Stranger of the Void

Gregory Pines, a man of over five decades, walked out of the large factory. A twenty foot mechanized door to his right began to bang and screech as the giant white metal panels, laid horizontally, started to rise. Greg strutted back to his waiting big rig. It had taken him four days to pass the flight training, but he was now free to take his ten million credit spacecraft out of the industrial factory and down to his reserved launch pad.

The 18 Wheeler was quickly shown where to park and out of the open giant paneled door came the Solo Mining Craft. It was the 2136 year model, but that was just a year ago. It had only one owner. And it was also upgraded with a larger power cell, 2 extra engines and shields. The power cell enabled the craft to spend 10 months out without a recharge. The extra engines allowed the vessel to travel four times faster and Greg could outrun any factory made vehicle. With the increased power the shields were strengthened thirty-five percent.

The launch site was only 2 hours away and Greg couldn't stop talking about his new home to the driver, to an annoying degree. He laughed and danced in his seat as he day dreamed aloud about the wonders he would find. He also talked about how he had already sent them his belongings and his home was fully furnished. The unloading took seconds, it seemed, and the driver was gone. Attaching the ship to the boosters took almost an hour. After that another five hours before he was clear to fly. He called his brother and sisters to say goodbye. The launch was set for 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1.

Once the ship, now dubbed Pandora, was programmed with the destination it engaged the main thrusters and shot away from earth's gravity. The g's leveled out and he could now get out of the chair. He couldn't contain his glee as he went from room to room to find where all of his stuff was stored. After using the bathroom in his new place Greg sat in front of the navigation screen. He watched as the little blip that was him moved closer to nothingness.

Before falling asleep at the helm, Greg got up and paced around the bridge. With the ship being designed for one person the three separate consoles could almost do everything independently, but some things had to be done on a specific console. One was the console that flew the ship, then there was the navigation console and lastly there was the mining console. They were all self explanatory.

After an uncounted amount of time walking around, taking in all of his new homes' nooks and crannies, Greg stopped and walked to the mining console. He decided to go ahead and start scanning for an optimal asteroid. The console came to life with a screen that read "THANK YOU FOR CHOOSING SOLO MINER!" The computer was easy enough to use and Greg quickly got the long range examination sensors on and scanning.

Greg then jumped to his feet and wandered into the kitchen area and opened the fridge. He pulled out some containers, opened another smaller door and put the square hemp containers inside. Next to the smaller door was a keypad which Greg pressed after closing the door. The door lit up and began to hum. One minute later the door dinged and the light and humming stopped. He opened the containers, ate the contents and placed the empty and dirty hemp box into a drawer under the island. He then walked back towards the bridge. Greg's return to the main console made one thing clear, he needed to sleep.

The past few days were exhilarating, but now that he was out in the black the adrenaline faded. He set the main proximity alarm, which had a range of seven hundred thousand miles and went back to the living quarters. He slept better, and longer, than he had in a long time. By the time he had fully woken up and returned to check the main console, he was over one million miles off course. Greg immediately stopped Pandora. He rushed back to the mining console to check the long range examination sensor. While he was far from where he was supposed to be, he was closer to a cluster of asteroids way out in the middle of nowhere. If it wasn't for the mass of gold that made up the three objects Greg was closing in on, he would have changed his course.

He slowed the ship and scanned the tightly grouped asteroids. Compared to the asteroids that he would have found where he was told to go these things were massive. Together the three drifting objects made one massive structure that took just under 2 hours to fully scan. The gold was estimated at just under one billion dollars by the mining console and it was just waiting to be taken back to earth inside his ship. Greg slowly approached one of the flattest areas, in order to land, and engaged the landing gear. After landing Greg had the main drill lowered from the bottom of the ship. Pandora gently shook as the drill hit the sheet of iron crust. The large industrial drill made quick work of the thin layer and entered the gold. The gold was like butter to the drill. The net and hose deployed without a problem and started doing their jobs. The net extended out over the hole and the hose extended into the hole. The hose made a constant dull hum as it pulled the loose bits of crust and then the abundant gold.

