Archive of Our Own

His colleague’s voice was playfully mocking and he would’ve snapped back with a witty retort if his mouth wasn’t slowly dropping to the floor with each passing second.

He was too shocked by what was coming into focus in the exposure to even think to respond. 

What he saw instead of a star cluster was the obvious outline of something that was most certainly not stars. 

They... were satellites, the grey material so similar to the metal and other materials used in Earthen satellites.

But this snapshot was from the Leo constellation, where this cluster was at least over 7 lightyears away from Earth.

Logan... had just found proof of alien life.

But Logan still couldn’t speak, only able to watch as the image became slowly clearer as the computer computed the data of the exposures over the week from NASA’s newest Space Telescope that he had been able to commandeer for his week long project, taking day long exposures of a specific and a minuscule number of arc minutes of the sky. It had taken him six months to convince NASA... and it was about to pay off big time.

Logan finally turned to face his colleague, his colleague’s face his smarmy, smug smile when he saw the slack jawed expression on Logan’s face.

“What? Have you actually found something?” 

Logan couldn’t muster any energy to make his jaw work, so he just nodded, mouth still wide open. He looked down just to grab the thing he needed. He flashed a red card from his area over at his colleague, their face going pale.

“A- Aliens? You’ve... You’re... You have to be pulling my chain...” His colleague slowly got up even as he expressed disbelief at what Logan had said he found.

But Logan froze once again when he looked back the the exposure, the image having transitioned into a new exposure later in the project. His body went cold, as if he had been plunged in an ice bath of epic proportions.

His colleague didn’t appear to notice Logan’s change in behavior, still pensively walking over to see what the Telescope sent back. Logan barely noticed when his colleague went still beside him too, frozen to the spot at what was on the screen.

The satellites were all spinning around something they hadn’t seen before in the other exposure, the glare of the satellites had hidden it until now. But as the satellites spun around, a sliver of what they were rotating around came into view. What the satellites were circling around was a planet, a planet that looked exactly like a planet that could house life.

“Oh...” Logan’s colleague finally said, the shock ultimately wearing off bit by bit.

“This… is a moment in history… I’m… so glad I was the one to finally find proof.” Logan numbly said, his eyes still not wavering as they both stared at the most important exposure of Logan’s career. 

His colleague didn’t reply, his mouth still open, nodding similar to Logan had just a few moments before, numbly and silently.

Logan shakingly and achingly pushed himself to his feet. His legs wobbled hard as his body tried to recover from the shock still coursing through Logan. Logan held fast to the table for a number of seconds, trying to quell the shaking in his legs, but ultimately failing.

“I’m... We gotta tell everyone... This is.... breathtaking... new.... inconceivably....”

Resolved that his legs were just going to shake for a while and he would just have to get used to it, Logan moved to walk to the rest of the science team and inform them and his bosses of his discovery. 

But a strong hand on his shoulder stopped him in his tracks, leaving Logan confused. Logan’s brows furrowed.

“Why did you... stop me?”

Logan’s colleague had grabbed his shoulder blindly, still facing the exposure as it fully resolved into a clearer picture.

Logan glanced at the picture again, wondering if his colleague saw something new in the picture, but Logan didn’t see anything new. Logan waited a few seconds for his colleague to respond, which when he ultimately didn’t, Logan spoke once again, attempting to pull away from his colleague’s grip.

“I know, the picture is fantastic, like I said. Please let go. I’m gonna go tell everyoNE-!” 

Logan’s voice turned into a yell, or more accurately Logan raised his voice in shock as Logan had managed to loosen his colleagues grasp only to have his colleague’s grip turn ironclad and yank him back sharply.

Logan flailed, disoriented by the pull backwards, his face morphing into anger, Logan rounded on his colleague. Except, Logan didn’t have the time to yell at his colleague who Logan didn’t recognize now that he thought about it, as a sharp pain shot through his wrist.

“Ah-!” Logan cried out, facing his colleague to see him biting down on Logan’s wrist, the source of the sudden pain.

Logan tried to pull his hand back, to yell at his colleague at why the fuck he was biting his wrist. But his colleague’s grip was too strong even as Logan pulled back, Logan brought a hand to his mouth, trying to speak, but it hit Logan that suddenly his mouth couldn’t form the words as a foreign feeling of  wrong overcame him.

“Wh....” 

“Sh...” His colleague said distantly, having stopped biting Logan at some point that Logan didn’t remember. Logan’s body slumped against his colleague’s chest, his body unable to hold itself up without input from Logan. Everything was becoming so hard to do.

Logan’s thoughts began to slow down, the swirl of Who? What? When? Where?Why? How? sluggishly slowing down as his eyes started to flutter closed.

As Logan’s eyes fluttered closed, a single yellow slitted eye came into Logan’s view, his colleague speaking to him as he lost consciousness.

“I’m sorry I had to do this... but I have to. Sweet dreams... Everything will be alright.”

A set of lips was gently pressed against Logan’s distant forehead as his mind spiraled into the darkness, Logan’s awareness slipped away.