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Danny had only been in training for a few months, he was still almost a year and a half away from actually making it to space. But after years of college and gaining enough experience on the ground, a year and a half would fly by. Especially since he was literally training to go to space.
He and his co-workers were in the middle of a mock-up space mission when the voice of the head admin of ground control came through the overcome. “Attention emergency code level 3 all available personnel needed in the ISS mission control room. Attention emergency code level 3 all available personnel needed in the ISS mission control room.”
Danny and the rest of his team turned to Terry ,their supervisor, waiting for orders. “You heard her get moving, no time for lollygagging.”
The group headed towards the control room. Danny had been in there a few times now having to learn how things work on the ground before he could start learning how to do things in space. He still got excited whenever he walked through the doors to the room, nowhere near the amount when he stepped into the room the first time but he still had a hard time believing he had made it this far. A far cry from when he was in high school and had a hard time even getting a C due to constant ghost attacks.
Ghost attacks were a rarity nowadays in Amity, while ghosts were no rare sight by themselves there, they all seemed to realize by Danny’s junior year that they really had no chance against fighting him. Even when he was all the way in Texas they seemed to stay out of trouble. That’s not to say some of them wouldn’t seek him out to fight anyway. It was mainly ghosts like Ember or Johnny 13 and Kitty, though those were more friendly spars now than actual fights. It gave him enough time to actually focus on school and even develop some semblance of a sleep schedule, even if that was ruined the moment he started college and pulled all-nighters to work on projects.
The moment the door opened to mission control Danny’s ears were flooded with noise. When they said all available personnel they really meant it, there were over a dozen people crowded around each desk. It seemed like no one actually knew what was going on, people were yelling out ideas left and right.
“Maybe a hallucinogen made its way onto the station or a chemical leak?”
“That wouldn’t explain why we’re seeing it too.”
“They got bored and decided to play a prank?”
“We are talking about professionals here, I would hope they would be smarter than pulling a prank on the people that help keep them alive. Not to mention we had all of the astronauts accounted for. Where would they get an extra person?”
Danny walked over to a computer to try and figure out what was going on, no one seemed like they were up to telling him, or even knew for themselves. There were clips playing on the computer. At first it was just of the astronauts of the ISS going about their daily duties, soon things started to get weird. Anything not bolted down started to move around through the air as if someone was throwing them, and the lights would flicker every once in a while. The next clip showed one of the astronauts, Maria, floating through the station before getting yanked back as if someone grabbed her by the back of her shirt. The final clip though told Danny everything he needed to know.
Floating right in sight of the camera was someone in a suit used for space walks, at least an older model of one they stopped using around two years ago. Or a suit that looked exactly like one but in black instead of white. There was a glow surrounding the suit that was definitely not natural.
“Oh.” Danny let out a breath. There was only one problem, finding someone who would believe him. He looked around the room, he’d have the most luck with someone high up in the chain of command. He spotted Jamie, she was the highest ranked in the room, the head of ground control, the same one who gave the order for everyone to make their way here and was shooting down each suggestion as they came up. Well he certainly wasn't going to shout his suggestion out loud to the whole group, so he made his way over to where she was standing at the back of the room.
“Ma’am, I know what’s happening. It might not sound believable but I really need you to trust me on this one.”
She turned to him, after just finishing yelling at someone for suggesting that the team of astronauts somehow managed to hack into the camera footage and alter the feeds. “I’m willing to hear anything at this point. Go on.”
“It’s a ghost.”
Jamie frowned and Danny braced himself for her to yell at him too, “What did you say your name was?”
Oh no, he wasn’t going to be yelled at, he was going to be fired on the spot. “Daniel Fenton ma’am.”
“Fenton you say?” She raised an eyebrow. “Where are you from?”
“Amity Park ma’am. It’s just a small city in-”
“I am well aware of where Amity Park is. Last name Fenton as in Fentonworks Fenton? Jack and Madeline Fenton?”
“Yes, those are my parents.”
“And you’re sure?”
“That they’re my parents? Yeah.” It took Danny five seconds too long to realize that that was not what she was asking. “Oh, I mean yes I am positive it’s a ghost. Only way I could be more positive would be if I was up there myself. I’d be able to help if I was, but I really don’t know how much I could do from the ground, especially if they don’t have any ecto-weapons with them.”