Greg propped up his feet and yawned as he watched the drill's fuel levels, temperature, intake, and the radar of what was in front of the drill. He drilled for 12 hours straight before the drill started to show it needed a break. Making equal holes into the gold Greg started a line on the surface of the asteroid. Before getting a meal and taking his break Greg walked over to check the tank. The level on the screen was at less than 1/10 of 1/10th of what the whole ship could hold. With a large grin and light feet Greg went to get another hemp container filled with steamed vegetables.

Over the next four days the drill averaged 16 hours a day. Everything was going just fine until the drill malfunctioned. Unfortunately Greg had to go out into the vacuum of space to fix the drill. He groaned as he got up and looked at the time 22:00. Greg decided to wait until he woke up the next morning to fix the drill. He had been drilling the gold for a solid 10 hours out of the 18 hours the drill had been on. The radar had warned of something a bit harder than gold in the way and Greg had to maneuver around it while it was scanned. If it had not been for the amount of pockets of the new metal spread out over the asteroid, Greg would have just skipped the spot entirely. The metal that was found was unknown to the computer and it was in small pockets all around the landing site. If Greg had not tried to drill the new metal the drill would have not malfunctioned. He quickly walked to the airlock, put on his space suit and walked out into the vacuum of space. After grabbing one of the substitute drill heads from the outside storage he approached the drill. Changing the heads out proved to be as simple as Greg thought. He turned to go back inside when something in the corner of his eye moved. Greg turned and stared at the spot for a few minutes.

"This is how people get killed in the movies!" Greg said as he approached the small rock formation.

Cowering behind the rocks was a blob of dark blue. It was shaking. It was afraid. It was rolled into a ball? It took a few long seconds before the creature's head popped out from under what was apparently an arm. The creature's head peaked over the rocks, but Greg couldn't see any eyes as the thing seemed to be looking for Greg. Another few long seconds creeped by when the blue alien froze. It slowly turned its big blue head left until it was face to face with Greg. The eyeless blue alien fell backwards, unrolling and exposing its stomach. Greg was amazed at what he was looking at.

The underbelly of the creature was light blue and more importantly showed he had a total of six appendages. The pair at the top were obviously arms connected to a chest. The roley poley body led to a thick neck and a baby face. The head was almost human, every feature was the same, except the size. The place for the eyes, his nose, mouth and even his ears were more than twice the size for a human adult. The remaining four appendages were clearly the feet. They still looked like arms, ending with five fingered hands, but they were rougher looking and extremely dirty. This was confirmed when the creature eventually rolled onto his four feet. When he stood he was only about three feet tall on his four feet.

"Hey little guy," Greg said in a low voice while reaching out his hand towards the strange creature, "I won't hurt you."

The eyeless creature made a low sound, almost growl like, and ran away. Greg chose not to follow and instead went back to his ship. He powered up the drill and started cutting into gold. Greg decided to avoid the odd metal altogether. The next few days were filled with maneuvering around to find gold. He would always keep a look out for his little buddy, Wilson, every time he was near a window. He thought he saw him a few times, but could never be sure. The days turned into weeks and the ship was slowly filling up with gold. Greg's day to day consisted of waking up, using the bathroom, shaving, showering, eating breakfast out of a hemp container, checking for Wilson and then starting the drill. It was quite a dull life, but Greg was going to be rich when he got back to Earth. But he would need to visit the asteroid a few more times before collecting all of the gold. He was getting close to half way after over a month and he was happy with the pace. He was so happy with the pace he decided to take a day off.

Greg was watching a movie, sound all the way up, when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Wilson's giant eyeless face was barely visible over the lip of the ship's sealed windows. Greg instinctively waved at the eyeless face. Wilson paused, but then waved back at Greg.

"How the … How did it see me?" Greg asked himself out loud.

