International Space Station Scary Life Story (Aliens are Real)
I work TSA on the International Space Station It's not as fun as you think
Yes, aliens are real. I mean nowadays most people already know that. Something you don’t know though, they’re assholes. All of them.
That doesn’t make me racist. It actually doesn’t make me anything. We haven’t invented a word for discrimination against extraterrestrials yet, so nice try. I guess I can go ahead and invent the word for us. Or maybe, I’ll just reuse one: Sane.
Bad manners, bad habits, and bad breath. Yes. Very bad breath. If you know or meet anyone with chronic bad breath it could be a Glomelean on vacation.
Now, you may be asking. Aliens? International Space Station?
A committee was formed roughly a decade ago when E.T. encounters began spiking upward at a rapid rate. Countries at the frontier of space exploration met and decided the best choice was, of course, to keep it all under tight wraps, and pretend everyone else was crazy. While, as expected of humans, trying to turn a profit at the same time.
But I'm no Edward Snowden. That's not why I'm writing this.
Yesterday, an unmanned vessel docked at the station.
I’ll briefly explain the process if anyone is unfamiliar with space-port security:
**1. The arriving vessel radios in and alerts the station before docking at one of the entry ports.** ***(After discovering the lucrative market of space travel and the intense demand for tickets to visit one of the youngest forms of intelligent life in the universe, the U.N. greenlit further construction of the ISS.)***
**2. The captain of the vessel will transmit the required information of all visiting crew members to our system to be processed.** ***(Space passports.)***
**3. The visiting crew will exit the ship into our Security Processing Facility.**
**4. Both the visiting crew baggage and interior of the vessel will be inspected by STSA Agents.** ***(No bottled liquids.)***
**5. If the vessel and visiting crew are deemed fit to travel, a limited permit will be issued, and a tracker secured to the vessel.**
**6. All other pertinent information is recorded, and the vessel is allowed to proceed into the atmosphere.**
**7. Clean up.** ***(A lot of them leave a trail.)***
One agent works the monitor while a few are on security.
It was a slow day. I was on the monitor and the other men were napping. There’s not a lot of employees available so we grab all the sleep we can get.
The vessel that arrived was standard. I’d seen a few of them before though I can’t remember which star system it derived from.
There was no radio call in, so I only noticed it when I briefly looked up from Instagram to gaze at the infinite cosmos.
It drifted towards the station; far slower than one usually would. Maybe it was a rookie pilot being extra cautious, I thought. After a painful amount of time the ship docked at the furthest port, Dock 5.
Assholes.
I would have gone to wake security up, but they still hadn’t transmitted the crew information yet. Usually, the pilot is able to do this long before their vessel docks.
I waited a couple minutes before opening the port doors. If their communications were down, they would have to provide hard copies of the crew’s information. I watched the loading bay’s video feed from my monitor.
Another few minutes go by. No information and their vessel door remained shut.
Annoyed, I left my post and started to head down the long winding hallway. Every 100 feet or so there is a bay door leading into a docking bay where a crew would exit from before heading to SPF (security). Inside is a space about 100 by 100 feet separating the bay doors and the port doors where vessels docked. We only have five so far, but they are in the process of constructing two more.
Once I arrived at the end of the hallway where Dock 5 was, I could see the vessel door now was open. The interior was dark. There was no sign of movement.
Working the job for eighteen months now, I could feel this wasn’t the usual space shenanigans we were used to. The situation was all wrong. I radioed security to wake their ass up, that we had a problem.
Thirty seconds later I heard their boots smacking the floor of the hallway.
“What, what is it?” Ryan asked. His bed head was apparent, and he was huffing air.
“Look. It docked about ten minutes ago,” I said.
“And?”
“And *look*,” I gestured. “It’s empty. No comms, nothing, it just drifted in.”
Ryan peeked through the window into the bay.
“How the hell did they dock?” he asked.
That was a good question.
“Stay here for now.” He handed me a pistol. Lead, as it turned out, does not discriminate against aliens.
