Synopsis:
A pathfinder robot encounters something unexpected during its mission on the newly discovered exoplanet Vogel.
Mission control, 2049/04/29, 06:01:09 (EST)
Sarah Cooper stifled a yawn as she sat down at her desk. Sighing, she moved the armrests of her desk chair up, the seat down, and once again wished for a chair she wouldn’t have to share with anyone.
As she waited for the system to boot up, she knew she shouldn’t expect any groundbreaking findings, but it was hard not get excited about a mission to an exoplanet this close to their own solar system.
Planet Vogel had been discovered nearly eight years ago, and after their first robotic explorer, Pathfinder-Docent-408, had not been able to detect any forms of life, their newest model, Pathfinder-Architect-409 — lovingly nicknamed “Archie” by its engineers — had recently been deployed to assess the planet’s surface and atmosphere.
Archie was designed to send daily updates, including footage shot with his three built-in cameras, and was tasked with collecting both atmospheric and solid samples.
Sarah opened the first new log.
Log entry #32:
2049/04/28 — 23:01:32 (EST) — 52.373°N, 4.892°E — 0.1 mph
Surface: Granular, red sand.
Atmosphere: 89.5% carbon dioxide; 6.4% nitrogen; 4.1% oxygen.
Temperature: 52.5 °C/126.5 °F.
Miscellaneous: Sound of footsteps approaching in the distance. Approximately 5 miles away. Bipedal or quadrupedal. Conflicting input.
Log entry #33:
2049/04/28 — 23:03:51 (EST) — 52.373°N, 4.889°E — 0.2 mph
Surface: Sand.
Atmosphere: 89% carbon dioxide; 6% nitrogen; 4% oxygen.
Temperature: 52 °C/125 °F.
Miscellaneous: Footsteps approximately 4 miles away. Unknown life forms. Intentions unclear. Growling may indicate aggression.
Request
Pathfinder-Architect-409 requesting command from mission control to determine how to handle potential confrontation with alien creatures.
Response requested.
Shit.
This wasn’t supposed to be possible. They had not found any signs of life on Vogel; were Archie’s readings incorrect?
Sarah scrolled through the files they’d received and opened the one with footage from one of his cameras. A loading icon appeared. She read the next entries while she waited for the recording to load.
Log entry #34:
2049/04/28 — 23:05:04 (EST) — 52.378°N, 4.889°E— 0.3 mph
Crater. Size to be determined later. Scheduling assessment for 2049/04/29, 10:00:00 (EST).
Miscellaneous: Footsteps approximately 3 miles away. Speed increasing. Approximately four creatures.
Origin: unknown. Language: unknown.
Request
Pathfinder-Architect-409 requesting command from mission control to avoid confrontation with potentially hostile creatures.
Urgent.
Response requested.
Log entry #35:
2049/04/28 — 23:07:58 (EST) — 52.379°N, 4.886°E — 0.5 mph
Miscellaneous: Four unknown life forms exactly 0.8 miles away. Approximately 6 feet tall. Silver complexion. Beak-like mouths. Armored chest.
0.5 miles away.
Sharp teeth. Large black eyes.
Transmitting footage from camera-2.
0.3 miles away.
0.2 miles
“Nonononono!”
Sarah tapped her feet while she made several calls. Eyes trained on the screen. She’d been trying to connect to Archie for the last few minutes, but received no response.
The recording was still loading.
Max and Ali agreed to come in right away. Jen wasn’t answering her phone.
Sarah got up and paced the room as she messaged Javi and tried Jen again. Javi replied that he would be there as soon as he could.
No response from Jen. No response from Archie. The video wouldn’t load.
She kicked the chair. All it did was spin.
“Come on!” She growled, then jumped a little when a door flew open behind her. She turned around and watched her colleague Julie burst through, breathing hard, brown curls sticking to her forehead, and clutching her phone.
“What are you doing?!” Julie’s voice was at least one octave higher than usual. “Don’t just stand there! Didn’t you see it?!”
“See what?” Sarah asked, confused. “The footage is still loading.”
“What footage?” Julie rushed over to her. “I’m talking about the distress call! The SOS!” She held out her phone.
Sarah blinked at the screen. Bright white letters on a red background flashed S O S. Smaller letters at the bottom of the screen just said “Archie”, next to a time stamp and his coordinates.
“What? How did you get that message? Why didn’t I get that message?”
Julie ignored her and sat down at the desk, readjusting the armrests of the chair. Sarah took a deep breath, about to let her anxiety and frustration get the better of her, when movement on one the screens grabbed her attention.
The footage had finally finished loading.
