Dark planet

             - We are able to confirm that the planet is uninhabited. No settlement has been found nor  any signs of intelligent life. No wildlife poses a considerable threat to human          colonization. Pockets of water have been detected on the poles and in small pockets    around the equator. The atmosphere is breathable but the atmospheric pressure takes a big  toll on our bodies. I’ll report again at the end of the week. Chief of mission Okilo, off.

   Carmen stepped away from the communications device and stared at the data. She pressed some buttons and sent the message home, hopefully having an answer by tomorrow morning. She then walked through the corridors of the ship towards her room, where she removed her uniform and laid in bed in her underwear. She was tired but that was normal after so many hours working in the surface of the planet. Carmen had begun feeling sleepy until she suddenly opened her eyes. She then sat on the bed and opened her bedside table drawer. She took out a picture and stared at it.

In the photo, there was a small girl with her parents. They were at Disneyworld, judging for the castle in the back and the character that had joined them for the picture. She caressed the paper and remembered her parents, who had been dead for a long time. Carmen had lost them in an airplane crash just the year after entering the space program. She had suffered alone for a long time but eventually came to be at peace with it by herself. She wasn’t the kind to crumble in front of difficulties. That’s why she had been chosen for leading this mission.

 Carmen put the picture back in the drawer and tried to sleep but that was a waste of time, especially because the speakers in her room carried the voice of her scientist officer to her room.

-               - Carmen. There’s… I need you in the observatory. It’s urgent.

 She detected the worry in his voice and decided to dress with some shorts and a shirt and go to the observatory fast. She was there ten minutes later, yawning and realizing her blouse was stained with chocolate. Norman was there, looking through a machine down to the planet. He hadn’t heard her coming and he almost jumped when she touched him in the back.

 Norman was a short and thin man. He had always looked sick but now he seemed worse, as if he had been informed of the worst news. Without saying a word, he invited Carmen to look through the lens he had been looking on. She leaned forward and realized it was pointed at the planet, somewhere near the Equator.

-                - It’s the region we call Morgana. Desert. Many rocks, no water. Let me put some                  coordinates here.

He pushed some buttons and the telescope aligned. Now, Carmen was looking at a small patch of something black. Or maybe, dark blue. It looked as if the lens was dirty or something but it wasn’t… It couldn’t’ be, out there, in the vacuum of space. Besides, the dark patch seemed to be… to be growing, yes. The edges of the stain seemed to move, like ants when moving in large groups.

-              - What is it? – She asked.

-              - No idea. It appeared only a few hours ago. I thought at first it was a telescope                  malfunction but it clearly isn’t.

-              - Is it life?

-              - Maybe.

-              -But we did a planetary scan… There was nothing big, not like that.

She pulled away from the viewer and went closer to Norman. He appeared to tremble, which was not uncommon in space. It was very cold there and Carmen had just realized she had not put any shoes on. She had to take a decision about the dark stain that seemed to grow. Should they go and investigate or only report the event and wait for instructions on how to engage it? She told Norman to go to bed and that they would discuss it in a meeting with the others. She also decided to send another message to Earth before going to bed, stating the latest events.

 The following day, she met her team. With her, there were seven humans in the ship: two scientific officers, two technical officers, a chief of mission, a navigator and a mechanic. They were all experienced and had been travelling through space for many years. They all trusted each other and knew the risks of the job. But this event was all about what they didn’t know, which visibly scared them. The stain had grown even larger as they slept. Carmen told them of the message she had sent and that she wouldn’t hear anything about an answer for, at least, a whole day. So they needed to make a decision: do or not do.

 Carmen and the two science officers voted for taking their shuttle and landing on the planet to investigate. The technical officers and the mechanic were against it, thinking risking the shuttle was a very dangerous move because they might need it latter in their mission. The decisive vote was the one of the navigator, a young woman that was the least experienced of them all. She loved the stars and planets and was very fond of making calculations and measures but this decision was bigger than her. She finally stated that she had entered the job because she had always been curious about the universe and that this might be a chance to reveal one of its mysteries.

 So later that day, the mechanic made sure the shuttle was just right for a flight over the planet. Carmen had decided she would go with Norman and one technical officer called Sarkar. The three boarded the shuttle in silence and got the instruments ready. Shortly after they had begun their short travel towards the surface. Norman monitored the stain at all moments, being able to do more accurate calculations as he drew closer to it. Sarkar took the ship over the Morgana region and flew over the edge of the stain. It was not a surprise when they all gasped, covering their mouths or just started sweating even more than usual.

 Down there, the dark stain moved. It did. Like soda spilled over a table. But this wasn’t a liquid. Or at least not at first sight. They were thousands, maybe millions of living things down there. Sarkar made the shuttle be still and that way they realized that the creatures were actually gigantic. They weren’t human in form, but rather like insects. They moved tightly, away from a center. Carmen, calm as she could make herself to be, told Sarkar to get the ship over the stain. The creatures seemed to be coming out of somewhere.

