The Silent Gatekeeper 1 (Patreon)

The Silent Gatekeeper

Chapter 1

-VB-

Commodore Harry Fredrismann watched the readings on his personal display with a frown.

“This isn’t right…” he muttered to himself at the center of the bridge of USS New Boston, the only exploratory spaceship operated by humanity. Despite the lull of manned space exploration and experimentation during the early twenty-first century, humanity had come roaring back out into space in the late half of the century. USS New Boston was the culmination of the United States of America, who still led humanity in space exploration.

Initially, USS New Boston and fifteen of its crew members’ mission was to explore the outer edge of the solar system and to categorize potential sites for colonization. The crew already picked out multiple sites across Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune and their satellites, but the last “planet,” the dwarf-planet Pluto, had not been scanned so far.

But now that they were only a million kilometers from Pluto, their sensors - the best that American could afford or make - were going haywire.

Radar detected something big. Bigger than Pluto.

Thermal imaging gave them something round sitting on top of Pluto, and yet it was big enough to be a dwarf planet on its own.

Gravitonics, in particular, screamed that there was something out there that was more massive than Earth, and coincided perfectly with the unknown object on top of Pluto.

Had there been asteroid collisions? If that was the case, then they would have seen a lot of debris from it even this far out.

“Sir, should we…?” Lieutenant Everest Grenada, a black veteran Navigations Division Head, asked slowly.

Fredrismann wasn’t sure. Their mission was to categorize, and to return without it because of some odd sensor readings would be cowardly at best and neglection of duty at worst. “No, we continue on. We can turn around closer if we need to.”

“Sir, yes, sir.”

-VB-

They saw it.

“That’s … a human,” someone muttered quietly but, in that moment of silence, it was too loud.

And everyone agreed.

The thing that sat on top of Pluto was just as big as the dwarf planet. Curled up into a fetal position with his arms and legs on the planet, it was definitely human - or at least humanoid - in appearance, even if no one could tell anything about its features due to its midnight starless black skin tone.

“It wasn’t there when we saw Pluto last time…” Fredrismann muttered. “What the fuck is that thing?” He paused. “Pull the ship up to a stop. Contact Houston right now.”

The bridge exploded into action, or as “explosive” as a zero-gravity bridge could be.

The ship lurched as the reverse thrusters fired, and the commodore felt the seatbelts dig into his suit and flesh under it.

It took a full minute for them to come to a stop, and aside from the occasional side thrusters to keep them in orbit of Pluto and Charon, nothing else happened.

The giant humanoid, which measured to be at least six hundred kilometers just from the top to bottom of its back, remained unmoving, and the pulsing thermal imaging showing four beating hearts within its body only made the situation even more ridiculous.

But the fact of it was, there was a living creature as half as big as Earth’s moon.

"Sir."

Commodore Fredrismann turned to his left to look at Ensign Cavio, manning the QED comms, who was looking at him ober his shoulder.

"Yes?"

"They received visual imagery right minutes after we received gravitonics and thermal."

Fredrismann felt a shiver run down his spine.

That meant that the thing on Pluto appeared inside their system merely hours ago without anyone detecting anything beforehand.

"It's shrinking!"

His eyes snapped to the hologram playing in front of the crew.

Indeed. The colossal giant shrunk slowly. The shrinking picked up speed, and the sensors also picked up changes in heat signature and gravitonics.

And then there was a curled up person - a man from its broad shouldered and square hipped physique - on Pluto's surface.

Still a million kilometers out from Pluto, they watched in uncomfortable silence. The lieutenant in charge of the camera zoomed in with the ship's powerful lenses.

The figure was standing up.

It looked around.

And then it looked up.

Directly. At. Them.

The lower half of its featureless face split open into a grinning jagged maw.

"What the fuck-"

It pointed its finger towards them-.

Something opened in front of it. He may not be a gamer or a movie-lover, but the commodore saw that tear in space and thought "portals."

A similar portal opened up right next to the bridge's wide reinforced convex windows.

"Get us out of here!"

The thrusters fired, but the thing stepped through.

Everyone followed its travel and then the portal closed behind it. The portal making device disappeared to god knows where, but it left the creature right next to the ship.

It stood there in space, just staring at them.

Fredrismann's eyes widened as he realized that the creature was somehow keeping up with them without even moving.

"Stop us. It's following."

The captain in charge of the engines and thrusters looked wary before she did so.

It continued to stare at them.

Taking a deep breath, he undid the belts tying him to the seat and floated over to the edge of the window.

The creature tilted its still jagged lip smiling head sideways before straightening. It reeled back, almost as if it… recognized them?

Its shoulders shook with obvious mirth with cause known only to it.

It raised a single finger and tapped.

Space cracked, both in front of it and within the ship.

He and everyone else quickly backed away from the crack before the thing slipped through it before the crack too closed.

It was among them within the ship.

"... I am Commodore Harry Fredrismann, commodore of the United States Space Fleet, of the United States of America. I am a human. Who are you?"

Its jagged lips widened, narrowed, and then closed.

It opened up again but spoke no words.

Instead, all of them felt something coming upon them. An external source of … emotion.

Elation. Relief.

...happiness.

"You are happy to see us?"

It nodded slowly.

"Why?"

It hummed, the first sound it made. It was a low vibration that shook the commodore's bones gently.

The foreign emotion changed to anger. The moment it did, he felt like he just gained a hundred pounds. He collapsed onto the ship's floor even though there should be no gravity. It wasn't just him. Everyone in the ship was on the same floor as he was, gasping for breath.

It went as quick as it came. The creature knelt down to the closest of them, pulling the crew member into a one armed embrace, before chipping a bit of itself off. It held its own chipped body part near the still gasping engine lieutenant… and she slowly regained her breath and even lost her ever present dark circles.

The chipped body healed in an instant and the piece was absorbed back into the creature's hand.

It stood back up.

The feeling was now regretful. Unintentional.

"... You understand us."

It nodded.

But Fredrismann had just spoken Hebrew, his mother's tongue, not the English that he had spoken until then.

It seemed to ponder the question.

Then it spoke.

Its tongue was a scream, a mewl, a gasp, a roar, a whisper, and more all at once. It grated and soothed their minds. Merely hearing it roused their spirits even as deeper fears grew heavier and entrenched.

"Brother," it vocalized. "Gatekeeper."

It leaned in. "You are not ready."

And it was gone. It stood outside of the ship's bridge, floating in space. It was, a moment later, back on Pluto.

It stared up at them for a moment before it curled up into a face down fetal position and stopped moving.

-VB-

They couldn't contain the news. Someone broke and spoke to the press.

Alien life! A talking alien visitor within the solar system!

Human(oid) but foreboding. It was all anyone would talk about.

"What does it mean by not being ready?"

-VB-

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