Tag Archives: Sci-Fi

I’m supposed to see what I can write in ten minutes with these prompts, so this one isn’t complete, but is definitely something I’ll go back to later.

Intelligent life was first discovered outside Earth by the mining ship Venture, sent to the Oort Cloud with a dozen other ships in search of rare minerals and, more importantly, water.

Parking above their allotted lump of dust and ice, Venture scanned the surface fora place to send the shuttle.

“Looks good. Send team one down.” Captain Lecker ordered.

“Yes Sir.” Comms. Officer Brank leant into the speaker above him, “Team One, good to go.”

“Team One good to go.” Leader One confirmed.

The deck officers watched their screens as the shuttle descended on to the dull, pitted surface beneath them. Once the anchors engaged they breathed a sigh of relief and watched as Surveyor Team One emerged on the surface.

The team spread out, pads in hand, careful to step small in the low gravity. One wrong bump and they’d float off into the black.

From a hidden dip in the surface a black craft rose. In the vacuum it was silent. The surveyors became aware of a slight tremor beneath their feet. Looking for the source, Leader One found the heat trail of the engines in his IR feed.

“Team On return to shuttle. Repeat. Team One return to shuttle.”

A squeal cut off the comms, blocking transmission. The warning was unnecessary, the rest of the team had noted the heat trail and tremor already. Once communications had cut out, the scattered surveyors bounced quickly back to the shuttle, dropping kit as they did.

Aboard Venture the screens cut out at the same time as the Leader One called the team back to the shuttle. Lecker looked over the dash at his COmms. Officer.

“Brenk, what’s up with the screens.”

“Sensors are out sir.”

“What?”

“We’re blind. I can’t find the source, but something is blocking our transmissions.”

“How’s that possible, we’re the only one’s out here?”