With that Greg decided to get his suit on and go down to see the roley poley. He put on the thermal jumpsuit, then he climbed the ladder behind the spacesuit and stepped down into it. After securing the suit around himself he descended out onto the crusty surface. Wilson was not shy this time. The fat little blue creature ran on its four lower legs up to, and around Greg, jumping as he went. Greg patted the bulbous blue baby head and laughed in the suit. Wilson seemed to enjoy the pats and wiggled up to him. Greg tried tickling the blob baby and, in sheer delight, laughed at the weird sound Wilson made when his blue skin was scratched. Wilson opened his large mouth and exposed razor sharp needle like teeth. Then, the space where Wilson's eyes should have been, suddenly shot open. Greg saw large pools of black with a familiar blue color creating a circle in the center. The pudgy alien creature was a true thing of horror up close. Greg froze with fear, thankful he was in a spacesuit. The blue horror worm got impatient when Greg froze and started to rub up against his hand. Greg scratched back after a few seconds.

Everything was fine until a loud blood curdling scream rolled over the rocky surface. Wilson went pale and seemed to melt. He shook and then started pushing Greg towards the ladder. Anytime Greg tried to move a different way Wilson would seem to roll in front of him. It was a task but Wilson was able to get Greg to climb back up the ladder. Once Greg got out of the spacesuit he ran to look out of the window. He only got a glimpse of the fleeing backside of the cute roley poley around a large rock formation.

Greg hoped that whatever monstrosity made that sound would be afraid of the drill's crunching echo. He rushed to the mining console and fired up the drill. He turned on the auto drill and snuck back to the windows. He slowly peered around the seal to nothing but the crusty field of the asteroid in all directions.

Greg walked back to the mining console and flopped down into the chair. He noticed that nothing was in the way this time. He decided to get something to eat and continue his movie. The one movie turned into a second, then it became a marathon about a detective finding different killers. After the 6th murder was solved Greg got up and went to turn the drill off and get to bed. He was out quite quickly.

His dream was a mashup of drilling and his little horror worm. He woke up with a loud and long "Wilson!". He looked around before wiping his face with his right hand. He yawned and got up. Greg walked from his living quarters into the kitchen and got some more vegetable filled hemp containers. He lazily walked around eating his breakfast until he hit the bottom of the hemp container. He tossed the now empty container into the garbage drawer that he opened. Greg was a bit lost today. His dreams made him recall what happened the day before. What was that horrible scream and why did Wilson react that way? Once he reached the windows he stood there, looking out at the barren wasteland of the asteroid. A new day of drilling meant another day of staring at a screen. Instead of choosing to stare at the drilling screen Greg chose to have another movie marathon. This time he decided to start a movie marathon about cars and family. He got the drill going and popped some popcorn. Once the movie started he sat back and enjoyed it.

Greg passed out during the fifth movie and woke up a few hours later. Instead of starting the movie over Greg decided to check on the drill and get some more steamed vegetables. He scarfed it down and went back to the mining console. There was still a few meters left before the drill hit another pocket of unknown metal, but Greg stopped it anyway. He decided to call it a night and shut everything down. He walked back into the living quarters and flopped face first forward on the bed.

Greg's dreams were mashed up again. The drill echoed into a giant blue horror worm swallowing him whole. Greg fought to breathe. Another Wilson appeared, but instead of being swallowed he fell into the huge black eyes. He fell forever. And then fell upon the crust of the gold asteroid. A drill descended from the heavens and started turning. The drill quickly got to full speed and began to lower itself toward Greg's stomach. When the tip entered his stomach, he woke up. He grabbed his stomach to check for blood.

Greg wiped the sweat from his brow and got out of bed. He left a sweat print on the bed. He was dripping wet and a cold shiver ran down his spine. He walked to the shower and got in, fully dressed. The hot water was soon falling on his face. He took the clothes off and finished his regular shower.