 Sarkar started moving the aircraft as Norman took pictures and measures of the creatures. They all knew they had made a big discovery but they still did not understand what it was all about. The planet had been deemed void of any large creatures and, now, there they were, looking down on gigantic insectoid creatures, roaming the desert dunes. After a fifteen minute flyby, they arrived at a point in the desert were mountains had been able to grow. And there, on a small group of peaks, there seemed to be a volcano. Sarkar had to make the ship go up, in order to take a better look.

 Somehow, the volcano was active. There was some smoke and Norman could detect small tremors on the surface. But the volcano wasn’t spilling lava or rocks. It was spilling living creatures, dark as the emptiness of space. And it was then that Carmen covered her mouth. She realized that the creatures emerging from the crater were not all the same. They were smaller ones among the titans. And not all looked like insects. Some even had… had some kind of human form. Not exactly our same biology but so similar. And like their volcano brothers, they were also dark as night.

 Norman took several pictures, Sarkar tried to maintain the shuttle in a good vantage point and Carmen just looked everywhere, amazed. The creatures had not realized or did not care about them. They just came out of the planet and walked, away from it. Then, like coming out of a trance, Carmen ordered Sarkar to flyby again towards any edge of the stain. They did so, faster than the time before and realized the group below had grown by the millions as they watch over them. The creatures kept walking, like under hypnosis.

Carmen decided it was enough and ordered Norman to release a probe and Sarkar to get them back to the ship. They both complied and got to there home minutes later. All the team reunited in the observatory and watched as the planet slowly became invaded by the dark blue stain. The probe sent back images, of every type of creature down there, just walking. Finally, hours later, the whole planet had been covered by the volcano creatures. The probe showed how they all suddenly stopped moving.

 Then, something happened, something that cannot be explained. The planet turned bright, as if it was a sun. It grew brighter and brighter and engulfed everything with its light, even the ship. They all screamed as their heads felt heavy and hurt them. They couldn’t open their eyes. And suddenly it was done. They help themselves up and realized, scared, that the stain had disappeared. The planet was as it had been before. When checking on the volcano, the crater was found to be non-existent.

 Carmen ordered her team to have an early dinner as she reported back to Earth. This event was of a terrific importance. She knew it. Or better yet, she felt it so.

Mars

   Although Mars had always appeared to be empty and lifeless, things were different now. For the last six months, people on Earth knew that if they stared up at the sky, some humans might be doing the same very far from them, on Global 1. That was the name of the fist Martian base in human History and was an object of pride and joy for many humans, specially those in the scientific community who had wanted this dream come true for a long time.

 Many governments had once and again postponed the so-called “colonization” of Mars namely because of budget problems and health issues. But they had never really tried to solve any of those problems. When scientists, the private sector and other countries decided it was time to pay a proper visit to the red planet, solutions were created for every single problem.

 The hardest trip was the one of the first group of people as they would never set a foot on Martian soil but they would organize everything for when others came to get them and replace them both up in the orbital station as in the new base on the ground. At first, only seven men and women orbited Mars for about two years. Occasionally, ships would come in from Earth carrying all kinds of supplies, mainly food and new equipment to help make the base and instruments to investigate the current state of the planet.

 They built everything by remote control, using last generation androids that could be controlled by computer, from the space station, and that could last for many years, even in the harsh conditions on Martian soil. It was fun to program the robots to do different things. Mainly, they acted as construction workers although these workers built their own tools and used them only when they were told to, in specific time frames and according to a long schedule that aimed for the opening of the first Martian module in a two-year time.

 The people on the station would often check that everything was properly done and proceeded with their on-site investigations as scheduled. After the first few months, they stopped automatically looking through the windows of their ship. Mars was beautiful but it was also visibly violent and the sandstorms proved difficult for the construction of their base. Many times a special robot had to be activated to “vacuum” all the sand and dirt that caused any problems to the other machines.

 Two years passes and those humans orbiting Mars were replaced by a new group, one of only five people, every single one from a different country. This was because the organization that was after the construction of the base, had to guarantee that every single contributing country had at least one representation on the base, for a short period of time. You see, they only had permit to stay a year. No astronaut could stay more than that on Mars. It wasn’t because they thought it was dangerous but because they needed to study them to see how their bodies had adapted to another planet.

 Everything was science and investigations and reports. That first group really didn’t have a lot of time to waste on having fun or merely looking at the planet they had come to visit. As they were the first group, they had to verify that everything was in good shape. The robots were great but there was nothing like two human eyes to verify everything was good for a group of people to actually live, permanently, down on the red planet.

 Half of their year, they spent it on the orbiting station and the other half on the newly inaugurated base. They transmitted to Earth the images of their celebration and every single human at that time saw their joy and their expectance for the future. One of the astronauts, a French woman, had been authorized to bring a bottle of the best wine she was able to get before leaving Earth. It was perfect for the occasion.

That day was special, not only for Humanity as a whole but for that little group because they suddenly didn’t feel like just scientist or people on a mission. They actually felt like they were home and were just celebrating someone anniversary or birthday. They had cake, a proper meal, the French wine and chatted for hours and hours. Of course, they did not spoke a word about work.

