Alien Conquest

Mission Control, we've got an E.M. disturbance

radiating from 40 degrees port side.

Verify clearance of satellite traffic. Over.

Roger that, I.S.S.

There is a signature on your port side.

But JPL determines it may be

from a low-emission solar event.

Copy, Control, but we have no particle signature.

Captain Peters will be conducting a maintenance walk

and wants to confirm clearance.

I.S.S., we do have a visual of something unusual

on your port side.

If Captain Peters has prepped for that walk,

he may have a visual on what it is.

Uh, Mission Control, this is Captain Peters.

I... there is something outside of the craft.

Captain, there's a large mass just off your port side.

Radar and observatory telemetry

are trying to approximate what it is.

It might just be dust blown from our fuselage

from the evacuator valve.

Or... wait. I do have a visual.

It's dark. It appears to be...

At 6:08 standard times, Ukraine's Delta...

Henry, you're holding the handset too close

to the receiver again!

What I was saying was at 6:08 a.m. Eastern Standard Time,

Ukraine's Delta Observatory

recorded exactly what you predicted:

an increase in carbon dioxide and sodium

in the Martian troposphere.

You went to the P.A. system for that?

Doesn't that confirm it once and for all?

Well, I'm just looking at these latest images.

And?

I was correct.

Mount Olympus is going to erupt today.

See? I told you!

Yeah, it just picked a heck of a day to do it.

I mean, that confirms it.

I'm just trying to add a little fanfare, babe.

You just made history!

I mean, an eruption of Olympus Mons of this size

is unprecedented.

Most scientists thought the volcano was dormant.

Believe me, okay? I feel validated.

After 10 years of eye strain tracking topographical changes

and chemical signatures on Mount Olympus,

I was not gonna miss this.

I take it Junie didn't exactly take it okay

when you got called in.

She was livid.

I promised her I'd be with her today

for her post-surgery checkup when you called.

I mean, Mark's with her,

but I'm not gonna be winning a "Stepmother of the Year" award.

Look, I could take over for you.

You could give me a promotion.

I'm tired of hiding in your shadow anyway.

Yeah, and how would that look?

I can't promote you! You're my brother!

It would look like I'm playing favorites.

Yes! You are!

Besides, you owe me!

I owe you?

Absolutely!

All those times I covered for you.

I turned a blind eye when you took my Trans Am

out on your little midnight runs... wink.

All right, not worth a promotion.

You were 12.

Well, that's weird.

What is it?

Hang on. Let me get this up on the monitor.

Our telescope captured these three images

of Mars from 15 minutes ago.

Whoa.

Yeah, you see that?

That ejecta was traveling incredibly fast.

Is that from the initial eruption?

Looks like it.

Wow.

The amount of force to eject something like this

into the Martian orbit must have been immense.

I mean, at that speed, solid rock

would have disintegrated into the atmosphere.

Its outer shell must have some kind of crystallized element.

You know, now that it's an asteroid, given its heading,

it could qualify as an NEO.

You want me to sound the alert?

Yeah.

Cc all agencies: NASA, JPL,

meteorological societies, everybody.

It's also got this really weird chemical signature,

some kind of chloride gas.

And a huge draw-down of nitrogen along its path.

I can't figure out what's generating the chloride, though.

Wait a minute.

Hang on, these are all from Washington, D.C.

"All observatories on standby for military guidance."

Lieutenant, what's our elapsed time since the I.S.S. impact?

11 minutes, sir.

Oh, boy.

Check the security system. We've got company already.

Oh, that must be the military guidance

our alert warned us about.

Any additional intel from the Pentagon?

No, sir.

Only "Meet Dr. Allison Fisher at Falcon Observatory

and proceed according to briefing."

Listen to me carefully.

This is going to escalate quickly.

This is a threat response to an incoming asteroid.

- Do you understand? - Sir.

The Joint Chiefs did mention that the nature of the

object remains open until we can confirm it.

I understand that.

But if our messaging isn't precise,

every tinfoil hat within 100 miles will be there.

- Do you understand? - Sir!

Let's go.

Let's go see what they want?

All right.

I just got an alert.

"The I.S.S. has fallen off radar"?

What?

There were a dozen astronauts onboard that.

I worked with those guys for over a year.

Okay, it might just be a glitch in the receiver somewhere.

No, no, no, I mean, I know.

See this reading?

A large object got extremely close to their sensor.

It's roughly the same size of the object

we detected from Mars initially.

Hang on!

The trajectory model just traced its path

over the past few minutes all the way back to Mars.

This is the exact same ejecta we just saw.

How can that be?

Come on. That takes 14 minutes to get a radio signal from Mars.

Are you trying to tell me something ejected

from Mount Olympus going three million kilometers a minute?

Well, whether it's the same object or not,

predictive model gives it a 50% likelihood

of impact within 1200 miles of the city.

What can we do for you, si...

Dr. Allison Fisher?

I'm sorry. What's going on?

This facility is for authorized personnel only!

I'm General Reed from Fort Garrison, New York City.

That is Lieutenant Harris.

Okay, hold on.

General, General, we're doing sensitive work here.

I need confirmation from Command.

Right.

These are our official orders and a D.O.D. confirmation

for a national threat.

Here, give me these.

Excuse me, General!

Handing over this facility is not normally something we do!

I've been briefed on this facility

and understand that it is state-of-the-art.

- Is that correct? - Yeah.

It's equipped with nanometric laser guidance

a Deep Field telescopic range and meteor analysis lab.

That's exactly what we need to find out what this is,

what it's made of and where it's headed.

NASA and the other space stations sent out

a signal barrage with no response from it, sir.

No response expected, Lieutenant.

Give the Falcon Observatory database a security lockdown.

Wait, wait. What are you doing?

It will take a bit for me to breach the observatory firewall.

But all live streams are secure and classified.

You cannot shut down our system!

We need to know what this object is made of.

We'll have a spectral analysis of it in a minute.

And what its dimensions are.

Okay. Well, initial data indicates that it's oblong...

Wait. What did you just do to our shared database?

We're closing the live international feed so deployment

of our military assets won't be compromised to our enemies.

Okay?

We need you to take us to your Command Center, now.

Christ.

No...

We fall under the UN Security clause.

All data between observatories has to flow both ways!

We can't gather data on a closed system!

Sir, Doctor Fisher does have a point:

If she receives updates from observatories further east,

she can precede our visual confirmation.

Lieutenant, protocol demands that we do not

advertise orbital security.

Yes, sir!

General, I strongly advise against locking down our system!

Doctor, I'm aware.

This is a matter of national security.

General, we have an open database for a reason!

Our counterparts in Ukraine were able to stream a burst