Fresh and clean, Greg decided to start his day. He nonchalantly walked to the mining console. He quickly noticed a familiar blinking light in the top right corner of the screen. The drill head was once again malfunctioning. Greg sighed and turned towards the suit room. After putting all of the equipment on a few times at this point, Greg was able to throw the heavy mining suit on fairly quickly. Once he was done snapping and zipping everything in place he stepped into the airlock and shut the door to the inside of the mining craft. He then engaged the steps to descend. His boots clinking with every step down. The several steps down took no time at all and Gregg slowly made his way to the storage compartment. He grabbed the next head replacement and made his way to the broken drill.

The drill head looked odd, but before Greg was able to look it over he noticed something in the corner of his eye. "Wilson!" Greg screamed in his suit. Greg turned to get a better look but the fat little worm retreated behind a protruding rock. Greg gently put the drill head down under the malfunctioning equipment and followed his scary worm friend. Once he got to the rock he peered around it but Greg only saw wilson's backside disappear behind another rock

"Why are you running Wilson?" Greg asked aloud.

Greg picked up his pace and jogged towards the rock. On reaching the rock he stopped and slowly appeared around it. In the middle of a valley between two cliffs was Wilson. He was rolled into a ball and wasn't moving. Greg slowed his pace. When he reached the black ball he reached down and started to scratch the roley poley's side.

That weird sound erupted from the now jiggling creature. The sound was a mixture of a howl and high pitched scream. It really wasn't a cute noise, but Greg thought all children, even baby horror worms, deserved to laugh sometimes. This time, however, the sound became irritating after a few minutes.

Greg did his best to put on a happy face when Wilson's eyes opened. There was a gleam in them that Greg actually found absolutely adorable. He knelt down and started to scratch both sides of the blue blob to increase screams of pleasure. Greg got into scratching the little monster so much that he was unaware of another presence.

The high pitched scream from the previous trip outside erupted behind Greg. Before he could react he was bowled over by something extremely heavy. When Greg got a quick look at Wilson he saw fear on his face. Within a second Greg was rolling again. He felt swipes at his back and was thankful for the durability of his suit.

After the attacks on his back made no damage there was another blood curdling scream from behind him and something clamped down on his left arm. Greg tried to yank his arm away from whatever had him, but it didn't work. Then he remembered there were tools in the pockets of his suit. He grabbed at the pockets with his right hand. He shoved his hand in the pocket, feeling for something he recognized. His hand landed on a hammer and he pulled it out of the pocket, causing the rest of the contents to fall on the ground. Greg brought the hammer to his helmet, to verify it was a hammer, and then started swinging it at whatever had his other arm.

When the first few swings made contact nothing happened. But when Greg was rolled over again he had the leverage he needed. His hard hits caused whatever had him to loosen its grip with every new swing. Eventually Greg's arm was free and he rolled to his knees. From here he noticed the other tools from his pocket. Laying in between Greg and, now that he can see it, a larger version of Wilson was the small plasma torch. Instead of a light blue this alien was almost black, it was so dark. It opened its mouth which was black with row after row of sharp needle-like teeth. Its eyes, unlike Wilson's, were large pools of blood red. This one was at least three times the size of Wilson, and slowly approaching. Greg dove for the torch but before he reached it he was side swiped by another alien. As he and the new creature rolled he could do nothing but watch the blood red eyes bouncing closer, backdropped by the void of space. Greg tried to yell at the pair through his helmet, but neither cared. The red eyes continued to increase in size as the creature closed in with its razor sharp teeth glistening in the sunlight. The alien that Greg couldn't see was trying to dig into the back of his mining suit. There was a quick beeping noise echoing through the suit, alerting him that the integrity of the suit was falling. With all of his strength Greg was able to get to his feet just before the alien that was closing in was able to jump on him.

The second alien that attacked Greg was larger than Wilson, but smaller than the almost black creature. It was also lighter in color. This one was a soft blue and its eyes were pinkish red. The mouth was still black and the teeth still sharp. Greg looked around for the torch, only to find it in between the two adult horror worms. He pulled the hammer behind his helmet and foolishly charged the pair of alien creatures. When they were mere seconds from colliding Greg decided to try and dive under the pair. It actually worked and the two horror worms became a two assed worm before making an almost silent thud. It took the aggressors a few seconds to get up. Greg just stood there with a small plasma torch in his hand. He had a few seconds to take in the surroundings and realized he was close to the way he came. He turned and ran for the rock formation that was only a few meters away. He took one last look at the two tangled alien creatures before the rock blocked the view.

