was observing now.
He reclined in his comfortable command chair, put his slender arms behind his head and looked at his surroundings inside the cabin navigation.
There was a huge control panel before him, with countless tiny green, red, yellow and blue lights, twinkling in a curious pattern; there were also many buttons, small and big ones, most of them placed near the green ball in the middle. There were two more navigator chairs on each side of his, but they were empty.
That was pretty much what existed inside that cabin.
The journey continued in silence for some time, until they had passed Mars and began approaching Earth. “There’s so much water down there!” it was the first comment the humanlike made, visibly astonished by the blue immensity he saw. Even though his origin planet was four times bigger than Earth, he had never seen a planet as ‘blue’ as this one.
“It’s because more than 70% of the planetary surface is covered in water, sir.”
“I know, aTLaS. It’s pretty obvious!”
“Sorry, sir. I just thought-” Suddenly a loud alarm echoed through the small cabin. All lights went red and the spaceship started oscillating, as if it was struggling to stabilise again.
“aTLaS, what’s happening?!”
“Sir, the linear orbiter has failed.” the system’s voice was steady, in contrast with the worried tone in the pilot’s voice.
“How?!” he pressed a few buttons, but the spaceship couldn’t stabilise. Instead it just began to quiver uncontrollably, already entering the Earth’s atmosphere. “Oh, shit! We won’t survive the landing without the linear orbiter! How did it happen?!” Once again the system emitted a searching sound, barely audible over the loud alarm. “Stop searching for answers that you don’t have!” he shouted, very concerned about the future of the spaceship and himself.
“Would you like to update my data library now, sir?” the calm, robotic voice asked.
“SHUT UP!” he then noticed a bright light from outside and when he looked up at the large windscreen, he saw fire swallowing the spaceship’s nose. “Oh, my… What’s wrong with the cooling system?! WE WILL IGNITE!”
“Cooling system is disabled, sir.”
“ENABLE IT!” he pressed the cooling system button, but nothing happened. He could feel the air inside the cabin getting hot.
“Automatic enabling of cooling system is not available in the current version of data library, sir. You can go to the reactor and activate the cooling system by yourself or you can update me. It’s quick, I swear.”
“FUCK YOU!” he quickly got out of his chair planning to go enable the cooling system, but he couldn’t walk with such heavy turbulence. “Damn it...” he complained and sat back on his chair, firmly pulling the safety belt tight.
The fire had increased and the humanlike lost sight of the outside where flames consumed the whole front of the spaceship. The tremors became worse with every second of the uncontrolled descent and his stomach churned when he felt the vehicle falling vertically.
“Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?” the program asked.
“No.” he held firmly on the armchairs, his whole body tense, his frowning face coated in sweat.
Suddenly the red-haired humanlike regretted volunteering to visit the Earth.
***
***
Alone in the laboratory, Dominic carefully observed the 3D projection of the fossil that some of his paleontologist colleagues had found a week ago in a remote area of Canada. According to their research, there was a great possibility that the fossilised species could be the long sought-after ‘missing link’, the bridge between humans and apes. Finding the missing link would fill the holes of the evolutionary theory.
Although Dominic was tasked for helping in this new discovery, he was not a paleontologist or an historian; though he was many other things. The 29-year-old man had a degree in biological sciences with specializations in the fields of genetic, evolutive biology and physiology - not to mention his curiosity for engineering, something outside of his official studies, but which interested him as much as his main areas of research.
His job here with the new fossil, was to sequence the genes and compare them with that of humans and apes. However, even though the fossil had been found buried in the frozen ground in conditions of extreme cold - which helped to preserve the DNA - it had suffered the hardships of weather and time, breaking up and getting infected by microorganisms over the millennia.
Thankfully technology had improved significantly since the early 2010s, getting to a point where it could mostly recover said fragmented DNAs.
There was no one around, everyone had left but Dom, who decided to go further with his investigation. The figure Dominic was looking at that moment was an holographic projection on the center of the big table on his laboratory. When he looked at the digital numbers on the translucent table surface, he found out it was already half past ten. Ignoring the late hour, Dominic stepped closer to the hologram, analysing it and then glancing down at the table, where some numbers had just shown up with a beep. And another one, and again.
“What’s that…?” Dominic muttered to himself, frowning and noticing several numbers appearing fast, one after the other, being followed by an annoying beep sequence for each new number.
He placed his forefinger over the surface, just above the numbers, and slid up, revealing some sort of menu. Before he could even think of inserting another command, he felt what could be the beginning of an earthquake. The whole building trembled disturbingly, making Dominic hold tight to the edges of the table just to maintain his balance. He heard clanking as some of his tools fell to the floor and the lights began failing. The whole episode barely lasted ten seconds.
Dominic took more than a minute to recompose himself. Panting hard, he looked up at the table; the hologram had gone and there were missing numbers where previously there had been several. Observing his surroundings, he found many tools scattered on the floor along with a weird, green fluid leaking from a test-tube, what made him sigh in annoyance because he’d have clean all that mess later.
