[Writing Prompt] Humanity is kicked out a solar system like a pesky spider.
Pesky Humans
Imperial Scout Ship Ferdinand was now the farthest human object from Earth.
Moments earlier the ship had crossed the ephemeral barrier between interstellar space and the tumultuous winds of a new solar system. X5-827G1 was the star’s designation. Ferdinand was dispatched a year earlier at faster than light speeds.
It was a ship of firsts: the first manned FTL drive; the first manned interstellar voyage; the culmination of the first truly global scientific effort.
X5-827G1 was chosen because it was deemed the most likely system within 200 lightyears of Earth to contain advanced life. The Ferdinand set out to global fanfare, the high watermark of human achievement.
The Captain sat proudly in his chair, sending back the FTL announcement of their arrival. In just over a year, Earth would burst into celebration.
“Eyes open Ensign.” The Captain gave the order for the high powered sensors to be activated. “What do you see?”
The Ensign’s face dropped spontaneously, and then his whole body followed the downward trajectory until his back was curled over his viewing screen. He didn’t say anything.
The Captain frowned. “Ensign, report.”
The Ensign began to mutter something to himself. The First Officer stormed over and slapped the young man upside the head. “You were given a direct order ensign, what is wrong with y…”
The First Officer stopped mid sentence when he saw the scanning results. “Sweet Christ.”
The Captain was beginning to become annoyed. “Will someone on this bridge tell me what the hell you’re seeing!”
The First Officer pressed a button and displayed the the video live stream for everyone on the bridge to see.
Directly ahead of the Ferdinand was a ship, its size far larger than any ship ever built by humanity, by several orders of magnitude – a mass of metal, all curved lines and bulky protrusions, that was slowly coming right at them, the blue glow of countless ion engines at its rear.
“Battle stations!” Even as the Captain yelled out the order he knew it was a toothless command. The Ferdinand had purposely been equipped with an absolute minimum of weaponry, just enough to blow up a stray asteroid. They were on a peaceful mission.
Still the crew jumped to action, swallowing their terror and bringing the two missile launchers to bear on incoming target.
The scale of the alien ship was just astounding to behold. It was difficult in deep space to visually gauge relative sizes, but the radar revealed a truly gargantuan structure, larger than Earth’s Moon.
“Hail them.” The Captain said.
The Ferdinand’s comm officer sent a hail towards the other ship, along the entire EM spectrum, hoping there would be a response.
There was. “Captain they’ve responded to our hail, audio only.”
The Captain’s hand’s were sweaty. “Patch them over the bridge audio.”
The bridge speakers came to life and a strange, undulating variant of English came out of them, heavily accented and barely comprehensible at first, but the message kept repeating. After multiple repetitions, the content of the message was clear to everyone on board.
“We don’t want to harm humans, but humans not come back to Tlelejeck Space. Turn off engines. We will deposit outside.”
The Captain debated internally for only a few moments. What other choice did he have. “Kill the engines.”
The crew followed the command and over the next two days, they watched as the Tlelejeck ship approached at a very strange angle, waited for almost 24 hours completely still, and then set off again toward the boundary of the solar system.
The navigation officer was the first to understand. The Tlelejeck ship was using the effects of its own prodigious gravity to slowly drag the Ferdinand into its own orbit and then lead it out of the solar system.
“It seems like a hell of a lot of trouble. If they want us to leave why don’t they just ask, or have us dry dock?” The First Mate wondered aloud.
The Captain had no idea.
In a slow but certain path, the Tlelejeck ship dragged the Ferdinand back into interstellar space and left it floating there, then it turned about and sped off faster than its gravity could hold sway over the human ship.
As the Tlelejeck flew off back into their solar system, the Captain was reminded of how his wife used to handle spiders in their old apartment on Earth. She would carry them outside on a piece of paper held under the opening of a glass jar, deposit them from the jar onto the front porch with a shake, and then frightfully scamper back into the house.
Watching the Tlelejeck ship race away, to the confusion of his bridge crew, the Captain couldn’t help but laugh.
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