(Page 1 of 2) Dust Clouds from Outer Space by Steve Jones -B5
 (11 ratings)
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SUMMARY: An entry in the "return" flash fiction contest. http://www.sffworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18951 A Space Opera... "It's coming back," Skeeter said, hunched over her navigational console like a spider with a juicy meal. "Moving fast."
"Evasive action," Captain Kessler ordered. It was turning out to be the worst day he'd had since he'd joined the space corps. The days were supposed to get better once they made you the captain of a ship. "Trake, any luck with the translation computer?"
"Nothing," Trake said, pounding a spindly fist on the edge of the control board. "We know there are lots of them, we know they make complementary movements. They must have some means of communication."
Kessler knew it had been a longshot even if Trake wouldn't admit it. The differences between human language and whatever dust clouds from outer space use to communicate had to be enormous.
"And why is this one attacking us?" Kessler said, sitting in his control chair and trying to adjust his utility belt so the cutting laser didn't dig into his hip. His ship, the Exceptional, had taken quite a beating.
They were supposed to be harmless, and lifeless, dust cloud formations of a kind endemic to the Felicon section of space. One of the things everyone who visted the sector had to see. The clouds moved faster here than anywhere in the known universe, and sometimes they appeared to be flying in formation.
The Exceptional had passed close to one of the clouds, mostly because Trake, the first officer, wanted to take a closer look. The cloud had been purple and gold and blue, and constantly in motion, even close up.
When they had continued onward, the cloud had followed them.
Trake saw this as a sign the clouds might be alive, something no one had ever considered before. He thought his translation computer might be reconfigured to allow meaningful communication. So far he hadn't had any luck. Trake should have known you can never talk to clouds.
Their first collision had been disastrous. The cloud had a static discharge which burned through the ship's wires and burned holes into the hull. So far none of the holes had breached, but it was only a matter of time.
"I can't avoid it," Skeeter said, throwing her hands up from the controls. "It just ain't my day."
"It's going to get worse," Liona, the engineer, said through the intercom. "I don't think we can take another hit. That monster's gonna squish us for sure."
Kessler looked around, hoping for some sudden inspiration, something that would show him the way out of this situation, but ... nothing.
Just then Liona burst into the room.
"I've shut down everything," she said, turning and locking down the control room door. "This is the last room on the ship with power and life support. If we seal the doors and cross our fingers we just might survive."
"There seems to be some solid object in the cloud," Skeeter said, pointing to the view screen.
Kessler stood up. There was a dull grey cylinder in the grip of the space cloud. It looked somewhat familiar–suddenly, a flash of static discharge lit the object, and it became readily apparent what the object was.
"It's our second stage," Trake said.
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