She looked him up and down. “You’re one of our astronaut candidates, correct?” Danny nodded his head. Jamie looked through the crowd of people before seeming to find who she was looking for. “Terry, with me!”
Terry made his way over towards them and seemed to realize Danny had been talking to Jamie. “Is he bothering you miss? I’m sorry he’s a very smart kid, he can get pretty excited about pretty much anything that has to do with space though.”
Danny repressed the urge to point out he was twenty five definitely not a kid, even if he still couldn’t grow a beard. Though compared to Terry he was pretty young “How competent are you in his ability to handle himself in space?”
Terry gave Danny a look that very clearly read ‘what the hell did you say to her’. “He’s very promising miss. He is able to figure out the equipment quickly after being shown how to use it, and he took to the mock zero gravity trials like a fish to water. He even had no issues in the vomit comet, sorry, the KC-135, he even asked if he could try it again because it was ‘fun’.”
To be fair a lot of the equipment is pretty similar to his parents own inventions, the Specter Speeder especially. And experiencing sudden zero gravity doesn’t affect him all that much since he is able to choose if he wanted gravity to affect him in the first place.
“We’re sending him up to deal with the situation then.” Jamie said.
Terry frowned. “Miss respectfully, but he still has a year and a half left of training before we even could consider sending him up. I can not see any possible situation where we would have to send an unqualified personnel to deal with whatever this is, especially since we have multiple, fully trained astronauts at the ready. It’d be extremely dangerous, and I refuse to let you put one of my men at such a big risk like that.”
Jamie rubbed at her temples. “Both of you come with me.” She started to move before either of the two could respond. She took them to a side room and closed the door. “Terry, what do you know about Daniel’s childhood growing up?”
“Is this really a good time to-” Terry started.
“Answer the question!”
Terry leaned back slightly. “He doesn’t talk much about anything before college to be honest.” He looked at Danny out of the corner of his eye. “He has an older sister who despite only being in the field for a short amount of time is already renowned in the field of child psychology, and his parents are some sort of inventors. He grew up in a small city and visits during the holidays. I think he’s mentioned a dog offhandedly a few times. But that’s about it.”
“The city’s name is Amity Park.” Jamie said. “It’s a hotspot for ghost activity.”
Danny could tell Terry was trying to mask his look of doubt. “Did you say ghost activity? Could you please elaborate?”
So she did. She gave him a quick rundown on Amity Park and how Danny’s parents were talented in the field of ecto-sciences, Danny interjecting every once in a while to give clarification. By the end Danny recognized the look on his face as one many newcomers had when they moved to Amity, not many of them stayed much longer. Terry however seemed to put whatever thoughts he had aside for the moment.
“That does not change the fact that he is not fully trained to pilot a spacecraft up to the ISS. Not even counting the fact that it would still take an entire day to make it to the station, leaving the crew alone with apparently a dangerous ghost! There has to be another option.”
“If you have suggestions I’d be all for hearing them.” Jamie crossed her arms.
He wasn’t wrong. Even with Danny’s own experience with the Specter Speeder he still didn’t have any actual experience with the spacecraft used to get to the ISS. Not to mention leaving the crew alone with a potentially deadly ghost for twenty four hours did not sit well with Danny one bit.
“I actually might have a solution.” Danny said, raising his hand.
That’s how he found himself in the Specter Speeder in the Ghost Zone, after they paid for him to get rushed back to Amity. He was looking for a natural portal exit that would get him near the ISS. There had to be one somewhere, the ghost wouldn’t have been able to make it onto the station otherwise. It thankfully only took him about an hour to find one.
Driving through the portal it was actually unnerving how close it was to the station. He quickly shook the feeling off, the Specter Speeder was made for the Ghost Zone; it could only handle the conditions of space for so long he didn’t have time to worry. The moment he docked his ghost sense went off. The docking was a bit rough but nothing was damaged so he would take what he could. He grabbed the bag of supplies, the thermos and ecto-gun he took with him and attached them to his belt. He still wasn't too fond of being around ecto-guns even after telling his parents he was Phantom, but it was either using that or explaining to all of NASA why he can shoot green lasers from his hand.
He needed to get this done quickly, the Specter Speeder had at least five hours before it started to malfunction, but the portal could become unstable and close any minute. “Danny to mission control, I am aboard the ISS. Proceeding now to where the crew reported they were gathered. Over.” He said into the comms device they gave him before departing.
