The Adventures of Goryx and Xyrog

     Goryx pushes back from the porthole in horror, shouting desperately at the transponder screen. "I don't know what you want, but I'm not here to betray you, I don't even know who you are or what you are. I'm just here to fix the satellite!"

     Xyrog had crawled into his lap and was sitting there shivering, his tentacles waving in the air. Trying again to activate the main power supply was futile, nothing was working, he was locked out of the control panel.

     Slowly, as if whoever had sent the broadcast could hear him, the video on the transponder grew quieter and switched back to flicking between "we needed help...it's really stuck...been here forever".

     "OK!" he shouted, "If you give me back control of my shuttle and turn the power back on, I promise I'll help you!" Goryx knew he sounded ridiculous, who was he even talking to? But he was desperate: without the main power supply there was no way he could get home, and without access to the control panel he couldn't get the main power; they were stuck.

     All at once, the beacon shuts off, the lights come back up to full and the air conditioning shudders back to life. Then, he hears his own voice coming out of his tablet, "I'll help you...I promise!" An echo of what he had shouted only moments before.

     "Alright, alright! But who are you? Are you in the satellite, how is that possible?" Goryx peers out towards the satellite.

     "Stuck here...forever," the Gelert's disembodied voice echoes from his tablet. It didn't seem like he was going to get a clearer response. Unable to manoeuvre the shuttle any closer to the satellite without risking impact, Goryx had no choice but to make his way through open space.

     Attaching his tablet to his space suit, the whole reason he was here in the first place, Goryx crouches down, scritching Xyrog under the chin. "You have the conn, look out for me will you?" He says before going to press the airlock release button, but at the last second withdraws his hand. Turning to the lockers by the bunk beds, he reaches into the lower locker, pulling out the emergency ray gun that is a requisite on all ships, but that he has never had the need to use. He places it carefully into the pouch at his left thigh before going ahead and pressing the airlock release.

     From what he had seen out the porthole, the thing attached to the satellite was a bulging pinkish-white mass, with tentacle-like limbs that wrapped around the satellite supports. He so desperately wanted to turn around and call it a day, but there was no turning around. It wasn't possible to go anywhere if this thing didn't want him to. The decompression chamber beeped, indicating that it was ready to release him to outer space. With a deep breath in, he attached his ziplock to the outer carabiner before pressing off the shuttle into the inky expanse.

     Everyone was required to complete a minimum of one thousand hours of space navigation and operation training before being able to graduate from the Academy. But it had been a while since Goryx had been on a space mission. It took him a moment to figure out the pressure needed to release the jets and navigate his way towards the satellite.

     As Goryx pushed off from the shuttle, the vastness of space enveloped him. The silence was absolute, broken only by his own breathing echoing in his helmet. The stars seemed impossibly bright and close, pinpricks of light against the inky void. He felt weightless, yet hyper-aware of every movement.

     Moving ever closer to the satellite, Goryx notices that the pinkish-white blob is moving, and that in fact it wasn't just one blob but several all intertwined and all getting thicker at the centre of the satellite's green powercore. Moving within a few meters, Goryx's tablet blips back into life. This time, an educational film developed by the satellite manufacturers is playing. He'd seen the video a dozen times when preparing for his exams, and knew these satellites inside out. The clip that he was being shown was talking about the powercore and how it worked:

     "...The satellites are powered by a very strong substance that incredibly doesn't need to be replenished. I mean eventually it will die out but not for hundreds or even thousands of years. The only thing is, that the powercore must always be spinning, it is the job of the technicians to ensure that it is always free to spin, if it gets caught you must immediately rectify the situation. Often what catches the powercore is debris from space getting sucked in, so you must use your mini-vac, which came with the purchase of the satellite, to suck up any debris, and that's how you free it..."

     Right, so the blob must have become stuck in the powercore somehow. He wondered how long 'forever' has been; Goryx knew that the satellites had been in orbit for many, many years before being put to use as comms between Kreludor and Neopia. They had been used by Dr Sloth and others, but how long had this thing, this creature, been wrapped around it, listening, storing and learning from all of the data and information passing through?

     As he neared the satellite, Goryx's skin prickled with unease. The pinkish-white mass seemed to pulse gently, its surface glistening with an oily sheen. A faint, acrid smell seeped through his suit's filters, reminiscent of overheated circuitry mixed with something organic and alien.

