6

6

It arrives like a bird. I awake to see it clung to my life support vessel- a mermaid, clinging to my ship. Parasitic these creatures travel through space by some magic device of their own making, then they attach themselves to Space vessels and by channelling into their proposed victims sensory systems they devised a suitable appearance in order to lure their prey into a false sense of enflamed, undiminished, sensual desire.

Space travel was hampered by these parasites, male and female alike succumbed to their charms all too easily, and if you succumbed and went to objectify their vision they would catch you and kill you sucking the oxygen out of you and your body would shrivel and be discarded like snake skin by this predator. It could take any shape including that of a very large lizard; however opinion was divided on why a very large powerful lizard could not just bite into the spaceship and eat the victim rather than trying to lure the victim, which led to a large amount of speculation on the actual physical form of the beast. However, as no-one had even come close to catching the thing, which could move lightning fast, we did not know how fast because we could not track their end point, maybe they went into another dimension, who knows ?

No evidence has been collated to discover if they are indeed android or carbon based, because being invisible, unless hunting, no-one had ever succeeded in capturing one, they seemed to be also intelligent and would avoid larger ships, preferring single and smaller groups. They usually detached when you reached an Asteroid, why they weren’t clinging to the windows and why they seemed to be frightened of missiles when they could make them look so slow was anyone’s guess.

I am not sure quite why they insist on building see through spaceships when they could have solved the problem of these parasites by using non translucent material. It just seems to be one of these things that have always been done. I guess if it you can overcome the physiological urge you come to appreciate the things, and that’s why they build translucent space craft.

Your brain was telling you what that beautiful naked, posturing women, with the gorgeous hair, looking like a close cousin of Trish, was a Deadly Alien, your body was telling you something subconscious, well actually physically conscious, and I was thinking of Trish like she was some sort of crutch, and this thing was tapping into it. I kept playing back scenes from last week, or even last year, to remind me that I could be happy, at least happy because she always made it seem so quick, when she left for a few months, I never got the chance to get a closer look, and the thing was quiet at least. It was very attentive, not tuned into the spheres again for twenty seven Arcos, not zoned out in the corner, with me sticking my chin out and acting like something else. 

The creature detaches and transforms into a huge lizard, launches itself and disappears into deep space, the tracker missiles screaming, futile, deadly slow in comparison to her vast acceleration.

The auto-pilot engages at 50,000 feet. A ramp extends from the dome, beacons blink, magnets. The five suns are dull in the mid-year sky, I send a message to acknowledge my delivery, I watch as my Credit account is credited.

Fireworks are shot from deep in the oxygen mines, a coughing explosion echoing thunders around the dome, rumbling a deepening crescendo, Rockets charge into the sky,

Fluorescence, sighing into smoke, a briefest star, time speeds. Lest all fades into nothingness, we are left smouldering to linger for a while, in the cold and frozen,

An explosion leaves us in its awesome wake, in the distance, the incomprehensible