The light they’d been monitoring for the last month had finally resolved itself into the ship they’d suspected it to be. Gargantuan. Shiny. Capable of carrying tons, and tons of water.

            Hovering in orbit the last few days, they’d had time enough to study its composition, and to determine it was indeed here for the water. There was simply no better explanation.

            A probe had been launched from the ship just yesterday to rendezvous with the only surface RAV (Robotic Autonomous Vehicle), still operational. Data had been transferred—hard copy in physical chips, which were extracted from the RAV and collected by the probe—and the probe had returned to the ship. Since then, nothing else had happened.

            The whole planet held its breath and waited. What more was there to do?

            From the observatory deck in the bunker, the scientist pulled away from her periscope and marched slowly down the hall towards the main atrium, which doubled as living quarters and water storage.

            The living quarters were busy, or what passed for busy these days. The last sickness had taken half the people in Bunker 6, and another dozen had died by their own hands in the wake of such misery. Men and women raced back and forth, discussing the ship: who might be driving it, how long it would stay, and how best to hide their water.

            The first RAVs had landed years ago—so long ago now, it was hard to remember a time when they weren’t there, grinding their treads over the planet’s surface, kicking up dust and stealing rocks. At first, there’d been speculation: where, after all, did these things come from? What did they want? Parties were sent to survey the machines, though it was difficult. The RAVs had cameras, and it wouldn’t do to get caught watching. Not when they’d lived so long in such isolation. Surprise, against such an advanced species, was all they had in their favour.

            The first RAV they had occasion to study had fallen into a ravine: its lenses and panels were smashed, its batteries empty. During the dissection, a small reservoir of water was discovered within it, and conclusions were drawn.

            More RAVs had come since, and every one of them had spent their days poking and prodding the planet’s surface, looking for water. From inside Bunker 6, the survivors could hear the sonar pings of the RAVs as they tested the density of the planet’s crust.

            The only water left, though—the only water worth having—was in the bunkers, sustaining the remaining population. The wind was gone. Fossil fuels. Even the sun’s rays were too weak to power anything. What little electricity they had came from water, as did their meager crops.

            The ice caps were gone. Glaciers, frozen rivers, all of it melted and evaporated. When life had become unsustainable on the surface, and they’d moved below ground, the ice—which had always been so plentiful, so accessible—was melted for the steam needed to build their subterranean homes. What no one accounted for, though, was the planet’s weakened atmosphere. Billions of litres of steam was lost to the cold of space before anyone thought to stop the terraforming process. By then, it was far too late.

            The scientist strode past the rabble of frightened, frantic voices; she’d heard it all many times before. There were no new answers as to what should be done. They’d been over every facet, considered every option. The only thing they could truly do was sit and wait. If they revealed themselves, they would be subjected to the mercy and discretion of the invaders. Best case scenario, many of them would be captured and brought back to the aliens’ home world for study. Worst case—who knew?

            The scientist had decided, though, what she would do. She would not sit and wait for her fate to be decided by someone else. She would not cower underground like the last liquid drizzle creeping ever closer towards the core.

            She gathered only a small bag of tools and a standard issue raygun, threw on her suit, and headed for the surface.

            At almost a kilometer down, the hike to the surface was a gauntlet. The lifts hadn’t worked for at least a generation, and the service ladders were the only access left.

            The RAV—the one the probe had visited—was, fortunately, not far from the exit point of the shaft. The scientist spotted it from a ridge, judged the distance to be walkable, and started making her way down to it.

            The ship hung in the sky, bulging, metallic, illuminated. It was so obvious—so lit up and unguarded—the invaders clearly weren’t worried about their presence being noted. But then, why would they be?

            The hard, cold dirt crunched beneath her boots as the scientist crept the last few metres to the RAV.

            The thing was much larger up close, complex and dusty, full of gadgets whose purpose the scientist could only guess at.

            It sat there in front of her—still and hulking, like an ancient predator, crouched, preparing to pounce.

            The scientist reached into her bag and extracted a tool of her own design. It had a hooked end and a sturdy handle—perfect for mechanical sabotage. The probe would return soon, and when it did, she would be ready.

            Raygun on her belt, back hunched, the scientist crept up beside the RAV. If she could only render it useless, the probe would come back to inspect it, and then she’d pounce. She’d take the probe back to the bunker for examination, and together, she and her countrymen would find a way to stop these invaders. They’d find out where they came from, what they were like, what their weaknesses were, and they’d stop them.

            The sabotage, at least, would be easy;  RAVs were such delicate creatures…

            No sooner, though, had she inserted her tool into the head of a screw, than she felt a searing pain slice through her arm.

            The scientist cried out, crumpling to her knees, the lower third of her left arm landing in a dusty cloud beside her.

            The probe, which had been hovering behind the lip of a crater, had sensed—not the intrusion of a hostile force—but the approach of water, and responded with an inquisitive blast.

            Drifting over to the severed digit, a beam shone from the probe, scanning left, then right over its find.

            Unable to do much more than hold the stump of her arm and cry out inside her helmet, the scientist watched as the beam turned from an inquisitive blue, to a boiling red, watched as the arm began to shrivel and shrink, releasing its water into the flimsy atmosphere.

            The probe hovered over the evaporating water, sucking it into a vent on its bottom.

            Fading fast, the scientist’s vision bleared as she watched the probe finish with her arm and turn its gaze on her. As it did, she saw strange markings on the probe’s side. 

SpaceX.

Martian Water Initiative. 

            Of course, the words meant nothing to the scientist. She’d never before seen English, or heard of SpaceX or any of the rest of it. She was just a humble scientist on a dying world, living out the same, lonely life as all who’d come before her.

            Oh, she’d heard the stories as a child, of explorers leaving their planet many millennia ago, when their world had begun to fail. The stories had always told of travelers heading to the next planet over, in search of a better life. But in none of those stories had the intrepid souls ever returned. Whatever they found, or didn’t—whether they existed at all, even—the scientist could only guess.

            As the world faded to black, and the scientist fell forward into the dust, a final thought went through her head. If these invaders were descended from the travelers of old, if they had found a better life somewhere, if they’d survived the journey, colonization, everything…why, oh why, had they ever returned?

Brianna Ferguson is a poet, short story writer and music journalist from British Columbia. Her writing has appeared in various publications across North America and the U.K. including Minola Review, Leaping Clear, and Outlook Springs. Her book of poetry, A Nihilist Walks Into a Bar, is now available from Mansfield Press.