(Written by @Always_Indigo  )

~~~Indigo POV~~~

The extractor hissed as it pulled the cylinder of ice out, Declan's grin visible through the visor of his helmet next to me. I smiled back, dropping into a crouch lightly to end the sequence and shut the extractor off as Dec pulled the sample out, the ice shimmering ever so slightly under the ray of light from our headlamps.

"Look how perfect it is!" I ran my gloved fingers over it gently, careful not to fracture it. We hauled it over to our pod, a few yards away so that the landing and takeoff wouldn't disturb our sample area.

We had left our ship in orbit (it was too big to be able to take off after landing on the surface) and used our trusty pod to get us to and from the surface of Kerberos, Pluto's moon, all the way on the edge of the solar system.

It had been such an honor to be chosen for this mission, me and Declan both. Declan was already a graduated astronaut and the leader of the mission. I was chosen from a group of candidates amongst the students of the Garrison to accompany him and help out as well as get some real-space experience. It's amazing.

Not to mention Declan was the older brother of my teammate and one of my best friends, Sylver Greyson. I couldn't wait to see them again and tell xem all about this, in a few months once we traveled back to Earth.

My communicator, connected to our ship in orbit and to Earth by extension of the satellite attached to our spaceship, suddenly glitched, purple alien-looking script dancing over it and falling down the screen.

I frowned at it, smacking it lightly to see if it worked again. It didn't.

"Hey, Declan? Something's up with my comm," I said, the voice channel in our helmets thankfully still working as Declan's answer came through a moment later from a few feet away.

"Yours too? Mine just started showing this weird purple code looking stuff," Dec replied, walking over to me and leaving the sample of ice half in and half out of the pod where it had been hauling the specimen in.

We put our screens side by side, the purple code stuff matching perfectly.

The ground rumbled underneath me, probably a small moonshake. Kerberos wasn't the most geologically stable moon. I ignored, tapping my screen a few times to see if it responded, which it didn't.

Declan's brow furrowed as he carefully pried the screen off his comm to reveal the wiring underneath, frost creeping over the now-unprotected innards exposed to the subzero temperatures of the moon.

He snapped it back closed before it could freeze over completely, checking mine over the same way. "That makes no sense, everything is completely normal- it should be working fine." He huffed, the inside of his helmet fogging over a bit from the warm breath.

"Maybe it's a virus?" I said, squinting at my comm. Half jokingly, I asked Declan, "Have you plugged your comm into any unsafe ports recently?"

Declan snickered. He spread his arms out, gesturing to the frozen wasteland of Kerberos. "Oh absolutely, I've stuck my comm into every single port I've seen, there's just so many!"

The ground rumbled again, more and more violently. I wobbled, grabbing onto the side of the pod for balance.

"Jeez, what is going on," Declan said, confusion coloring his tone. "First the comms go haywire, and now a moonshake?"

I nodded in agreement. "What do we do?"

Before Declan could answer, the sky started screaming.

An all encompassing roar, so loud my helmet automatically turned on noise-deafen mode, and even then it was still audible, rumbling and making the ground itself shake.

The comms screeched, breaking me and Declan's voice channel off as it broke. I staggered, shaking my head to get the ringing out of my ears from all the sudden loud sounds. Where was all this coming from? Kerberos had moonshakes, sure, but nothing this violent!

Then I looked up.

A ship, definitely not ours, so massive it filled the entire sky. Hull made of some pure black metal, eerie glowing purple energy lining it and marking entrances and exits. Smaller drone ships buzzed around it, and on the top, there was a massive gun sticking out, pointed squarely at us.

The roar had to be its engines, or some sort of noise attack. It only got louder, and then with a catastrophic shriek, the noise-deadener broke, and the full wave of sound assaulted me.

I passed out to the ringing in my ears and the sight of Declan collapsing next to me, a beam of purple energy coming from the ship straight towards us.

~~~

"Commander, we found these humans on the surface of the moon, what do we do with them?"

"We come in peace, we're just scientists-"

The sound of metal hitting flesh, and a pained grunt.

"Send the talkative one to the brig."

"And the other one, Commander? With purple hair?"

"That one... give them to the Druids. They'll take care of it."