No Dan’s Sky Log- Day #003

I finally left Dogfish Alpha and her desolate twin moons behind me. And what a mistake it was.

The planet had been barren, with a lime green ocean. It was devoid of life except for dangerous, appendage-like vines that sprouted from the ground and snapped at me when I got too close. Caves in the desert offered shelter, but they were as barren inside as the dry, cracked earth (Earth!) above.

I repaired my ship and quickly took my leave of Dogfish Alpha, passing easily through the thin atmosphere. The sun, almost dead, bathed the moons in a sickly, hazy light. Devoid of anything of value, the moons were ironically names Midas One and Two. Irregular, white objects visible on the lunar surface turned out to be markers left by some probably long-dead alien race. Could they have once swum in the ocean on the planet below, before it became acidic and empty?

The markers were indecipherable and didn’t reveal the tale.

I launched back into orbit. My uranium reserves were already low, left unfulfilled by the inhospitable Dogfish Alpha and the rocks caught in her orbit. I barely had fuel to search for another planet in the dying solar system, let alone to transverse the dusty gulf between stars. But I went, resolved to fuel my ship with elements harvested from lonely asteroids, orphaned from the occasional swarms of rocks that would have torn my ship apart.

After hours of repeatedly harvesting fuel from asteroids and expending my reserves to boost into the interstellar void, the milky white sun of Dogfish Alpha still hangs behind me like an omen. The distant stars are pinpricks. Terrestrial hopelessness has given way to extraterrestrial despair.

I could turn back. There could be an oasis somewhere in the desert caves. Some ancient shipwreck at the bottom of that sea might yield a chart of the stars, a hint of some possible destination. But if I found it, could I even read it?

No.

No, I wouldn’t be able to understand it, and no, I cannot turn back.

I chart course for a single star on the horizon, slightly brighter than the rest. The star blinks, beckoning. It could be a pulsar, or an illusion. At my current speed, it is months away, if not years. I continue into the sea of stars.