It Came From The Stars: Chapter 1 (Patreon)

Just something fun I cooked up! Hope you enjoy!

Sentient creatures have always had an annoying habit of overestimating their own significance. When all of your species’ achievements are confined to one tiny pebble floating in the endless dark, it seems that you are the only thing that matters.

Well allow me to break the illusion and tell you that you're not. In fact, you are about as significant as any other microbe-ridden asteroid floating through the endless universe. Sentience does not quantify intelligence, and intelligence does not quantify importance. Just because you can think, does not mean you have the power to act on those thoughts. 

That right is reserved for us. The endlessly mighty Irken Empire. And if you are smart, you will bend the knee before we happily bend it for you.

Alongside your various other extremities.

In the void of space, a pale blue dot drifted listlessly through the black. Upon this dot, billions of quantifiably insignificant creatures went about their lives. They muddled through one day at a time working, sleeping, or otherwise occupying their time in an effort to forget that they were completely meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

Were events different, their various lives would progress as normal for a few more years before being abruptly interrupted by a multiversal doomsday the size of which their tiny fleshminds simply could not comprehend. But events were not different, and now they had a different problem on their hands.

The night sky split apart as a burning ship hurdled through their atmosphere. Its hull was glowing a cherry red, and had anyone been able to see it through the smoke and flames steadily eating away at what little outer shielding it had left, they would have easily put the pieces together that this ship was practically coming apart at the seams.

Inside of the ship, I was desperately trying to hold it together so I didn’t die in a fiery explosion caused by rampant dark matter and my own engineering.

“Transfer power to the north section shields and eject paneling on the east side! We’re tilting!”

“Warning! Hull damage exceeds seventy-five percent! Manual ejection recommended!”

“And shut that stupid thing up!”

“Warning! Aft sensors have been disabled. Manual—”

“AARGH!”

The complex mechanisms around blinked bright red as my shout echoed through the air. The cockpit was stuffy and the ambient radiation was causing my skin to prickle and burn, but I couldn’t pay attention to that right now. If I didn’t get control of this heap of junk, the cataclysmic fireball that would ensue would be enough to engulf a small space station twice over.

Banging and crashing came from behind me but I didn’t turn around. That stupid SIR Unit had better be doing what I told it to. Both of our butts were on the line here and unlike the rest of its stupid, stupid friends, it seemed to have at least a little bit of self preservation.

My hands flew over the controls as I tried to get a handle on our current situation. The Shuvver’s sensors were completely scrambled. Whatever that strange hole was had completely fried half of the electronics in this thing, which would have been manageable if it didn’t also destabilize the main energy reactor while it was at it!

I growled as half of the controls went dim and then immediately started back up again. What did I do to deserve this? I was an excellent invader! What could I possibly have done to make the Tallest punish me by sending that package of malfunctioning SIR Units? They ruined everything! I’d just barely escaped Planet Meekrob with my life, and now I was in danger of crash-landing on another dirt heap! 

In the midst of fixing the beeping radar, I heard another crash and then something slammed into the back of my head. I cried out as a pair of metal hands wrapped around my skull, alongside two legs. “H-Hey! Get off me! I’m trying to fix the aft corrective thrusters so we can—”

“The corrective thrusters fell off,” a calm voice interrupted me. I froze, the words ringing in my head under the blaring claxons warring for attention around me.

“...WHAT!?”

“WARNING! COLLISION IMMINENT!”

In a quiet part of Brockton Bay, a family of rats were given the delight of bearing witness to a massive, flaming spaceship crash-landing in a pile of trash nearly as tall as a building. It was an impressive display of pyrotechnics that would have had most pyromaniacs stopping to stare. But the rats had no such interest in  external combustion and thus, skittered away. 

In the process, they, like everyone else in the city, missed the small green space-woman who had been ejected from the cockpit alongside her pet robot, landing in a pile of wet trash.

“Uugh… This planet reeks.”

