All around the world organisations, governments and individuals watched as The Brick orbited the Earth, sucking up orbiting space debris into its maw. The Brick did a sweep around the globe every three hours or so and at this rate would complete the clean up in about five weeks.

  The outer orbiting space stuff had little impact on the Earth below but it soon dawned on everyone that chaos was coming. No satellites meant no GPS, no satellite communications and no space based geo mapping.

  The world’s media could not ignore the large floating brick in the sky and reporting varied widely as they guessed the impact. “The end of the world as we know it!”, “Get out your old street maps!”, “Astronomers applaud clean sky for observations.”, “Everything is going to crash!”

  Johnny Cartwright cried aloud, “They’re eating my satellites!”

  “Rudy, is the J Rocket in position?” he asked Rudy who was monitoring the progress of The Brick and the J Rocket, hiding amongst the larger pieces of space junk such as discarded boosters and rocket parts left behind over the years.

  “The Brick should be close enough in about thirty minutes. Do you still want to do this?” said Rudy.

  Johnny was determined as he watched the large monitor, “We have tried to communicate using radio, light displays, anything that might work. Nothing! And still this cleanup and the hunts continue!”

  “The various nations are standing by with their missiles that could reach orbit. Thankfully they are holding fire as the idea of a nuclear warhead going off in space causing potential fallout or global EMPs is making them wait,” Johnny said, pacing the floor and looking up at the narrowing gap between The Brick and his hiding J Rocket.

  Johnny finally made his decision and stopped next to Rudy. He announced, “Let’s do it.”

  Rudy and his team manipulated the remote controls and waited until The Brick was at its closest path just above the J Rocket. “Just above” was still about a thousand or more yards away, but the “Power Spikes” as they were dubbed had sufficient range, especially in the orbit where there was no air to slow the spikes down.

  Rudy pointed to one of his team members, who pressed a button and said, “Power Spike One is away!”

  Johnny grinned at the declaration as he watched the Power Spike leave the front of his J Rocket and race towards The Brick.

  ****

  Navi was humming to himself as his ship happily scooped up the orbiting space junk and filled up his hungry hoppers. Suddenly there was a BANG and a shudder as something hit the panels underneath his beautiful ship!

  Focussing on the monitors observing the impacted area he saw a metal pole punched into a buckled panel. Fluid from something that had ruptured underneath the damaged panel was pouring out into space and onto the rear of the ship. He watched as the automated self repair processes began their work. The severed cable and pipes in that section were blocked and the leaking fluid stopped. Before he could send out a repair drone to attend to the broken panel, the panel broke off with its attached pole and floated lazily away.

  What did he hit? Did he miss something sharp amongst the mass of gear which somehow careened off the junk he was sucking into the recycler? Navi looked at his monitor, rewinding some of the video feed back to the time of impact, when another BANG hit the ship. Resetting the viewer to look at the outside view, Navi saw another pole wedged into the hole left by the missing panel. That was weird.

  He looked around and couldn’t see any spiky pieces of space junk. Certainly not one moving so fast that it could impact his ship. What was it?

  There was a lovely large mass of debris he planned on getting to in the next few days, but that was a problem for later. Then he saw a flash and another pole rushed towards the ship and hit near the first two hits with a BANG and a more ominous crunch. He zoomed in his viewer at the area the flash came from.

  Was there a space ship inside that mass?

  He lifted the clear panel and aimed his laser at the mass of junk. Time for some pre cleanup mass redistribution. Zap!

  As the laser bolt left his ship, two more poles came flying towards the MSPC. One went into the maw and was quickly caught and recycled. The other hit another part of his ship and broke off a panel, causing more leaking.

  The energy bolt hit the mass and it broke apart into many pieces, some floating towards the maw in from of the MSPC. One of the pieces was large and looked like a space ship. Were they hiding something there and fired at him? At his ship!

  The space ship hit the side of the maw and disappeared inside. Looking at the maw camera, he saw the captured ship tried to fire another rod, but it all got caught up in the recycler and was disassembled rapidly. Looking at the recycling analyser he saw it was all metal and electronics. No biological matter. It was an automated thing.

  Navi sat back and pondered. But then his attention was forced back to his control. There were a number of red flashing lights from problems caused by the various pole strikes. He activated the self repair processes and saw that he had not suffered much damage.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  These NC inhabitants were being annoying. His clean up would continue unchanged.

  ****

  Everyone in the control room groaned as the J Rocket was sucked into the maw of The Brick.

  “Did we do any damage?” asked Johnny.

  “A little,” said Rudy as he zoomed in the monitor to the side of The Brick and pointed at the screen, “See, these panels were broken by the Power Spikes and broke something internally. The leaking fluid could be lubrication or hydraulic or voodoo juice.”

  “Anything broken is good,” said Johnny, smiling, “Even voodoo juice.”

  “It looks like it was repaired pretty quickly, but it does show it can be damaged,” finished Rudy.

  Rose was seated at the controls next to Rudy and added, “If you look at the top, there is a control room. With enhancement, like this, you can see the operator. It looks like there is only one, but it looks like a huge humanoid rat thing.”

  After a moment, Rose said, “And the ship has a laser gun. We tried to move the J Rocket once The Brick fired, but something must have been damaged and we could only watch it get sucked into the Maw.”

