The air was starting to taste stale, and Damian Smith could almost imagine a metallic taste on the back of his tongue. An entirely unnecessary glance at the time display confirmed once again that it had been nine months and seven days since the “scoutship” Alcatraz had been nudged from the cluttered background of the asteroid belt onto a non-propulsion interception trajectory with the alien industrial base orbiting Saturn. And already things were starting to come apart.
Mankind had been united in humility for the last thirteen years by the undoubtedly advanced alien presence which had blatantly ignored all attempts at communication. Damian sneered as he remembered the pathos with which his “mission” was presented to him. It all boiled down to a very unfavourable situation. Take a little piece of rock, carve out enough to fit in the latest in passive surveillance equipment, a narrow-beam communication set-up, and minimal steering capacity and lob it towards the alien base. It would look like a normal piece of space debris, too small to pick out against the background clutter of Saturn’s rings. It would be an ideal way of gathering and transmitting information (spying was never mentioned). And to make sure nothing broke down, find yourself a “volunteer” to baby-sit the ambling asteroid for the next few years.
Well, thought Damian, maybe it wasn’t entirely voluntary. And as “commander” and sole inhabitant of this little rock, they did let him choose the name (although they soon regretted that little liberty).
And now, spinning idly through space, travelling along a hyperbola which would (maybe, hopefully… nah) give him a flyby-time of two days, he was dozing in an oversize space suit, eating crud and drinking his own sweat. Until the close-proximity alert sounded, two months too early.