r/HFY • u/Letos_prophet • Sep 24 '23
OC {No good deed goes unpunished} OR {Watch what you wish for}
I had always kinda found it ironic. The great cosmic joke of my life, that barring something really, really unexpected, I was never going to see interstellar travel. That I was born in a time where our knowledge was enough to dream of it, yet too soon to ever know if it becomes a reality. That I would never even know if our species makes it to the stars. Cruel irony, barring something really, really unexpected....
So some background about me, science nerd, through and through. Always have been. I was reading encyclopedias and learning about science while most kids were playing kickball and skateboarding. I read the sci-fi greats, Herbert, Wells, Clarke, Asimov and many others. I dreamed of exploring space on the Enterprise, I wanted to build Mr. Data. Even when I grew up I never really grew out of dreaming, not really. But anyways pretty much normal guy, normal life.
Cue something really, really unexpected.
I was driving home from work one night, lived in a trailer park a couple miles outside of a bigger city in the area, just over the missouri river from my work, and on the outside edge of a small town in Kansas. There was a particularly dark stretch of the highway that ended about one mile before the entrance to my trailer park. Anyways, there I was driving down this dark highway, when I saw this fireball in the sky in my rearview mirror, it looked like it was coming straight towards me! I swerve my truck and managed not to roll it, considering the speed I was going. I barely manage to not be hit by this fireball. Instead it smashes into the highway and then kinda skips a couple times until it's in a field. I slam the shifter into park and jump out of the truck and run over to the smouldering heap. The damn thing looks like some kinda shuttle craft from Star Trek or something. What appears to be the back door opens, and I hear what are the obvious sounds of someone or something coughing.
There's smoke billowing out the back of this thing, I've got to do something. So I jump in and run up to the pilots seat, and try to help whoever or whatever it is. I don't really get time to process what I'm seeing. It's definitely an alien, I couldn't even begin to guess the basis for its biology. The face tentacles are definitely disturbing, but it starts coughing and attempting to get up. I help it out of its chair, and out the back door. It goes out, and before I can get myself through the door, it closes. The cabin fills up with smoke and everything goes black.
I woke up on the floor, I'm not sure how much later but we were in space, I could tell that out the front window, though the ship had artificial gravity. I get up, and my head is just pounding. I figured at first it was from the smoke inhalation, but as I come up to the window the reflection shows a small, quarter sized disc on my temple with three glowing lights. Then, inside my head mind you, I hear this voice (oddly enough sounds like Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, weird) "Greetings pilot. You are compatible. I will travel anywhere you wish to go, except Earth, as long as you do not endanger me and remain connected as pilot." Oh great, so I'm trapped on a spaceship while that alien is running around on earth? "Oh no, he's dead. What you thought was smoke was actually his atmosphere venting. He was coughing because your atmosphere is toxic to his species. He was most likely delirious by the time you got to him, or he wouldn't have gotten out of me on your world." Ok, that's terrible. Poor guy. So how did you repair the damage I saw? "I have basic self repair systems" So if you're of alien manufacture, then you have FTL? "Scanning knowledge base. By the meaning you intend yes, though through the way it functions, no." Well, that's cryptic. I always used to wish that I could live long enough to see interstellar travel become reality, just didn't actually expect this to be one of those rare times in life where I actually got what I wanted. Watch what you wish for, you know. I just wish I hadn't left my smokes in the damn truck....
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u/Korato450 Human Sep 24 '23
Not bad writing. I'm a bit curious as to what you're going to do with the story from here.
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle Sep 24 '23
/u/Letos_prophet has posted 14 other stories, including:
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