“Mission control to Danny. Understood, the crew has been notified of your arrival. Over.”
Danny never thought his first time on the ISS would be because he was sent to fight a ghost but he’d take what he could get. He’d have time to be excited later he reminded himself as he made his way to the crew. He wasn’t exactly met with a warm welcome when he made it there though.
“Heya I’m Danny, NASA’s resident ghost hunter apparently.”
“They only sent one person? This thing has been slowly terrorizing us until it actually attacked and they send one person who’s hardly passed basics?” One of the crew protested. His name was Steven and if Danny remembered correctly, which he did, he was the second oldest onboard.
“Oh you know other ghost hunter astronauts? You should have said something I would have loved to have someone to talk to on the way here.” Danny smiled.
Steven pushed off from the wall floating towards Danny, his jaw clenched. “They could have sent someone with some space experience along with you at least.”
Danny shrugged. “I mean yeah, I guess. But I’m here to protect you guys because you don’t know how to fight a ghost. If I brought someone else with me who also didn’t know they would just get in my way.” Danny opened the bag he brought and started handing out Specter Deflectors. “Now,” he clapped his hands, “put those on if you don’t want to get overshadowed, that is possessed.”
“Don’t you need one?” Maria, the same woman who was thrown by the ghost in the video, asked.
Danny shook his head. “Nah trust me I’ll be fine.”
“You seem pretty confident. How are you not worried about this thing taking the whole station down? If you were smart you’d be a bit more worried.” Steve spoke up again.
“Wow. I’ll let you off the hook this time because you’re probably just scared for your life. But it’s really disappointing that you seem like a total ass right now. Especially since you all are living my literal dream working up here, and I looked up to all the astronauts who ever worked here. The rest of you seem pretty chill though, keep at it.” Given, the rest of them other than Steve and Maria had yet to talk. Probably because finding out ghosts are real and one is haunting you while floating in space would make almost anyone freak out and not talk for a bit.
Danny went around making sure they all put the Specter Deflectors on correctly before he went to look for the ghost. “If the ghost shows up here let me know right away.” He’d prefer to keep the humans away from this as much as possible. Both so they can’t be used as a hostage and in case the ghost says something he’d have a hard time explaining. Even if he didn’t recognize the ghost doesn’t mean the ghost wouldn’t recognize him, or his ecto-signature. Most ghosts in the Zone were at least aware of him at this point.
He made his way through the station, making sure to remember to push off of the walls to move instead of just flying. No doubt they were watching him through the surveillance cameras. It didn’t take long to find the ghost, it was like it wasn’t even trying to hide it’s ecto-signature, even a normal human would be able to find it,
“Come on out, I really don’t want to hurt you, I'd rather we just talk this out ghost to Danny.” It wasn’t a lie, if he could minimize damage to the station that would be ideal. The ghost stayed invisible. Danny sighed, it would work best for both him and the ghost if it showed itself willingly.
He rolled his eyes before letting his core flair, flooding the area with his ecto-signature, just enough that his physical appearance wouldn’t change. Not like anyone here had the tech for ecto-readings so he wasn’t in any danger of being found out.
Evidently that was enough to scare the ghost into showing itself. Being this close gave Danny a great opportunity to look the ghost over. Honestly the inverted colors of the spacesuit the ghost was wearing reminded him of the jumpsuit he had as Phantom if it was bulkier. Which made sense, he asked his dad to make his jumpsuit look like a space suit, it was kind of a shame the look got messed up in the portal accident.
“You can’t be here!” The ghost said.
“I mean I clearly am.”
“No, not like that. You can’t be here, it's not safe! It’s too dangerous for anyone. Everyone has to leave! Why won't anyone listen?” The lights in the station flickered as the ghost yelled the last part.
Well now Danny was just confused, he was pretty sure the thing making the station ‘not safe’, other than the general danger of being in space, was floating right in front of him. He looked at the ghost closer and noticed a name on the front of the suit.
‘ A. Hayes’
It only took Danny a second to recognize the name. A. Hayes, or Anthony Hayes was an astronaut who died three years ago during a space walk after there was a malfunction with his suit. The situation became very clear very quickly. Ghosts usually don’t fully form right after their deaths. It takes time for their form to fully develop around their core, it could take years for a ghost to fully form, or it could just never happen if there isn’t enough ectoplasm around to even form into a true ghost. The portal right outside the station probably provided him enough ectoplasm to finish developing.
