Aquos (979 words)

"The spaceship landed with a heavy thud."

"It wasn't a spaceship Mr. Daniels. It was a research vessel."

"From what I understand, it was a research vessel that has been out of earth's atmosphere for years, and it was shipping materials back to our planet. Now Dr. Wills, excuse me if I don't use the correct technical jargon, but your toy just destroyed my 2 million dollar yacht!"

"Your yacht just demolished our multi-billion dollar research vessel! I will remind you that you could personally be held responsible for the failure of the mission, and liable for all loss and damages because of such a failure."

"And I could remind you that there were no warnings issued over any bandwidth alerting people that there was going to be a one ton bullet shooting into the waters in the area."

"Okay, let's take this in a new direction. Sitting here yelling at each other isn't going to help anything."

"Fine."

"Mr. Daniels, what were you doing out in the middle of the Atlantic?"

"Fishing, and cruising along the eastern US. What was your 'research vessel' doing out in the middle of the Atlantic, without warning?"

"I'm not at liberty to discus-"

"Look doctor, I've done nothing wrong here, and the only reason the media isn't swarming all over this is because I haven't told them. I've been jerked around for two days now. Give me real answers or I will walk out of this room and into the nearest broadcasting station I can find."

"Hmm, I'm sorry Mr. Daniels, but I can't do that without authorization."

"Then have a good day, I'm done here."

"Stop, crap, fine. Just sit down, please."

"I'm waiting."

"The vessel was nicknamed Aquos, and carried a drill that could also heat itself to a few hundred degrees. We dispatched Aquos to Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, a moon that has been thought to have liquid water beneath the exterior ice. Think about that Mr. Daniels, liquid water that could contain actual extra terrestrial lifeforms. Don't get me wrong, we're not talking about anything like movie aliens, just simple one cell organisms. Prokaryotes, protists, stuff like that. Physically small, but it would be an enormous discovery to the scientific community."

"And did it find anything?"

"That's a difficult question to answer without the Aquos. I suppose the short answer is yes, it found something. But the only thing we know for sure is that there is liquid water under the outer shell of ice on the moon. The Aquos drilled into the liquid and removed samples. The scanners within the Aquos confirmed that there were non-liquid particles within those samples. It then stored the samples within itself, matched the water's temperature, and began its journey back to earth."

"So what happened? Why did it land on my boat?"

"To be honest Mr. Daniels, we're not sure. For years the Aquos proceeded exactly as it was supposed to, then just hours before it impacted your ship, we lost communication with it. What's even more disturbing is that the pieces of the Aquos that we were able to recover from the wreckage was severely rusted. It leads us to believe that perhaps whatever samples were within the liquid somehow reacted with the metal of the Aquos, and degraded it until the guidance unit had a total failure."

"I'm sorry Dr. Wills, but the most disturbing part of this whole thing is that I am now without a boat. It's a wonder I'm still alive. That thing missed my head by just a few feet when it broke into the cabin. I think I slipped on a vial of the space water on my dash to get off of the boat and almost broke my ankle on the stairs."

"Wait, did you just say that you came into contact with the liquid?"

"Look, the floor of the cabin was dry when I fell asleep, and I slipped on something wet. I may not be smart enough to have a fancy lab coat, but I think it's a pretty good bet to say that one of your spaceship's water bottles broke and spilled onto my floor."

"Mr. Daniels, that's great news! We may be able to recover some of the sample after all. I'll have to put in a call to the team processing your vessel and let them know where to search."

"I'll do you one better, doc. You can just remove it from my foot. I sliced my heel on something when I was panicked. And while you're at it you can also stitch it up for me, and if everything was as rusted as you said you can give me a tetanus shot too."

"Hmm, Mr. Daniels, this is important. Can you recall if you cut your foot before or after you slipped?"

"How would I know? I was just a little disoriented from a big hunk of metal crashing through my cabin! If I could remember the exact sequence of - Ah, oh God!"

"Mr. Daniels, wha-"

"My foot! It's burning! Ahh!"

"Take off your bandage!"

"What is that? Why is it blue, why is there foam coming out of the cut? Oh God, it hurts!"

"Security! Quarantine this area! Mr. Daniels, listen to me. I think the liquid may have contained some type of bacteria. You may be infected, I'm going to get a syringe of penicillin, I will be back as fast as I can."

"God, make it stop!"

"Release me Mr. Daniels, I will get - Mr. Daniels? Can you hear me? Security! Get a medic! He's not breathing! He's - Ahh, my eyes! Oh God, it's airborne. Security, shut down this sector. Oh God, can't breathe. Security, can you hear me? Security, that's you screaming now isn't it? Oh God, we've released something alien on the planet. It's unrestrained, what have we don-"