 After that, they rested nicely for the first time in a long time and the following week, even with the heavy load of work, was just the best they had on Mars. They shared observations about the planet, the messages they got from their families on Earth and the pictures of their old and new homes that a satellite, released by them, had taken recently. It was all perfect and the idea of having more and more people living there, on Mars, was just natural and almost mandatory.

 From then on groups of people would come and go and with the construction of new quarters on the Global 1, more and more people were able to stay there, for longer periods of time. Some of them weren’t even scientist or anything like that. They were just people who needed a fresh start or who had always dreamed of doing something like this. Mainly, they were adventure seekers, dying to get to know everything there was to see and do on Mars.

 With time, they were able to organize walks near the base and, years later, motorcycle rides to a near canyon and back. Of course, humans had to wear special suits but they had become much easier to wear and less constricting. When stable population passed one hundred individuals, investors from Earth decided to expand Global 1 to the first big town on Mars. Construction started ten years after the arrival of the first people on the planet and was expected to be fully completed in fifty years, making room for at least one thousand new Martians.

 Then, the first proper Martian was born. A woman and her husband had arrived a year ago to town and they had loved it so much that they had decided to stay. And apparently their eagerness for this new environment had also had other consequences, such as the birth of Juno, the first human to be a Martian. She was issued a special Martian passport and many journalists interviewed the family for the following years. She was an instant celebrity without even knowing.

 Juno was one of those who really loved to get around the city and loved even more the feel of the Martian dirt between her toes and fingers. Eventually, a suit had been designed that was only used on the face and around the waist. It would cover all of the body if the person wearing it decided to press a special button on the waist but the people that lived there for a long time had learned not to be a friend of nature. They actually felt Mars was no different than Earth and that nature had found other ways to do things there.

 The young girl grew up to be an environmentalist, opposed to the exploitation of various natural resources found on Mars such as nitrogen, lithium and titanium, all very important for future buildings on Mars and Earth. But Juno had learned the beauty of her homeland and fought the ruling committee of Mars on every turn. Even people on Earth were backing her organization, calling for someone to control what the private sector tried to do off world, due to the lack of clarity of the law.

 But the mining for many resources had already began, in remote areas, and it was fuelling the creation of a new space station around the planet, that would allow humans to take the next step in their cosmic journey: their arrival on the Jovian system. Jupiter was key to travel beyond their system, if that was ever to be attempted and many organizations on Earth were eager to do that and, of course, to get their hands on the massive resources of the Jovian moons.

 Suddenly, many people on Global 1, now called Bellona, were beginning to think about a new adventure, the worlds of possibilities that were about to be opened to them. It wasn’t a surprise that, on Juno’s elderly years, Bellona had seen a flux of emigration like none before. Some stayed and people kept coming from Earth but the new hotspot of their system was Assaracus, a city built for one million people and the new bright star made with the money won on Mars on Earth by the private sector.

 Every newspaper registered Juno’s death, but the news was relegated to the inner pages of every publication. After all, it wasn’t every day that humans discovered they were not quite alone.

Scorpius

   The office was located in a very tall building somewhere in the middle of a big city. Two walls were made of glass and many parts of the city could be seen from it. Inside the room there was only a large table, capable of seating a dozen people. When the door opened, late at night, each seat was rapidly occupied by a person. Each one was identified by a small tag in front of them, on the table, with their name and position written on it. They waited a while until a woman in black came in and sat down in one corner: in front of her, she had a small table with a laptop, a remote control and the light switch.

When everyone stopped talking or arranging their belongings, the woman turned off the lights and turned on a projector with the help of the remote. The machine started making noises until it formed an image on one of the walls. Only one of the twelve scientists reunited there had to move in order to appreciate the image: a simple shot of space done by an orbiting observatory, highlighting a specific star, which bore the name Scorpius II written in read, just below the circle highlighting the star.

 The scientist that had moved to see the image stood up and looked closely to the image. The light flickered a bit but the man didn’t stop watching. It was as if the image, the name, the information clustered in one single slide was just too much not to take a moment to process it and, even, to accept it as it was.

As you know, the probe known as New Horizons has detected a signal coming from space. The transmission was sent back to Earth from the Oort cloud, where the probe now is. The source signal was also detected on Earth, days after. After some days of evaluation, we can assure the signal came from there…

He pointed to the name “Scorpius II”, glowing in the darkness of the room. The scientists didn’t say a word. Most of them had some idea of the announcement and those who didn’t, highly suspected the reasons why they were summoned to a secret office that had only be used once in the past, some ten years ago.

Any idea what the message says?
We should get there later but what I can say now it’s that the message is only half of the story we have come here to discuss.

He nodded to the woman seating in the corner, just as she pointed the remote once more to the projector. The image changed instantly, to another picture of space, this time portraying something like a stain against the black of empty space. The picture also bore the name “Scorpius II” but the magnitude of approach was highly augmented in this one. It was apparently a portrait of the vicinity of a star located far away.

This second picture, which is currently being processed to get a much better resolution, shows something rather alarming, specially considering the message we just showed you.

