It happened in the summer of 2057. I was on a mission from my space agency to planet K-#4592, to collect some samples and data. K-#4592 was one of the planets we had learnt recently about as we had made contact with the extraterrestrial beings there.

My name is Bilal and I am a cosmonaut in the space agency Xtraspheres. I started working for them two years ago. We had been preparing for this mighty expedition for the last three months. Everything had been going smoothly and expectations were high.

Finally, the day came when I landed on the planet and immediately began collecting samples. When I got back to where my spaceship had landed, I couldn’t find it. Had it left without me? I panicked and thought that I should ask the aliens for help.

After wondering in alien wilderness for two days, I found the ship’s remains. It had crashed — not by itself, but by some external force. I gathered some resources that I found in the ruins of the spaceship and kept them in my molecular backpack; it was a very special one as it could store infinite items.

I sensed danger, thanks to my sixth sense which always helps me in such situations. I then ran away from there as fast as I could.

Later, I saw a dust cloud the size of a mountain and when I looked through my telescopic vision in my spacesuit, I noticed it was a group of alien bandits. They were infamous across the multiverse, legend has it that in one day the strongest group stole treasures from 500 spaceships. These bandits had ranks — the green rank was the lowest, red rank was the second lowest and the black rank was the highest and made up of the most fearful of bandits across multiple universes. They could be identified through the colours of the tattoos going across their chest and head.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I realised that this planet was actually a base for the bandits. I knew I had to contact the headquarters, but to do that I needed the communication systems from my ship. I went two miles north of the shipwreck and set up my camp. I slept the night without any heat source as it could potentially reveal my location.

The next morning, I woke up and began to get some wood and iron to make tools. I visited an alien city and did my best to act like one of them to gather some information from the bandits. I got my communication system running and managed to contact my headquarters and call a rescue spaceship for myself.

Eventually, I received help and came back to Earth and revealed all that I had learnt about the alien bandits. This helped us to keep an eye on them and stop the chance of a possible attack on our planet. But the 300 days I spent on that planet were hell, and I realised that Earth was the best planet for us humans.

Published in Dawn, Young World, October 23rd, 2021