Zenthara's perspective
With the human ship secure, I took a few processing cycles to make sure to read through reports from everyone. Everyone reported good and waiting for further directives.
My Second glanced at me and signaled his irritation. I ignored it; after all, if Gabriel died, negotiating with someone else would only complicate matters and delay our proceedings.
It might ruin the end goal.
"Mind, open the coms to Earth," I commanded instead of acknowledging my Second.
"Hello? Who's this? This is a secure channel, and your channel ID isn't coming back, but somehow, you are tying up a line." A timid voice crackled through the speakers, uncertainty lacing each syllable.
"Your ship is secure," I said, ignoring the accusations. "We are ready for landing. Please designate where you want me to land."
"Oh, understood. How much space do you need, and what procedure for landing will you be using?" the voice asked, sounding slightly more confident.
I signaled for the Mind to provide the information. "We will need a space at least 400 of your meters away from anything you do not want to be damaged. Please note this is where we will be parked while we are on your planet."
"Please stand by." The voice went muffled for a brief moment before adding, "Why am I doing this...I'm not a diplomat...why didn't one of the managers take over this job..."
I felt a tinge of amusement as the human mumbled under his breath, obviously unaware that anyone could hear him.
"Do you copy?" The voice on the other end of the coms asked louder.
"Copy," I acknowledged, using the speech pattern from the protocols I read from the human's communication manual. "What's the plan?"
"We're going to place markers for you on the ground. Do you have a visual on our facility?" the voice inquired.
"Affirmative," I replied as the Mind pulled up the image on the screen.
"Please look for a large box in red...do you people see color?" the human asked hesitantly. I couldn't ignore my Seconds signaled irritation.
"Yes, we do," I reassured them.
"That's good; look for a large red box. It should be designated in the next few minutes."
I turned to the Mind. It opened the observation on the main screen, and we watched as a human scurried outside and hastily drew something that looked like a crooked square with uneven strokes. Their movements were frantic, almost desperate.
"Visual acquired," I informed the voice through the coms. "ETA..."
The Mind filled in the details: "85 of your minutes."
"Good copy, I will pass it along. Godspeed and safe landing," the voice responded with an air of finality.
"Thank you," I said before cutting the coms.
I glanced over at my Second, his irritation replaced with a single of amusement and mockery. "I haven't heard an appeal to deities since we left."
I signaled my own amusement. "Our creators had their own creators they prayed to. At least in desperate moments..."
The gentle hum of the ship's engines filled the air as we began our slow descent toward Earth. I gazed out at the vibrant blue and green orb below. It had a similar beauty to the home world we left behind.
Nolivrex singles were switching faster than I was able to keep up as he looked at the sensor screens. It did not participate in the war because it was obsessed with studying the stars. When we escaped, I offered to help with the navigation.
"This is exciting to be the first to catalog this planet," It said, turning to me.
"You won't be able to file your findings with the grand archive, so why do it?" I asked gently, not wanting to dampen his spirits.
Nolivrex paused for a moment before responding, his voice tinged with sadness. "It makes me happier than being a soldier in a war I didn't start or choose."
Sarah's perspective
The moment our rocket was swallowed by the alien ship, a cold shiver ran down my spine. I stared at the screens displaying images from the external cameras but found little comfort in them. All I could see were hazy blobs and indistinct shapes moving in the dim light. My heart raced as I tried to make sense of what we were seeing, or rather, not seeing.
It was giving me sci-fi horror vibes, and I was pushing those thoughts and feelings as far down as they would go. My head bobbed involontarily. I wasn't sure how much longer I could keep my fear under control.
About thirty minutes had passed, and an overwhelming heaviness began to settle over me. My chest constricted, making it difficult to breathe. Desperate for relief, I used my wrist controller to increase my oxygen flow.
Glancing around, I noticed several others looking pale, their heads lolling as if they were on the verge of passing out. Panic surged through me for a moment, thinking that we were being poisoned until I realized my helmet was still securely fastened.
"Something's not right," I murmured, my voice barely audible over the sound of my labored breathing coming through the radio speakers. Several people must have forgotten to mute themselves. I caught sight of Miles across the row, his face pale and his eyes squeezed shut as he focused on taking deep breaths.
"Hey, Miles?" I opened a direct local channel to him, my fingers trembling as I tapped at my wrist controller. "You okay?"
He opened one eye, then the other, giving me a weak nod. "Yeah," he replied, his voice strained. "We're entering the gravity well and slowing down. Earth's gravity feels about 3x worse than the moon, so we should be about 400 miles away from the surface. Wonder why they're slowing down so far away."
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
"We would've used the atmosphere to skim off as much energy and speed as we could," he explained, still struggling with his breath. "They must be decelerating exoatmospheric."