Ryan nodded towards his men, “Gentlemen. Weapons live.”
I flicked the safety off and watched as the men in security uniforms filed into the bay. Ryan edged towards the open maw of the ship, shining his flashlight inside. I held my breath as they entered.
Dock 5 is our largest docking bay, with roughly 150 feet between the bay door and where the vessel docked. I could only hear muffled talking from inside the ship and brief glimpses of the men’s flashlights.
A faint noise from down the hall broke my attention. It was a mechanical beeping; the noise the monitor made when an incoming radio communication was received. I looked back towards the end of the bay. If something was there, Ryan and them would’ve found it by now.
I hustled back towards my post in time before the communication expired. The source was from outside our solar system. I activated the translator. It was in the middle of a broadcast:
“**-T MAKE CONTACT. REPEAT, DO NOT MAKE CONTACT. REPEAT, DO NOT MAKE CONTACT. REPEAT…**”
My muscles tightened. Ryan’s body camera was on and transmitting feed to my monitor. I could see him and the four other men searching what looked to be a completely empty ship.
I radio’d him to make sure.
“*See anything?*”
Ryan’s voice came through all grainy, “*Well, there’s something. Where are you?*”
“*The monitor, we got an emergency broadcast. You guys need to clear out. Now.”*
“*Give us a second.*”
He was hovering over the master controls of the vessel inspecting a strange substance covering its panel.
I opened the broadcast again, sent a signal indicating we had received the message. They answered immediately:
“**DO NOT MAKE CONTACT WITH SPECIMEN**”
My radio roared with the sound of gunfire. I only had time to watch from the monitor, as Ryan’s body camera exploded with light from the muzzle flash of automatic weapons.
“*Ryan?”*
“*Detach the ship! Don’t let it on!”*
Ryan’s video feed turned towards the door of the vessel, making a break for the docking bay.
“*NOW!* *AGH–”*
I slammed the button that would force eject Dock 5. The function overrides the docking vessel’s doors, forcing them shut and ejecting the vessel from the station with considerable force. It was designed to counteract a vessel with explosives rigged to it. Though, it had never been used before.
The entire ISS lit up, and a blaring siren drowned out the screams from Ryan’s video feed. From Dock 5’s camera feed I could see the ship’s door closing, much slower than ideal. Just when the doors were about to clamp shut, someone in a security uniform flung themself through the crack, into the docking bay.
The port doors shut as well, and the vessel was flung off into the deep dark void of nothingness with a burst of propulsion gas.
Ryan’s body camera showed the interior of Dock 5. He was the only one to make it. He lie there taking deep breaths.
“*Ryan? Ryan, don’t move, I’m coming.*”
Ryan’s voice was faint and quivered as he spoke.
“*I’m sorry. We couldn’t stop it.*”
“*That doesn’t* matter,” I said, stepping out of the monitor room into the long hallway. “*You made it. We’re okay.*”
“*No,”* said Ryan. “*I’m still on the ship.*”
I paused. At the distant end of the hallway, a figure clad in security clothes shuffled closer. Its helmet lolled, left to right to left.
“*It’s smart. It has my body camera.*”
I crashed back into the monitor room and locked the door behind me.
“*Ryan,”* I breathed into the radio.
“*I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. There was only supposed to be four of us. There was an extra! It left us in pieces!*”
24 hours later and here I am. Still. The alarms on the station have been blaring for a while now. Heard an announcement on the intercoms but couldn't make out what they were saying.
Seems like I'm quarantined with this thing.
It knocks every minute or so. Never banging, always knocking.
Ryan's bodycam is still transmitting its feed, right outside my door. It hasn't moved yet.
And Ryan. Last coherent thing I'd heard from him was a jumbled soup of words about trying to find another tourniquet. Not sure how long ago that was.
What I am sure of is, as soon as I get out of here, *if* I get out of here, I’m done with space for good. That or my pay gets bumped to six figures plus benefits. Either is fine.
Being in a Space station out of earth is scary man.
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