Project Aspire

Epilogue - (Written by Taran Matharu)

Extract from the audio diary of Lieutenant John Mitchell, D.A.R.K. first respondent task force:

 

The ship came crashing through our atmosphere and into the Sahara desert. It burned for over a month, the fuel within so hot that it turned the sand to glass for miles around and dropped the world’s temperature by two degrees Fahrenheit.

I was the first in when the fires cooled. The metal within had somehow remained intact, made of some strange alloy that our scientists are still trying to figure out. They say it will change the world. Superconductor. Stronger than spider silk. Lighter than plastic. That’s what I’d heard. It’s why the ship wasn’t a pile of crumpled metal when we finally managed to prize open the doors.

Alien life, that’s what we had hoped to find. But everything within was gone, not even a shred of DNA. The fires had seen to that. Weirder still, the fire didn’t seem to be coming from what we thougth was the engine room. It was like fuel had been spilled all over the ship.

There was no new technology there, the mechanisms were melted into pools, using the more common alloys, like whoever designed it knew we might come looking. Everything else was basic tech. Waste of time really. 

We knew what it was though. Hundreds of thousands of chambers, locked up tight, were designed to jettison as pods of their own and land gently on the planet surface. It was an invading army. Enough to put a few million aliens on the planet, depending on how full the ship was. Maybe we could have taken them. Maybe not. Depends on the tech. Always comes down to the tech.

I can’t help but wonder if we got lucky. I guess that tech lost in the fire was probably garbage anyway, if it made them crash.

We did find one thing though. One escape pod was missing. Maybe it was an oversight. Some alien general changing his mind at the last minute, going home. The scans didn’t see anything coming in. But then we weren’t looking to hard either. Someone with D.A.R.K access codes could have overridden our scanners. Maybe they hacked us.

So many maybes. We didn’t know anything for sure. Still, I kind of like to think that there’s an alien on our planet somewhere, lost and alone. Serves ‘em right.

 

Extract from the personal writings of anthropologist and conservationist Jennifer Greer, titled, The Ayoreo Tribe – cultural findings:

 

The Ayoreo tribe are now the last living remnant of our tribal heritage. That last chunk of the Amazon we didn’t cut down. It’s thanks to people like Amanda Shepherd that there’s any history left. God knows how she got Indo-China to make it a nature reserve. They say she did something top secret. Classified. Even forty years later, every government document with her name on it is redacted up the wazoo.

Anyway. I’ve been with them for two months now. I read Amanda’s research, learned about their protoreligion - all the ancestral worship and tree spirits and river demons.

But she never mentioned what I heard today. It was when they thought I was sleeping. The elder gathered the children and told them the tale of the great protector, returned once more.

A female goddess, once good, now turned evil. How she came on a great shooting star with her two male protectors and stayed among the villagers. How one day she disappeared and her protectors searched the world for her, returning every year to see if she had come back.

In any case, I don’t know how Amanda could have missed it, the tribe trusted her a hell of a lot more than they trust me. Maybe they just didn’t trust her enough. I feel guilty about sharing it, the story sounded pretty personal. Still, I might add it to my presentation tomorrow. That’s what they pay me for, I guess. 

The two sponsors of my expedition are flying down in the morning. They’re pretty old, I’m surprised they’re making the trip. Ex-military, from the way they talk. It baffles me why elderly men like them give a damn about the Ayoreo tribe, but I’ll take sponsorship money wherever I can get it. Somebody has to document this, even if only crusty old Eric and Cole will read it.

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