The last transport scheduled for the day slid away from Outpost 72351. The small human crew relaxed, ready to tell scary stories around the single orange light in the break room. Even minor stations far from any planets had their amenities in the modern era.
They had their surprises as well. A ship appeared, according to some sensors and not others, and the ones that did report it reached no sure conclusion as to its properties. Its hull was curved overall except where it did not exist, or was it a cone that turned about its axle at different speeds for every inch of it? The operate could be confident only that the structure out-massed and out-volumed Outpost 72351 a dozen times over.
A check of the filed itineraries for the next week gave no relevant results of course, or a search through every known ship design, and it responded not at all to decreasingly calm messages from the outpost. It approached, and every crew member knew both that first contact had been made and that they would not survive it.
The unidentifiable vessel stopped. No obvious means of propulsion activated, but it stopped, less than an arm away from the outpost's hull. The crew members cried, wishing the station had windows or glad it did not. A light blinked on in the command center, one caused by nothing visible, that grew larger and larger until it spelled words that were read the same no matter the viewer's angle. "Boo! Trick or Treat!"
The ranking officer ordered all the candy they had to be ejected in the direction of the object. That was done. The light contracted before it swelled again to spell out, "Thank you!" The vessel vanished, and never did anyone in known space see it again. Not for one year, that is.
Happy Halloween!
Finis
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