The various eyes in the room tried to analyze the picture rapidly but the scientist standing up gave answers to their questions faster that they could ask them.

It shows that Scorpius II has gone supernova. The star, previously analyzed, just exploded and probably affected all the system it illuminated. The various projects profiling worlds capable of sustaining life had found a super Earth orbiting Scorpius II. We don’t really know if there was something in there but we are sure it was destroyed due to the massive explosion.

The man then sat down. The woman in the corner stopped typing and turned off the projector and turned on the lights of the room. The scientists looked more confused that overwhelmed, which should have been the ideal state of mind, at least for the one leading the conversation.

Finally, someone else spoke. A young woman:

What I guess you are suggesting is that message somehow has to do with the supernova forming in Scorpius.
That’s correct.

Another scientist, a tall black man, looked confused:

Has there been any further analysis of the situation in Scorpius?
Yes. According to previous reports of the system, we can be sure that Scorpius wasn’t ready to become a supernova. It hadn’t reached that degree of maturity. It was a rather young star.

Now this had the effect he wanted on his audience. Every single person had their eyes widely opened and had suddenly chosen a better way to seat, as if their current position had not been the ideal one to receive such news.

Do you know or not what the message is about?

This was asked by a skinny and very white man, he could practically be called “albino”. He had turned slightly pink because of the recent news and because he really wanted an answer to his question.

We think we do.
What’s that suppose to mean? Do you or don’t you know?

The presiding scientist stood up again and started to pace. After a couple of rounds along the wall, he started talking.

The meaning of the message was what took longer to decipher. Actually, I was handled the last report on it as I entered the building. I read it on the lobby and, to be honest, it made me feel kind of sick.

Now everyone was truly worried. The sun was shining brightly outside and even birds could be heard. It was very strange that the world went on as usual as a small group of people talked about something as significant as what they were discussing.

We believe, and there’s no real way to be sure, that the message is a warning of some kind. We have to be mindful that the message was sent thousands of years ago, due to the distance of Scorpius. We know, because of the analysis, that the signal was actually given more power. If got to us faster than it should. Maybe it wasn’t sent thousands of years ago but hundreds and that makes a difference.

A very tanned and old man coughed before standing up and staring down at the city. Everyone saw him to this and there was a reason why: he was the oldest scientist invited and was still one of the most important astrophysicists in the world. His genius was renowned and, when his pupils saw him worry, it meant something was really hard to solve or was something to be really scared about.

It didn’t happen often, but there he was, with a very stern face, looking at the park below.

Have you sent the information to various agencies? – He asked.
Yes. At least one group in each continent has seen it. We have kept it secret too. We believe it’s dangerous to inform it to the politicians, at least for the time being.
Scorpius… What does the message say?

The leading scientist in the room sighed. Suddenly his face looked fifty years older, as if time had just realized he existed and had caught up with him.

It’s a warning about something or someone. We have concluded someone other than the inhabitants of the Scorpius planet are responsible for the implosion of the star and that they knew it. They sent the signal preventing others from the unknown danger. The signal is still travelling, though they’re all probably dead.

Now everyone seemed even more worried. What made them uneasy was the fact they weren’t able to do something to prevent or act against what had happened in Scorpius. For all they knew, whatever happened there could happen to the Sun any day.

We are waiting for another report on the event, including more information about the signal, the planet that had been detecting near Scorpius II, the star and whatever else New Horizons and James Webb can provide. When we have it, we will inform the IAU of everything and it will be them who inform everyone else.

When he stopped talking, everyone moved in their seats. But not because of what he had said, but because the sunlight had suddenly being blocked. They got scared for a moment but realized the city was in full celebration because of its birthday, and many large hot air balloons were doing rounds all over town. Sunlight came back and the scientist left, worried all the same.

Somewhere deep in space, the remnants of Scorpius floated slowly, forever denying the existence of life in that corner of the universe.

Antares

   Aslana was reclined on her chair, barely looking at all the screens she had in front of her. She had been commissioned with surveying a barren part of the Cosmos no one really cared about. Neither did she, but it was her job and she complied. After the first hour, however, she had bored herself to death by watching the screens with practically nothing showing.

 That had not been the idea she had had when in college, trying to decide what to do next. Antares space station was hiring but becoming an actual astronaut also interested her. People saw them as adventurers and explorers and she wanted that, to feel that she was doing something special.

 She decided to become an astronaut and went to Star City, near Moscow, to become one. With at least fifty others, she trained hard for a whole year but at the end of the process only ten were finally chosen. It had been decided they were the only ones fit for space travel. Aslana was not chosen. Her performance on skill and intelligence tests was formidable but the physical demand of the career had proven a bit too much for her.

 However, her tutors had recommended her to the Science Academy of Moscow, who were about to open a new observatory orbiting Triton, near Neptune. The observatory was located, funny enough, on Space Station Antares. So she had wasted a whole year of her life to do almost exactly what she had thought of doing when coming out of college.

 And now, there was Aslana, sitting on her chair, legs up on the dashboard, looking at Triton through one of the many windows in the space station. Antares was home to about five hundred people and its builders were already trying to get the permission to build another wing to it and get five hundred more to come and live almost at the edge of the solar system.

