Today marks what will soon be remembered as an important time for stellar travel. The day when we finally realize that we no longer need thousands of other humans to scout out distant stars in their massive motherships. The start of the age of independent explorers! Through my brilliance alone, I have successfully miniaturized the wormhole drive into something no larger than a one-man bedroom. With these plans in hand, I designed a perfect ship for such a voyage, one which I provided all the proper materials for: A basic single-man bunk room merged with the kitchen to save space, a laboratory large enough to satisfy many researchers, an oxygen recycling plant, a food and water recycler, plenty of automated droids for maintenance, a large nuclear reactor to provide power to the engines meant for both spacial and terrestrial use, and most importantly, massive databanks which contain enough information, guides, and the like to help even a single man maintain the ship, along with information storage, of course. Alone, of course, is what I hope to prove! We don’t need to risk hundreds of men, let alone deal with the problems of having that many people, in order to map out the cosmos! Tomorrow I begin my first leap into the unknown. For a new era!
It was perfect! A perfect warp for such a small craft! I can only imagine what the onlookers from the station were thinking as I disappeared into the void! Once I return, it’ll be a tale they’ll tell their children, grandchildren and further on, how they bore witness to the birth of a lone legend! The man who showed that he could sail the stars alone! Now what unknown lands do I find myself with today? A system with a yellow star with around four planets. A few of the more distant ones look dull at best, just dusty blue rocks. Closer to the star, the planets get somewhat bigger and at least more interesting. One that’s somewhat distant from the star is a dusty gray, some parts of the land almost look sunken in or pushed up? That’s at least how it looks to me, I’m not an expert in this kind of stuff. The planet closest to the sun looks magnificent however! Several rivers of magma run along the surface into lakes and oceans of magma as well! Now if only I was well equipped to traverse the surface of that planet. I can only imagine how amazing of a tale that would sound, but the second planet from the sun unfortunately will have to do.
This first planet was perhaps a better choice as well. Those sunken spots were actually massive pools of some sort of… liquid. A mistake I’m sure any other person would have made however. Now, as my craft landed, what also met my eyes were strange gray-ish skies, almost like a foggy day back on earth, and even a few clouds in the air as well! Could this mean that this is a water-bearing planet? What other secrets could this planet behold? The land was mostly flat from where I landed, there being a few mountains off in the distance, along with the aforementioned sea of the strange dark liquid. I chose a direction and explored the flat expanse by foot for as long as the planet’s sun was up, discovering nothing else that deserves to be mentioned, except for several holes which I can only assume lead into massive sprawling tunnel systems. I would explore more, but that may be too much of a risk. I returned to my ship and re-entered orbit right when the sun was setting. I had seen more than enough that this planet was going to offer. The first thing I did was set my ship’s course to another unexplored system, then tossed the soil and liquid samples I had collected into the lab. Perhaps others can find something interesting about these substances, but I am not fit for such a job. Such a shame that the first system to be explored by me was this pitiful thing! Perhaps tomorrow, I shall have better luck. For now, my ship must travel, and I need my rest.
Things have taken a sudden unexpected turn. The system I jumped to was nothing more than an asteroid belt, and my ship got caught right in the center of it while I was sleeping. Thankfully, had this ship been constructed by anyone else but me, it would have fallen apart in seconds! While the thing was still holding together, I quickly put in another jump to another unexplored system, warping out of there. As I speak, I am currently in the midst of warp, should take no longer than a few hours. However, I’ve ran into a few small complications. I was thrown rather violently off of my bed, and hurt my arm rather badly, to the point where I don’t think I can use it until I treat it somehow… Possibly broken. Along with that, the oxygen recycling plant has been breached, along with a good chunk of the hull gone in the droid storage. It’s a bit too dangerous for me to manually repair the hull in warp, so i’ll just have to hope the oxygen I have currently will be enough.
It’s of no use now… My arm only got worse and worse as time went on, and the informational databanks had also been damaged in the storm. I can’t possibly do any repairs like this! I had to painfully force myself into one of the EVA suits just so I could still have breathable air as well. However, my intuition in picking this system worked out! One of the planets looks almost Earth-like, a haven for me to hold fast in for as long as I need! The food and water recyclers thankfully are still operational, so I’ll simply wait for my arm to heal, repair my ship, and return to earth to speak of my discoveries! Oh what a story will be told when I return home!
My tale is coming to such a tragic end… The planet definitely supports some plant life, but the air isn’t breathable. I nearly suffocated, when I threw the ship’s airlock open. I don’t think I have another hour’s worth of oxygen left, my arm still hurts like hell, I have no clue what this planet’s air even is! I was destined for greatness, and my legacy will likely be lost forever beneath the jungle of this planet with such a detestable tale behind this ship! What good would ever come of a tale like this? None, none at all if people are half as intelligent as I am! My oxygen is finally nearly out. Let my legacy be burried beneath the folliage of this undiscovered planet, Stefan’s Planet.
Fish Stories 