Passenger 12 slid quietly out of his seat. The human-like outer shell peeled away, revealing a thing of black anodized metal, skeletally thin but exuding awesome strength and grace. By projecting an airborne compound from his fingertips, he anaesthetised those of the passengers and crew who were still awake.
He took to the pilot’s chair.
A computer voice informed him that sub-luminal flight 209 was nearing its destination: Earth. Contrary to the computer’s advice, Passenger 12 locked the throttle controls at one hundred percent.
The voice became increasingly urgent as the flight approached lunar orbit, and then it surrendered to silence.
Three-hundred metres of steel, titanium and carbon struck the surface of the earth, somewhere in Tibet, at 99.999% of the speed of light.
The next ship to arrive would find only an expanding halo of glowing ash and rock, where home should have been.