 Aslana enjoyed it sometimes, and other times she hated it. She loved space and she hated people there. They got to be so annoying, judgemental and hypocritical. Well, there were some people that were very kind and lovable too but they weren't a vast majority.

 Suddenly, an alarm made Aslana fall from her chair. The sound had come from the dashboard, which she hadn't been looking. To be honest, she had fallen asleep for a couple of minutes, tired and bored at the same time.

 She sat down again, combed her hair with her fingers and started tapping and clicking and writing. The signal seemed to come from a quadrant of empty space. Of course, it was not actually empty but nothing really big seemed to be there. Yet, the alarm had been set off.

 She ran all the tests, to know if the signal was actually foreign in origin or a Earth signal bouncing between the stars. After a half hour, she could certify that the pulse, the call if you will, was from deep space. No human had traveled there. There was a science base in Haumea and that was it. That was the farthest place humans had gone from home. But this signal was from deep space and, somehow, it had reached Antares.

 Aslana aligned every dish available towards the quadrant from which the message was coming. The pulse got weak at some point and then strong again. It was like the people, if that word could be used, were having problems keeping up the strength of the pulse.

 When the woman activated the audio machine, she let a loud squeak come out from her mouth. The sound was awful, it was like if a thousand bees and wasps had suddenly entered the station. She screamed because of the volume, which was unusually high. She thought that, for sure, someone in the station might have been woken up by the sound.

 And that reminded her. She should report what was going on immediately. The machines were all recording the event but she needed to send a message to Earth, for them to check the message out. Very large telescopes had been built on the Moon, capable to trace the message more accurately that what little potential the Antares station had.

 - Moon base Tycho, this is Aslana Tromaterova. I'm in charge of the observatory for the night. I have    detected a pulse coming from this space. I'm sending the coordinates encrypted in this message.          Please check. I'm monitoring the event. All tests have been done. Waiting for instructions.

 She sent the message, which would take several hours to reach the Moon. Meanwhile, she started playing with her audio machine to clean up the noise she was hearing. Aslana moved every knob, button and switch and listened carefully. After a while, she thought she had heard something, like a mumbling. She did her best to clean the sound with the computer, but, of course, the distance had disrupted the signal and it wasn't coming clean.

 Then Aslana remembered a class she had received at Star City, when an old german professor had taught the everyone how to clean sound and video feeds coming or going from space stations. He said it would help tremendously on occasions of distress or emergency. One thing he had said was that sometimes video could help clean sound waves. The sound could be translated by a screen and then cleaned properly.

 So Aslana did just that. One of the many screens helped her accomplish something she thought would have been impossible due to the circumstances. After two hours on it, she had finally cleaned the pulse. And the woman was very nervous, unsettled.

 She had not thought of the signal to be dual, to be sound and video at the same time. But it was. Aslana realized she was the first person in History to see the face of an extraterrestrial, a being from another planet. They were different, true, but she could see humanity in them, in their eyes and behavior.

 There was some data being sent on the video feed too. It was on some other language but she could conclude, from the video and some of the statistics, very similar to human ones, that they were on a ship. And that this ship, was in deep trouble. Some of the creatures seemed to be controlling a fire and others ran in several directions.

 Then something happened that almost made her fall from the chair again: the creatures spoke towards the camera, probably asking for help. And Aslana cried, realizing they would die there in the middle of nowhere, only been heard by one human woman so far away.

 The woman cleaned her face and decided to do something useless: send a message. Judging from the distance between her and the quadrant they were calling from, Aslana knew all of them were already dead, probably for many years, maybe even hundreds of years. They had died alone, horribly. So she wanted to honor them by sending a message. She thought her words carefully and then sent the message, which she later sent towards Earth with all the data relating to the event.

 It was important to her to do this. She had been alone half her life and, with this gesture, useless maybe but sincere, she wanted to tell anyone hearing that they would never be alone, not while there were others around caring for their well being.

 When her shift ended, she spoke briefly with her boss and told him she was very tired but that all the data had been sent to Earth and was saved in the station's main hard drive. The boss granted her her wish and, as she laid down in bed, she realized she still had a life in front of her and that she could do whatever she wanted with it.

 - My name is Aslana. You will never know me and I will never know you. But I wanted you to know    you have a friend now and I hope I have one or many too. I'm a human and is probable you won't        understand what I'm saying. But I trust someday you will. And when you do, I want you to know        that we,  I, will always be here for you. We are now bound to each other and I will try my best to        keep this  promise. Sorry for your loss.

The day of discoveries

Sandra Kazan had been working for years just to get a vague answer, a response that may give hope to future humans. She was 24 years old when she entered SETI as an intern and now she had the responsibility to process data from every single home computer that helped SETI process their information.

She was now almost forty and felt her life had amounted to nothing. Every single day looking at screens with numbers and numbers and, at the end of the day, they meant nothing. Her outlet was her teaching, the only place where she felt she was of use. When the classes where over, she felt useless, bored.

