The Voyage Of The Starship Magellan:

Chapter 1:

By the year 2087, RK Space Systems’ Santa Maria-class FTL transports had surveyed several nearby star systems, however; even though the RKSS transports were adaptable, there was a need for a dedicated FTL exploration ship that specialized in surveying other star systems. Scaled Composites stepped in and proceeded to build such a vessel, a ship that would be faster than any before and equipped with equipment tailor-made for exoplanet surveying.

Interstellar Exploration Institute (IEI) was founded in the mid 2080’s as a means to exploit the lucrative data purchasing market that materialized with the first TL-capable vessels.

With the advent of Zero-Point energy, Trans-Light drives and nano-technology, highly capable starships could be purchased for a few million dollars.

IEI owned several starships and profited off of adventure tours to remote star systems, initial surveys of exoplanets in numerous solar systems and a host of other exploration services.

Under contract from IEI, Scaled Composites built the first Explorer-class private star ship. Utilizing nano-construction technology, these ships were relatively inexpensive to construct and within the budget of many universities, companies, and wealthy individuals.

Governments could readily afford such a ship, but budgets in most of the advanced countries could not and would not be shifted from supporting government programs even though the price was far lower than what many spent on frivolous government services, such as the Helium Reserve.

Space programs were terminated as governments on Earth grappled with the reality of immortality and government’s inability to maintain a welfare state for a populous that didn’t die, except by attrition through suicide or accidents, so it was up to private enterprise to fill the need of exploring and eventually colonizing nearby star systems.

Many believed; that in the long run, this was a much better scenario rather than letting corrupt bureaucracies control our path to the stars as planets began to be colonized, the old governments on Earth really had no interest in diverting any resources to founding new colonies and this allowed the frontier to develop on its own terms, and not on a bureaucrat’s terms.

Chapter 2:

RKSS and Scaled Composites were the two biggest manufacturers in the spaceship construction business. Even though RKSS developed the TL drive and the inertial propulsion systems in starships, Scaled Composites would often upstage them with innovative designs that were quite capable and had nice aesthetic appeal.

RKSS made most of its profits by making rugged space transports, but Scaled was the supplier of choice of starliners and exploration vessels. Their new Explorer series Star Ship was a significant leap in capability over the first generation Santa Maria TL vessels. It used a custom nanocrystal that was more responsive to electrical fields that caused the crystalline structure to propagate negative space-time curvature pulses to generate the Alcubierre warp bubble around the ship for Trans-Light travel.

They also incorporated a two-stage design that took the form of two rings around the ship that propagated these space-time pulses in a conical fashion towards the front of the ship, which focused and enhanced the Alucubierre effects of the TL drive.

This innovation provided a significant boost to the potential speed of this starship, effectively doubling the speed of RKSS Santa Maria-class starship. Scaled would dominate the market for the next few years until RKSS caught up to their technological edge.

           The Starship Magellan

Chapter 3:

The Magellan had been commissioned a month ago and Captain Thomas Alberto had completed the initial shakedown cruise of the new ship and was preparing to embark on a remarkable voyage of discovery, the first official exploration mission for the Magellan and the first multi-star system surveying expedition ever undertaken.

The Magellan was the first ship capable of taking on such a voyage; extra-solar expeditions up until this time were one-shot explorations of a single system.

The ship was one of the bigger ships of the time, over 100 meters in length and capable of sustaining a crew of fifty for two years.

With an impressive top speed of 200c, it could make a circuit of several different stellar systems within a two-year period.

There were a few seasoned scientists aboard, many who had several expeditions aboard the older IEI vessels, the Salya and Calypso. The addition of the Magellan to the IEI fleet brought the institute’s number of ships up to three. The other two were of the old Santa Maria-class ships built by RKSS.

Twenty five of the crew were experienced scientists, another twenty were experienced officers and crew members, and the remaining five were students from several universities that were getting their doctorates in various fields of science.

The whole crew was brimming with enthusiasm, for almost everyone on board, this was the culmination of his or her life’s dream, to be onboard a starship on a voyage to explore the stars.

