by John Kusters Jr

It was supposed to be an easy job, shuttling two xeno-archaeologists and their discovery from Starbase Prime to the spaceport in Arizona. Then an untracked piece of space garbage plowed through my cockpit and set my ship into a rapid spin.

I was fortunate enough to be near the spin axis, so while I was thrown around a bit, I escaped mostly unscathed. My passengers weren’t as fortunate, and had been instantly killed when thrown into the bulkhead. Worse, the collision had also freed their discovery, which now sat on my deck, talking to me.

“I can help you.” I don’t know how the slivery blob could speak without a mouth, but I could clearly understand it.

I ignored it as I reached deeper into an open console working to restore power to it. It powered up and immediately the emergency communication system blared to life.

“Repeat, if you cannot correct course in the next ten minutes, we will be forced to destroy your vessel to protect Habitat Seven. Please respond.”

Great, orbital traffic control was about to vaporize my ship. I wish they had been as diligent about tracking space garbage. Unfortunately, I had no way to respond to traffic control. Nor did I have any way of sending a message to my husband and daughter. I pushed that painful thought away.

Investigating the reactor status, the computer was reporting that the reactor’s containment chamber was structurally compromised, which explained the shutdown status. I did manage to negate most of the spin using the attitude jets, but with the main reactor off line, I couldn’t do more than that. There was no way to steer the ship clear of the habitat.

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” I said to myself.

“I can help you.”

I didn’t have long to find a way to save myself.

I was in my environmental suit, but my helmet had been in the cockpit and I stupidly did not have a spare elsewhere in the ship. Next ship, coffee dispenser at the pilot station! Assuming there was a next ship.

I considered using one of the helmets left by my now dead passengers, but even if they were intact–they weren’t really–they were an incompatible design. So a space walk was probably out. I needed to find another way off the ship.

Well, that’s exactly the purpose of an escape pod. I made my way aft along the corridor that ran between the passenger cabins to the hatch in the ceiling and the adjacent access ladder. The hatch was surrounded by blinking red warning lights. Not a good sign.

I climbed the ladder to get a better look at the hatch and the window there. Yeah, it was bad. The pod had been ripped off it’s forward latches, thought it was still attached by the aft ones. Between this hatch and the hatch on the pod was less than half a meter of empty space. But without a helmet for my suit, it might as well have been a mile.

That was my last hope. I knew then I would die when traffic control vaporized my ship.

“I can help you,” I heard again. I looked down. The thing was now directly below me. Nothing creepy about that!

I started climbing down the ladder and it moved–rolled?–to make room.

“Assuming I was inclined to accept your help–and I’m not–how could you help me?”

“I was designed to aid in the survival of individuals of the species who created me. I can envelop you and assure your survival.”

“Envelop me? Like an environmental suit?”

“It would be more intrusive and not comfortable for you, but essentially you are correct.”

I stared at it for a few moments. “You have a rocket engine in there somewhere?”

“If you are querying about locomotion, I have the means to produce a solar sail if needed. However, the explosion of your ship should provide the necessary momentum in this case.”

“So, you wrap yourself around me, we jump into space, and then you keep me alive until I can be rescued, is that the deal?”

“That is one possibility. Alternatively we can enter the atmosphere of the nearby planet and reach the ground.”

Could I take this blob of brushed-nickel alien tech at its word? The archaeologists thought it was a technological wonder, so I suppose it could do what it claimed.

“I will survive the explosion, regardless of your decision,” it told me. “You, however will not.”

“I don’t know the first thing about you. I don’t know whether I can trust you. Heck, I don’t know whether you intend to eat me or something.”

“Lack of trust is understandable in this situation. Is it your intention to allow yourself to be terminated?”

My husband would be the first to say I was unable to take a leap of faith. Every instinct in me told me to find a way to save myself, not to trust this alien device. But I was fresh out of ideas. And I desperately wanted to see my husband and our daughter again.

I screwed my eyes tightly shut and sighed deeply. Time was nearly up.

“Okay. Get me home.”

It had been correct. It was desperately intrusive and uncomfortable. But it got me through the destruction of my ship, through re-entry, and now was parachuting me down to the ground somewhere in Florida.

I had no idea how I was going to explain this to the authorities, or the military. I felt an obligation to protect this thing’s “life” after it had saved mine. I guess we’ll figure that out when the time comes.

But I would see my family again. That was all I could focus on. For once I had set self-reliance aside and trusted my life to a leap of faith. I guess when it came down to do or die, I had it in me to jump into the unknown.

My husband will never let me live it down.