Ardent Cosmonaut

I distinctly remember mining for gold on Mars at the young age of 8 when an uproar blasted throughout the cave walls. Or maybe I was cleaning the toilets at Grand Central Space Station… No, I was definitely mining for silver. Gold, I mean.

The year was 2256. Somebody shouted, “It’s happening! It’s happening!” The next thing I knew, a stampede of men, women, and children - most of the children were older than me - flew out of the tunnels in droves. I was downright perplexed at this strange sight because mass exodus on this scale only took place at quitting time or during dust storms. Even then, running seldom occured. Not only were hasty departures from worksites rare, they were forbidden unless there was an immediate threat to the community’s wellbeing. Anybody who did cause a commotion without warrant, or at least was found that their actions had the “potential” to cause commotion - that interpretation depended on what side of the sleeping pod the colony elders woke up on, was exiled to Venus with nothing but a thermal resistant suit. Me being the curious child I was, though, I lowered my pick and walked, then ran as if to mimic their behavior, after them. The elders couldn’t exile us all. Emerging from that dark, cold hell was disorienting at first. It took my eyes a few seconds to readjust. When they did, I noticed my comrades piling into the Recreation Hub. I stumbled across the colony like a fish out of water and made my way into the circular building. Inside, glass walls divided the rooms. Huddled in front of our giant Holoset in the ‘screen room’ were, from my estimates, at least 100 people - half our colony. I headed inside, not even considering what my plan of action was once I got to the room. Even as a kid, I was short for my age. The other cadets at the academy thought I was an easy target due to my size, and they were right. I was Martian in the Middle more times than I care to count. So, the only thing I was able to see when I entered the room were the backs of my comrades.

I tried to push forward, saying, “Excuse me! Excuse me! I can’t see,” but nobody budged. I was so angry at every single person in that room at that moment. If I had laser vision like the sea monsters on Europa, I would chop everyone in half… yes, I was that angry. Imagine how you’d feel if you were shorter than your 6-year-old bunkmate and constantly became the object of jokes about it? Mistreatment was bad enough, but it was times like that when I couldn’t see what everyone else could, that hurt the most. I started to cry as many kids do when they don’t get their way to signal to whoever was listening - maybe the flying spaghetti monster or the God-queen of Triton - that I was upset. Being the tallest person in the room, no, shortest, was hard. I think the crying worked because I felt myself being lifted off the ground with a familiar set of cold hands under my armpits.

“Master Mason, it appears you could use some assistance.” Mars Colony 108 Helper Unit 003, or Norman as he was called - no, his name was Eugene. Or was it Fred? Maybe it was Lyle. Oh, I remember! It was Gary… I think. You know what, maybe his name was Dexter? Actually, Dexter sounds too cool for a robot. At the same time, maybe a robot is supposed to have a cool name. Oh, great flying spaghetti monster! Why can’t I think of it’s blasted name?! Oh well, I’ll just call him Albert. Albert sounds cool enough. Anyway, Albert, the tall robot helper stationed in the Recreation Hub, picks me up and gently sets me down on his shoulders. He pushed forward through the crowd, physically moving them out of his path as he repeated, “Please move. Please move. Please move.” in a synthetic voice. When we got to the front row, he put me down. “Better, Master Mason?” he asked.

I could finally see the screen. A bodycamera followed a crew of eight astronauts around as they mucked about inside of a spaceship. I grinned from ear to ear. In fact, my grin was so intense that if I grinned any more intensely. Albert would have to escort me to the infirmary so the medical unit could realign my jaw. I turned back to Albert, who was no longer a robot. Albert was replaced with the colony elder. I said, “Uhh, thank you, Elder Corvyx.”

He leaned over and patted me on my shoulder and said, “Don’t mention it, Cadet Samantha.” He smiled and walked back through the crowd.

Samantha? Why would he call me Samantha, did he forget my name? What a strange thing to do. I felt an odd sense of dread all of a sudden but thought nothing of it. My eyes landed on the Holoset once again. At that moment, everything else became irrelevant. The ship was inside of Pluto’s atmosphere. A chorus of applause and hollering erupted inside of the room. I joined in. As the view from the ship got closer and closer to the dwarf planet’s surface, the cheering grew louder and louder. From that fateful day until now, my dream has been to command Sol’s first mission to explore an exoplanet. I could see it in the Holopads - Samantha Fern, first sentient being to set foot on an exoplanet. That day, I learned my purpose in life was for much more than digging up gold. I was meant for the stars. I learned that I wanted to be an astronaut. I also learned that day what it’s like to swap genitals for no apparent reason.

