Page 2 of Stripped By the Alien

"You could also note that I've gained twelve pounds since launch. The mission briefing didn't mention how much comfort eating a person does when her only company is a judgmental frisbee."

"Eleven point six pounds," Lucius corrects. "And I wasn't going to mention it."

I point toward his charging cradle. "Can you just get back in your box?"

"That response suggests emotional vulnerability." He retreats before I can think of a suitable threat, and I settle deeper into the seat. Somewhere ahead lies the reason entire worlds are running scared. I am absolutely going to find out why.

I work through a maintenance checklist while Intrepid 21 continues on autopilot. It's busywork, the sort of thing pilots do because the alternative is staring out a window wondering whether they're about to make history or die anonymously.

The motion brings a photograph into view, tucked into the corner of the console — six pilots in front of a shuttle after graduation. Not particularly old, yet it feels like a relic from someone else's life.

Two of those pilots are married now. One's engaged. Another left Space Force entirely and spends her time posting beach photos from planets I couldn't find on a chart. Everyone moved on. Everyone except me, still flying missions nobody else wants, alone in a ship held together by maintenance reports and optimism, three years since my last date and counting.

And then there's Sophia, right next to me in the picture. Same grin as the rest of us, same cheap uniform, same impossible belief that the galaxy owed us something just because we'd fought hard enough to get there. We bonded fast, two scholarship kids splitting noodles in the mess while the legacy pilots went out drinking.

She was the one who stayed up with me the night before my first solo flight. Not because I asked, but because she knew I wouldn't.

Now she's been missing for weeks on a mission much like mine, somewhere past the edge of the maps, and nobody talks about her anymore.

I straighten the photograph and turn back to the console.

"You're doing it again," Lucius says.

"Doing what?"

"Thinking about things that make your vital signs deteriorate." His light is back to neutral white. "Specifically, I suspect you're reflecting on your lack of companionship."

I lightly tap his case with one fingernail. "I am not discussing this with you."

"Understood." His light goes out.

The ridiculous part is that he's not entirely wrong. Somewhere along the way every promotion became easier than a first date, every mission simpler than letting someone close enough to be important. Work made sense. People never did.

Outside the canopy, the stars continue their slow procession. Somewhere among them lies Earth. Blue oceans. Crowded streets. Real food. Somebody to eat it with.

"Captain?" Something in Lucius's voice makes me look up. He's rotated toward the forward sensors, and the easy humor that usually colors his observations is gone.

"What is it?"

"I have detected something unusual ahead."

I pull the sensor feed onto the main display. At first I don't see what's worried him. It's the same scatter of stars we've stared at for weeks, the usual clutter of radiation readings. Then a faint contact flickers at the edge of the display, the signal weak enough that I wonder if it's real. "Is that a sensor ghost?"

"It is statistically possible," he says with doubt in his voice.

"How statistically possible?"

"Four percent."

The contact sits there, a tiny mark against the dark. Space is full of objects that seem strange until you look closer. Then it moves, but not the way rocks move. "That looks deliberate."

"The contact is maneuvering," Lucius confirms. "The object appears to be under power. Mass estimates are inconclusive, but look high. Energy emissions do not match any known civilian or military design."

I zoom in. The object is holding position relative to a stretch of space ahead of us. There's nothing out here worth guarding. The nearest settled systems are weeks away, and every known shipping route avoids this area.

The contact brightens as new data arrives. The shape still won't resolve, but it's definitely a vessel. No identification codes. No answer to hails. It just sits there, silent and distant, as if it knows we're watching.

For the next hour the contact doesn't move at all. The closer we get, the less I believe it's a refugee. Refugees are eager to talk. They ask for supplies, directions, medical help. This ship ignores every hail. It doesn't answer, doesn't broadcast an identity, doesn't acknowledge us at all.