Emma looked through the pressure-pane of the spaceship, out at Mars. She'd found it so beautiful when she first laid eyes on it about a year ago. Now it was just boring.
The tears that had been welling-up began to fall.
"I'm so fucking lonely."
Emma regretted having deleted her ex's transmissions from Earth, even the one where he'd broken up with her.
Emma walked through the corridors of the ship, accompanied only by the low drone of the LED lights. She could have turned on music, but chose not to. The corridors were spacious and had been decorated according to her wishes back on Earth. She barely noticed anymore.
Emma reached the plant room. It was humid and warm, over 300 Kelvins. Rows of plants sat in containers atop tables, each with their own computerised information display. More displays showed different rooms and corridors on the ship. Another pressure-pane ceiling showed the vast expanse of space. Sometimes she'd looked up through that window, spotting alien spaceships far away on their way to Earth and other places. She wasn't in the mood for that today.
Emma paced up and down, still crying. "It's your fault," she shouted at a plant. "I hate you!" She raised her fist, as though to hit it. But she knew she wouldn't, no matter how upset she got. Hitting the plants would probably ruin her research, meaning her time in orbit of Mars would be for nothing. And it would be embarrassing to write about in a report to her superiors.
Emma screwed her eyes shut and sprayed her face with the water-hose. It stung a little, though not much. She giggled. Water dripped onto the floor. That was be fine, it would evaporate and be used by the biosphere system.
Emma went to the basketball court. She removed her socks, t-shirt, and bra, leaving on her sweatpants. Bare chested, she worked up a sweat shooting hoops. She smiled, remembering captaining her team at university a few years back.
There was a low booming sound. The court wobbled, enough to make Emma sit down. The ball bounced and rolled away from her. The lights flickered off. Sitting in the darkness, she felt acutely aware of the lack of the lights' hum. The lights flickered back on.
Emma walked quickly to the plant room. She'd felt occasional jostles on the ship before, but those were rare, and were never as strong as the one she'd just felt.
The plants seemed alright. Their containers were secured tightly to the desks. She felt silly for worrying. She hadn't even thought of putting her clothes back on.
Then she saw it.
On one of the wall-mounted displays showing a corridor, a dark figure was bounding on all-fours through another part of the ship.
Emma screamed, then covered her mouth.
There were protocols for this, though she never thought she'd have to use them.
She ran to the control room, back to where she could see Mars. "Where is it... where is it," she whispered, rifling through drawers. "The gun, the gun, the gun, the gun." It she knew it wasn't technically a gun, but that's what she thought of it as.
She heard a repetitive metallic sound, sort of like a horse galloping, echoing from distant corridors.
"Oh fuck, oh fuck."
Her hand closed on what she was searching for.
The metallic rhythm was definitely getting closer.
Emma pressed the console's distress button. It was supposed to light up. It didn't. Some of the ship's power was still offline from the jolt she'd felt on the basketball court.
The metallic sound from beyond the corridors was different now. Slower. More regular. More like footsteps.
Emma moved to the corner of the room on the same side as the door. She waited, shakily pointing the gun at the doorway.
The creature walked through the doorway. It walked on two legs, standing at around six and a half feet tall. It seemed to be made of dark metal. It was humanoid, but larger and with a black dome for a head.
Emma froze, her finger on the trigger.
The creature looked to side of the room that Emma wasn't on. Then towards Emma, who pulled the trigger.
There was a loud 'pop' as static arced from the gun to the creature. Sparks flew from where the arc made contact. The creature cried out, its voice warbling and electronic. Emma could tell that it wasn't as injured as she'd hoped it'd be. As the gun was charging up for another blast, the creature got to all-fours and bounded towards her. Emma screamed.
The creature lifted her over its shoulder in a fireman's-carry. The gun clattered to the floor. Emma hit the creature's back with her fists. The creature seemed to be laughing and talking in its own language as it carried Emma through the spaceship.
