Synopsis:
A distress signal from an unknown ship and thousands of people under your care. Is helping worth the risk?

An order, he thought. I have an order from a dead captain. It can’t get any worse than this…

Genre:  Science Fiction

Type:  Short Story

Words:  9,650

Released:  September 15, 2025

Manuscript finished:  June 5, 2025

Inspiration: 

I wrote this story specifically for a collection of short Science Fiction stories. The assignment said: a story about an alien encounter. I simply sat down and wrote, as I always do. Inspiration comes naturally. I did, however, pay extra attention to the characters.

Captain Trocadero is named after the famous square in Paris (because I "coincidentally" happened to be writing a thriller at the time in which that square plays a role).
The onboard computer is called Tasman. Named after the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman (1603-1659). He discovered Tasmania and New Zealand, among other places. I thought it would be nice to make this computer a new explorer...

The alien ship is called "Nor Apaga" (Armenian for "New Future"). It seemed fitting.

Nurse Yamali is named after Lamine Yamal, a talented young soccer player for Barcelona. Hugely popular with all young, up-and-coming soccer players.

Well. And then there's Captain Jim Crichton... That name refers to the bassist of the Canadian progressive rock band SAGA. Crichton wrote a series of songs (called Chapters) that together form a Science Fiction story. The songs were released separately (from 1978 to 2003). In 2005, a live recording was made of all 16 songs. I'd say, give it a listen!

Oh, and last but certainly not least, the character Mare Perova is named after a lovely woman I met online. I enjoyed "immortalizing" her in this story.

It's wonderful that my story was selected for the collection.

List of characters

Characters alphabetical by last name. Nicknames and characters only known by their first name or their last name, are given underneath this list. Unnamed characters are not listed!

• Jin Crichton - (ex) captain
• Jonathan Kalimba - commander Security
• Mare Perova - helmsman
• Humphrey Walsh - First Officer
• 
  
• Atoya - Councilman
• Kalimba sr. - father of Jonathan
• Melzer - security officer
• Tasman - on-board AI computer
• Trocadero - captain
• Yamali - palliative nurse

Human ship "The Outbound"

Alien ship "Nor Apaga"

Destination KZ39401 - Terra Secunda

Remarks:

This story is exclusively available in the bundle The Expanding Universe (till December 15, 2025). Short Science Fiction stories by 26 SF authors!