  “Well, let’s see what else we can do with the next traps,” said Johnny, “How long do we have until it drops to the lower levels? My satellites are just below that in lower Earth orbit.”

  “About three weeks,” said Rudy, “The rat guy is thorough.”

  “Let’s annoy him some more,” said Johnny.

  ****

  The upper orbit was clear and despite the minor damage from what must have been a malfunctioning bit of junk, Navi’s ship had performed admirably. He dropped closer to Dirt and began his next sweep. The storage areas were filling up with a lovely mixture of raw materials. They would sell for a good price. This next layer looked like an even richer source.

  Navi napped in his control chair as the routine cleanup continued. If his detection gear noticed a larger mass of space junk, the lasers were programmed to automatically fire and break it up. No malfunctioning bit of equipment would get him again. Other detectors were set to raise an alarm if any of the space junk moved from their existing orbits.

  Navi yawned as he watched another larger piece of junk get sucked into the maw at the front of the ship. BOOM! The maw monitor showed static. Navi looked all around and saw nothing out of the ordinary. The automated self repair units were dispatched to attend to the multiplying red warning lights showing up on his ship integrity monitor. The recycling unit had suffered some damage, but nothing permanent. What had exploded? What was in some of this junk?

  ****

  “Commander,” said Yuri, the operator monitoring the alien ship’s progress through Earth’s orbit, “The alien ship is approaching our satellite G1.”

  Yuri’s senior officer stood beside him and said, “That is one of our Cold War defensive satellites?”

  “Yes Sir,” said Yuri, “in 1982. It was a failsafe device.”

  “Do we know what it contained?” the officer asked.

  “No, Sir,” answered Yuri, “Many of those records were incomplete due to extremely tight security. Could it have contained weapons?”

  “At the height of the Cold War and called a ‘Failsafe’ satellite? Probably. Let’s watch closely,” said the officer.

  The team in the Russian command centre all rocked back in shock as the alien ship accepted the Failsafe satellite into its maw and there was a massive explosion, creating a huge glowing light. It looked like the glowing mouth of a dragon breathing fire.

  “Did we kill it?” asked the officer.

  Yuri and his fellow technicians monitored the results. A short while later, Yuri answered, “No, Sir. We think it may have caused some damage but it looks like the alien craft just absorbed a nuclear warhead. We are seeing traces of radiation using some of our remaining nearby satellites, but the vessel remains.”

  “It has moved out of the orbit a bit higher up,” said another operator, “Not broken, but likely damaged and repairing.”

  Almost an hour later, the operator added, “The alien vessel is moving back into orbit and eating satellites again, Sir.”

  The officer considered the report. Eating wasn’t a bad description of what the alien vessel was doing.

  “Continue to monitor the vessel. Yuri, cross another satellite off our list.”

  ****

  “Johnny,” said Kent, “The Brick just absorbed a nuclear bomb. It went to a higher orbit for about an hour, then went right back to work. It reminds me of those huge garbage disposal operations. They are built robust and very resilient as the operator never knows what makes it into the junk people throw away. I don’t think any external attack is going to make a difference. We may add a few scars, but The Brick is built tough!”

  Johnny sighed, “We’ll try the little traps we placed in this layer. No reason not to. But once The Brick gets into lower Earth orbit and starts sucking up CartNet, that’s it.”

  A short while later, they watched as all the booby trapped satellites his team had sent into the middle orbit layer were detonated or struck The Brick. There was some minor damage, but it had already absorbed a nuclear bomb, so no-one was surprised.

  If a satellite was in front of The Brick and activated any manoeuvring thrusters, a laser bolt would strike from The Brick and destroy the satellite. They had been able to manoeuvre some satellites after The Brick passed, but they just got picked off during the next sweep.

  Johnny was sitting alone in his office a short while later, when his intercom dinged, “Johnny, I have Doug and Captain Connor here to see you.”

  Johnny sighed and answered, “Lana, tell them to go home. Once The Brick has finished there will no longer be a space program. It’s been Bricked.”

  Johnny grimly laughed at his bad joke, but Lana spoke up, “Johnny, they insist. Go in boys.”

  Johnny smiled. Lana had been his secretary since he started as a young entrepreneur. If she said he should see someone, he trusted her instincts.

  “Doug! Connor! Sit down,” Johnny said while standing and shaking their hands, indicating the chairs in front of his desk. He joined them at the third chair and said bluntly, “I think our space program is over. Sorry.”

  Connor spoke quickly, “Sir. You know I was in the Air Force as a fighter pilot before being an astronaut. Doug was too, before he signed on as one of your test pilots. After the ISS rescue, we are now classified as the first space pilots with combat experience.”

  Johnny smiled, “I guess you are. What about Hans and Jim, are they combat space pilots?”

  Connor said, “No. They’re just space scientists. Anyway, Doug and I have an idea. I spoke with General Gant and he is on board.”

  “General Gant?” asked Johnny, “from ARRG? How do they come into it?”

  “Well, Sir,” said Connor, “We think we can get The Brick. But it needs your help and some specialist help from General Gant.”

  Johnny looked at the intent and serious looks of both Doug and Captain Connor. He knew General Gant was quite serious about getting at the aliens, too.

  “Sure,” Johnny said, “What do you have in mind?”