     He was close now to the blob, so close he could touch it. He would have to, to reach the powercore and use the mini-vac. He could see now that the blob had a texture similar to the fungus that was sold as a delicacy at Kreludor Cafe, but huge and a strange pinkish-white color rather than the bright greens and blues of the edible variety. Shuddering at the thought of eating anything resembling this massive blob, Goryx grabbed hold of one of the satellite supports, pulling himself towards the powercore. He could feel the slight vibration of the satellite, which he knew meant that it was struggling and the core was moving against something that shouldn't be there. "No need to guess what that might be," he thought as he closed in on the core. Alright, there was no way around it: to get any closer he needed to pull himself across the mass. Reaching out he slowly took hold of some of the blob and pulled himself into the core. No reaction. Taking out the mini-vac, wanting to work as quickly as possible now, he saw that several of the blob's tentacles had become entangled with the core and some debris. Turning the mini-vac to blow, he started to both push the debris out and, using his other hand, unwrap the tangled tentacles.

     For 15 minutes he worked on untangling, without so much as a flinch or shudder from the blob. Finally, he pulled the last tentacle free, and was about to push himself out of the core when he felt something wrap around his waist and right arm and yank him out of the core and face to face with a giant eye. An eye that belonged to the blob, it was yellow with a red iris and was staring at him from five centimeters away. As the eye stared at him, Goryx felt a strange resonance in his mind. Flashes of distant stars and unknown planets flickered through his thoughts. Was this creature trying to show him where it came from? Or was it trying to mess with his mind, how was it even doing this?

     He panicked, his left arm still free he reached, trembling but determined, for the ray gun in the pouch of his pants. His first thought was for Xyrog; he couldn't leave them abandoned on the shuttle out here in the middle of nowhere. But it was useless, the blob lashed another tentacle out and grabbed the ray gun from his hand and threw it out into space. “Well, I guess this is it,” he whispered to himself, closing his eyes, and thought of his parents, who had always taught him to be proud of being a Kreludoran and who had showered him with love. His big sister, who taught him the fundamentals of tinkering that opened a whole new world. And Xyrog, his best friend and companion who had been with him every step of the way.

     Suddenly he realised that nothing was happening, he wasn't being eaten or torn limb from limb. He prised open an eye and saw the yellow and red orb staring right back at him. "We needed help," a small voice was coming from his tablet, and then it swapped to the satellite instructional video: "...and that's how you free it". He realized that the fungus-y blob was swimming its way back to the space shuttle, with him in tow.

     The blob's surface rippled, and Goryx felt a strange tingling sensation where it touched his suit. He realised with a start that it wasn't just moving him – it was trying to communicate. The snippets of video and audio weren't random; they were the creature's best attempt at language using the only vocabulary it had access to.

     Slowly he relaxed, and felt slightly ashamed for being so quick to assume the worst. The blob dropped him back at the airlock to the shuttle, releasing its grip it swiveled its eye - and now he noticed there were several other, smaller eyes - in his direction before drifting off away from the shuttle and away from the satellite.

     Goryx watched it float away before turning to the shuttle and inputting the code to open the airlock. Inside the shuttle, he slides down to the ground, arms and legs shaking. He could see Xyrog beyond the airlock anxiously pawing at the door. "I'm OK buddy, just need a moment." As he gets up, his tablet blips on and there is Captain Fonnet, this time standing on the podium holding this year’s Altador Cup XIX Trophy.

      "Thank you, thank you so much it was only with your support that I, that we, are standing here today!"

     Stepping out of the shower, back in his Kreludoran space overalls, Goryx picks up Xyrog and places him in his lap. "Phew, I think that's enough adventuring for one day. I'd more than happily stay on meteor security duty for the next year if they'd have me." Slowly, the ship turns and makes its way back to Kreludor ...

     ...Outside, as it slowly moves away from the now unassuming satellite, a small spore of pinkish-white mass clings to the bottom of the space shuttle, one tentacle sliding out of the blob and pulling itself towards the airlock keypad. As the shuttle's engines fired up for the journey back to Kreludor, the small spore pulsed with an eerie glow. Its tendril, impossibly thin yet strong, tapped out a series of codes on the airlock keypad. With each attempt, it learned, adapted. It was patient. It had all the time in the world to find its way inside, to learn more, to grow...

     The End.