Which meant he probably had only been conscious for a few days. From what Danny could tell he hadn't even been to the Ghost Zone yet which wasn’t uncommon for newly born ghosts but it did mean he might not even have realized he was a ghost. Danny hated having the ‘you’re a ghost now’ conversation, he only had to do it 2 times before now but it was always awkward.
“Why do you think it’s dangerous Anthony?” Danny asked, he had to get him somewhat comfortable with him first.
“Are you a crewmate?” Anthony asked. “Of course you are, how else could you get up here. Apologies I think that close call on my walk messed with my head a bit, I can’t seem to remember you. We’ll have to let the ground force know, I might have to go down to get checked out.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m Danny. Can you answer my question, why do you think it’s dangerous?”
Danny was pretty sure even if he couldn’t see Anthony’s face through the helmet, was there a face under there or was it just ectoplasm, he was looking at him like it was obvious. “Our equipment all needs to be rechecked. If I barely made it back alive from the walk because of my suit malfunction, who knows what else was missed during safety checks.”
Danny winced. “About that. You didn’t. Make it back alive that is.”
“What do you mean? I’m right here, you’re talking to me right now.”
“We’re in a different orbit location than you remember last aren’t we? You can’t seem to recognize any of the crew right? Look at yourself Anthony. You said your suit malfunctioned. Why are you still wearing it, why does it look wrong? You didn’t make it back alive, you’re a ghost.”
Anthony seemed to truly look at himself for the first time, down at his hands, he went to grab his head but was met with a helmet instead. “But I can’t be. I have a husband at home, I have a daughter she just got into her dream school. We were going to celebrate when I got back home. I had so much I still wanted to do, so much I needed to do. ” The lights were flickering again, a mentally unstable ghost who didn't know how to control their abilities yet could be dangerous . “I’m not even human anymore, am I? Do I have a soul still, did I ever? I never believed in an afterlife, I am a man of science- no I was a man of science. Oh my god I was . I’m not anything anymore.”
“Anthony, I know how you feel. You’re certainly older than me but you still had so much life left. All of your beliefs are being challenged at once and it’s too much.” He certainly had his own freak out as well, and his brain wasn’t even fully developed enough to fully realize what happened at the time.
“How could you possibly know how I feel!?” He yelled and the station shook.
Danny had to diffuse this, and fast. “Pull yourself together, do you want to be responsible for the death of the entire crew of this ship?”
“Pull myself together? Did you just tell me to pull myself together? I just found out I died.” Another shake.
Danny rolled his eyes. He was getting nowhere like this. “Fine if you want to keep putting others in danger.” He pulled the ecto-gun from where it was hanging on his belt, and righted himself in an upward position steadying himself on a rail on the wall to keep himself from flying back from the gun's recoil.
Anthony zeroed in on Danny’s hand. “Is that a gun? I won’t let you kill me a second time.” The station shook even more, not seeming to stop.
“Shut up.” Danny said as Anthony flew at him. Then he pulled the trigger and put the gun back on his belt. Well that was that..
The shaking stopped with the ghost, eyes wide as he looked behind him where there was now a destroyed surveillance camera broken and covered in ectoplasm. “You missed.” He laughed.
“Daniel what the hell are you doing? We can’t see anything now.” Jamie yelled through the communication device in his ear.
“Oops.” He replied before taking the communication device out of his year and crushed it in his hand and dropped it. The pieces floating through the air around him.
“Now.” Danny started, turning back to Anthony. He let go of the rail, no longer having to keep up the appearance of needing it. “Like I said before I know how you feel. I’m not saying that just to placate you. And trust me I do feel bad for you, but you’re going about this in the wrong way.”
“The wrong way? I deserve to be angry! My life was cut short because of someone else's mistake.”
“Oh anger sure you definitely deserve to feel angry. But I will not let you endanger the dream job I’ve had since I was five. And I certainly will not let you endanger the lives of seven people because you feel like you deserve to throw a tantrum to deal with that anger.”
“There are eight people on the station counting you?” Apparently the confusion briefly snapped him out of his anger, but only briefly. “It doesn’t matter, I can use you all as hostages to find whoever made the suit and caused me to die.”