The woman went to her mother's home for the holidays. Seeing her mom felt great and weird at the same time. She had always wanted Sandra to be more an active scientist and not just a teacher. It wasn't that she disapproved of her but she felt her daughter was made of a stronger material. She had even encouraged her, years before, to submit her application to NASA in order to become an astronaut. She said it would make her very proud if her daughter became one of the few black women in space, as she would represent all the efforts made by her ascendants.

But that didn't happen. Sandra was captivated by the search for extraterrestrial life and that was her passion. Although going to space was a dream, she would rather be the one that announced the discovery of life in other planets to the rest of the world.

In her mother's home, she stayed in a small room. It wasn't the room of her childhood but the only other room in the small apartment. Her father had died five years ago, so her mom had bought a new place with her savings and money her husband had left.

The first day, they behave like strangers. The truth was that Sandra didn't visit her mother as much and, now that her brother had left the country for work, she had the task of checking on her mother's needs and the state of her life. She was an older woman, but she was strong still and much more active than others. She loved dancing so she visited a senior center often to dance with various partners that always enjoyed her presence.

Sadly for Sandra, she had not inherited that from her mother, that candor, her charm. She had always been more private, trying to keep things serious and grounded. She was like her father, a man that rarely laughed or encouraged jokes. But Sandra would have loved to be more like her mother, a bit careless but ultimately happy.

Days after getting home, the two women had a fight. The mother had reminded her daughter of her short lived marriage and Sandra just exploded, yelling and telling her mother not to mess with things she didn't know about.
It was no use to try to talk as there was no real confidence. Her parents had not raised her to trust them but to respect them, so she had no need or urge to explain anything to her mother.

She had married Matt Jackson around the time she turned thirty. At first, everything was perfect, ideal even. They got a house and she left her job at SETI. She was dedicated to make it work so she only kept her work as a teacher as it had flexible hours.

But things turned bad fast. Matt was violent and absent frequently. He never hit Sandra but could be even more violent with his mouth, saying what he said. It hurt bad. And then he left for work and acted as if nothing had happened. He was a scientist too and traveled often to Europe and Asia for conferences. He was a respected man in the community.

Just after the first year of marriage, he was selected to go to space, with a team of other scientist to test theories and make experiments in zero gravity. The Soyuz craft that transported him to the ISS exploded over Asia. She was officially a widow and was handed a flag and given money. But the truth was Sandra was relieved. She had never loved him for real and feared him every time he was close. She wasn't happy but not sad either.

It was still a hard subject to deal with, however. And she knew her mother blamed her for the bad relationship and for not being able to give her the grandson that her brother finally gave her. Sandra never remarried and was not interested in men any more, at least not as husbands.

On Christmas day, she tried to make it up to her mother by doing all the cooking. She loved to cook as it relaxed her, so she did some turkey with a delicious gravy and a meat pie, and two desserts and even a tasty lemonade. She also made corn bread, her mother's favorite, hoping to mend things after their argument.

It appeared to have worked as they enjoyed a very nice meal for the two of them. She gave her mother presents she had brought with her like clothes and a music CD she knew she would love. Her mother thanked her and told her she was happy to have her around for such a sensible time for her. Sandra's father had died days after Christmas day, so her mother was very sensitive.

The following week, they visited the cemetery, put flowers on Sandra's father grave and went into the church for mass. It had been years since Sandra had entered a church and she felt a bit guilty as she had been raised a catholic but faith had never really been something she had. It didn't mattered is she believed in God or not, the concept of faith for her was hard as she was rather blunt with her decisions and opinions.

Suddenly her phone rang and she had to excuse herself in order to answer the call outside the church. something amazing had happened at SETI and she was asked to come back and process some information to confirm a possible signal they had detected.

Sandra waited outside for her mother. When the woman got out, she told her the news but the older woman didn't really understand what was going on. On the way home, Sandra explained what her work was about and how urgent it was for them to decipher the data. But her mother was more sad than interested in her reasons for leaving.

As Sandra packed, she realized her mother had faded a bit, as a plant that begins to lose color, life. She asked her how she felt and the woman answered she was "fine". Sandra told her mom how sorry she was to leave but that it was necessary, as they needed her. The mother then told her she needed her too, as she felt alone and sad after visiting her husband's grave. She felt she had been left alone in the world and now she had nothing.

Of course, Sandra felt guilty and decided to take her mother home with her, at least for the remainder of the holidays. It took a lot of convincing but the older woman finally accepted. They got there that same night and Sandra drove directly to work. She settled her mother in her office with a big sofa, blankets and a TV, as she worked in a desk nearby, in silence.

When she saw her daughter's dedication, the mother realized she had never really known her daughter and that maybe it was time to really get to know each other.

In the morning, the woman was woken up by Sandra's cheering. She was really happy, throwing papers around and cheering loudly. Some people had already arrived and she finally explained she had gotten through the data and that the announcement could be made.

The woman was present when her daughter announced, on national television, the discovery of an extraterrestrial signal that repeated itself, like a beacon. They had proved it wasn't from a natural source and that it seemed almost like a call of some sorts.