Samuel Kern, a student in the final two years of getting his PHD in geology from USC, was one such person, he had beat out a long list of applicants to get this opportunity and the day had arrived when the Magellan would depart on its grand voyage.

He had to say his goodbyes to his family and his girlfriend earlier today, his family would be here when he got back, but his girlfriend probably would not.

He would miss her, but he purposely held back from getting too involved with her when this opportunity started to materialize a few months ago.

He signed on to complete his PHD on the Magellan with an apprenticeship to the other geologists onboard, nothing could surpass the experience of exploring other planets with other experienced geologists.

In all likelihood, they would see geological forces on these planets at work that no one else had ever seen before and their team would be the first to record and analyze it.

With the Magellan’s built-in interferometer and spectroscopic systems, they could get very detailed imaging and spectroscopic breakdown of elements of an entire planet’s surface in just a few hours while in orbit about it.

The intercom interrupted Sam’s thoughts. “The Captain will be addressing the crew in the main conference room in ten minutes, please don’t be late.” Sam grabbed his PDA and made his way from his cabin to the conference room.

Chapter 4:

The entire crew had gathered into the conference room, Sam made his way over to a group of geologists towards the front of the room. They were involved in shoptalk about the upcoming voyage, before Sam could get in on the conversation; the Captain entered the room and the talk quieted down.

The Captain stepped to a podium at the front of the room and began his address. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to embark upon a grand adventure into the unknown. Up until now, previous interstellar voyages have only visited single star systems; our university sponsors have tasked us to undertake a voyage of eight different star systems. If you’ll turn your attention to the display, you’ll see the list of star systems and the order in which we’ll explore them.”

1. Epsilon Indi
2. Lacaille 8760
3. L 347-014
4. CD-46 11540
5. Delta Pavonis
6. Beta Hydri
7. Zeta Tucane
8. p Eridani 3

“These star systems are grouped in the same general direction in the galactic plane, the Magellan will make a circuit of all of these systems on our voyage. Many are G-class stars like our sun, others are binaries and of various classes such as the binary K-class stars such as p Eridani A&B. We believe some of these systems might have life-bearing planets around them and others are unlikely to have any, but will have value for advancing our understanding of cosmology such as the red dwarf star L 347-014.”

“We don’t know what we’ll find around these stars, but it will be exciting every step of the way.”

“We’ll be departing within the hour; with Epsilon Indi being the first stop, it will take a little over three weeks to get there with the Magellan’s speed of 175c. Almost half of our 15-month voyage will be spent in transit between star systems and the remaining time will be in star systems conducting research.”

“ I expect we will have enough data to analyze during our transits between star systems to keep us busy. The bridge is big enough to accommodate most of the crew, so if you want to be on the bridge when we depart, feel free to do so.”

The Captain then left the room and made his way to the bridge to prepare for the Magellan’s departure.

Chapter 5:

Samuel Kern’s log, Day 1:

The whole crew is very upbeat; we were given a grand send off from the space dock. Some tears were shed as many of us said goodbye to our loved ones as we would not see them again for over a year. Most of us gathered on the bridge as the Magellan left the dock, the ship left quite smoothly and at a brisk pace, I was surprised at just how nimble this ship is. For a 102 meter long vessel, it can accelerate quite well, it was just a matter of minutes after leaving dock that the trans-light drive was engaged, it was very smooth, the only way to notice the ship was moving faster than light was the droning sound that reverberated throughout the corridors of the ship.

Day 22:

It’s been a non-eventful 3 weeks, we are over ten light years from Earth, many of the crew have had difficulty adjusting to our remoteness from all of humanity as the distance from Earth has increased, being so deep in interstellar space, Sol is not that bright at this distance and difficult to pick out among the stars. Just how far we are removed from our home really impacts you when looking out the window trying to find our tiny yellow star ten light years away.

