Chapter 9: First contact?

Noah’s body floated in a circle as he enjoyed the experience of zero G. His halo somehow maintaining its presence above his head. Gaia’s body emerged from the ship and floated over to Noah. The two floated around in silence before Noah broke it. “This… is super cool right?” Noah was curled up in a ball as his body bumped off Gaia and floated away. “Yeah, super cool.” Gaia responded. The two turned to face each other before they both broke out in laughter.

“I can’t believe I’m actually in space, not to mention orbiting around Pluto. I’m probably setting like a million world records right now, right?”

Gaia tilted her head as she floated over Noahs head, “well yeah I suppose so, though I have a feeling you don’t qualify for them since you’re an alien now.”

The ship continued to rotate slowly, and soon the small white dwarf planet came into view. The prominent dark red patches on its surface, caused by molecules known as tholins added to the beauty of the ball of methane ice and rock. Due to the distance from the sun, ordinarily you wouldn’t be able to see much, however the ship seemed to process the camera’s images making it easier to view. Noah floated over to the terminal, “hey Gaia can you zoom the camera down onto the surface?” Gaia snapped her fingers, the window now zooming down showing a vast and dead land of ice, mountains, and impact craters.

“Do you want to visit it? We can land on the surface.” Noah’s curiosity was piqued, and he gave the idea some thought, he wasn’t in a rush or anything so why not? Noah grabbed onto his chair and strapped himself in, Gaia simply re merged with the ship. The inertia of the thrusters forced Noah back into his seat, as they rapidly accelerated. The ship’s inertia dampeners preventing him from becoming a celestial pie on the wall. The surface of the dwarf planet rapidly filled the front window, as the ship zoomed towards the surface. The thin atmosphere could barely be felt through the ships shields but the friction between the nitrogen gas and the shield resulted in a slight orange glow around the front and bottom of the ship.

A minute later, the ship was hovering over the surface, the vast white landscape spread out in front of him. The landing gear opened, sending vibrations through the cabin. The ship lowered, gently touching down on the Pluto’s surface. The undisturbed snow giving way due to the ships weight, despite the gravity on Pluto being 1/15th of Earths.

Noah breathed a sigh of relief, his first re-entry and landing going well, not that he actually did anything but he was relieved nonetheless. Unstrapping his seatbelt and attempting to sit up, he found himself flying head first into the front window, forgetting that he now weighed less than 5kg now. “Ouch” Noah exclaimed as he rubbed his nose, falling back down to the floor. Gaia chuckled at the sight as she hung from one of the ships ceiling handles like a monkey. “Follow me, when I checked the ships schematics I found some space suits, Rusty’s world sure has some neat gadgets.” Noah nodded and followed Gaia down into the hanger, his weight was so negligible that he could still basically swim through the ship like in space.

Gaia led Noah to a side room where some enclosed lockers were located. After opening one, Noah found what looked like some sort of smart watch. Putting it on, Noah felt it clamp down onto his wrist, before a semitransparent blue shield surrounded him, like the one he saw around the ship. “You’ll be safe in that; it’ll protect you from the cold but since the atmosphere is 90% nitrogen, you’ll need to bring some along.” Gaia threw Noah a small round disk, like a watch battery. “This’ll supply your oxygen apparently; I have no clue how it works though. Just put it in the slide on the side of the watch.”

Doing as Gaia instructed, the watch lit up, showing shield capacity at 100%, and oxygen supply duration at 10hrs. Picking up some boots which at first looked too small, but stretched out when he put his foot in, Noah nodded with satisfaction.

“One last thing.” Gaia threw a white jacket with golden accents and matching pants. “Get out of that ruined suit and put this on, looks like that rich brat who owned the ship had a good sense of fashion. There’s also a plasma knife in the right pocket, for self-defence.”

Why he needed it on Pluto, Noah wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t going to pass on the opportunity to swing around a mini lightsaber. After disabling the shield and changing clothes, Noah walked towards the hanger door, re activated the shield and pulled out the small knife hilt. Squeezing the sides, a bright orange plasma beam shot out before travelling along the outline of a knife, the middle being see through.

