A superheroine, an alien, and a town in the middle of the desert, what else do you need for an interesting short story...How about action? Check. First contact? Check. A dead cat? Check.
They arrived from deep space and ignored us. When they left, they left scars all over the planet and especially on our souls. We didn't know who they were or why they came, but when they left, we knew what they had done.
A quiet desert priest witnesses a strange ship land in his pasture. Inside is a hungry alien mother whose food machine has failed—and whose newborns cannot survive on anything Earth offers. Gentle, eerie, and morally sharp, Zenna Henderson’s classic first-contact tale asks what mercy costs.
Upon arrival at Proxima Centauri, the Exodus-9 crew detects a mysterious object floating in space. They believe it is an alien threat and are panicked. What follows is a chain of absurd misunderstandings, extreme paranoia, and catastrophic decisions that almost spark an interplanetary conflict... against a piece of human junk. Only a stroke of luck prevents a thermonuclear conflict.
The Altarai arrive to strip mine the planet, and it's very much the end of life as we know it. But, hey, even all-powerful aliens can get bored and run into trouble. And then humanity's remaining one per cent becomes part of the solution. Linked to “A Burning Love...” ~ 3k words.