Day 24:

As we’ve neared our destination, you can sense the excitement of the entire crew by the conversations during meal times as well as the general attitude of everyone. The feelings of remoteness have been replaced by an excitement to explore. We arrive at Epsilon Indi in a few hours; Earth-based telescopes have spotted a potential habitable planet in orbit about this star years ago. We will soon set foot upon this world in which no human has before.

The Mecha Exploring Aridulus

Chapter 6:

 With only a month scheduled for exploration of each star system, the Magellan trained its telescopes on all of the planets of the system for a quick imaging of them from a point above the ecliptic, which yielded a quick survey of the major surface features of all of the planets. The ship then moved towards the habitable exoplanet, even from a distance, the images of this world showed patches of green on this surface; thirty percent of it was covered with water. This was a desert planet with large seas scattered across its landscape, but no oceans, which gave it more surface area than Earth.

Several cargo landers departed from Magellan’s aft docking bay door as they made their way down to the surface of the planet. Sam, with one of his fellow-students, was assigned to the explorer mecha along with three other crewmembers.

The explorer mecha was a large robot with two legs that stood seven meters high with a miniature lab inside its hull. It was large enough to comfortably house five for a short time as they made their way across the surface of the planet studying the biology and geology of the world.

The lander set down on the surface and a hatch opened on the back to offload the mecha. As Sam stepped off onto the surface the heat from the orange sun overhead immediately assaulted him, it was probably over 100 degrees on the surface even though they were at a northerly latitude. 

Several pillars of rock towered over them, a multitude of them stretched off into the horizon. This world must have once held an ocean that spanned most of its surface; the heat from its sun must have slowly cooked the water off of its surface, leaving only a handful of large seas.

At only a third of an astronomical unit from its star, Epsilon Indi loomed large in the sky, tinting the planets surface with an orange color. A few cirrus clouds in the sky had an orange tint to them, which gave the illusion of a sunset even though the sun was high overhead.

Sam and his teammates climbed into the mecha, he was thankful to get out of the heat, perhaps it would be cooler once they reached the shores of the sea that was twenty kilometers to the north, they would have plenty of time to get there as the days on this world endured for 30 hours.

Chapter 7:

Samuel Kern’s log day 53:

What an exciting time this last month has been! We have cataloged hundreds of plants and animals along with the spectacular geographic features as we explored the surface in the mecha. The countless rocky spires that reach to the sky dwarf any found on Earth. Many rocky monoliths that look like the Devils Tower back on Earth are scattered across the landscape, many of them bigger.

The seas are a clear blue, with numerous marine life in them. The gentle breezes that come off of the sea make it quite pleasant there. The weather is quite calm on this world, there was many a night we sat upon the top of a rocky spire and watched the large orange sun set upon a calm sea that looked as glass. The sun creates a plethora of purple hues in the atmosphere as twilight sets across the land and sea, the beauty of the moment lasts longer because of the slow rotation of the planet.

The forests that lined the large seas, and the rivers that ran between the seas, rivaled the densest I’ve seen on Earth. When we entered a river valley with trees a week ago, the orange sun reflecting off of the bluish tint on the tree leaves produced a scene of such beauty that I will never forget it.

I think we have found an excellent place for colonization, as we begin preparing to leave this world, I found that I have grown fond of it. The crewmembers have discussed giving a name to this place, as many of them have grown as fond of it as I have, we have decided to call it “Aridulus”.

 It is a planet of spectacular desolation in some places and breathtaking abundance in other areas. It would not be hard to call such a world “home”.

The planet Aridulus

Chapter 8:

Samuel Kern’s log day 65:

The trip to Lacaille 8760 has been brief, as it was only 4.1 light years from Epsilon Indi. The crew is in high spirits as we prepare to embark upon the surface of a previously unknown planet that is in a close orbit about Lacaille. Considering the dim luminosity of this red dwarf as well as the close orbit of this planet, I’m not too surprised Earth-based observations overlooked this planet. The planet does however orbit within a narrow habitable zone for this star; it should be interesting to see what kind of planet would evolve in such an alien stellar environment.

