Eddie came floating off his seat close to the nearest window and from there, gazed outside looking at the big blue marble just sitting there in the vastness of space. “You see that Jacob?”
Jacob’s eyes were almost getting very watery and he would’ve cried had not been for the Erik, trying to play with a bag of potato chips in zero gravity.
Jacob took a moment and said “This is it gentlemen, we are officially in Space, now all we can do is either go home as victorious heroes, or abandon our dear little planet to join in with the extraterrestrials out there, waiting for us in Jupiter..”
Erik raised his finger “ I really do hope that the second one happens, and if the Alien overlord is a hot chick, then I would love to be her slave..”
Eddie got a good laugh from that, but he did raise a more serious concern, he asked the possibility of actually going out there and meeting with strange and alien life forms, whom might either be friendly or even be hostile, things could go either way and if they were to think about it like that, it was indeed very scary.
Jacob told him to cut the crap and threw the bottle of juice which he was sipping. Astronaut food were not famous for being world class cuisine, in fact they mostly had very bland and flat taste. It always used to surprise Jacob that despite spending billions and billions of dollars in Space Craft development, they still can’t find a way to send in some really good food like burgers of Pizza!
The bottle of juice opened itself up and started to swing towards Eddie in the slowest motion possible. Erik just stood their making his usual poker face and yawning, waiting for the container to him. He was planning on making a split second escape and feel like the Flash!
The container opened up in its path, throwing out all of the juice it had in it. While the juice themselves still looked as unappealing as ever, the phenomena of every single droplet turning into a bubble of their own and floating around in space was a sight to behold for them. All of these they seen stuff like this only in movies and games, now it was happening in front of them…
They messed around for a little longer, playing some games, talking to each other and what not. Erik gave a call to his family to let them know that everything was safe..
For a brief moment back then, while floating into deep emptiness of space, Jacob realized that he himself had a void inside of him. He looked at the pendant which he had in his pocket and opened it up to see the picture of his mother. Seeing Erik talk to his family, raised an epiphany in Jacob’s mind which wrought to him the question “Was I ever going to get that one special person in my life with whom I will be willing to settle in?” As much silly as it might sound out loud, this is still an important concern and Jacob sometimes did feel pretty much depressed because of his loneliness, even though he did a fantastic job of hiding it.
Soon all of them became tired and decided that it was time for them to lay their backs to rest and prepare for whatever was lying ahead for them. They changed up into their PJ’s, of the three of them Erik’s was pointing out a little bit because of how it was covered up with polka dotted Sponge bob faces.
They swam through the air to their designated sleeping pods and gently lay there. The three of them looked at each other one last time…
“This is it then, after we wake up, we will be there to face our green little Alien…” Jacob said..
Erik being ever so dramatic “there is a question of If you know, if we are able to wake up. I don’t trust these machines to put me into sleep.”
“It’ll be fine! Don’t be such crybabies!” Eddie mocked the two and told them to go to sleep. The three of them said goodnight in a chorus and pressed the switch besides them.
The lid in front of the pods slowly came down and it released the sleeping agent, making them fall under the long slumber. The whole craft came to a silence and turned into the set of a dark horror movie with the lights out,
Now there was just the wait…
Chapter 4: The Descend
After a long week and some painful crunches, all three of them woke up with an empty stomach that came along with a few muscle cramps. They took some time to dust off their muscles and did some really weird exercises until suddenly they received a call from Thomas letting them that it was time for them to start taking preparations for the descend…
It took them a few minutes to mentally prep themselves for what was about to come, they each went to sit in their station. The main shuttle was to keep circling around the orbit of the planet while a small child ship was supposed to be launched from the mother ship. The basic outline for them was that they were going to have about a day in Earth time which would’ve been enough for them to explore the small region for which they were designated to roam around. The small ship had a pretty decent set of ammunition and weapons with alongside a rover housed inside it for long distance travels. The small wasn’t actually as small as it sounded.
The team suited up like batman in the 80s and wrapped themselves up inside the bulky and extra armored Astronaut suits which made them look like complete badass. They went to the chamber of the small shuttle, sat down there and awaited for the mother ship to come to reach the specified launch point.
It took those about 15 minutes or so to reach the definite point around Jupiter’s orbit where they were to begin their descent. Jacob took the honors of pressing the button to initiate the launch sequence.
“Finally some action!” Eddie was really hyped for this one.