Greg ran and ran, trying to get back to his ship, but the gravity on the small gold asteroids was somehow higher than the Earth's. He was moving, but not as fast as he needed. Greg was in between the last rock formations when the two aliens jumped over the top of the rocks. Their weirdly toned torsos gleaming in the sunlight. Greg was almost to the end of the rockwall when he was tackled into it. He found himself pinned into the rocks by both of the strangely in shape creatures, each mouth full of mining suit. The two aliens were also scratching in unison on the mining suits main belt. Greg flipped the plasma torch on and turned his wrist towards the light blue hand that held him down. He put the device right next to the light blue skin and then pushed down the button to charge the torch. The second that the small plasma torch was fully charged Greg held down the button which caused a burning mark on the aliens wrist. The alien that was now marked let out a haunting scream as it tried to keep its grip on the arm, but the plasma was easily eating through the flesh.

Suddenly the hand let go of Greg's arm. He then punched the exposed toned torso with the device and hit the button again. The pure white plasma tip pierced straight through what appeared to be a rib cage this time. The scream was more of a growl this time. It was then immediately followed by the light blue hands reaching out and grabbing the helmet, pulling it up and off the rock wall and then started smashing it up against the jagged rocks. The echoing pulse of a beep became a constant ring as a few tiny cracks started forming in the corner of the helmet's face shield. Greg yelled out for strength and was able to shove the smaller one off.

With the help of the plasma torch and Greg getting lucky when he plunged the plasma into the base of the red eyed and dark blue bodied monstrosity's skull as it tried eating through the suit. The larger darker horror worm collapsed. Greg looked in front of him, right where he threw the light blue worm, and took off past the rock wall. When the second creature saw the first was dead it let out a scream that eerily reached Greg's ears.

A shiver rolled down Greg's spine as he ran. He didn't even dare to look back. He knew the second one would want revenge and would be coming for him. He just needed to get to his ship and he would be gone. Away from the gold and, most importantly, away from the ugliest creatures he had ever seen. He didn't need any more gold. He already had a small fortune on the ship. His greed was not going to get him killed.

Greg could now see his ship when something happened that made him stop in his tracks. The eerie scream erupted out behind him, and then another scream echoed out. Then another scream rang out, then another and then there were too many to count, ringing out behind him. He chose not to look and made a mad scramble for his ship.

The gap between Greg and the ship was slowly shrinking, but so was the gap between Greg and the pissed off light blue alien. Greg tried to run faster, but he was spent. He didn't know if he would make it or not. His heart was pounding in his throat. He was also going numb from the waist down. His breathing was labored and his side was beginning to hurt, but he was running for his life. He was determined to make it to his ship.

The mass of aliens behind Greg let out another howl, this time in unison. The sound echoed through Greg's bones, head to toe. Each second that passed Greg envisioned an army of jacked worms, with extra large heads, sweeping over the rock wall as an army of three torsoed death. This finally sent him into a new frenzy for the ship. 10 meters, 9 meters, 8, 7, 6 then 5 meters. Greg's heart was beating faster. 4. Greg's legs were numb. 3. His breathing hurt with every inhale. 2. His side felt like he had been stabbed. 1 meter.

Greg stamped his way inside, quickly hitting the button to close the stairs. He kept his suit on and stared down the descended stairs. Greg had the plasma torch in his hand, just in case one of the things was right behind him. He was relieved when the stairs finally closed completely.

As soon as he could jump out of the suit he was bolting to the airlock door in the thermal suit. The door opened into the hallway between the bridge and the living quarters. Greg ran to the window of the ship just in time to watch as his nightmarish day dream of the blanket of aliens moving over the rock wall came to life. There were too many to count and it caused Greg to freeze. As he stood there, watching the worms swarm his ship, his body started to itch. He felt like tiny worms were crawling all over his skin. A shiver ran down his spine and he finally moved.

