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S-1

"Is this a joke, sir?"



Darwin looked at his junior officer. "It's real." He'd posted about the possibility of a habitable planet in their direction, told everyone to keep an eye out, it could be a good place to colonize, but even the best workers is as bad as being blind. He and his team had researched the planet thoroughly. They'd even scanned it with their research vessels, but what they got back confused them, it had point-blank shot them out of space, and even back they couldn't figure out what was going on.

"Sir, what goes on here? I've never seen so much rock. This stuff is too crumbly for some ancient asteroid."



"That's what we thought, but it's artificial. I wonder what that thing is... it's something that… I can't explain what it is… It's weird, though. It moves itself around, you know what I mean?" He did. The planet had been recorded for over a thousand years, and the creatures had changed. Since the changes, the locals had become hostile. Darwin and his team had no idea why, but the odds of their survival, if they tried to return, were less than zero.

"Sir? Are you getting this? I'm getting something off of this algae. It's like some kind of metal. How is that possible? How does it get metal?"



"You're getting excited over a smoking gun…"



"No, sir, it's nothing like that. It's like a door… Do you want me to shoot it?"



"Yes-"

"What the hell is that?"



"Whatever it is, we'll take it home. Just shoot the door." Saying different might have saved his life. That and the fact that pulling the pins out of a grenade was a lot harder than he made it look.

"Out of my way!" An alien with a temper ran after him until he stopped and grabbed Darwin's shoulder, pulling him away from the blast.

"I don't know what I'd do without you, Scrappy." Darwin was more than willing to let the friendly alien help him back to the ship. He was ready to accept the fact that he may not make it home, maybe not back to Earth, ever, but he was prepared to live in space for the rest of his life. Anything was better than dying by a school of sharks that he'd seen through his thermal binoculars.

"We got a bridge!" Another crew member yelled.



"We good to go?" Darwin asked Scrappy.



Scrappy nodded. "It worked. To the lifeboats!"



"Screens over, shields up. We're moving in. When we hit ten klicks, drop them." Darwin looked at the screen his first officer was displaying. "Who's on the screens?"



The officer in charge stepped into the bridge and saluted. "Colonel Marcus!" Darwin returned the salute. "I've got a locking radar on your coordinates. We should have a lock soon."



"We got something in the water. We can't tell what it is. It's heading this way!" Darwin looked at the screen. The object's position was rising, coming up fast. Darwin asked his first officer. "How far out do you have that lock?"



"We're seeing it now. Pulling in range now."

"Whatever you guys are firing," Scrappy yelled, "Give it to me. We're going up. Now!" Darwin turned to see a school of shark-like monsters, but something larger. In an instant, the water was filled with the rotting corpses of his crew. Scrappy grabbed him and pulled him back to the rear lifeboat.

"Scrappy! This thing just killed us! Aim towards it!" Darwin shouted.



"It's at the top of range, sir. Forty-five seconds."



Scrappy dove on top of him, pushing him into his seat before diving into his own.

"I'm sending the lock now, sir." A few seconds later, the alien ship appeared as a glowing dot on the screen. It was a ship that Darwin and his team had never seen before. It was state-of-the-art, alien technology. He had scanned it last time, but nothing humanly would be out there. "Anything you need, sir?"



"Bullets." He wondered if it was worth it. He was pretty certain that he and his team were going to die. The odds of survival were less than zero. "I think we're dead. Could we get some bullets, please?"



"I'll see what I can do. I'm uploading the footage now."



"Upload what? That's my last memory before I became crazy."



"Oh, that? It's just a log of whatever your crew saw on the cameras. Whatever was on those screens. It's still uploading."



"I thought if I fired now, I'd become crazy."



"That alien craft was shooting at that school of sharks a few minutes ago. Whatever they shot from there didn't scan in, but it's a safe bet that whatever they shot, it killed those sharks, and possibly us, too."



The transmission stopped. "Uploading now." The signal returned, and the ship fell out of range. Darwin drew a deep breath. "Computer, drop us and follow the ship. Scout to find when we can. I want to know where they're from and what they want." The ship fell out of position and Darwin watched as the enemy ship made a pass towards the planet, but not far off from Earth's solar system. There was enough fuel to get the ship home, and the frequency could be intercepted.

"What do you think they do?" Darwin asked. "Get everyone to Earth, or do we blow it up before we make contact?" The ship passed the solar system and Darwin sighed. "Maintain course. We're going home." He tapped his communicator and got on the line with his home base. "We've reached the closest planet. We're returning. Prepare to get us home. Over."

The viewscreen showed a bright yellow light shorting out. "Scrappy?" Darwin asked the alien. "Was that the screens again?" The ship shook.



"Bad guys are coming. Scrappy get Darwin away from the ship." Darwin looked at the ship.



"You saved me on the way out, how did you get back aboard?"



"Long story."



"The best stories are. Let's get out of here."



The shockwave hit them, and they were thrown free from the ship. "What the hell was that?" Darwin yelled, as everything went dark. Scrappy was sure that they had made contact with the yellow light, but he never figured him for a coward.

"Sir?"



"Dawn! How many of us died?"



"I don't know, sir. I can't get a lock on the ship."



"Why not?"



"That."



A blinding light emanated from the remains of their vessel, a light that was attracting far too many things that looked far too appetizing for a lunch.

"I think we're about to find out. It's right on top-"



"Are you ready?"



"For what?"



"An adventure." Scrappy replied.



-

"I'm Scrappy! I'm Scrappy. We're going to be heroes, Darwin. This is going to make us heroes. I have a plan."



"You need a long plan." Darwin grinned. "I like long plans. We can work with that."



"No, like this." Darwin felt the distant ripple of sound. The planet he had been stranded on made a sound he'd only heard in his dreams. He looked at Scrappy.



"Are you sure? Maybe we should-"



"Bad guys are popping around the building. They're hanging off the edges with their claws. We can't fight them like this. We're going to have to get on the other side of that building before our friends back home get here."



"When we get back, I'm buying you all the donuts."



"Thank you."



"How do you plan to do it?"



"You're about to find out."





Scrappy reached up over the wall and grabbed a thin branch.



"We can do this. Come on, we have to hurry. I can hear one of those asteroids hitting the building." The asteroid was large.



"That's not going to stop them." The asteroid hit the back of the building.



"Temporarily. You find the pointy twig you can rig the explosives. That should stop them for a bit." Scrappy threw the stick into the air and then let it fly.



"Like this?"



"It's connected to a timer. It'll blow up and lift the whole building up. Trust me." Scrappy reached over and grabbed Darwin's hand. Darwin climbed over the wall and joined Scrappy. Darwin ran towards the target. The ground began to shake, and on the other side, afar, movement in the sand. The rattle of talons like metal scraping marble, and the shake of the ground with each step.

"You realize that if I die here, there's huge bugs roaming around that might be able to kill me." The ground shook again. He saw what looked like a leg and he wasn't sure which bug it was attached to. Scrappy shook his head.



"It's a rare species. You'll be fine." There was a bright flash of light and Darwin heard the sound of a timer. All the bugs stopped moving. The ground stopped shaking.