The conversation with my elders on my life’s ambitions were more challenging than I imagined.

Elder Corvyx started, “Many children want to become galactic cargo haulers-” Excuse me; That’s not right, “Many children want to become bounty hunters-” No, now I remember what I wanted to do, “Many children want to be astronauts when they grow up, Miss. Fern. Lord Putin seeks the best of the best, and you’re just a miner!” The other elders in the room - Elder Drocker, Elder Young, and Elder Phoenix - laughed in unison.

Elder Phoenix spoke in her condescending, nails-on-chalk-like voice, “Silly little girl! You’ll never be a royal guard-” wait, no. She said, “Silly little girl! You’ll never be an astronaut!”

The elders repeated their haunting chorus of laughter. As I hung my head in shame and almost started crying, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Whatever it was had a gleam of silver, and it grew in size until it was no longer a speck in my periphery but a helper unit holding Elder Young by the neck. The other two elders fumbled for their blasters as the unit squeezed him tightly, breaking every bone almost all at once. By the time they retrieved them, Elder Young’s head was a reddish-pink pulp of blood and brain matter, and the Unit was using his body as a melee weapon on Elder Drocker, hitting him so hard that he flew off of his feet and crashed through the bulletproof walls. Elder Phoenix tried to flee. The Unit turned toward the running woman. She looked over her shoulder when she was one step from leaving the room. The Unit emitted flames from its wrists, engulfing the elder. She frantically screamed as she fell to the ground and rolled. The last thing she saw, at least I hope for her sake, was the unit’s massive metallic foot above her head. It slammed down, creating a cacophony of splattering. Thusqshh! The metal behemoth then turned towards me and said, “You’re safe, Miss. Fern. Miss. Fern. Miss. Fern. Captain Fern. Captain Fern. Captain Fern.”

I woke up with my head propped up on my arm and felt a light push on my opposite shoulder. I rolled over and groggily opened my eyes as I groaned. I saw the youthful, innocent face of one of the ship’s twelve orderlies staring back at me. This was the only Orderly I knew by name, Logan Turner. “Captain Fern,” he said in his thick southern accent, “We’re on approach.”

The humiliating conversation with my elders still happened, be sure of it; it broke my heart. Alas, there was no killer robot to save me. I was taunted every day at school and made fun of at the mine once word got out of my dream for something greater. An unspoken rule for mine workers was that you aren’t allowed to dream. Mining is like a curse spoken upon you by an evil sorceress thousands of years ago; if the previous generation of your family mined, so would the generation after you. To even think of leaving a life of mining was a call for concern that something in your mind had gone haywire. Hence, you might be starting to comprehend why I was considered a lunatic for wanting out. There was no getting out. Except I did. I worked hard to show people that I was meant for so much more. I was the site supervisor by the time I was 18. During a tri-annual colony inspection from the capital, one of the supreme elders noticed me. He said he liked my leadership abilities and that he was told by someone who preferred to remain anonymous that my dream was to be an astronaut. He explained that there was an opening for a training program and wanted to know if I was interested. From that day forward, I trained every day at the academy in the capital to become an astronaut.

Logan stepped back with his hands clasped behind his back as if I was contagious with some highly infectious disease asking, “What should I tell the others?”

I sat up and yawned. I grabbed my water bottle from my nightstand and said, “I’ll be right out there.” I then closed my eyes and rolled my neck. I opened my eyes again and almost screamed.

No longer was I looking out into a bedroom on a spaceship, and the orderly standing in front of me was replaced with a pinkish-blue bipedal creature staring at me as it jotted something down on a Holopad.

I tried screaming but nothing came out, and that’s when this peculiar dream became even more real; I tried to touch my neck to feel for my larynx, but I had no arms. I tried to kick and discovered that I had no legs. Those first two failures were terrifying revelations, make no bones about it. What happened next, however, added fuel to the flames of my terror. I attempted to crane my neck downwards. I couldn’t. The only thing I was able to do was stare at the alien and the naked body suspended in a gooey substance contained within a glass pod directly in front of me. Was I the head suspended in the adjacent pod? No. That was impossible. It couldn’t have been my body because there were no breasts Instead, it had male genitals. The strange creature noticed me widening my eyes, and it dropped its Holopad as it briskly walked out of the room, screaming something in a language I had never heard.