Like a bolt Greg ran to the bridge. The toned terror bugs had already reached the roof by the time he got there. Instead of light pouring through the windows it was blocked by the bodies and limbs of the alien creatures. The creatures were now trampling themselves.

Greg once again froze, but this time it was in disgust. The smaller worms, or ones that fell, would be stomped into a paste. The mixture of the different colors, a dark brown color, was soon quickly rushing over the rest of the windows. When Greg did eventually start to move again, he just slumped into the main chair and started the engines. It took a few minutes before he could take off. The ship groaned under the added weight of all the aliens pouring over it. The seconds were ticking by so slowly Greg thought ten minutes dragged by.

The engines fired up and Greg disengaged the anchors from the ground. Normally, the ship would have lifted off the crust towards the void of space. He would then engage the forward thrusters and he, and his gold, would have been headed to the Olympus Station to unload his gold. But this was far from normal.

The giant bugs had stopped trampling each other and locked their limbs together. Greg kept pushing the engines higher and higher. It took hitting half power to budge the aliens, but they just returned the gesture by contracting enough to force the ship to dig into the crust. Greg kept pushing his engines, but he started to worry he wouldn't make it. The fear only lasted a few seconds and Greg threw the engine to full speed. Within seconds the ship started to pull the worms apart.

"You ain't getting me, worms!" Greg yelled as he hit the booster and ripped enough apart to get away.

Before the ship broke free a cascading sound of something attaching itself to the ship rang through the hull. From where he sat Greg was able to watch as the aliens tried to cause enough damage to find a hand hold. Only a few had the strength. Many of the horror worms just floated out into the void, but the few strong ones were slowly making their way towards the large windows of the bridge.

Greg only had two ideas. 1 was to try and use the mechanical arm to hit them off. 2 was to barrel roll them off. Neither seemed like it would work, but Greg wasn't going to just let these things win. Greg ran to the mining console and programmed the arm to the bridge. It would take a few moments to travel where he needed it so he accessed the flight controls. He started the spin and watched as several worms continued to inch their way to the windows.

As the spin started to gain momentum one of the worms started to slide off. It tried to create new hand holds, but was unsuccessful. Then another lost its grip and floated away from the ship. More continued to slip free until only one remained. The one left was enormous. It was completely black, just like its eyes, with hands the size of Greg's spacesuit's helmet. The remaining horror worm was easily jabbing the ship's metal shell with its fingers and slowly making its way towards the window.

The mechanical arm finally rolled onto the top of the ship. Once Greg saw the giant creature on the mechanical arms camera he brought up the controls for the arm. The ship had stopped spinning, but now the arm that held the drill was spinning. It was moving towards the windows faster than the creature and would quickly intercept the toned terror bug.

The arm closed the distance rather quickly. Closely watching the arm get closer to the creature sent pins and needles all over his body. Greg held his breath as the arm approached the massive worm-like creature. He turned up the speed of the arms spin and brought it as close to the ship as possible. His plan was to go for the hands. Hopefully he could surprise the creature and in the confusion Greg would be able to knock it off his ship.

The plan worked, but only to the back four hands. The front two hands, which were used as actual hands, didn't budge. Greg decided to start the ship spinning again, and attacked the creature for a second time. It was successful, but the behemoth quickly grabbed onto the mechanical arm. As the ship spun the monster repeatedly banged into the ship. It kept trying to grab onto the ship, but Greg kept both spins constant. When he figured it was probably a matter of time before the creature got another hand hold he ejected the mechanical arm. The alien was then hit by the rotating ship and jettisoned out into space.

Greg stopped the spin and let out the breath he had been holding for what seemed like hours. He then pulled up the navigation screen and fixed his trajectory. He was now headed towards the Olympus Station. With that he turned the autopilot on and walked into his living quarters. He heated up some vegetables and stood there watching himself, smiling, on the clean surface of the microwave.