Julie seemed to catch on immediately, and pressed ‘play’.
Archie was moving at full speed over the planet’s coarse, reddish-purple sand. His continuous tracks had no problem traversing this kind of material; they had taken care of that in the design-phase. They had, however, not considered the possibility that he would need to flee from would-be attackers, which meant that “full speed” was still agonizingly slow.
Sarah leaned over the desk and forwarded the video until the large, silver aliens came into view. Julie gasped.
Archie’s description had been factually accurate, but had not done justice to their terrifying demeanor. Fast, tall, and muscular, they showed off razor-sharp teeth every time they opened their beaks. Their silvery hue gave off the impression of liquid metal. Pitch-black eyes, much larger than those of any animal on earth, took up over half of their face. They didn’t seem to blink.
Sarah shivered.
“What is happening?” Julie whispered.
Julie had been in charge of much of Archie’s design. It had been her decision to make the two cameras installed at the top resemble big, round eyes that could turn to look at you. And to have two long extensions on each end of his body that were basically advanced claw-machine arms. He’d zoomed around the office before his intergalactic trip, and even the most cynical of their colleagues had not been immune to his anthropomorphic charms.
“I don’t know.” Sarah was trying to count their gleaming, black claws. Eight per hand? Nine? Too many, either way.
And now Archie’s big eyes were recording his last moments. He was surrounded by antagonistic aliens. They towered over him. He recorded their faces, the rows and rows of teeth in their beaks, their unblinking eyes. They closed in on him, growling and uttering cries no human translator would be able to decipher.
“I can’t watch this.” Julie turned away from the screen.
Sarah swallowed. She didn’t want to watch this next part either, but they had to know what they were dealing with. Her stomach churned as the aliens descended on Archie. The screen filled with a flurry of silver skin, rapidly moving limbs, and flashes of teeth and claws.
The noise was overwhelming. Growls, blows, yells. High-pitched wheezes that sounded like laughter. But it was the scraping sound of metal that cut right through everything, and which seemed to linger in the air even after the screen had gone black.
They were silent for a long time.
Finally, Julie cleared her throat.
“I…programmed it into him. The SOS call. To use in emergencies.” She shook her head.
“Did you anticipate something like this?” Sarah frowned.
“No. Not at all. I…felt silly when I put it in, to be honest. I just…” She shrugged and fell silent.
“Right. So. Why didn’t mission control receive this message?”
“You were supposed to. I don’t know what went wrong.”
Sarah took a few steadying breaths. Later, she told herself.
“Have you tried contacting him?” Julie asked.
“Of course. No response.”
“Right.” Julie let out a shaky breath and ran a hand through her curls. “Right.”
“We can try again though,” Sarah said. “Send a command to go to a safe place, just in case he can still receive messages.”
Julie nodded.
“Yes. Please.” She vacated the chair and Sarah sat down again, ignoring the state of the armrests as she executed the command.
While she did so, the door behind them opened again and Ali walked in, immediately followed by Max, who was carrying coffee and a bag of pastries. Ali threw her coat and bag on the floor and rushed over to them.
“Alright. Let’s see what we’ve got here.”
They called in everyone that had ever been attached to the project. They sent out software patches and commands, analyzed all the data Archie sent out, and tried to glean as much about the alien attackers as they could.
It didn’t seem to matter. Days went by, then a week, and Pathfinder-Architect-409 remained silent.
“I’m sorry guys,” Jen, project lead of mission Vogel-409, said after two weeks of trying.
“Unfortunately, it does not look like we will be able to revive and retrieve Pathfinder-Architect-409. We will have to go back to the drawing board and design a model that is equipped to handle outside threats like these. Armor. Increased speed.”
Sarah glanced over at Julie. No one had worked longer days than she had, something which the black circles underneath her eyes could attest to. Julie pressed her lips into a thin line.
“We tried our hardest, but now we need to rest and recharge before we start working on our new and improved model.” Jen motioned for them all to follow her out. There were a few sighs and grumblings, but most people were too exhausted to argue.
Sarah glanced at Julie, who was staring intently at something no one else could see.
“What are you thinking?”
“One more try.” Julie answered, gaze still trained on something in the distance. “Please.”
“Right.” Despite not believing that there was anything they could do that would fix this, Sarah turned back to the computer. Which chimed.
Both of them stared at the screen.
Incoming communication.
Log entry #36:
2049/05/11 — 15:06:02 (EST) — 52.381°N, 4.870°E
Surface: Granular, maroon-colored sand. Large rock formation to the left.
Atmosphere: 89.5% carbon dioxide; 6.3% nitrogen; 4.2% oxygen.