But the mother didn't really understood all of that. She shed a tear because, after years of years of her own neglect, she realized her daughter was a brilliant woman, capable and exemplary. And Sandra saw her tears and smiled.

It came from us...

 - The place is deserted.
 - It is a desert, after all.

Lin and Allan had been inside the crashed craft for over an hour now and there were no signs of survivors to the crash.

The day before, radars had detected the ship near the planet. Several times the people at Jongjin base had attempted to establish contact but the ship but hey were unable to. Then the ship appeared to lose all stability and fell into the planet.

A scientist and a military officer had been sent to check the crash site. No living beings were onboard. From the look of it all, it appeared as if the ship had been empty all along but that was impossible as radars and other technology had verified the ship was on a strict course before they stopped and fell into Katf II, the second planet in a system not far from Earth.

Both astronauts came out of the ship and entered their vehicle, a four wheeled rover that could travel as it would in Earth. The atmosphere was similar but not breathable. As they traveled back to the base, two hours away, they started talking about the possible reasons the ship was there and why it crashed.

Suddenly, the wind started to blow, getting stronger by the minute. The vehicle had to stop and, in these cases, the astronauts were required to raise stay still as storms normally moved a lot and it would be soon be away from them.

 - I'm so hungry.
 - Didn't you eat before leaving?
 - No, I had to submit my report on that rockslide on the far side last month. Pain in the ass.
 - Did someone got killed?
 - No, but...

But Lin didn't know more of the matter. The wind, that had formed a tornado of sorts, was moving away from them. What had impressed Allan to the point of being rendered speechless was a figure that had appeared from the other side of the storm, it moved slowly but towards them.

Lin realized about it too and grabbed the binoculars that they kept between the two seats. She could see what the creature was: it seemed like a man with a limp but its looks were far from that. It was made of something green and seemed to be furry. Furry...

 - What is it? - Allan asked.
 - We need to get to the base, now.

She restarted the vehicle and pressed on towards the base.

Once there, Lin asked for an emergency meeting with the top minds and chiefs in the base. They were all there in a matter of minutes. Allan was the last person to arrive. He approached Lin and said something to hear, almost in a whisper.

 - May we know the reason of your call, Ms. Lin? We have things to deal with.
 - I know and I'm sorry to call you like this but it is urgent.

Lin asked Allan to turn off the lights and then presented to the audience with a video, apparently footage made with a handheld recorder. The video depicted a woman in a lab. She seemed very intelligent but very worried too. She said that she worked with a company from Earth that dealt with biogenetics and related topics. Her duty was to study all pathogens that could affect humans but that her bosses had asked, in a top secret document, to start the creation of a special virus, a strong one, able to resist any plague.

To her own surprise, research and its costs were not a problem and within a couple of years they had a prototype. Unfortunately, the experiment had worked all too well: the virus had proved its resistance to everything, even to humans. When scientists decided the project was too dangerous, the virus took possession of several members of the scientific body, killed them.

The female scientist said that their last opportunity was to send the virus to the Sun, so it would be destroyed for good. They shipped the virus in an automated craft and launched it but they soon realized they had failed. They realized the virus had taken control of the ship.

She finally stated she did this video for the people to know the company wanted all record of the virus erased as it was "no longer their problem", as the craft it inhabited had left the system.

When the video stopped, the lights turned on and Lin explained the video had circulated for years amongst scientists but everyone had thought it was best not to mess with it all. Until now.

Lin explained that her and Allan had witnessed a creature walking towards them in the desert, limping and deformed. Checking the data they had gathered on the crash site, she realized the ship may be the one carrying the virus.

One of the men laughed and said it was all ridiculous. He said that, even if was all true, the possibilities of the craft with the virus landing in Katf II were very slim as larger planets would have attracted the craft.

Lin responded by telling him that her team had been investigating a life source near the crash site. An oasis of life on the planet. The creature seemed covered in moss, similar to the one that grew in that oasis. She theorized the virus had gotten close to it for water but then used moss to form a body.

Suddenly all lights went off and the red emergency ones were on. A voice in a speaker told everyone on the base the exists were now closed and that everyone should remain calm.

Allan approached a computer and logged on the security cameras on the outside. They all scanned the images until a woman from the mining commission yelled "There!".

On a camera registering the outside of the parking area of the base, they could see a creature resembling a man but with no face or fingers. It was banging at the door, possibly attempting to go in.

Then, everyone's cold got ice cold: from the "belly" of the creature, a face came up, that of a man. And the man screamed. And they knew all was lost.

Far & Below

* This is a recording made on January 1st, 2237.

My name is Amelia Granger. My ID number is 208341295. I am the medical officer on space station Hawking, currently stationed near Jupiter's moon, Europa.

For me, this is day 53 in the spaceship. Today we celebrate new year's although we're really celebrating our achievements in the last days.

Scientific officers Namadi Gutembe and Ali Ro released their heated missile yesterday. The device successfully penetrated the surface of Europa and in around five hours, got to the inner ocean of the moon. They released the probe resting inside the missile and have already discovered over ten new species in the liquid environment.

