Unwanted Starship by John Walker

Ethan Cross expected second shift at Meridian Industrial to end the way it always did—oil-stained hands, clock out, go home.Then something impossible shows up behind the plant. It isn’t on any schedule. It isn’t on any radar. And it definitely isn’t human.Ethan makes one mistake, he gets close.That’s when his ordinary life ends. Whatever is sitting in the dark isn’t debris or a prank—it’s a machine built for a purpose, and it didn’t arrive by accident. Ethan doesn’t know what it wants, or who it belongs to, but he knows this much: the moment he touched it, a countdown started.Some doors open to freedom. Some open to trouble.This one opens to the stars.