Author's Note

This story is written by @jae5086, one half of the Scratched and Burnt team, as part of the Xpilar Writing Competition. The plan moving forward will be to make every subsequent challenge entered a new chapter in an ongoing story. Obviously there is no way to know what the next picture will be so this is a very fluid, unplanned thing. We'll call it a challenge inside a challenge. So meta!

Now, on with the show. We hope you enjoy!

Credit - @xpilar

Chapter 1: They Came From The Deep of Space.

Light washed over the small cabin in a brilliant splash of warm color, igniting the sparse décor and otherwise sterile room with its fiery breathe. The sun was setting behind the Earth from the space station's perspective and darkness would soon engulf the room. The lone inhabitant lingered, relishing the calm and watching from her bed as flame flickered bright yellow across the ceiling, spilled down the doorway across from her bed, then finally snuffed out at the floor with a whimper of dampened orange. This scene played out fifteen times everyday, and fifteen more in reverse as the sun crested the other side of the planet, yet it was never less beautiful.

Sonya Balakin, daughter of an esteemed Russian physicist and American author, had always wanted to be a Broadway performer when she grew up. She would settle with becoming a Nasa Astronaut, one of the youngest women to ever serve on the International Space Station. Perhaps one of the last, as politics divided not just the world, but the countries themselves. If only those men and women could view the world from 400km above the ground, they might just find some perspective. Or, if nothing else, peace.

Just as darkness enveloped the room, it was broken by a small, blinking red light and the crackle of the onboard communications device installed next to the entrance. "Sonya, are you in there? You're going to want to see this," a gruff but not unkind voice barked through the device. "Come to the observation pod immediately."

With a sigh, Sonya floated from her bed, zipped up her standard issue uniform and made her way to the door. She stopped briefly to glance out the small portal window that framed her bed. The sun gone, darkness had nearly engulfed the world. Only specks of light from densely populated areas were visible, the only signs of life while most of those directly below the station slept. She briefly wondered which part of the world it was before pressing a button on the communication device. "I'm on my way."

"So much for peace," she said with a dry smirk as she opened the door to a haze of fluorescent light.

---

Dale Herricks' gaze was fixed on a monitor. He was a large man, both in stature and personality. Most thought of him as a no nonsense type who was difficult to get along with at times, never shy of giving his opinion or inserting himself in a conversation yet rarely talking much about himself. He would say that's how he got this far in his fifty some odd years of life, but living in such close-quarters has a way of breaking those walls down ever so gradually as the early thrill of the environment fades. Monotony gives way to boredom in the waning hours of the day; there are few choices but to open up to those around you or risk madness.

Dale had grown particularly found of Sonya. Perhaps it was his basal instincts speaking out, having been unmarried all his life and now inhabiting a space station with only one woman...a pretty one at that. Perhaps it was that this small, pretty girl he shared such close quarters with happened to be not only a brilliant engineer but somewhat the philosopher. He attributed the later to her mother, who's writing Sonya could talk about for hours. Or, perhaps it was that Dale had always wondered if he would be a good father, having never known his own, and the much younger Sonya Balakin was likely the closest he would come to finding out.

"What's up Dale?" Sonya chirped as she floated into the room. It felt antiquated floating, but use of the gravity inducers had to be cut back to conserve power after a small solar flare caused damage to a few power cells a couple week back and they were not expecting a resupply for several more days.

Dale looked up from the monitor. His normally stoic exterior only slightly cracked. While rare, it no longer surprised Sonya to witness this phenomenon given the hours they had spent these past months alone, sipping bourbon while chatting about politics, movies and philosophy. Well, perhaps Sonya was the one waxing philosophic, but Dale enjoyed listening to her talk, even when he found the topics branching further than his grasp. The bourbon helped. This time, however, what spilled from the crack wasn't anger or empathy.

If she detected a hint of intrigue, it was second to something else...worry.

"It appears to be an asteroid heading towards Jupiter, but I've never seen anything moving quite like it. The speed makes no sense. I've been studying astronomical charts since I was a grad student at the University of Illinois and this thing ain't normal I'm telling you! We've had instruments pointing this direction for days and not a single thing of any interest until suddenly this thing pops up?" Dale barked as the pair crowded the monitor.

Sonya shook her head, as if to shake off his uncharacteristically nervous tone, or maybe because she too had no explanation. They had been monitoring that section of the solar system for the past several days in search of the still elusive "Planet X" without any real hope of finding the planetary body but always hopeful they would find something of scientific interest. Science can, at times, be the least bit interesting, at least when given the task to chase a wild goose. This would be the type of thing to make any astronomer excited and yet, there was something off about the find.

The speed didn't make sense for an object of that size. It was too small to be going that fast. How would it have avoided detection until now? The sensors, even at this speed, should have found it much earlier. Most disconcerting though was it didn't appear to be on a collision course with Jupiter, captured by it's immense gravity. It looked like a slingshot maneuver.

---

Ice trailed behind the massive celestial body as it careened through space at breakneck speed, even by astronomical standards. The surface was largely covered by a substance that appeared much like ice yet moved like the methane clouds of Titan's stratosphere. Where these flows broke, a metal like structure was revealed. Nature has provided many forms of geometric beauty but this structure was neither natural nor beautiful.

As the object twisted its way around the massive gaseous body that shepherds much of our solar system, a tail far greater than any comet formed. It was not ice or debris pulled from the object that would form this tail that would eventually become a barely detectable ring around the planet, but the remains of vanquished rock and debris that stood in the way of the mighty interloper.

Earth was quickly learning that an object of interstellar origin had been pulled by Jupiter's gravity squarely towards their pale blue dot. It's speed was rapidly decreasing, defying all scientific explanation. The media would come to call this the Trail of Doom, though they knew not what it would prophesize.