Day 66:

This is truly a day for the history books, our ship telescopes have completed the first high-res imaging of this planets surface, we have found what appears to be large alien ruins in several locations on the surface. There also appears to be living plants on this world as well, which is a considerable find in and of itself. The ecosystem seems to be substantial enough to have created a breathable atmosphere, so we will be setting down on the surface for a thorough exploration tomorrow.

                 Ruins On Vetustus

Day 67:

The expedition set down among an area that had showed signs of large-scale ruins from orbit. There would be categorizing of biology, and other research tasks performed, but a survey of the ruins had top priority.

Sam stepped from the landing craft onto a striking alien landscape; the red dwarf star Lacaille 8760 dominated the sky since the planet orbited almost ten times closer to its dim sun than Earth did from Sol.

The hue from the red dwarf tinted the landscape with a pink color; it was bright, yet it seemed as if it was twilight, which had a disorienting effect. The plants were mostly a dark reddish-black color with some blues mixed in, perhaps the colors were the result of some form of natural defense from the heightened radiation levels when the star would flare on occasion. The plant life looked like shadows upon the landscape, which lent itself even further to the alien feel of the environment.

They landed outside the ancient alien city, which towered above them, as they moved into the city, Sam spotted a building that hovered in mid-air. Without even dating these ruins it was apparent that the building had silently hovered there for what must have been centuries as long vines ran down from the bottom of it and growth from bushes and vines encapsulated the structures on top of it.

Sam and his friend Vicky, were on the shuttle that went up to the structure, along with the other 3 team members, Vicky was close to getting her PHD in xenoarcheology so she was a natural choice to explore such a place. She requested that Sam go and he certainly didn’t argue with that as he wanted to help investigate this alien structure. The rest of the team consisted of experienced IEI crewmembers.

The buildings resembled a cathedral with four arches that radiated from the upper part of the central structure and it sat upon a hemi-spherical base with a flattened area on top, which the buildings resided. The shuttle landed on one a landing pad on top of the base, which had a narrow walkway that led down into the structure.

The team disembarked from the shuttle and made its way to walkway, as soon as a team member got close to an entryway, the doors slid open. This was going a lot easier than anyone expected, which made all on the team even more apprehensive about entering the structure.

Putting aside their trepidation, they made their way towards the center of one of the larger structures, even after all of these years the machinery still functioned and the interior of the building was quite ornate. Quite beautiful pictures of machinery and symbols marked the walls, nothing that showed the creators of this place was found though.

A large auditorium was found in the central area, as Vicki stepped out onto the floor into the area, she floated upwards to the ceiling; she then pushed off of the ceiling to move herself back towards the ground towards the other side of the auditorium. As soon as she reached the other side and floated past the auditorium’s rim, gravity returned to normal and she landed gently on her feet. She just looked over at the others with a smile and shrugged.

The team watched the whole event with alarm at first, but it quickly changed to amusement as it became apparent that Vicky was in no danger. The physicist on the team, George Rico commented “It seems that the builders of this place have a technology that can control gravity, its probably the same mechanism that keeps this place afloat, it’s absolutely remarkable that the mechanisms are still in functioning order.”

It didn’t take long before the other team members stepped out into the auditorium and began floating around the area. The team leader, Shelly Benning, reminded them after a couple of minutes of play that they had more exploring to do.

The rest of the day was spent going through the place, the power and propulsion generators were found, but it was not going to be easy to determine how these generators did what they did as no moving parts were found and nothing hinted at their operation. No one on the team wanted to risk doing anything other than passive readouts on these devices since it could potentially bring the whole building crashing down.

A small shuttle was found in a lower area of the structure, perhaps the builder’s equivalent to a garage, it was decided that the best way to get clues to this technology would be to simply take the shuttle with them back to the Magellan. They called for a larger transport to come up to their location and managed to load the shuttle into its hold.

The next four weeks were very busy for the crew as they categorized the biology of the planet and documented as much as they could of the alien ruins. No sign of what happened to the builders could be found amidst these ruins, the dating of the structures

put their time of construction at close to 1,000,000 years ago. The builders were probably long gone before the dawn of our civilization.