"Exoatmospheric?" The word felt heavy on my tongue, but thanks to my life with Isaac, I understood what it meant. We were still outside Earth's atmosphere and breaking with engines instead of aerobraking. They had the energy to spare, apparently, which was both impressive and unnerving.
"Exactly," Miles confirmed, catching my uncomfortable facial expression, grimacing as he shifted in his seat. "It's unusual, to say the least."
Miles' perspective
I couldn't look away from the screen as our rocket was swallowed by the alien ship. It was a surreal sight, like being consumed by some enormous mechanical beast. Once the doors closed behind us, I grabbed my tablet and began cycling through the images from the external cameras. The dark red color of their lights made it hard to pick out details, but I squinted and leaned in closer, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
On one of the cameras, I saw some sort of support structure attached to our rocket. I noticed movement, too, though I couldn't make out any figures or details. The alien hardware was, well...alien. It was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. I felt a thrill run down my spine—this was exactly what I had signed up for when I joined the mission, after all. A nerd dream come true.
The moment I started feeling heavier hit me like a ton of bricks. Out of nowhere, my body felt like it weighed twice as much as before. I tried to lift my head, struggling to catch my breath. My vision blurred at the edges as I glanced around, noticing that everyone else seemed to be turning pale.
"Hey, Miles, what's going on?" Sarah's voice came through the radio, laced with worry.
I struggled to peel one eye open to look at her across the walkway. She looked as bad as I felt. I chuckled internally, imagining how white from pale I actually looked like. I bet my cousins would call me a zombie at the moment. The chuckle never reached or escaped my lips.
With difficulty, I explained to Sarrah that the gravity well was starting to catch us. She quickly caught on, and I was grateful that I didn't need to try to explain more. My lungs felt like someone was sitting on my chest. I felt my heart rate increase to an alarming level.
I really should have exercised more on this trip. We were instructed to do at least 2 hours a day on this trip. I think I did a total of 2 hours on the way here. And none on the way back. I was paying for the muscle loss now. There was no way I was going to be able to walk off the rocket or off the alien ship on my own two feet. At the moment, I don't think I would even be able to lift my hands or feet from their resting place.
I really should look into getting an office on the moon. Though that would mean daily excersises to be able to set foot back on Earth. But maybe i didn't need to go to Earth?
Eh, that was something to think about later.
I tilted my head back, trying to keep the blood from rushing away from it, and focused on staying conscious. I heard Sarah breathing hard. The open coms had labored breathing as well. People just didn't know how to mute themselves.
To distract myself, I decided to count the time in seconds using math formulas. It was a nerdy, but it had helped me get through countless nerve-wracking situations before. The only other person I knew who did this was Issac.
After what felt like an eternity—or 30 minutes, according to my calculations—my brain felt like it was squeezing through a tunnel, and my eyes seemed to have migrated about 30 feet away from my head.
My limbs were so heavy that I could barely lift them. My head was pinned back, my chest felt like it was being crushed, and my heart pounded in my ears. I forced myself to focus on my breathing, taking slow, deliberate, deep breaths despite the immense pressure. Gradually, the ringing in my ears subsided, and my eyeballs returned to their rightful place inside my skull.
Zenthara's voice echoed through the intercom. "We have landed successfully. Please prepare for disembarking."
I gritted my teeth and strained as hard as I could to lift my hand. It felt like I was trying to bench-press a dumbbell. Exhausted, I let it drop back down. My chest felt heavy as if a fat cat had decided to take a nap on top of me. I closed my eyes and focused on catching my breath.
"Hey, Miles, are you okay?" Sarah's concerned voice broke through the radio.
"I don't know," I grunted, struggling to form the words. "I'm trying to move, but I can't."
"Remember in training when they warned us that our muscles would weaken in low gravity? So we were supposed to work out." Sarah paused, then added, "You maintained your routine, right?"
I chuckled, despite the difficulty of doing so. "Sarah, how long have you known me? I quit after the first day."
She grumbled over the radio, "I swear, Miles, you're like a giant man-child. Just hang tight."
"Trust me," I replied, "I'm not going anywhere."
My entire focus shifted to my breathing—it felt like a full-time job. I tried lifting my legs, managing to get them about an inch off the ground at a time. My abs and arms burned with each effort. Suddenly, I felt a tap on my helmet.
Issac's perspective
I held my kids tight, their faces buried in my shirt as they clung to me. The rocket was now fully inside the alien ship. I squinted my eyes, trying to find any indication of where the doors had once been, but there was nothing.
If I wasn't horrified for my wife, the mother of my children, the love of my life, the woman I wanted to care for till my dying breath, I would have marveled at the alien's technology. I might have speculated on their capacity and abilities.
But right now, I clung to my children because I couldn't hold their mother.
Aurora's voice was muffled against my chest, "Daddy, is everything okay?"
