Ryu’s eyes held something like sadness. He showed occasional bouts of humor though he was normally very serious, but now was most certainly not one of those times. The Japanese man turned his gaze away and focused on the circuit board he’d pulled out of a spacesuit.
He moved along another corridor and caught a handgrip with the top of his foot, which was well calloused thanks to living on the ISS. Ironically, the harden skin on the bottom of his feet had fallen off.
They floated up the narrow passageway until they were in the nearly three-meter diameter portal that looked into space. Just as Sheppard had said, the shutters were open, which was indeed against protocol. It was important to maintain a standard nighttime environment, so the astronauts were on a regular sleep schedule.
They were over the Sahara, with the sun’s glare shining on their home below. The huge desert extended in every direction, but would soon give way to vegetated land, then ocean as they spun around Earth’s low orbit.
“There,” Sheppard said, and pointed to three o’clock.
Yuri sucked in his breath when he saw… it.
From their viewpoint, space had ceased to exist in the direction of the moon. Something blotted it out as wide as they could see.
“Chinese?”
“Not on your life. According to Houston it’s not theirs, and we know it’s not yours.”
“Ah, comrade, it’s been many years since the Soviet Union launch secret craft.” Yuri tried to think of an English word equivalent to what he was seeing, but could only come up with one thing. “It’s fucking huge.”
“What’s that?”
Another shape moved behind the anomaly, this one shimmering in and out like it was caught in a haze. The craft was black, with long, grey, pulsing lines like veins. It was elongated, and had to be at least sixty or seventy kilometers in length. It spun along one axis, but the rotation was slowing.
Then something ejected from its side.
“What in the—” Sheppard didn’t finish his sentence, because the smaller object emitted beams of light that swept over the first craft, the sun’s radiance reflecting off earth’s atmosphere causing a confusion of refracted images.
“It’s above us, but moving. How can it move like this?” Yuri wondered out loud. Remaining in apogee was an art. Sliding in and out was the stuff of science fiction.
An explosion lit their view. Yuri looked away, because the flash had been bright enough to remind him of catching a glimpse of the sun without a spacesuit’s visor down—something that could ruin your vision for good.
“Well, goodnight!” Sheppard exclaimed.
Ryu slid into the Cupola and didn’t utter a word.
Pieces leapt away from each object. Some accelerated the short distance to make impact with explosive effect, while beams leapt out and obliterated others. The ISS was rocked by one shockwave after another.
“This is no good,” Yuri said. He had the overriding desire to rush off and do a full systems inspection. The solar panels maintained a very tenuous grip on the space station due to the nature of zero-g, and shockwaves were not the kind of thing they were built to withstand.
Lights erupted in space behind them, and for the first time they got a look at the larger object.
Sleek: that was the best way to describe it. The object was oblong with rounded ends, like a giant cigar. There were no discernible lines except for the random veins. Ports snapped open to emit jagged objects that raced away, with points of light glowing from their rears.
The other craft was much smaller, but danced circles around the first. Its signature was not as smooth, but rounder, and there were a number of protrusions like blisters along the hull.
“India and Pakistan?” Yuri said, and knew immediately how silly it sounded. If those two nations ever got craft into space, he doubted they’d start a war up there. They were more likely to start nuking each other back on good old Earth. So what did that leave?
“That is some shit right there,” Sheppard said.
Yuri closed his mouth, raised his camera and took pictures as fast as the device could ready itself.
A massive shock raced along the smaller craft’s hull and it fell away suddenly, but not before a pod the size of a sports stadium broke away and became invisible. The larger craft hovered in place for a few seconds before withdrawing over the horizon of the space station until it could be seen no longer.
Another wave hit the ISS, and something snapped. Yuri didn’t hear it, but he felt it. The station thrummed and shook with something that was wrong.
“Not good,” Ryu said, and dove through the hatch.
Sheppard was next, and Yuri was right behind him. Alarms echoed up and down the passageways.
Yuri slid out of the lab and went to the Russian side of the space station. He floated in front of his computer and stared at the readout. His radio crackled to life, and a voice from home requested an immediate sitrep.
Yuri paused to collect his thoughts, then said something that they would never believe back home. When he was done he rejoined Sheppard and Ryu.
“Something else is moving. It’s that big round thing,” Yuri observed.
A second explosion occurred half a minute later, in the direction the first ship had departed from.
“What was that?” Sheppard yelled.
“I believe it is called revenge. Now both objects have gone,” Yuri replied. “No, not gone. They are in pieces.”
He stood stock still as he considered the implications. The planet Earth may have just been visited by aliens, but instead of coming in peace or for conquest, the two had eliminated each other from space.
He took a deep breath, and prepared to issue an order to evacuate the space station.
Victor was already having a bad day, thanks to the noisy downstairs neighbors who’d kept him and Laura up half the night. Then the sky opened up and tried to kill him.
Rain pelted the overhang in a steady rhythm that washed away the sounds of cars racing along 1st Avenue. The downfall came so fast and heavy that at times Victor wondered if a marching band had taken up residence above and decided to use the shelter’s roof as practice for a college football game.
He dared not look up, because his rain jacket had seen better days, and if a hint of wind caught his hood, he would likely end up with a face full of water. He wished he could have stayed in bed with Laura and ridden out the storm.
A woman hustled to the overhang. Her hood was black, and her face was barely visible in the dark confines. She carried a silver-colored coffee mug in one hand and a closed umbrella in the other. Tucked up under her arm, her purse displayed some kind of designer label—probably something Laura would like, if he could afford it.
She pressed herself next to Victor and looked up, like she’d never seen so much rain in her life. The woman pushed back, to the dismay of those jammed inside the tiny space. She ignored their sighs and curses and sipped her coffee while staring straight ahead.
If this kept up, Victor was sure to catch a cold, and that would mean fighting for a day off from work, which he could not afford. Victor’s boss Jacob didn’t believe in sick days, even if his employees were dead on their feet. No sense in arguing that it was a good idea to keep everyone else from coming down with the same thing.
To take his mind off his misery, he imagined sitting in his warm apartment, a cup of coffee in one hand, the other on his wife’s leg. They’d be sitting on the couch while a fire roared away in the fireplace ten feet away. Maybe the brats would even sleep late, and let them enjoy an hour of silence. Maybe he’d ask Laura to join him in bed for an intimate break, her legs wrapped around his waist while he stared into her jade-hued eyes.