The planet had a unique and stark beauty; the alien landscape seemed taylor-made to possess the mysteries that lie on its surface. The crew coined the name of Vetustus for the planet, which meant “old” or “ancient” in Latin.

As news of the Magellan expedition’s discoveries on Vetustus reached Earth, a firestorm of public and scientific interest was created. Other institutes were already talking of sending expeditions there, there were even calls for a permanent colony of scientists to be stationed there and some governments voiced support of funding continued expeditions there. An expedition to Vetustus was unlikely to line a beauracrat’s pockets or gain a politician votes, as soon as the interest waned, governments would go back to wasting money on the usual things they always have, but there would be other private institutes anxious to make a name for themselves and Vetustus would soon have more visitors.

A fundamental question had been answered now, intelligent life did indeed exist on other planets besides Earth, but the questions of what happened to the ones that had built this civilization remained. Did they die out or did they leave this planet or were they even native inhabitants on this planet?

These were questions that could take decades to answer, it just wasn’t within the scope of the Magellan’s mission to find all of the answers, but it was definitely part of the mission to raise new questions.

There were certainly going to be follow-up expeditions to this world and these expeditions would eventually unlock its secrets, but the crew of the Magellan’s time of discovery on Vetustus was at an end and it was time to move on to the next star system.

The mysteries of this world would linger in the minds of the crew, for most of them, the universe had changed forever, but new discoveries awaited them on distant worlds.

Chapter 8:

Day 102:

After 17 days we have finally arrived in the system of star L 347-014, another unexpected planet was found about this star. The planet orbits very close to the star and is scoured with intense radiation from L 347, we’ll probably move into a distant orbit to perform a high–res image survey of its surface, we definitely won’t be sending a landing party down to this burnt out cinder of a world.

Day 104:

As we were finishing our scans of the surface of L 347-014b, we witnessed a cataclysmic event. A solar flare erupted from L 347, the loop of the flare crossed the space between it and the planet and struck the surface, we watched these events unfold in realtime from the telescopes of the Magellan.

The area that was struck was over 1000 square kilometers, the flare heated the impacted region tremendously and caused a large scale tectonic shift. The entire region broke off from the larger continent, shifted southward about 30 kilometers and then fractured in several places.

I’m thankful we weren’t on the surface of this world when this happened, our geology team estimates that earthquakes of unprecedented magnitude shook the entire planet, the region itself became a red-hot, irradiated hell after the solar flare seared the area. All of the continents underwent shifts as this event took place; we monitored the collapse of three volcanic areas that skirted the rim of the area, which set off large eruptions from the shattered remnants of the volcanoes.

It’s hard to imagine such a destructive event in human terms; I believe we witnessed one part of a catastrophic series of events that will ultimately destroy this planet.

Surface of the hellish exoplanet in the L347 system

Day 132:

We have continued monitoring events on this planet the past month, a chain reaction of volcanic eruptions have spread planet wide and have racked this planet with geologic violence. We have witnessed one act in the cosmic drama of this dying planet, we humans are rightly proud of our technical accomplishments, but it seems nature is sometimes eager to provide a display of its incredible power to remind us how small we are.

After being in this bleak system the past month I’m glad to be moving on, I think the rest of the crew feels the same way. Witnessing this ongoing cataclysm has reminded everyone onboard just how easily life could be taken from us. I find myself thinking of home now and look forward to stepping onto the soft green grass of Earth once again.

Chapter 9:

Day 147:

We have arrived once again in a system with a red dwarf star, system CD-46 11540, astronomers on Earth detected a substantial asteroid belt about this star and our telescopes have confirmed this. There does not seem to be much else of note in this system.

Day 177:

We have surveyed and charted a large number of asteroids in this system, it turned out to be good fortune for us as we were able to find asteroids rich in the basic elements that our nano-shops use for food, machinery and tool building. We replenished our stores and are now ready to set sail for Delta Pavonis.

