I know Mother's Day has past, but this is a little tale I conceived, just for that special recognition of mothers everywhere!  

The Alien's Mother by Francesca Quarto

It was a typical Mother's Day in the small outpost of Glimmer Roost.  They still celebrated long- remembered holidays from Earth times, only now they did it in zero gravity.  

So, no bunches of roses and boxes of chocolates and jewelry; just the hand-made cards that could be erased and reused for the next holiday.  There was no shortage of shiny baubles to be given, but they were as common as road gravel back on Terra One. After all, the brilliant stones gave the very name to the mining town.

Mother's Day wasn't that big around there anyway, what with the lack of any women.  And usually the only time the word "mother" was spoken, it was quickly followed with a profanity. Now that word, would be around human settlements until the end days!

This Mother's Day seemed destined to be marked like hundreds before it in Glimmer Roost; they broke out the Alien's Mother.

She landed on the remote planet several months after the Pilgrim Miners. They had already set up the rough, outlying buildings for what would become, Glimmer Roost.  

She announced her arrival by blasting a group of unarmed surveyors and building engineers to space dust.  There was no provocation on their part, unless you count their aggressive reshaping of the landscape.  

One of the mounds they eradicated was, unfortunately, the entrance to the alien's domicile; a hive-like structure of connecting tunnels and chambers.  At the time it was destroyed to make room for the growing outpost, it sheltered the Alien's entire family tree, from oldest to youngest.  

She responded as any mother would, with unchecked rage and righteous lethality.  She entered into a running skirmish with the Pilgrim Guard Unit that had been called in by a lone survivor of the mound killings.  

Her end was assured, as they were human and she, a mere alien, not withstanding that this was her home planet.

The body of the Alien mother was to be kept for further study by the scientists that would follow one day.  She was perfectly preserved, but as time went on, the Pilgrims realized the corporation would not waste resources on studying anything that couldn't produce a profit.

Being human men, offspring of mothers all, they were moved, after the first one hundred years, to celebrate that most honored holiday, Mother's Day. 

Forthwith, the preserved body of the alien mother was brought to the communal feasting hall, where the children of human kind, could lay hand-made gifts around her four, stiff and blueish feet.  

They had taken this mother of another race and co-opted her as their own.  Over a span of many hundred cycles, the reputation, along with the petrified shell of the last mother in Glimmer Roost, was transformed.

From death bringer, to life giver; from alien, to familiar.

Mother's Day became "The Great Mother's Day"  proving, even in dying, there was no death for the Alien's Mother.