BLUE

Mankind growth beyond Earth’s capability to hold life, so in order to avoid extinction, men throw themselves on space exploration. Was a hard road, full of errors and deaths. The two thousand civilians killed when a experimental fusion reactor exploded on EU Moon colony were just a example among many others. But the explosion on Neu World Moon Base had a good side, world powers unite under one flag with one goal, find a new home to our species.

Fifty years later, the first space slider was launched, a ship capable to bend space and travel faster than light. Took four months to arrive at Alpha Centauri, just to discover that live could exist out of Earth. The fifth planet of the binary system was a blue and green marble with luxurious forests greater than anything seen before, its oceans filled with life, and even better, a environment that could harbor humans.

Was the golden age of colonization, but soon we were too many again. Now we seek a third Earth deep in space. Our space slider, the Explorateur-XVII, is one of the largest ships ever built. More than three kilometers from bow to stern, a silver arrow carrying nine hundred lives, in a two year journey to our newest colony, 78#Taurus, a advanced outpost in our search for a new perfect home.

We burst into real space in a explosion of light, everyone quiet, waiting to hear that we didn’t crossed the path of any meteor shower at one tenth the speed of light, that no micro meteor made a hole on our hull, that everything is fine and we just have to wait until the sliding engine get ready to use again.

But not this time: Sealed in our space-suits we saw the red alert light flashing and we heard our radio telling us the only thing we wish to never, ever hear.

-Attention all, we are in the middle of a meteor shower, prepare for impact!

Then it got worst: A rupture. Our built-in computers flood our eyes with raw data from the hole we got. Two million liters of air lost, 21 crew members disappeared. Our drone units start to repair the hole, using what is left from our hull and what else they can put their mechanical claws on: Debris, other drones and even any dead or unconscious crewmember’s suit. Yes, if you die or get unconscious the drones will strip you naked in vacuum, after all the ship is more important than one life…or 21.

Suddenly my captain calls on the horn:

-Bridge to third sector officer, respond!

-Yes bridge, here is third sector officer, over.

-The drones took care of the outer holes, move your team to areas 33, 76 and 91 and initiate emergency repairs immediately, over.

-And survivors? Over.

-Do it like in training, ship first, survivors only after we get all systems on green again.

No surprise, I don’t like it but I understand: We are alone, one year away from any help.

We mobilize and start working to restore the hell that our ship had turned. Took us several hours of hard work, but all fires were extinguished, energy was back, and systems nominal, so was time to look for survivors. I leaded a small rescue team around the perimeter of the impact areas. We found no one, but we found something odd.

A entire sector was covered with small blue particles, shinning under our search lights.

A man approached and touches it, and it just burst like a bubble.

-Shit!

-Damn, you are ok?

-Yeah, I just can’t see shit, its like paint…

-Move, I will take you back to C&C.

And I dragged him back safety, something I’d soon would regret.

We were de-contamined, UV, several chemical substances and baths, but still it wont come off, like paint. We didn’t bothered much, the scientists would worry about it, when we awaked them. Curious we all gathered around the stained suit.

-What you thing it is?

-What was, you mean.

-I think it maybe just something from hydraulics, those shit are a pain to clean.

-Maybe you are right.

And a man rubbed it on his fingers, only to scream in agony:

-FUCK! It burns!!!

-Damn, lets go to medical!

And we left the tainted suit behind. The man arrived at the medical bay unconscious, and his finger tips were blue. The medic interrogated us:

-What the fuck is going on?

We told him everything.

-Fucking morons… Call C&C, put this sector in quarantine, sectors 88 and 25 too, and some one go wrap that suit in a bio hazard bag!

Once it got there, he found something else. A deep blue fungus covering the entire suit and the room, growing from the walls like grass, it was absurdly fast and had a nauseus smell. I know it because soon it growth on us too. It hurt, it burn, but never kills… We are now quarantined, locked in a deep blue forest of alien fungus. No one came to rescue us, even after months, probably one year, had past.

From a distant room, through a remote controlled camera, a group of important men watch the blue hell:

-Are you sure they are still alive?

-Alive and conscious, I assure you. One third of the crew, all infested by this fungus.

-There is nothing we can do?

-The only thing we can do is sterilize it, and pray that we never found anything like it again.

-Sterilize? You mean kill almost three hundred men?!

-Is the only alternative, this… thing is too dangerous and resistant. If it spreads, can make millions of victims in few days.

-… Fine. What do we use?

-Plasma. Conventional fire and radiation don’t work, but ultra-heated plasma destroy it at molecular level.

The men agree silently, condemning hundreds to be burnt alive, then, suddenly, a messenger dash through the door:

-Prime minister! Prime minister!!

-What is now? Don’t you see we are in the middle of a important meeting?

-I am sorry sir… is Earth’s president… A tragedy on Earth Prime!!!

-Earth prime?!?! Spit it out! Now!!

-Sir! A meteor shower hit the planet!

-The damages?

-It hit the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, causing tsunami waves that destroyed US west coast and UK east coast.

-Dammit, how many died from the tsunami?

-Sir… The tsunami wasn’t the problem! It’s… some kind of life form; it’s spreading like wild fire, its literally covering the north Hemisphere!!!

All those important, mighty, men stood silently and looked at each other with fear and disbelief

-Sir…is some kind of blue mold…

FIN.