The door connecting the ship to the modular child ship shut down, releasing all the air in between. Within a few second, the crew felt a huge jerk that almost displaced their hip bones, the descent had begun…
The shuttle was now entering Jupiter’s atmosphere and it was going in really fast, it almost felt as if they were reaching a velocity close to the light. The jerks ceased for a brief moment and then started all over again. The dense layer of clouds that was surrounding the Jupiter’s atmosphere were causing some sever turbulences into their flight. All of them closed their eyes now, their hearts were beating like they were about to meet death eye to eye, but then a sigh relaxation hovered inside them as the shuttle eventually slowed down…
The backward thrusters kicked into action meaning that they were now very close to the surface…and a final thud hit them, they had landed…
Chapter 5: They Arrived
They stood there in front of the exit door, their heart filled with pride. Jacob was the one holding the Flag of the United States. Earlier they had a little dispute about who was going to touch the soil of Jupiter for the first time. They almost went out in an all-out slap fight, but then they all decides that between the three of them, Jacob was the one who had the most sad and pathetic life with no one to love him. So they decided to let him be the one to walk on the surface for the first time, this was done more out of pity and mockery than out of marksmanship and Jacob knew that very well.
But he let it slide away, after all, despite this was an attempt for mockery, it still had some truth in it. Jacob was indeed a very lonely soul.
The door opened up and the crew stood their behind the fog to soak up the heroic moment, then Jacob came out from the shuttle and slowly descended downwards to place his foot unto the soil. He decided to imitate the historical quote of Neil Armstrong,
“One small step of mankind, One Giant Leap for Humanity”
Saying that, he firmly pressed the US flagpole onto the soil and claimed the land for himself, the seriousness of the situation was getting overbearing for Eddie and he quickly told the gang to bring out the camera to take a few selfies together.
“ I mean, it’s not every day that you get to stand on top a dusty orange planet with your best buddies, holding the American flag right? “ He said.
The saddest part was, due to their over protective astronaut suits, none of the expressions and pouts for which Erik was famous for were visible in the pictures. Even if someone had approached to them and would claim that the pictures were fakes, they had no found
ation upon which they could support their claim!
Once they were done with their selfies-extravaganza, they turned their head towards their mission and the first which they noticed was the vast emptiness. Which was, the most unexpected to say the least. The coffee mate colored ground that spanned across thousands and thousands of miles were covered with nothing but brown sand with nothing else in sight. Nothing, except the sand storm at a far distance that was slowly approaching towards them, they soon realized that whatever they wanted to do, they had to do it fast and time was not on their side here.
Eddie asked the command HQ to get more information regarding the impending storm, but sadly there were unable to calculate because they were constantly getting interference just like before whenever they tried to get past and penetrate into the surface of the planet. Things seemed pretty grim for the crew and they were a little bit disappointed because Erik, Jacob and Eddie, all of three of them were psychologically prepared and excited for the hopes of coming into contact with the Extraterrestrial.
Erik took out the soil collecting kit and picked up some sediment samples for HQ to work on. The condition of Earth was not good and pollution was eventually eating away the planet. While the major objective of this mission was to discover the presence of alien life form, they were also working at a broader scale hoping to find a new planet for humanity to settle on. The top scientists of Earth gave the planet another 100 or 200 years at max before it would’ve started to collapse under the evil doings of its citizens. Come to think of it, things were pretty sad for the blue marble.
Eddie strolled a little bit further and scanning the whole area with his metal detector in hopes of finding something solid which could give them even the slightest evidence of some kind of existence there. Meanwhile, Jacob was standing on one side, looking up high in the sky, at the planet. Imagining about how the whole essence of life and curiosity of human race has allowed them to develop so advanced technologies that now they are able to travel form one planet to the next, wherein there was a time when just going from one city to the next, was thought to be as a life changing adventure.
Jacob’s deep though and premonition was broken by a sound which he heard coming from the craft, a metal clank noise. He went in close there investigate; only to find a piece of rock that had fallen in front of the doorway hatch. He concluded that it was just a piece of stone that came from the whirlwind of the approaching storm.
“Guys, are you done here? Our time is really short and I suggest that we take some time to scan ahead using the rover” Jacob proposed to the other two who were busy collecting samples.
“Well, my luck seems to have completely run out here; my detector is not picking up anything at all!” Eddie said looking at Erik, waiting for his word. “I am about done collecting samples as well, the greatest trip for humanity just ended up being a hunt for the most precious rocks!” Erik expressed in a partially irritated voice.
The inside of the rover was really comfortable with a huge space to breath. They packed in their equipment and started off the journey to seek out all the treasures and riches that Jupiter had to offer. The rover had a built in tracking device that had the ability to detect heat signatures from any creatures that might come around them, as well as the very deep and penetrable metal detector to identify any sign of foreign object.
For a long time, they were unable to pick up anything on either of the Radar, but then something happened. Something that filled the three people with the kind of fear and dread which they had never experienced before…
After about an hour of the journey of picking up absolutely nothing, they got the sense that the storm was now much more closer to them and it was time for them retreat and accept the fact this mission was only a partial success. But just as they were about to turn around, the engine of the rover stopped working.
That was the first time our fun loving Erik seemed really tense. That was not supposed to happen. The internal lights went out with only the radars remaining turned on. What was going on?