I couldn’t stop looking at that headless body. If that wasn’t my body, where was mine? Were these alien creatures planning on connecting me to that body? If not, why would they decapitate me? How was I alive in the first place? Who was I, anyway?

The creature came back along with half a dozen more creatures that looked just like it. When I tried to scream, “Let me out! What have you done with my body? Let me out now! Do you know who I am? I’m a Commander with Sol’s Space Exploration Program. You will all die if you don’t let me go right this instant, I swear!” nothing came out. As I was saying that, however, the pinkish-blue creatures stared at me. They then said some more things in their alien language. They then nodded and looked at one of the creatures who wore a purple sash and a tall, brimless hat. It stepped forward, staring at me intently. It’s face was wrinkly, although I couldn’t discern if that was indicative of its age or a typical appearance for its species. It spoke to me without moving its lips, yet its voice was as loud and audible as if I was sitting across the table with a friend, chatting about the latest gossip. It said, “Logan Taylor, you have been asleep for quite some time.”

Logan Taylor, I thought, My name’s not Logan Taylor, you fucking alien scum- wait how can it hear me? How can it talk to me without opening its mouth? It must be using telepathic communication… but how? I’m dead, or at least, I’m not alive.

It spoke again, “Logan Taylor, human resident of Mars in the Sol system, you are correct. Our species is a great deal further advanced than you, shall we say, pathetic, humans. We have developed the ability to read minds. We do not appreciate your harsh language, human. Please refrain from calling us such a vile slur. Now, about the state of your existance. For starters, we are the inhabitants of GLZBIGGLFIRT, or as your kind calls it, Kepler-186B. We are working closely with your god. He has ordered us to decapitate you and torture you by forcing you to live the rest of your existance as nothing but a head, staring at your body as a constant reminder of your helplessness.”

Why? And no, I am Samantha Fern.

“Why, because we can. And, your god wanted you this way. You may have been Samantha, but you are now Logan. These are orders from your god.”

What? What god? There is no god. We’ve known that since 2120.

“Oh, you’re such a feeble-minded creature. You have a god, and he is a sick god who wants you to suffer. We are helping him with that task.” I started to panic when I started to feel an odd tingling sensation. Before I knew it, I was outside looking at both the alien and a head. I figured for a moment that I was having an out-of-body experience. The kind you have right before you die or when you go through a traumatic experience. At that moment, however, there was no such thing as miracles because I tried to look down at my hands and arms as soon as I thought of it. What I saw was both mesmerizing and terrifying.

I painted the walls a neon blue with what I assumed was Keplerean blood within moments of realizing that I was a Unit. I ripped the alien with the purple sash in two, mortifying the other creatures in the room. They shot at me and then ran for the exit once they realized their plasma rifles did not damage my metal shell. They were not fast enough to outpace my reach, and I grabbed them tight, raising them up to my eyes. That was the last thing they saw before I hurdled them repeatedly into the ground until they were unresponsive. There was only one alien left, a child.

It cowered behind a desk, pleading me to have mercy. It spoke in broken English. This time, it spoke out of its mouth.

“Please don’t hurt me! I’m a slave.”, it said with the voice of a young girl, “I’ll do anything you want.” I looked at the girl, then at myself, then at the room, then back at the girl. My metallic frame was covered in blood. I thought I must be terrifying to the creature.

I approached the girl, who watched my every move like I was a cartoon character. She cried as I approached her, screaming, “Please don’t hurt me!”

I stopped and said, “I’m not going to hurt you. Come with me and I will help you escape.” My voice boomed with a low, almost music-like rhythm. I offered her my hand as alarms went off overhead. Subsequently, shouting in an alien language came from outside.

“Come on!”, I yelled. She finally grabbed my hand. We ran outside onto a catwalk connecting a few different wings of the base. On the horizon, as we looked out at the right side of the walkway, was a rocky crevasse that tapered into a steep drop-off. At the bottom of the drop-off was a lake of lava. Our attention turned to the other end of the walkway as seven of the creatures opened fire on us. I immediately stepped in front of the alien girl, letting my indestructible frame absorb the frenzy of hits.

That was when everything in my field of vision went pure white, and the bolts stopped flying. I reflexively transformed into a nuclear fallout shelter over the girl. From that moment onward, I protected her as she journeyed across the wasteland.