Temperature: 55.5 °C/131.9 °F.
Miscellaneous: Two bipedal creatures. Around 6 feet tall. Brown feathers. Green eyes. Opposable thumbs. Small red beaks.
Origin: unknown. Language: unknown, but bears similarities to previously recorded unknown language.
No aggression detected. Repaired Pathfinder-Architect-409’s broken parts. Restored connection to mission control. Brought and connected Pathfinder-Architect-409 to solar charging station.
Transmitting footage from camera-1.
Surprisingly, the recording only took a few seconds to load.
The camera moved rapidly from side to side, scanning its surroundings, then slowly turned upwards to focus on two benign looking aliens staring down at it.
Sarah rubbed her eyes. Their beaks seemed to curve upwards into a smile at Archie’s movements.
The alien on the left reached out a limb that appeared to be a cross between a wing and an arm, and patted the top of the cameras.
Its buddy made a soft, high-pitched, happy sound, and bowed its small, round head towards Archie. The first alien echoed the sound, and they turned to leave, chattering happily as they walked away on long, feathered legs. When they disappeared into the distance, the screen turned black.
Response
2049/05/12 — 09:03:08 (EST)
Commands received. Heading towards a safe place.
This story was written for Round 1 of the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge 2026.
My prompt was:
Genre: Thriller
Subject: SOS
Character: A pathfinder
While I did not manage to make it to Round 2, I did receive an Honorable Mention, which was a pleasant surprise, considering I wasn’t sure I’d actually managed to write a thriller.
Click here to read the feedback I received from the judges.
WHAT THE JUDGES LIKED ABOUT YOUR STORY –
- {2456} I really enjoyed getting the chance to read your story! It contained a lot of fascinating layers. On surface level, it explores the process of scientific progression, including the frustrations and hope of the scientists involved. On a deeper level, you did a great job humanizing something that is objectively inhuman. These characters had an emotional attachment to the robot, Archie. As a reader, I also established that attachment. I was afraid for him during the chase. I was upset by the fact that he was destroyed. Alternatively, I was encouraged to read that he’d been pieced back together again. Capturing the full emotional range in relation to a robot was very impressive. Strong work!
- {2061} The Archie journal entries are a great way to pull us into the world of Vogel, written in an unemotional, straightforward narrative. The cold tone contrasts well with the horror of the approaching creatures. Sarah and Julie have an interesting connection that drives them to give Archie another try. I like that your writing has defined this workplace with hierarchy and disgruntled employees, as exists in most workplaces, and that these dynamics impact how work gets done. That’s a great detail of the story, revealing relationships and characters.
- {2090} I ADORED your approach to this story and I think it’s a super effective way of demonstrating why anthropomorphizing is a necessary thing! And I don’t mean that just because it’s what pushes Julie and Sarah to try communicating with Archie one last time (or what makes the benign aliens help Archie), but also because it’s what you use to make each alien encounter stand out and have its own tone. I loved how you gave both the aliens and Archie space to evoke empathy from readers, and that final paragraph made me want to read more of Archie’s adventures.
WHAT THE JUDGES FEEL NEEDS WORK –
- {2456} While I enjoyed a lot about this story, there was one area that I would recommend taking a look at during your next round of edits. The tension in this story requires the reader to establish an emotional connection to the robot, Archie. Giving it a human name was a great first step. You also eventually described his features, including “eyes” and “limbs”. While this was great, I would recommend frontloading this description earlier on in the story.
- {2061} The journal entries bring us to the action on the planet, but keep us removed from knowing what actually happens (especially after reading entry #35). It might help to find a more intentional way to transition from “0.2 miles” to Sarah’s response. It almost seems as though we ought to absorb a moment of silence before Sarah is able to respond verbally. What I mean is, it’s such a shocking thing to read, we want to experience that sense of shock alongside Sarah. I think it would be more effective to have that beat, and then let her voice come into the room with, “Nonononono!” Taking care in these kinds of transitions can add a lot to build tension in the story, as we experience the horror alongside Sarah. It also helps to build in silence, as what comes immediately after is a moment of frantic movement and noise as Sarah tries to solve this.
- {2090} However, right now you have one great story being told through Archie’s reports and the more straightforward narrative segments with Sarah and Julie in their command center. I understand why you have these two perspectives, but these storytelling styles were so distinct that each time you switched POVs it felt as if the story was starting and stopping, unable to generate steam. I genuinely believe expanding one of these perspectives into its own story would allow for a greater whole, particularly because it would emphasize the theme of communication by depriving the reader of both sides of the adventure (which right now don’t coalesce as well as they should).
So Many What-Ifs 