Jacob looked around the rover while Eddie opened up the circuit box to make sure that the basic wirings were all fine. Erik kept staring at the radar screen when he noticed something very unusual.
“Umm…guys…you might wanna have a look at this…”
The radar screen was going haywire with static, and after very short intervals, they were noticing some artifacts appearing on the screen. Heat signatures that were popping up and instantly disappearing in a matter of seconds, something or someone was definitely out there…
The radar screen completely got fried up, and that’s when things got even more messed up. They suddenly heard the noise of something bumping against the rover body. First, there was a single noise on the noise, and then it multiplied and got amplified into a high pitched shrieking sound that moved from the side of the Rover to the upper part.
The crew was sure that something was wrong, and they quickly armed themselves to be ready for whatever was approaching. The thumping noise increased on the side and all three of them got catapulted towards one side of the Rover, as the sheer force of the creatures thumping outside caused the rover to levitate up from one side, smashing them to wall. All three of them quickly ran towards the other side in hopes to regain the balance.
They were sweating, they were scared and just like that the shrieking ceased to exist. The dust settled down and the Rover’s engine got reignited and things began to get back to normal. Without wasting another single second, they quickly drove back to the shuttle. It was time for them to leave this planet.
Upon setting out from the rover, Erik Said looking at
“Well I’ll be damned! Gentlemen, I think it’s safe to say that we actually did make our first contact…”
The whole outer armor of the Rover was almost scrapped to pieces with scratch marks and bruises everywhere. Whatever was out there, it tried to penetrate into the Rover but failed, they had barely survived and now, they wanted to go home…
Chapter 6: What happened?
“Why has my billion dollars Rover returned with half of its armor scratched out and torn apart!? I want explanations and I want them now!”
Thomas was really furious at the briefing room after they had returned from the mission. He wanted to know exactly what happened and how it happened. He wasn’t furious at them mind you, he was more furious due to the fact that if these foreign life forms were indeed hostile, then there remained a risk that now they know about the human race and they could come down here to attack us at any time they want.
Erik, Eddie and Jacob took their time to explain everything to him as elaborately as possible. With each new information which Thomas got, he started to become more and more shocked, he found it really hard to even fathom the possibility of alien life form roaming around in our planet.
“Did you get anything else, any sample or anything useful?”
Eddie told him about the stones and rocks they were able to pick up before everything started to go haywire.
For a moment, there was complete silence in the room. Everybody had a grim face; none of them knew what was going to be their next course of action. Thomas knew that while this was indeed perhaps the greatest discovery in the known universe after the splitting of the atom, the potentiality of this news breaking out into an all-out uprising of Alien supporting radicals as well as people who would force the government to go to war with those aliens would’ve been inevitable.
Thomas decided that it was best for the people and the country to keep the whole thing wrapped up under a blanket until further investigations were carried out. The top scientists of NASA and SETI were brought together to work in collaboration to see if they were able to find anything from the scratch marks.
Meanwhile, our young heroes were dismissed form the briefing. After all of the discussion was done, Thomas took some time to congratulate them on their bravery and told them that he was going to hold a ceremony to commemorate and honor them as being national hero
es of the country. They were the very best that NASA had, and they risked their life for the sake of civilization. The outside world will know only that their mission was a success and they had required enough samples for the scientists to draw out a hypothetical conclusion to the question that “if Jupiter was a planet worth sustaining human life.”
While all three of them felt a surge of pride flowing through them, the truth of what happened out there, would still keep on haunting them for a really long time…
Chapter 7: Home Sweet Home
Jacob took his regards from his co-workers, they shared a hug and decided that tomorrow they were going to throw a grand party to celebrate their once though unachievable feat.
Both of them departed, Jacob turned on the keys to his car and drove home at a very slowly and mild pace. He was getting a feeling of substantial nostalgia with a feeling of emptiness. His lifelong dream was complete, now what? What was he going to do?
He kept thinking all of these things as he drove towards home. The mission left him completely dried out, he was tired of being levitated on top of water and he just wanted to go home, freshen and up and fall back into his slumber.
Turning on the lights of his room, he threw his backpack to one side, and fell down on top of his bed without even changing his cloths, and with his shoes on.
He mumbled to himself “only if there was someone who would take these shoes off and lay besides me…I”
Human species are hardwired in a way that they have the urge to mate with someone, they are social creatures and they are not capable of staying all alone for themselves.
And then, strange things started to happen…
Jacob’s drowsy eyes were almost closed when he suddenly felt like something was moving close to his feet. It felt like nimble fingers that were touching his legs…
A Lost Soul From Jupiter: Science Fiction (Action & Adventure Literature & Fiction Special Bonus Story) (Suspense Colonization Paranormal BBW Paranormal) Page 2