Day 198:

We have arrived at Delta Pavonis, Earth-based telescopes observed a planet about this star with possible signs of life years ago, we have confirmed their observations, the biological activity on this planet is quite substantial.

Our initial surface imaging has shown this to be a world covered with large islands, separated by large river channels between them, water seems to saturate the land areas since nothing rises far above the level of the large channels of water. This has led to large wetlands covering the surface; we will go down to the surface tomorrow.

Day 199:

This world is alive with life, and unfortunately insects, an alien type of fly has taken a liking to us humans and we have been besieged by these pests, as soon as we offload the mecha explorer, I’ll be staying inside it as much as possible.

Day 219:

We have covered a lot of territory in the mecha and categorized hundreds of species of animals; the other teams are categorizing the insect and marine life and have witnessed as much bio-diversity as we have.

 We have followed along one of the large river channels that lie to the west of the large island that we are camped.

 We have seen several species of large predatory amphibians that live close to the banks of the river. They lie there in the mists that come off of the river, waiting for their prey in shallow pools or muddy areas, their wait is usually not a long one as there is an abundance of life on this world. They are every bit as lethal as crocodiles back on Earth, but some of these predators have unique means of catching their prey.

One of these species can walk upright and has prehensile claws on its front legs, when standing; a fully-grown adult stands 2 ½ meters high. We have labeled them humorously as “land sharks”, we have seen them walking about through the trees stalking their prey during the evening. They seem to possess intelligence higher than any Earth reptile; we’ve spotted them on one occasion using a rock to break open a hard-shelled mollusk.

None of our team has dared to venture beyond the mecha, these “land sharks” aren’t something I would ever want to meet face-to-face, to see them stalking about at night, stealthily between the trees gives us the creeps.

They look like something out of an old horror show and I’m sure we would make a nice treat for them. Humans would not last long on this world without technology.

Day 229:

We have been busy this last month categorizing the multitude of life forms on this world; I suspect its bio-complexity even surpasses the Earths. It is a fascinating but deadly world; I think swampworld would be an appropriate name for it.

It’s a dreary place, with fog and mist enshrouding the surface most of the time. The sun of Delta Pavonis would rarely penetrate the fog; I’m ready to visit the next star system.

(The world would eventually be named Calidus by the researchers that performed follow up missions a year later)

Exoplanet Calidus

Day 250:

We have arrived at Beta Hydri and have found a planet in the habitable zone, our preliminary images suggest that water covers 99% of its surface, there are only a handful of islands that rise above the surface of the water.

Day 251:

We have landed on one of the biggest islands on this planet; we will explore the island with the mecha. The aquatic team will have more than enough work to do for the next four weeks.

This planet reminds me of Earth, it looks the same from the shoreline of the island as it does from the shoreline of an island on Earth. Since Beta Hydri is a yellow dwarf just like our sun, it almost feels as if we’re back on Earth. Once we offloaded the mecha and the subs, we spent the rest of the day relaxing on the beach.

Day 271:

We have made a circuit of the entire island and have crisscrossed through the center in several places. The geology seems to be similar to Earths; there is a small mountain that stands about 400 meters high towards the center of the island. We’ve used the mountain as a shield more than once from the tropical storms that periodically hit the island, it seems as if the weather is more active here than on Earth.

The biosphere compares similarly to Earth as we have found many bird-like creatures that circle the sky continuously searching for their prey.

The ocean is quite complex and deeper than the oceans on Earth, our aquatic team has no chance at a thorough survey of these oceans, they are too vast for a single team to explore.

They have found some very large aquatic life in the murky depths of this vast ocean and I’m sure that their explorations have barely touched all of the secrets that lie beneath these waves.

This is another fine planet that would be good for settlers.

Day 282:

We have left the Beta Hydri system and are now on our way to Zeta Tucane, 6.7 light years from Beta Hydri, it will take only 14 days to get there.