“Well, it’s still cool.” Noah shrugged and retracted the blade turning to Gaia who walked up beside him, still barefoot and in her casual dress. “Hey, don’t look at me like that, I’m made of energy I don’t breathe or feel cold.” After saying that she waved her arm, the large door opened. A woosh of white cold air shot through into the ship’s hanger, causing Noah to brace himself, however he didn’t feel anything more than a slight pressure, his shield maintaining his body temperature.

Gaia was the first to move as she leaped forward, her body flying through the air as she cried out, “Hey slow poke! If you don’t hurry up, I’ll beat you to being the first person on Pluto you know?” reacting to her challenge, Noah bent his legs and made a powerful jump, darting out of the ships hanger and onto pluto. After travelling almost one hundred meters, noah’s body hit the ground, his boots sliding along as his feet parted the undisturbed surface ice. After losing his footing and tumbling over, Gaia landed elegantly behind him before laughing as Noah brushed the ice off his shield. “If people knew the first person to land on Pluto face planted, I think that’d take away from some of the grandeur of the achievement.”

“Shut up.” Responded Noah.

“That’s one small step for man, one giant faceplant for celestial kind!” Gaia said with faux passion.

Noah pushed himself up, which required very little effort, sending him flying forward towards a nearby rocky outcrop. The surface was barren so there wasn’t much to do except bask in the feeling of being the first living being to set foot here. Though the natural formations certainly had its charms. While Noah was taking some pictures of the scenery, he heard an odd noise coming from beside him. Gaia, following behind let out a surprised expression. “Oh, looks like we aren’t alone after all.”

Noah turned to around only to find an odd spherical creature staring up at him. It was about 30cm in diameter with three large purple eyes, covered completely in a thick white fur with red patches. Its small mouth opened up displaying a row of small white teeth, similar to a cats.

Noah quickly jumped back to make some room from the mysterious alien, though in this case, Noah was the alien. It let out a “pip pip” sound as it effortlessly jumped over to him and continued to stare at Noah. Gaia let out a girly squeal as she picked up the little creature, wrapping it in her arms. “OMG this this is the cutest! What am I going to name you?! Hey Noah, can we keep it? Can we keep it?”

“Hey you idiot put it down it could be dangerous!” Gaia and the small creature looked into each other’s eyes; the creature made a high pitch “Squee!” sound as it buried itself into Gaia’s bosom. “See? See? Adorable right? I’ll call you Pip!” The creature seemed to acknowledge this by repeating, “Pip! Pip!”

Before Noah could react a box appeared in his vision, a notification from the void.

Would you like to accept Pip as a companion? Doing so will allow them to evolve alongside you in the future.

“Haah, you won’t shut up until I accept it right? Ok fine.” After Noah accepted Pip as a companion, another box appeared.

Name and Age:

Pip, 2 Pluto Years: 496 Earth Years

Race:

Plutonian

Abilities:

- Extreme cold resistance (racial) (Advanced)

- Hostile

- longevity (Racial)

- Enhanced Vision (Racial) (Advanced)

- Evolution link (Companion) (noah Valentine)

- Gravity manipulation: Weightlessness (Seed) (Celestial) (limited)

Titles:

Companion of Noah Valentine

Noah gawked at Pip’s extensive status, as it more abilities than Noah did. “For such a fluffy little thing, you’re pretty tough, though to exist here you kind of need to be. Also, I can’t believe you’re so old!”

After the status page disappeared, Pip seemed to notice something and left Gaia’s arms. It began to jump up and down, before eventually it maintained its altitude about a meter off the ground, an expression of effort on its little face as its eyes narrowed. The falling snow around it seemed to move away from its body as it distorted the air. No doubt it was trying out the gravity manipulation ability it gained from Noah.

“I think it’s time we head back to the ship, we can spend the night in orbit, I’m not sure what the conditions will be so it’s safer to get off planet.” Said Gaia as she grabbed Pip out of the air. Noah gave her a nod before getting one last look at the surface, and with that Noah’s first planetary journey came to an end, with one extra passenger.