I blearily wiped grime off of my antenna, making a face at the layer of wet grease soaking into my glove. I flicked it away, before turning to observe my surroundings as standard invader protocol dictated.

I found… trash. Lots and lots of trash in every single direction, stacked higher than the burning wreckage of my ship, which was lodged halfway into a gross pile of filth. It smelled utterly awful, much worse than the smoldering wreckage of a well-conquered planet. More milky and… biological. Disgusting.

I made a face, before honing in on something silver a small distance away from me. It wiggled and writhed like a molting Skinbagsis, though not quite so revolting.

Stalking over, I grabbed the object and hauled it out of the mud, staring into the metal face of my salvaged SIR Unit. “Enough laying around! We’re in hostile territory… I think. We need to hide ourselves! Help me search the wreckage for the reactor!”

“My sensors do not detect anything requiring extermination apart from the entity standing in front of me.” 

I rolled my lenses at the words. “Well then your sensors are stupid and wrong and stupid. Ignore them and help me stop our impending fiery demise.” I dropped the robot, marching towards the smoldering wreckage of my Shuvver.

It was apparent at a glance that the thing couldn’t be repaired. I had constructed the ship from what I could salvage from my base on Meekrob, so it wasn’t the pinnacle of Irken engineering that it could have been, but it was still dangerous. Especially in this state.

Four mechanical legs extended from my PAK, carrying me up the side of the broken ship. I tore off the outer paneling and slipped into the bowels of the ship itself. Electronics sparked and popped around me as I shuffled towards the reactor panel at the rear of the ship. Before slipping it open, I reached back and pressed a button on my PAK, retrieving a face-shield that would hopefully stop my face from being melted off.

I opened the reactor and immediately reeled with a hiss. The cylindrical device that was supposed to contain and regulate rampant dark matter had been pierced, casting a faint purple glow over everything.

“By the Tallest, how has it not exploded and atomised us yet?” I wanted to grab it for closer examination, but with this much entropic radiation leaking, my face shield would do precisely nothing. I stared at it for a moment longer before closing the panel and slipping further into the ship. 

“Bot! Where are you?”

My answer came in the form of a hand on my leg. I shrieked and one of my PAK’s legs extended, slamming the interloper against the far wall of the hallway. My SIR Unit’s glowing eyes stared back at me through the gloom. “Your methods of extermination are improperly honed. Would you like for me to advise you on how to produce a proper killing blow on inorganic targets?”

“Shut up.” I dropped the blasted robot with a huff. My suspensor leg returned to my PAK as I turned around. “We need to properly contain the reactor before it goes critical. If we don’t, neither of us will be able to cover enough distance to escape the horrible explosion that will follow.”

“I will.”

I ignored the robot’s words, making for the cockpit. The front panel was missing after my ejection, allowing filthy trash to fall all over my hard work. The sight of my magnificent Irken being sullied in such a way was almost enough to drive me into a rage, but there were more important things to worry about. Like not being turned to dust, for instance.

Completely containing a malfunctioning reactor was an effort in futility. Dark matter by its very nature did not like to be contained, and attempting to go against one of the fundamental laws of the universe was how species went extinct. The trick to preventing a cataclysmic meltdown that would destroy all life as we knew it, was to let it explode, albeit in a way that suited my continued survival.

As I went about the incredibly difficult task fo altering the containment array with half of my console winking in and out of existence, a finger poked me in the shoulder, causing me to arch away. I turned a glare on my SIR Unit. “What do you want, Bot?” I growled.

“Master, several sentients are approaching the ship.”

I stiffened at the words, my hands freezing over the console. My antenna twitched, and I slowly turned my head to stare at the malfunctioning robot, asking slowly, "Your sensors work?"

The SIR Unit merely tilted its head. "They have indeed been fully operational over the course of this journey."

I gritted my teeth, my body shaking with indignant rage. “Then why—in the name of our Almighty Tallest—didn't you HELP ME STEER THE SHIP BEFORE WE CRASHED INTO THIS GARBAGE HEAP!?”