However, no creature shows any degree of intelligence. They are all botanic life, showing no reaction to the tests done by the probe. The officers decided to let ir roam around the ocean for the night, as we had a party on board.

Captain Michaud and first officer Ramirez joined us too. We are currently over 20 people inhabiting the station so the celebrations went on for several hours. Having no alcohol, we all ate a lot of cake and dried fruits and many other things we have in the galley. Our cook is worried we may not have enough until the next ship comes in with food. We're a month away from that.

I ran tests the last week of December to every single person in the ship. I'm glad to say only one individual appears to be affected by the gravity issues and the sun's radiation. It might be nothing but I want to be sure as one patient with cancer would have to immediately leave for Earth to receive proper treatment.

Engineer Kaamat has been specially kind, showing me every single machine they make and finish here before it's used. It's thrilling to see everyone work in what they love. Sometimes I would love to have more to do around here. Keeping the diets in order and giving check ups every so often gets boring really fast. But I guess it's better for everyone if I don't have a lot to deal with.

Nothing more to day. Granger out.

* January 9th, 2237

This is Amelia Granger. ID number 208341295. Medical officer on space station Hawking, now near Europa.

Things have drastically changed this past week. First, I'm sorry to announce scientist Griselda Coon has cancer. We have already sent word to Earth for them to pick her up. She's not well, at all. She has started fainting, vomiting and is now quarantined in her room. It's not contagious but its better if she keeps away from others.

It isn't cruelty. It is because everyone has been too busy looking at the recent findings. The Europa probe has discovered many more species but we are looking at two in particular. The first one appears to be a whale, or so I understand. It seems it's not as intelligent as the ones we have on Earth but its pretty big.

What concerns all of us is the other one. We have had no sight of it but there are traces of the species all over. It appears it is a marine creature that is able to walk overground. Scientists are still not sure if the creature has ever pierced through the snow but it is possible.

What makes it possible is the fact that a rover we had seen prior to the missile lunch, has been destroyed. We have no idea how or by what. The site of the destruction has been scouted with instruments but there are no major traces of the rover or of the creature.

I have to be honest. I am scared and I think many of the others are too. Not only because the rover was destroyed but because the creature appears to elude us on purpose. Everyone says it must be smart because the instruments and the probe are too advanced for primitive live to hide from them.

Oh, I almost forgot. There is something else. We have received word from Space Station Africa, over Earth, that our next shipment of food has been delayed. Apparently there are shortages on Mars and they need our supplies to help the communities there. We understand but this makes our cook go even more crazy. Now I have no issues controlling diets.

We hope they come for Coon as soon as possible. I hear they might take her to Titan, to the new hospital orbiting around it. I hope that is true. She needs help.

Granger out.

* January 12th, 2237

Amelia Granger here. This entry is rather hard, in so many different ways.

I have always loved what I do, helping others and trying to make everything better for everyone. I came here because I thought it would be a challenge, a field of lessons to make me a better professional and a better person too.

Mrs. Coon has died. It happened yesterday. We never received word from Titan and no ship departed Earth to pick her up. Apparently Mars has been hit by solar wind and the situation is critical so every space station is now on its own. We have her in a secure bag, here on medical bay. It makes me shiver, the thought she's dead and close to me. I never thought anyone would die.

It's not stopping, either. First officer Ramirez and Science officer Ro are both down here, in the infirmary. Apparently the sun is also affecting us. The station has changed its position and all windows had been blocked by metal, to protect us. I am certain that if we don't receive help, these two new patients may face the same fate as Mrs. Coon.

What also has the crew in critical state is the fact that the communications with Earth having been down for the last few hours. Many were expecting to tell their families what was going on in here but that is not possible at the time. I haven't spoken to my father since I came here, but that's for different reasons. Lack of communications don't affect me much, except for the wellbeing of my patients.

There' something else, of course. As the chores in the station are limited, I have been helping around and I was in the lab when the alarm went off. I twas another attack on the surface. Some equipment left there by a flying probe was destroyed. The strange thing is we now know what it is.

Pictures were taken by cameras and a probe was sent after it happened. I am not a biologist but the creatures looks like... Well, like a monster I once saw on a movie. I think it was one of those old monster movies from the museum. The creature has a three legs, no real feet. Its like a tree that way. But its upper body resembles the one of a human. It even appears to have a chest.

It has no arms. Nothing like that. Biology head Yu told me they believe it uses it's legs as arms. The most impressive part is "the head". Not really a head but a promontory on his shoulders, as if it all was the same section of the body. No eyes but rather a black line that appears to turn on and off. Some reading say heat emanates form that slid. No mouth either.

We are all scared now, not even the biologists are eager for their discovery. At least three have been sighted above ground and the marine probe has detected one. They swim fast, really fast.

I think we will have a lot of time to investigate them, that is if they...

...

Sorry. It was the speakers. The captain wants us all in his chambers. He says the probes have been destroyed and that he got another warning from Earth.

To be honest, I'm not leaving the planet ever again.

Granger out.