Chapter 10:

Day 296:

We have entered into the Zeta Tucane system; the star is a yellow dwarf like our sun. We have moved into orbit about a planet in the habitable zone, it’s quite a unique world, as it seems to be crisscrossed with an extensive river system yet there are no oceans. A series of seas and interconnected rivers distribute the water throughout the surface of this world. We will make landfall tomorrow.

Day 297:

We have offloaded the mecha and the inertial sleds have been prepared for reconnaissance flights tomorrow. We have set up camp and look forward to the exploration of this planet.

Day 310:

We have catalogued numerous species of plant and animal life on this planet; the distributed water system of this world has virtually eliminated any deserts on its surface. The forests are a thick green blanket on the rolling hills of this planet, this seems to be a geologically quiet world as there are no mountain ranges comparable to those on Earth. Many of the plants and animals bear some resemblances to the species of our prehistoric past.

Day 312:

Vicky was relaxing some distance away from the mecha after a long day of exploration when we heard her scream; we ran over the hill and found a large animal that somewhat resembled a large Earth armadillo close to her munching on grass.

It was a herbivore; fortunately, and it just stood there and looked stupidly at Vicky as it munched grass.

Luckily, this world possesses nothing like that nightmare that stalked the surface of the world in the Delta Pavonis system. Most of the species we have found are herbivores; this world is almost as friendly of a place as Aridulus.

Day 326:

We have decided to extend our stay on this planet for one extra day for the purpose of celebrating, we have reached the most distant of all of the worlds on our voyage, we are now 28 light years from Earth. Our next destination at p Eridani 3 is 6.7 light years away from here, but 1.4 light years closer to Sol, after we explore that star system, we will end our voyage and return to our home.

As Zeta Tucane set upon this world, we enjoyed a feast and some music, we all felt a sense of accomplishment for the discoveries made and thankful for no lives being lost on our voyage.

As the celebration faded, many of us sat out under the night sky of Alveus ,the name the crew have bestowed on this planet. We tried to pick out our final destination, and found the orange binary star system in a constellation of stars that were unrecognizable since many of the groups of stars in our night sky on Earth had shifted substantially because of our distance from Earth.

We gave up on trying to make sense out of star groups in the sky of Alveus and turned in, ready to begin the journey to our final destination on this epic voyage.

Chapter 11:

Day 341:

The crew had become somewhat dejected, since we have arrived in the p Epsilon system knowing that this is the last stop on our journey, but spirits soon picked up as we made our way towards p Epsilon B, the hottest star in the p Epsilon system.

A brown dwarf orbited the star, with a highly elliptical orbit that brought it inside and out of the habitable zone of p Epsilon B. We found a large ice-covered planet in orbit about the brown dwarf and charted it.

There appears to be evidence of liquid water underneath the icy surface as we found evidence of recently active volcanoes that ejected water in their eruptions. 

There were obviously enough tidal forces at work to generate heat underneath the ice, so it would provide a consistent environment for any life forms under its icy shell as it went through its eccentric orbit about Epsilon B. This would be something a follow-up expedition would investigate further, but the Magellan’s purpose was only to provide a cursory examination of such planets.

Day 351:

We have approached a dual planet that orbits about p Epsilon A, both are similar in their makeup; one possesses a couple of large seas with the rest a barren desert covering most of the surface, the other has four seas and seems to have a more lush climate.

They are tidally locked to each other as they rotate about one another and are separated by distance of 140,000 Km.

 They both have a breathable amount of oxygen in the atmosphere; we may have to extend the mission another month to explore both of these planets.

Day 352:

We have landed on Epsilon Aa, the designation given to this planet by our team.

Since our mission has been extended for a month, we will be exploring Epsilon Ab in thirty days.

Epsilon Ab hangs in the sky like a large marble with streaks of brown, green and blue in it. It forms a quite striking view since it is as large as Earth, yet half the Earth-moon distance from Epsilon Aa.

We have spent the last few hours plodding across the surface of Epsilon Aa in the mecha, we have been categorizing the various life forms and geological features. The vast rolling plains of dunes are testament to this world’s arid climate; few species of plants or animals inhabit the area.

