First Contact

Radio static buzzed as Jim Hawkins held down the transmit button inside the glove of his space suit. “Hawkins to control.” Jim continued to work as he waited in silence for mission control to respond.

“Go ahead Jim,” the scratchy response came from his headset.

“I’m just about finished out here,” Jim said as he tightened one last bolt on a cover plate. “Please confirm array status,” he said for the third and hopefully final time.

“Sensor array online and receiving data, Jim,” mission control replied. “Everything looks good on our end, Jim,” the scratchy voice continued, “you’re clear to re-board.”

“Copy that, control,” Jim said, letting the small tool tether pull his drill back to his belt. He pushed off from the side of the space station so that his feet rotated toward the metal surface and clicked his heels together to re-engage his magnet boots. Once he was properly oriented he pulled on the suit tether connecting him to the station and his boots clicked firmly to the metal. He took a couple of test steps, making sure the mag boots engaged and disengaged like they were supposed to before unclipping his tether.

The walk back to the airlock wasn’t short, but it also wasn’t long. He could push off the station and use his suit’s propulsion system to get there faster–and have much more fun doing so–but mission control didn’t like when he did that. It was ’too risky’ according to some bean counter the station owner employed. Resigned to a boring walk he set out, but just as he pressed his transmit button he was overridden by mission control.

“Jim, did you just do something to the array? We’re getting strange readings.”

“No,” Hawkins said, twisting to look back at the array arm he’d just installed. “Just engaged my mag boots and untethered. I was about to radio that I was headed home.”

“Clear,” control said, “we’re getting some very strong readings all of a sudden.”

“Don’t tell me engineering gave me a faulty array,” Jim said, “I hate doing the same work twice.” He began to turn around to actually face the array, his mag boots clicking silently in the void of space.

“Standby, Jim,” control said, “we’re getting engineering up here to take a look.”

“Copy that,” Jim said with a sigh. He looked at the tower above him. It was about twenty feet off the side of the station and it was dotted with all kinds of antennas and receivers for all manner of electromagentic signals. It’s purpose, they told him, was to keep an eye on background radiation levels so the station had a better baseline for its much larger deep space sensors. The old one had about half as many doo-dads on it. Whatever it was for it was above his paygrade. He just handled the install.

Control radioed again, “Jim can you do a visual check in quadrant three?”

Jim oriented himself to the tower and turned his head up and away from the station. “What am I looking–” he began to ask, but stopped when he saw it. “What the hell?”

“What are you seeing, Jim?” Control radioed.

Jim wasn’t exactly sure how to describe what he saw. It was a thin, wispy blue light out in the distance and it was beginning to coalesce into a line. “I think it’s light,” Jim said.

“Jim I’m reading high levels of radiation out there,” control said, “you need to book it back to the airlock, NOW.”

Jim did not ‘book it’ anywhere. He was mesmerized. He stood and stared and managed to say, “wow,” as the blue line of light finished gathering into a bright line. Then, it yawned open like a giant eye opening, a field of shimmering blue plasma filling the void it created.

As Jim watched, awestruck, a ship unlike anything he’d ever seen emerged from the blue tear in space.

This short story was written in 30-minutes as a response to the prompt: “Two realities collide”. It is presented here with minimal editing.