The ringing phone on Carlos Hernandez’s nightstand vibrated itself onto the floor below. Groaning, Carlos slowly picked it up. It being 2:05AM, he guessed his subordinates were calling. Carlos was a distinguished astrophysicist in charge of the Very Large Array, a creatively named radio telescope array in New Mexico. Being so Very Large, it was one of the world’s best methods of detecting space objects, usually comets or meteorites. When someone called Carlos after the sun went down, that typically meant someone found something odd or new. Almost never a true threat or anything. But when Carlos actually answered the phone, he found he was not speaking to anyone he knew, but instead was being berated by the panicked pleading of some gruff-voiced man, “Dr. Hernandez I am General Joseph Rogers, US Air Force. Your array has picked up… something and we need you here. Now, Doctor.” Carlos shot up out of bed, “What exactly did we pick up?”

-- 56 minutes later –

“A what now? Dr. Greene, are you high?”

Carlos was truly astounded. Being roused out of bed by a technician usually turns out to be nothing, but this call? This was worse. The tech’s report is utterly preposterous.

“A person, Carlos. I swear,” Dr. Greene repeated her observation. “I know it’s just a smudge now, but there is a huge gravitational anomaly right where the smudge is. And that smudge looks like a person.”

Carlos shook his head, “Sure, Bridget. It looks like a person. A person who’s 10,000 miles tall. Was that really enough for you to call the fucking Air Force!? And somehow enough for them to take you seriously?” Carlos made a note to put Bridget on report for wasting government resources. And I had such high hopes for her. Oh well. She is a goddamn crackpot.

Bridget seemed to refuse to back down, “Look, you don’t have to believe me on that. But check the tracking on Pluto and Neptune. They’re way off orbit! It’s like something as heavy as the sun just appeared out of nowhere!”

Carlos looked at the screen, noting that the projected orbits were very off. And the other planets are starting to move off track, too. Carlos furrowed his brow, his displeasure with his technician disappearing as scientific curiosity took over. Not worry, just curiosity.

“Yeah, I see. Hmm… Let’s map out the degree of deviance from the projected orbits. Maybe we can figure out a trajectory,” He grabbed a marker and went to a nearby whiteboard. Writing down notes, he and Bridget started a mathematical dance, as she read out data and numbers, and he responded with calculations. She would keep the dance going by asking questions, shooting down theories, and proposing new ones. The general was here in the room, his fear of whatever was out there clouding his appreciation for the scientists’ mental harmony. After some time, the performance died out, the two dancers looking solemn and grim. The general called out, “Okay, Doctors, bottom line this. Is this a problem? This sounds like a problem.”

Carlos and Bridget exchanged a look. Bridget started, “Well, the data are clear. Whatever the anomaly is, it is moving. Right toward Earth.”

Carlos continued, “The center of the anomaly should get here soon. In a few minutes.”

The general’s face drained. I thought there was more time. Fuck, I need everyone on alert now. “Okay,” he responded calmly, hiding his panic, “I’m waking the president. If anything changes, you two let me…” He trailed off as Bridget brought up a feed of space from a visible-range telescope in orbit, Mars partly taking up the screen. Something was there, adjacent to the red planet, and it was growing larger and larger on the screen as it approached Earth.

It was… a woman.

The general gulped, “We need nukes.”