Emma, still screaming, was carried to the docking station. The creature had somehow docked its ship to hers without her confirmation. That wasn't supposed to be possible.
The alien's ship was illuminated but dark in colour, perhaps made of whatever the alien was made of. Emma was carried into a room.
Something robotic gripped all the way around Emma's bare waist from above. The alien allowed her to be lifted from its shoulder. Emma squirmed against it. The robotics were like a smooth, circular pincer on the end of a long, thin, flexible arm. The arm lifted and gently retracted into a table, pulling Emma with it. Emma lay face-up, bare-chested, trapped by the robotics around her waist and tummy.
Emma swung her arms and legs wildly to try to free herself. She still shouted. It was no use. The alien walked beyond the head of the table into some sort of machine. Emma could see what was happening by tilting her head back, though what she saw appeared upside-down from her perspective.
The machine that the alien walked into began to take the alien apart. Emma realised that the black layer she'd been able to see was like a suit of armour. The alien stepped out, its true form revealed. Emma gasped.
The alien still had a humanoid form. Its facial and bodily proportions were reminiscent of that of a human female. Its skin was blue. It was bald. Its eyes were black with yellow irises. They were not unfriendly eyes. It wore something like a thin blue wetsuit.
It was very beautiful, in its own way.
Emma's brief shock at seeing the alien subsided, and she began to shout and flail indignantly again. The alien chuckled and said something.
Emma shouted, "I can't understand you!"
The alien made a small noise that sounded a bit like "oh," and fiddled with a device on its neck. "How about now?" Said the alien. Its voice was feminine and slightly electronic.
"That works," grumbled Emma.
"Seems like your weapon disabled it," chirped the alien. The alien walked to a console on the wall on the far side of the table and pressed buttons.
Smaller robotic arms extended from the corners of the table. They grabbed Emma's wrists and ankles and pulled back down, securing them in place. "Hey!" Shouted Emma. The larger restraint around her waist retracted back into the table.
"You must be wondering why I brought you here," smiled the alien as it approached the table. It sounded quite girlish for someone that would break intergalatic laws like this. The alien leaned and rested its hands on the table by Emma's bare feet.
Emma squirmed under the gaze from the alien's yellow and black eyes. She felt embarrassed by her bare-chestedness and overall vulnerability. But she supposed that the alien might think nothing of it.
"Yes," answered Emma.
"I'm like you. A researcher. A biologist. Though one difference is that I'm more... ambitious. I spent a long time petitioning for permission to conduct my experiments, but never got it. So I decided I'd have to do without. That's why I -"
"Illegally boarded my ship and kidnapped me?" Shouted Emma, pulling against the wrist and ankle bonds, which weren't budging. She figured she could afford to act indignant, since the alien seemed reasonably friendly, all things considered. The alien would probably have undocked from her ship if it hadn't planned on returning her after it was finished.
The alien laughed. "I see no difference between us on that front. I saw your test subjects before I found you."
"The plants? They're not even sentient!"
"Aren't they?"
Emma paused.
The alien continued. "Anyway, I've always been interested in alien life forms, especially in their somatosensory system. So I've decided for my first project, this one, to be about that. After we're through, I'll return you to your ship, healthy and happy."
Emma didn't seem to have much choice. "Get on with it then," she grumbled.
The alien seemed pleased. It mumbled to itself as it took things from storage units in the walls, placing them on a floating dish that followed it around the room. Emma noticed screens by the buttons that the alien had pressed earlier to control the robotic arms. The screens seemed to be displaying her biometric data.
Emma was getting bored as the alien dimmed the lights and quietly said "ready."
The alien was by Emma's feet again, sitting. The alien's lips pursed in a slight excited smile. The alien blew lightly on Emma's left foot.
Emma twitched and broke eye-contact. She remembered how ticklish she was. She felt a pang of nervousness. She really couldn't let the alien know, or goodness knows what the alien might decide to do.
The alien smiled. "First, my experiment's going to start down here, at your feet. I'm going to prepare them first."