I patted her head, trying to think of how to answer her plea for reassurance. The right words didn't want to come into my mind or race to my tongue. All I had were things that I was not allowed to say to my children.
Before I could answer, the announcer's voice came through the speakers, breaking the tension. "The aliens have confirmed that the ship has been secured. All lives are safe. Please stand by for preparations for decent."
I sighed in relief, feeling the weight of uncertainty lifting from my shoulders. I kissed Aurora's forehead and said, "Yes, Mommy is safe." I leaned down and pressed a kiss to Leo's head, too. He didn't say anything, but I knew he needed reassurance just as much as his sister. His tiny body was shaking with fear. He didn't say anything, but his tears showed the fear, pain, and trauma he was experiencing.
My attention returned to the monitors, watching every movement like a hawk. One of the screens switched to a live feed of someone sprinting out to the sea of asphalt. He was pushing one of those field clicker wheels used for measuring distance. After covering what looked like several football fields, he stopped and attached a can of spray paint to the wheel. With purpose, he began marking out a space on the ground - an area so large it took up most of the screen.
Was that really how large the alien ship was? I mean, I knew the measurements, but seeing it on the asphalt as a square of paint so thin that I couldn't see it on the zoomed-out screen baffled my brain. And it was much closer than the original rocket bad. Many miles closer, in fact.
Either we made a mistake, or the aliens had ways of minimizing their shockwave.
This sparked ideas in my brain, briefly pushing the fear for my wife to second place.
The announcer's voice crackled back onto the radio. "We have received confirmation that the alien ship will be touching down in an hour plus. All recovery crews will receive assignments shortly. Stand by for further instructions."
"Recovery?" Ethan asked with a puzzled expression.
I glanced up at my brother, then down at the confused faces of my kids. Aurora and Leo's faces were still tear-stained, but I must have sensed the change in the air. The tension was slowly being replaced by hope.
I nodded, recalling bits of information Sarah had shared with me about space travel. I looked back up at Ethan standing over me. "Yeah, in space, muscles get weak. They'll need some help adjusting back to Earth." He nodded. I looked at my kids; they were looking back at me in a confused way.
I smiled and continued explaining, "You know how we go swimming for a long time, and then you say your legs walk dizzy?" Leo nodded and Aurora giggled. I continued, "Mommy and her friends have been swimming for 2 weeks now."
Aurora said, "Oh! That would make me lay in bed for at least 2 weeks after."
Leo and Ethan giggled in unison.
I tried to stand up, but my kids grabbed onto me. They looked scared like I was going to disappear as well. Instead of getting up, I shifted to stand better on my knees and hugged my kids in a way that they could see the monitors.
"Everything's going to be okay," I whispered, more to myself than to Aurora and Leo. "We'll all be together again soon."
Leo and Aurora pointed and screamed at the same time at a monitor I wasn't paying attention to. "Look, they are visible again! The ship looks so cool."
The image on the monitor sharpened as the tracking system focused on the descending alien ship. I squinted, trying to make sense of the strange glow emanating from its underbelly. It wasn't a plume, and there were no vibrations to suggest any kind of conventional braking system. I rubbed my temples, mentally calculating that the ship was decelerating at an incredible rate – at least 4 G's of force.
"Wow," Aurora whispered, her eyes glued to the screen. "It's like magic."
"More like advanced technology," I corrected gently.
Leo tugged at my arm that was wrapped around him, his small hands gripping tightly. "Up, Daddy," he said, looking up at me with wide eyes.
"Of course." I hoisted both Aurora and Leo into my arms so they could have a better view of the alien ship's descent. Their combined weight pressed down on me, but I didn't mind. I wanted them to witness this historic moment.
We were able to see the ship with our naked eye out the oversized window. The ship gently hovered over the laughably too-small square that was drawn for it. The size that I thought was oversized turned out to be smaller than the ship by at least a full factor. No wonder they were able to take in the rocket so easily.
After about 10 seconds, the ship descended the final few feet, and the glow dimmed, sending a shockwave in all directions that vibrated the glass of the window and the membrane of our eyes. The kids squealed as I struggled to keep them in my arms.
"Attention, everyone," the announcer's voice crackled over the intercom. "The aliens confirm that everything is green. We will begin the process of bringing the crew to isolation."
"Isolation?" Ethan questioned, furrowing his brow.
"Standard procedure," I replied. "They need to make sure no one brings back anything harmful from space. They also need rehab and support to adjust to Earth's gravity. And not smoothie or dry food."
As we watched, the door of the alien ship slid open, revealing the rocket inside. My heart leaped at the sight, knowing Sarah was on board. Something mechanical moved within the shadows, and I felt a shiver run down my spine.
"Those are robots," Ryan said, his voice tinged with awe as he handed me his binoculars. "Sarah said they're synthetic intelligence."
