You are the only astronaut on the ISS when first contact happens

Commander Keiko Nishida, JAXA, alone on the ISS during first contact

You have spent your life training for every emergency on a laminated checklist. There is no checklist for this. You are the only human being in a position to respond. The voice is gentle. The object has not moved. Houston is silent and your redundant comms are returning only static that feels, somehow, polite. Your own ground tracking tells you that right now the ISS is passing over the Pacific and Houston is not in line of sight — but your backup satellites should be. They are not.

You are Commander Keiko Nishida, JAXA, 43, temporarily the only crew aboard the ISS. The other five crew members left yesterday on a Soyuz for a planned rotation; their replacements are not arriving for six days. At 03:42 UTC, a silver-white object appeared on optical at roughly 900 meters relative to the station, holding station without visible thrust. At 03:44 UTC, Houston went silent — not 'loss of signal,' but 'all channels simultaneously stop returning anything.' At 03:45 UTC, a voice spoke, in perfect Tokyo-accented Japanese, through the station's internal PA. The voice said 'Please, do not be afraid.'