Day 383:

We have loaded the mecha back into the transports and are ready for the short trip to Epsilon Ab. This world is more sparsely populated with life than Aridulus, but the areas near the two large seas are quite hospitable with limited forests inhabiting the areas in which rivers flow into the seas from the nearby mountains.

Day 384:

We have at last arrived at our final destination on Epsilon Ab, this is a more fertile world than Aa; with four seas that are a bit larger than the two on Epsilon Aa, this world has more abundant life. We unloaded the mecha from the transport under the tall mountains that bordered one of p Epsilon Ab’s northern oceans.

The moist winds from the sea caused large cloudbanks to form around the peaks of the mountains that bordered this body of water.

Day 390:

The mecha has made its way across the expansive white sand beaches of this sea on its eastern border, as we have trudged across the landscape numerous marine and avian life forms have been categorized. One avian species was about the size of a prehistoric Earth pterodactyl, but had a colorful feather plumage, they seemed somewhat intelligent as more than one of them would fly above us and follow along the mecha as it stomped across the landscape, it seemed to be out of curiosity, much as the dolphins on Earth that would follow ships.

Day 401:

We have made our way past hundreds of miles of landscape and we have discovered a large nesting ground for our avian friends, they seem to have some tool-using capability, we have seen crude stick structures built by them for shelter. There seems to be an organizational structure to this area, for want of a better word, I think we could call this a village.

This puts their intelligence at least as high as Earth dolphins, if not higher, we will have to tread lightly on this world when our first colonies are established here, we will need to give these avians plenty of room to live. 

Day 414:

The last day of our voyage of discovery has arrived, the crew gathered on the beach after we had finished loading the last of the transports. It was a solemn moment, as we all knew that it would be some time; if ever, before we gazed upon an alien world again.

Someone brought some Champaign to commemorate the moment; we gave our final toast to completing the voyage safely and looked around us at this beautiful world one last time.

The white sand beaches had slow, gentle waves washing up on the shore. As the beach ended a hundred meters inland, a green prairie with rolling hills began which possessed a field of bright blue, flower-like fauna that covered most of the lush green hills. Epsilon Ab rose slightly above the snow-capped mountain peaks in the distance under a subtly green-blue sky as a gentle breeze blew inland from the sea.

As we looked for the final time, each crewmember slowly climbed aboard the transport and when the final one was aboard, the transport silently lifted off of the surface. The subdued and silent manner of the transport’s flight mirrored our own mood as we ascended to the Magellan.

Day 463:

Only one week from home and the crew is anxious about touching down on the green hills of Earth again.

God how I long to do this again, me and Vicky have decided to put in our application to the IEI as soon as we complete our degrees. Maybe we will both get the chance to explore these alien landscapes again, I have found a good friend in Vicky and would like to get closer to her. The only way any relationship could work with us is if we can explore the stars together.

 This has been an epic voyage of discovery; the wonders that we have seen will keep scientists busy for generations, especially the mysteries of Vetustus.

Very few people have the chance to venture beyond their planet, much less stand on the surface of several planets and behold a world under an alien sky.

The universe seems to be filled with life, most of the planets we have explored that orbit within their star’s habitable zone seemed to possess life; I’m willing to bet even the ice covered worlds will prove to have life when we are able to pierce their icy shells with our probes.

Intelligent, advanced civilizations seem to exist, or at least have existed.

Our dating puts shards from the ruins of the buildings on Vetustus at over a million years old. It’s incredible to think that a race of intelligent beings plied interstellar space eons before the dawn of human civilization and yet no vestige of them lives this day.

I wonder where our future explorations will lead us and what wonders we will find.

Just as the sailing vessels of ages past plied the oceans and discovered new lands, we are now sailing this limitless frontier that is virtually infinite in its scope.

 This age of discovery will never end and I hope that I will soon return to the stars.

Final log entry of Samuel Kerns, on the first voyage of the Magellan.

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