Ater Astrum

Ater Astrum

CAPTAIN’S LOG 27:

*inaudible*… Hang on… I’m… readjusting the microphone. One sec- *inaudible*

That’s better.

I was told, when I was younger, that the vacuum of space was always expanding. I saw it as this star-filled ocean: it grew and breathed by reaching further into the vacuity at the edge of the universe. As I got older, I tracked the stars through the clouds each night, and I saw that this living void… it held all of existence in its arms. It connected dreams and reality and it was waiting to be explored and lived in. It embraced me when my world didn’t.

I’ve found the more you indulge your cosmorganic wanderlust, the easier the cold and darkness become. I know the universe and space travel doesn’t really work like that, but I would love it if it did.

The route to Obcasio-2, isn’t… as scenic as I’d hoped. This is supposed to be the new planet, the next chance. 'The oasis in the nothingness', that's what the government fliers pushing us there told us.

My few friends, who I only knew from their husky voices across the sea of radio waves, wait for me to part the clouds and join them in the colony. Perhaps, with them, I’ll find a better life. One not submerged in the dull, and frankly pathetic, imitations of life that we have known as our existence.

But alone, on this spaceship, the Icarus-3, this journey is not easy. I have to keep working.

122 hours until landing.

LOG ENDED

ICARUS-3 SHIP LOG:

Navigation: Coordinates to OBCASIO-2 received from [TSEA]. Route reconfigured.

All systems operational.

CAPTAIN’S LOG 28:

I have finally been able to glimpse Obcasio-2. It’s approximately 70 hours away.

It isn’t what I thought.

It’s a swirling, grey mass, choked entirely by volcanic smog. I don’t think there’s water or lakes or oceans. It’s utterly devoid of life.

I didn’t think… it’s not what I expected. They called it ‘The Second Chance’, a sanctuary overlooking the centre of the Milky Way galaxy, but I never realised how barren it sounded. Civilisation is being built below the surface, but I just… I can’t subject myself to a life kept from the dance of the stars. From the symphony of the unknown. The warmth of a summer twilight.

‘Obcasio’ is said to mean hope. Is that what the people living on it have learned to feel?

But there are no trees. Just like Earth.

War-borne radiation in the soil poisoned the home-world. Poisoned people. Hollowed them out. Turned desperation into deathly madness.

My dad was only six years old when the last trees on earth burned.

My generation has only seen photos and paintings of forests, of trees and plants. But, I loved, and hated, reading about them. I yearned to comprehend how nature-loving poets could love even barren pockets of nature; how they could be fascinated by the sparkling glimmers of a winter-worn garden. Trying to understand the beauty and potential that they could see was impossible.

Still, I boasted of the old, dormant seeds given to me from my grandparent’s burnt orange grove. I kept them in a small locket, which was once shaped like a golden heart, now blackened from ash and dented by pain. Those little white seeds will never bloom, but I would pretend they could, if they only I could find them the right ground to sit and breathe in. I think I still believe that.

As I grew, I kept travelling, trying to find the beauty that I could never see. Trying to touch that unobtainable hope.

But, that hope had died, long ago. It disappeared when everything I loved faded and wilted before my eyes.

Earth became a desolate rock, but how is Obcasio-2 different? Humanity corrupts all.

There has to be somewhere else. Another way. A different life.

This… ‘paradise’, it was my only hope.

This cannot be it.

LOG ENDED

ICARUS-3 SHIP LOG:

8/10 systems operational [Radiation Shields at 78%. Requires immediate maintenance].

Icarus-3 automated MAYDAY signal attempt to [Obcasio-7 TSEA control centre]: failed.

CAPTAIN’S LOG 29:

I haven’t slept in 38 hours.

But I’ve found it.

I’ve found another way, another place. I found it. I don’t know why they haven’t gone there yet, how they haven’t seen it. It’s beautiful.

An old map from the first age of special explorations. Sitting in the silver frame of an ancient photo of the first Space Sailors, a picture stashed in the hull - the blueprinted map showed me the secret. Showed me, alone.

I’ve chartered the course to Mentior-13.

I felt that planet’s light, for just a breath, for a moment, and it’s… incredible. It winks at me through the asteroid belts, through that chasm of blackness, and I can practically feel that blue air from here. The ship’s readings showed me that the whole surface is enveloped by lakes and forests and rivers and mountains.

An eternal springtime, under a sky always alight with the astronomical, diamond tapestry of the Milky Way.

I never dreamed of it. It’s the Omphalos, the centre of our galaxy, and I’m going to make it there.

But I just can’t believe it.

A cosmotellurian utopia.

This – this is the new chance. Free from our history and our destruction and our power. I can make it there. Trying to reroute trajectory, but there’s interference with the systems. Resistance from the ship. I’ll fix it.

LOG ENDED.

ICARUS-3 SHIP LOG:

Navigation: Unauthorised manual override [rerouted to Sagittarius A*].

8/10 systems operational [Radiation Shields at 48%][Oxygen Filters Malfunctioning]

Cause of disruption: Unauthorised redirection of power.

Incoming transmission from [Obcasio-7 TSEA control centre]:

“Icarus-3 your course changed. Reconfigure your trajectory, you’re aimed towards Sagittarius A*. Your systems require immediate attention. If assistance is needed, signal in.”

CAPTAIN’S LOG 30:

28 hours until proximity.

The Terran Space Exploration Association's outpost at Obcasio-2 were trying to contact me, but all I got was unimportant… nothings.

And there’s this noise… I need to shut off communications to stop this… droning cacophony screaming over the speakers.

It’s impossible to concentrate. To think.

I need to shut it all down.

I’ll sleep when I touch the ground on Mentior-13. I wonder if, for once, I will dream.

I haven’t seen the planet yet, but I know it’s there. I’ll rest soon. I’ll find peace from it all.

I’m glad I left my books on Earth. On Mentior-13, I want to discover my own journeys, for myself. Where I’m going, I don’t need those… pieces of junk that I once worshipped somehow.

Worthless, broken, useless mementos of a bygone age, bygone people.

They’re dead now, better off buried.

Like Obcasio-2 and Earth.

But does this feel real?

If it is, why is it so dark in here?

So cold?

LOG ENDED.

ICARUS-3 SHIP LOG:

4/10 systems operational. Failing: [Radiation Shields][Oxygen Filters][Pressure Controls][Lights][Navigation][Heat Shields]

Incoming transmission from [Obcasio-7 TSEA control centre]:

“Icarus-3 rectify trajectory immediately. Reconfigure your shields, you’re aimed towards Black Hole SagittariusA*. We cannot offer assistance. Good luck."

CAPTAIN’S LOG 31:

11 hours remaining until proximity. No, until impact.

And I’ve finally seen it.

It’s no planet.

I decoded the messages. They were right. It’s the black hole.

All the dancers in this galactic ballroom orbit around it, no matter their strength to stay away.

It is my undoing.

I was too swept up longing for a second chance to see the truth.

I’m incapable of changing course.

There’s limited oxygen in the cockpit. Too much radiation has breached the shields.

I’m no Achilles, no Aristotelian hero.

I never knew that a fatal flaw lived within me.

But I can feel it in my mind, its claws ripping apart my soul. This dark fracture is determined to haunt me – its grapple is too strong for me to fight. I tried to ignore it… but it tricked me. It used that sliver of hope against me.

This morbid, despairing flaw in me… it hungered for the beautiful, the picturesque, the perfect.

I thought I alone was a disciple, following the truths of nature and life.

A pathfinder.

The saviour.

But now…

Now, I’m simply gone.

LOG ENDED