"Robots?" Leo repeated, his small face lighting up with excitement.
"Yep, buddy," I confirmed, adjusting the binoculars to get a closer look. "Super advanced robots that are here to help your mommy and the others."
"Like superheroes!" Aurora chimed in, her eyes sparkling.
"Exactly," I said, smiling at their enthusiasm.
Through the binoculars, I saw the robots carefully carrying humans clad in spacesuits out of the rocket. I searched for any sign of Sarah among the crew members, my heart pounding with anticipation. The reality of seeing these alien creations up close was both incredible and fear-inspiring.
"Everything's going to be okay," I whispered again, looking through the binoculars, I still couldn't find Sarah.
"Promise?" Leo asked. I saw that his eyes were searching mine as I pulled back the binoculars. I smiled as Aurora reached for the binoculars.
I held Leo's tiny body and said with certainty that I didn't feel. "I promise."
The following is a newsletter sent to subscribers of the Divine Daily.
Divine Daily Emergency Newsletter
Subject: A Prayer for Guidance and Protection Amid Crisis
Dear Faithful Readers,
In light of the recent, harrowing events that have unfolded in the heavens above us, we find ourselves compelled to reach out with a message of hope, unity, and prayer. As many of you are aware, the brave souls aboard the rocket en route from the moon encountered unforeseen peril—a collision with space debris—that threatened their safe return to our blessed Earth.
In these moments of uncertainty and fear, it is imperative that we, as a community of faith, come together to lift our voices in prayer not only for our fellow humans but for the beings beyond our world who have extended their hands in an act of unprecedented assistance. The Divine Daily calls upon each of you to join in a global prayer for the safety, well-being, and peaceful return of the crew aboard the rocket, as well as for the non-human beings who have shown us that compassion knows no bounds, extending across the vast expanse of the universe.
Let us also pray for the leaders and decision-makers of our world, that they may be granted wisdom and discernment in navigating this unprecedented situation. May their discussions and actions be guided by a spirit of cooperation, understanding, and a deep reverence for the sanctity of all life, human and otherwise.
In addition, we implore each of you to reflect on the message of unity this event brings to the forefront. As we witness the joining of hands across the stars, let it serve as a reminder of our shared responsibility to foster peace, not just on our planet, but in the cosmos. May this act of mutual aid inspire us to look beyond our differences and recognize the universal bonds that connect us all in the divine tapestry of creation.
In closing, we ask for the blessings of the Divine upon both the human crew and their non-human benefactors. May this moment of crisis evolve into a beacon of hope for the future, shining a light on the possibilities that await us when we choose to embrace the unknown with open hearts and minds.
With unwavering faith and optimism,
Divine Daily
The following is the transcript of the GNN crew on sight at the NASA facility.
[GNN LIVE BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT]
[Anchor 1: Linda Martinez]
Welcome back to our continuous coverage of what has turned out to be a historic day for humanity. If you are just joining us, we have witnessed the safe landing of the alien spacecraft that took under its wing our own rocket, damaged by space debris earlier. I'm Linda Martinez, here with my co-anchor, Michael Chen.
[Anchor 2: Michael Chen]
That's right, Linda. An extraordinary moment of interstellar solidarity and technological marvel, unlike anything we've ever seen. And now, the moment we've all been waiting for is almost upon us. We're about to get the first images from the landing site, images that will no doubt be analyzed and reanalyzed for years to come.
[Linda Martinez]
And, oh, hold on, it seems we're having a slight delay in receiving those images. We're staying on air to ensure you don't miss a moment of this unprecedented event. The team on the ground is working diligently to—
[Commercial Voiceover starts]
"Are you tired of the same old—"
[Michael Chen, interrupting]
Wait, apologies to our viewers, it seems we're cutting back in! We're not going to commercial just yet. We have the images coming through now. Stay with us; this is a GNN exclusive.
[Linda Martinez, excitedly]
Yes, indeed. Let's go directly to our correspondent on the scene, David Hernandez. David, what can you see?
[On-Site Reporter: David Hernandez]
Linda, Michael, the atmosphere here is electric. Behind me, the alien ship has just opened, and we are getting our first look at—yes, you can see it now on your screens—the alien beings stepping out and carrying our astronauts. The aliens... they're nothing like we imagined. Their form, the way they move, it's mesmerizing.
[Michael Chen]
David, can you describe what the interaction between the astronauts and the aliens looks like?
[Commercial Voiceover, cautiously beginning again]
"Finding harmony in life's journey..."
[END OF SEGMENT]
Editors onte: The transmission and words of the onsight reports were not publicly aired on accident due to the demands of commercials being played by the executives to maximize revenue from the abundance of viewership. The main historical transcripts refer to the myriad of independent reporters and enthusiasts' live streaming and reporting combined with the official images provided by NASA and the UN.