Dang he went from trying to keep his perceived crewmates safe from a danger that wasn’t there to using them as hostages real quick. Newly formed ghosts had the worst emotional regulation. “No. I definitely meant seven. I said the lives of seven people, I haven’t been able to fully count myself as alive in about eleven years at this point.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Anthony asked.
Danny let himself transform. “Hi I’m Danny Fenton also known as the ghost Phantom. I had a bit of an unfortunate accident with my parents' lab equipment when I was fourteen, turns out lab safety is no joke. So like I said. I know exactly how you feel. I can even tell you more if you’d like but first I really should get you to the Ghost Zone. I’d love to talk more after that. So you can cooperate or…” Danny smiled, “...you’ll find out just why even the ghosts of long dead gods fear me. Your choice though!”
Anthony shrinked back with a shake of his head. Oops he let his core flair up just a bit too much there. He really hoped the humans on the ship were far enough away that they didn't feel that. “Picking the easy way? Good, I’m just gonna put you in this thermos for safe keeping for a bit. No worries you’ll be there for like an hour tops.”
He made quick work sucking Anthony into the thermos and detransforming. Good thing too, he heard the sound voices coming towards him. “Danny! You’re okay.” Maria said, making her way towards him, the rest of the crew not far behind.
“I mean, yeah? I told you guys I’d be fine.”
“Well there was a bunch of shaking then Mission Control told us you shot the camera out then your comms went out. After that there was a huge wave of cold and an immense pressure that hit all of us. We sort of assumed the worst.” Steven said.
“Aw I didn’t know you cared.” Danny said, placing a hand to his chest. “But yeah I’m fine. Things got a bit more heated with the ghost than I thought it would.” Not really he had it all under control. “So I went to shoot the ghost but the station shook so much it made me miss my first shot. The ghost got pretty angry I shot at it, it ended up breaking my comms. The ghost getting angry was the source of that cold and pressure feeling too. I got him on my second shot so no need to worry now.” Danny lied through his teeth.
“That makes sense and of course I would care if you’re okay or not, I’m not a monster.” Steven said.
Danny hummed. “Well I really need to get back, the ship I took here isn’t what I’d call stable out here. It really was an honor meeting you all, and I hope one day I can call you my crewmates. Until then!” Danny waved and made his way towards where the Specter Speeder was docked. He could tell the rest of them were following behind him. He finally turned around when he made it to the Specter Speeder. “Did you need anything else?”
“No, we just all wanted to say thank you.” Maria said. Then a chorus of thank you’s came from the crew.
“Like I said it really was no sweat.”
“It saved us though so it means a lot to us.” Maria said.
This was why Danny never stayed around after ghost fights, excessive praise was weird. Also because most of Amity hated him at first and yelled at him for the property damage that saving them all from the ghosts caused. Can’t please them all. “We’ll then you’re welcome. I do really need to leave though.”
He left them with a wave. He made his way back into the Ghost Zone just in time, he could feel the portal start to become unstable. Instead of flying back to his parents' portal he made his way to the Far Frozen. Frostbite would be able to help get Anthony used to being a ghost. He certainly helped Danny. Unfortunately he couldn’t say long to talk, just giving Frostbite a brief rundown and saying goodbye to Anthony promising both of them he’d visit soon.
It was still going to be a long trip back to Texas. Maybe he could convince them to give him the day off for saving the entire ISS. Or maybe even two days.
Those hopes were dashed when Jamie met him at the airport, at two in the morning, when he got off the plane and handed him a huge stack of paper. “The higher-ups want an incident report on their desks by the time they get into the office in the morning.”
Danny groaned. “Really?”
“Yes. You can get started in the car. Or would you rather do mine? It’s about three times larger than yours, and I have to explain why we didn’t have a fully trained astronaut who could fight ghosts.” Jamie said.
“Why would you even need one before now?” Danny asked, looking gloomy down at the stack of papers in his hands. Looked like he’d be pulling an all nighter.
“We didn't, that's why we don’t have one on hand. Apparently that's not a good enough reason for them though. Not like they know anything other than their cozy little offices.” Jamie huffed.
“Dang that sucks.”
Jamie hummed in agreement as the two of them got in the back seat of the car waiting for them. “Also, congratulations once you’re training finishes you’ll be promoted to NASA’s first astroparanormal hunter.”
“Wait what?” She didn’t grace him with an answer, already starting on her own paperwork. Man he couldn't escape his parents dream of him to become a ghost hunter even if he went to work in space.