The Falling Star

The black box was approaching the surface of the planet. It had been caught in its gravitational field some hours earlier and was only a few hundred kilometers away before impact.

It was a rectangular ship, only meant for civilian transport. By all appearances, it was unmanned and abandoned to the whims of the void expanses. Yet, inside this husk, one cryo-pod among the dozens had remained functional. A miracle to be certain.

As it felt the pull from gravity, the momentum of this drifting hull had begun shifting. The closer it was getting to the world beneath, the faster it was accelerating.

Penetrating the atmosphere, the friction caused the ship to heat to immense degree in the following seconds, generating a cloak of fire at the front and around it. Hypersonic shockwaves rippled through the sky. The hull jolted and screeched, on the verge of ripping itself apart at any time, but held on.

On the surface below, Haul was sleeping his exhaustion away. The scavenging operation, as well as professor Aurussium's extensive engineering lesson of the day had left the poor human in the dust. For the first time of the week, his night would be able to last more than five hours.

From the opened windows, dozens of thunderous bursts roared inside. For the following instant, the young man believed the station was under attack. His heart jumped as he rushed and fell beneath the bed frame.

The lack of scream, or any other sign of destruction in the area restored his calm, so he gathered his thoughts back. He crawled to the opening, careful not to expose himself.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

A metronome was playing in the sky. And it was getting further by the second.

An idea flashed through his mind. He leaped back on his feet and to the nearby cupboard: a pair of binoculars laid there. With his new tools in hand, he investigated the sky, following the condensation clouds left by the foreign object during its entry.

After noting the direction it was falling toward, Haul blitzed out of his room, grabbing the modicum amount of clothing he would need to go outside.

"Professor, did you see that?!" he exclaimed, excited like a kid on a spaceship for the first time. He had gotten inebriated over his enthusiasm, barely noticing he had put his pants backward.

"Oh, I'm hearing it alright, no need to shout so aloud." A humanoid half as tall as Haul made his appearance in the living room of the station. He was clutching between both arms a metallic bottle a quarter of his size, indicating he had also been quick to prepare for the incoming and impromptu expedition.

Professor Aurussium Heromeoz was an Ichtyophon, a species of humanoid amphibians known and respected throughout the galaxy for their cognitive abilities. Because of their massive round head and eyes, their pale skin color and their size, humans would affectionately use the nickname Little Grey with them. This to the dismay of the Ichtyophons, who took it as a flagrant insult.

Like all the members of his species, Aurussium was cladded in a complex exosuit. Noticeable for its clean white paint and the lens on the helmet - as large as their eyes. These would provide impressive strength to an otherwise feeble and frail body, making them as physically able as an adult human.

That being stated, it did not prevent the professor from exhibiting pieces of fabric over it, for an apparent and solely aesthetic purpose. He did attempt to defend himself multiple times, stating it was only to prevent dust from collecting on it during scavenging. Haul was never having any of it.

The duo prepared their equipment, and hopped on their hovercraft, chasing after the falling object. In the distance, they could still hear the sonic booms, which was helpful not to lose the track. Until, finally, a bigger shockwave shook the vehicle, followed by a dust storm that almost flung them away.

It had landed. Or, rather, crashed.

As they approached the site, they estimated the size of the crater to be about a kilometer or two in diameter. It meant the object's size itself would approach the hundred meter order at most. Nothing they could imagine would have prepared them for what they ultimately found.

"A bloody ship? How is it still intact?" Haul's surprise was justified. The black parallelepipedal spacecraft had no marks on its hull and was still in one piece. For all he knew, this was brand new.

"Watch your mouth, hairy skin. Get me the water misters instead, if you have time to curse."

The young apprentice installed the apparatuses. While they were dispersing water to cool the metal of the fallen object, Haul performed several turns around it. The boy was trying to find if anything had at least got separated from the main frame, to no avail.

"Have you ever heard of something that doesn't blow up in pieces when they smash this hard?" He risked asking, afraid this was somehow widespread knowledge for any aerospatial engineer.

"Kinetic absorption."

"Huh?"

"Specific alloys and crafting techniques to allow for hard metal to convert the energy from an impact to a vibration. The vibration is then dissipated through heat from the friction. Even so, I've never encountered anyone capable of carrying out this principle to such a scale."

It was unusual Aurassium would be left speechless in front of a technology. He was often full of praises, but Haul could score on his hands the number of times his teacher could not deliver a conclusive answer to an engineering problem of the sort.

They waited another half-hour after vapor had stopped forming when the mist would come in contact with the hull. They did not want to get scaled because of dumb eagerness. They had already searched for an entrance or an airlock. They were once more amazed that this ship was completely sealed, as if no opening had ever been designed for it.

The duo concluded their only option was to create one by themselves. They estimated the thinnest part of the hull and cut a hole in it. They had not expected it to work, seeing how resilient the ship had already demonstrated to be. They had gotten the feeling that the metal would simply 'give up' and be cut like plastic. It was a recomforting finding, nonetheless.

The ship was composed of three compartments. The cockpit in the front, the cryo-pod container in the middle and the propulsion system at the back end. Like most vessels, the cockpit didn't need to be manned to function. Algorithms and artificial intelligence were trusted in this era of space exploration.

The container held three rows of eight cryo-pods. While they were all sealed, indicating the person they were containing had not decomposed yet, all but one had ceased functioning for an unknown time. This meant that almost no passengers had survived the journey.

"Bloody hell." Haul legs fell at the realization. This was the first time he was confronted to the death of so many individuals, even if they had been so for many years already.

A more thorough inspection of the propulsion compartment showed there were marks of damages, likely caused by an explosion - according to the professor's expertise. There was a decent chance this had been the cause of the failure of the majority of the cryo-pods.

A tragedy in the simplest terms.

The whims of fate being what they are, there was one sole survivor. The fourth pod of the middle row had continued to function as intended and the person inside was considered alive. By the monitoring system that is.

It was truly a mysterious occurrence. When analyzing the electrical circuits of the ship, it was apparent they had been tampered with, in a way to divert any energy straight toward this specific pod. It was odd because those modifications would also have rendered the ship uncontrollable, implying they had been performed during flight – in this case, drift.

Who was the culprit then? There were littles probabilities that it had been one of the passengers. And the absence of any other corpse on board led to the conclusion no one had done it.

"You're not suggesting it's a ghost, professor?" Haul was not a fervent believer in the occult. He demonstrated some tendencies to allow his imagination to run wild, however.

"Don't be silly. There has to be a natural explanation. Maybe our survivor will know something."

"Right, how do we open that thing?"

"It's a rather ancient system. One I'm not too familiar with."

"Should we bring it back to the station then?"

"That would be more prudent, indeed."