“You told me to calibrate the shields."”

“YOU—!”

With some effort, I managed to strangle control of my emotions. There was no time for a proper meltdown, no matter how much this robot deserved to be melted down into slag.

“They are getting closer,” said robot noted. “Approximately ten minutes until arrival.”

I let out a ragged breath. So this wasn't just a random dumping planet as I'd hoped. Clearly whatever primitive species called this dirt heap home had noticed the glorious fireball that my  creation had conjured in their atmosphere and were coming to investigate. The idea of letting anyone get their fingers on my ship sickened me down to my very core.

“We cannot allow this,” I hissed, my hands flying across the sparking console. “The unworthy don't deserve to even breathe the same air as our superior Irken technology.”

“May I deal with them, master?” The SIR Unit seemed to perk up, its eyes flickering with excitement. “If we are engaging in genocide, then I would be happy to lay the first strike.”

“We don't have time for that, you fool!”

My fingers danced over the holographic keys, inputting the correct data to initiate a safe self-destruct. That would deal with both of our problems simultaneously!

“Initiating dark matter purge. Please stand clear,” the computer sighed, seemingly acknowledging the fact that it was about to die.

I spun around, my PAK legs extending to lower me rapidly out of the cockpit. I grabbed the edge of the hull and vaulted over the side, landing in a pile of wet cardboard. “Robot! Move your metal carcass! We're leaving!”

“But Master, the sentients! They will look at the ship with their eyeballs,” my SIR Unit complained, dropping down next to me with a heavy thud.

“They can look at nothing if they're blind!”

I reached back up, my PAK extending a manipulator arm that yanked the data transceiver from its place underneath my chair. 

“Run, you defective scrapheap!”

Colin Wallis pulled up to the scene of the crime with a roar. His motorcycle rumbled underneath his as he slid off, approaching the burning wreckage with a frown on his face.

“That doesn't look like a meteor,” a voice in his helmet noticed. He'd patched Dragon into his helmet's visual feed, allowing his fellow Tinker a view of what was causing the commotion. He agreed with her, it definitely wasn't a meteor.

“It's a ship,” Colin said, staring at the massive machine of purple and pink. It was beaten up and clearly missing several pieces, but that was clearly what it was.

Vans pulled up behind him, responding to the disturbance. He held his hand up as troopers filed out, indicating that they should stay back. He wanted to investigate this himself.

“I'm not detecting any signs of life,” Dragon said as Colin sidled up beside it. He ran a gloved hand over the strange symbol on the side. It wasn't one he recognized.

Glancing up and down the ship, he frowned. “The style doesn't match any Tinkertech on the East Coast.”

“The size of the vehicle suggests it was made for long-distance travel. Could it have come from further away?”

“Hm. Possibly.” Ash and soot came away as Colin ran his hand along the ship's hull, but it was barely warm which was strange for an object that had been on fire just a few minutes ago. Heat resistant metal? He didn't recognize the alloy.

Colin was in the middle of wondering how to dislodge the ship so he could take it back to his workshop, when Dragon's voice came through his comm again, sounding concerned.

“Colin, I'm detecting a signal. Back away.”

Colin didn't give a moment's hesitation to heeding Dragon's warning. He lurched backwards, clearing several meters in only a moment. His halberd was in his hand in an instant, already pointing towards the ship which had begun to shudder.

A tingle passed over Colin's skin, before his world suddenly turned purple.  His visor auto-darkened, yet even through the dampening, the flash was intense enough to leave afterimages burned into his retinas. His armor hissed, flushing coolant as the temperature suddenly skyrocketed to nearly a hundred degrees Celsius in an instant.

A moment later, it was over. Colin blinked. His visor slowly returned to normal transparency, and he found himself staring at a crater.

The ship was gone, and so was everything that surrounded it in a perfect, five meter circle.