But first he walked towards the big window in his laboratory. The curtains were closed, of course. He always kept them closed while working, so as not to get distracted by anything from outside. He was an intelligent guy, but knew he was easily distracted, so he always chose to close the curtains and he worked better when there wasn’t anyone around.
When Dominic pressed the button on the wall and the curtains rolled up, he was struck speechless by what he saw.
The laboratory where Dominic worked was located in an area far away from the city, practically in the middle of a forest. Considering the hour, it was impossible to see anything out there, but after the earthquake a flickery bright, orange light was coming from outside, illuminating the dark landscape. He saw rows of trees burning and wondered what actually had happened. He had not had heard anything during the trembling because the whole building was fitted with a sound proof system.
His eyes followed the trail of flames and caught sight of an unidentifiable object burning in the forest. “What...” he narrowed his eyes and approached the window even more, just to try to see what that strange object was. “Could that be a meteorite?”
He tried to fight against the urge to go out and investigate by himself. He really tried, but he couldn’t.
Dominic was a curious being by nature, and he convinced himself that going to investigate would be the right thing to do. He worked in a laboratory, after all. He could do a quick scan beforehand and make the work easier for his geologist friends.
Before leaving the building, he donned a protective suit, so as to avoid contaminating the object - or end up being contaminated by it.
It was a long, uncomfortable walk from the laboratory to the location of the object. He finally reached the trail of flames and followed it into the trees. The closer he got to the destination, the more he feared it was not a matter of meteorites.
He saw certain… ‘things’ that could not be classified as fragments from the rock - unless the meteorite was made of bent iron and metal sheeting with serial numbers.
Dominic slowed down and gulped when he realised he was closer to the object now. He tried to convince himself that it was not as obvious as it looked, because the obvious thing to him at that moment was that he was witnessing an unsuccessful landing of an… unidentified flying object. He shook his head, trying to get that silly thought out of his mind. After all, that could be only an aircraft… Right?
He kept walking for a few more meters and finally caught sight of the back of the… ‘aircraft’. There was more burning wreckage along the path, more huge white pieces of metal. The aircraft had an unusual design, something that Dominic had only seen in sci-fi movies and comics.
It was small - in comparison with Boeings - it looked more like a white scramjet plane, but with longer wings (one of them had been ripped off, probably due the impact) and a more circular body.
“God...” Dominic held his breath while approaching the wingless side of the supposed aircraft. It was then that he noticed the name ‘aTLaS 763’ written in large letters just above the opening where the wing was supposed to be. “What is it?”
The fire continued to burn around the aircraft. Dominic could still see the trees on fire and he suddenly felt guilty for not having called the fire department before going to investigate anything. But it was already too late; he was there, standing before an unknown spaceship. Yes, ‘spaceship’, because it definitely did not have a human design.
Without even realising that his feet were moving, Dominic found himself already squeezing through the opening on the spaceship’s side. He activated the light system of his suit - sort of a lantern on each hand and on the top of his head - since darkness was all he could see. When he illuminated the place, he found only a mess of broken pieces of something that he couldn’t recognise.
Entering the spaceship, he continued his investigation. He walked further in the direction of the frontal part of the vehicle until he came upon sort of an open gate. Dominic crossed the opening and realised he had arrived at what must have been a navigation cabin because he saw a huge windscreen where he could see the outside.
Stepping closer the window, he heard a noise; it sounded like a whining.
Dominic froze.
Another sound. Something was moving.
Dominic was sweating bullets by this time. He thought of running, but his body didn’t respond him; instead he just felt his legs going weak. Dominic just had the strength and courage to turn his body towards the ‘whining thing’. While he slowly spun, the light from his lantern revealed him two feet, two legs, one arm, a torso, another arm.
And a human face.
Dominic exhaled loudly; seeing a human was a relief, after all. He censured himself for thinking like a child, waiting for something fantastic to happen. Now that he thought better, this probably was a new aircraft design, possibly still in testing phase, that’s why it crashed there.
He approached the injured red-haired man curled in one of the corners of the room. “Uh, hello? Are you okay?” It was the first thing he said as he crouched down and placed a hand on the man’s shoulder.
“Kho...” the man whined and Dominic frowned.
“Where are you from? Russia?” he asked once he had no idea what the man’s language was.
“Kho… Sisi...” he stirred and tried to stretch his body, and when he did it, Dominic saw a patch of blood on the man’s tight white suit, just below his last rib.
“Oh, shit...” Dominic hurried up to try to put the man on his feet without hurting him even more. Once again the red-haired man stirred when Dom lifted him up. They left the aircraft with some difficulty, but the worst would be the path back to the laboratory. “Please, stay calm. I know you can do it. It’s alright.” Dominic said to the man without even looking at him and not even caring whether he could understand what he was speaking or not. “I’m definitely going to help you.”
***
Author's Note 2: if you reached the end, don't worry, many things will be explained along the chapters! :)