Exploratory of an Unknown World
By: Alexander Frick
Prolog:
Eliot Soren, an astronaut that has done lots of missions, is tasked to explore an unknown planet. Where things go awry.
Chapter 1: The Silence of Space
Captain Elliot Soren sat in the cockpit of the Star Fire, surrounded by the hush of the cosmos. The control panel blinked softly, casting shadows across his haggard face. He hadn’t shaved in a week, maybe longer, and his eyes carried the weight of ten thousand starlit miles. The emptiness outside the viewport mirrored the growing void inside him.
He fingered the charm on his wrist–a tiny silver flame twined with a miniature rocket, a gift from his children before he left earth. His son, Micah, loved fire, while his daughter, Lyra, dreamed of galaxies. Together, they had named his ship.
But that was fourteen months ago.
He breathed out slowly, “Another week,” he muttered. “One more recon and I go home.”
The mission: Chart planetary system ES-492. The final destination: A promising exoplanet designated Erebos-7 suspected to be rich in biosignatures. He was supposed to perform atmospheric scans, surface imaging, and soil sampling. No contact, no risk.
At least, that was the plan.
Chapter 2: Descent into Erebos-7
Erebos-7 was beautiful from orbit. A streaked blue-and-purple sphere with shimmering cloud banks, rotating slowly under the pale warmth of a binary sun. From space, it looked harmless.
As Star Fire entered the atmosphere, friction painted streaks of red across the heat shield. The ship's AI, CALI (Cognitive Astronautical Logistic Interface), guided the descent. Eliot’s hands hovered above the manual override. Years of spaceflight made him cautious.
“Touchdown sequence initiated,” CALI announced.
The ship landed in a clearing surrounded by towering structures–neither trees nor rocks, but something in between. Organic. Crystalline. They shimmered in iridescent hues and bent gently as if breathing. Wind rustled across the hull.
Eliot suited up and stepped outside. The gravity was slightly heavier than Earth’s, making each step deliberate. His boots crunched over metallic grass. He crouched to take a sample, unaware of the thing watching him from in front of the shadowed ridge.
Chapter 3: The Fractured Signal
Back inside the Star Fire, Eliot initiated his uplink to Earth Command. A brief static buzz, then silence.
“No response,” CALI said. “Signal disruption due to unknown interference.”
Eliot frowned. “Run diagnostics. Try relaying through LunaNet.”
Attempts failed.
He tried not to panic. Erebos-7 was a remote system, and signal lag was expected. Still, the silence gnawed at his nerves.
That night, he dreamed of home–Lyra’s laughter echoing as she drew constellations in the backyard, Micha’s fire experiments nearly setting the garage ablaze. He woke up in a cold sweat.
Outside, something scraped across the hull.
Chapter 4: Contact
Three days passed. Each excursion further into the terrain revealed new wonders–flora that glowed, fauna that shimmered, and bioluminescent rivers that whispered like windchimes. Eliot’s curiosity battled his yearning to leave.
On the fourth day, he saw them.
Figures. Humanoid, translucent, floating above the ground. No suits. No equipment. Just light and motion.
They didn’t approach.
He retreated to the ship and checked CALI’s logs.
“Visual anomalies confirmed,” CALI said. “Analyzing… pattern suggests non-random movement. Intelligent behavior suspected.”
That night, he made a choice.
He walked out into the dark.
Chapter 5: The Light Dwellers
They surrounded him in silence. Ten? Twenty? He lost count.
“Do you understand me?” he asked through his external mic.
No reply. But one floated closer. It extended a limb-no fingers, no flesh, just energy. It touched his chest, and suddenly–
Memories not his own. Oceans of sapphire. Skies lit by three moons. A symphony of thought.
Eliot stumbled back, gasping. “They’re… telepathic,” he whispered.
He returned each night. Gradually, the connection grew clear. The wings, whom he began to call the Light Dwellers, shared images, feelings, and eventually, something like language.
They were caretakers, protectors of the planet. Curious. Peaceful.
But something had changed recently. They showed him visions of black tendrils, spreading like ink across their world.
And they were afraid.
Chapter 6: The Corruption
A week passed.
Eliot found a crater north of the landing site–massive, scorched, and pulsing with black ooze. The trees here were dying. The air was hotter, the ground cracked.
He took samples. Radioactive. Mutagenic. Alive.
Back at Star Fire, CALI analyzed the goo.
“Subcellular structures foreign. Not carbon-based. Possible nano biotic contamination.” she reported.
Then came the tremor.
The ship rattled. Alarms screamed.
Something hit the outer hull.
Eliot grabbed his suit and climbed to the exterior airlock. The Light Dwellers floated above, trying to hold back a surge of black substance that had risen like a wave.
It reached for him.
Chapter 7: Containment Breach
Eliot barely sealed the airlock in time.
The ship groaned under pressure. Systems blinked out. CALI’s voice distorted.
“Containment… breached… hull integrity… 57%...”
“Shut it down,” he said, yanking open manual control. “We’re leaving.”
“No lift possible. Engines fouled. Reactor spike–”
He cursed.
His escape route was gone.
He sank into the pilot’s chair, trembling.
That night, the Light Dwellers appeared inside the ship–phasing through metal like mist. One approached him and touched his wrist charm. A warm pulse traveled up his arm.
Hope.
A message. A gift.
But he didn’t understand it.
Yet.
Chapter 8: The Decision
Eliot had two options: wait for a rescue that might never come… or fight to fix the ship with the help of the beings who didn’t speak words.
He chose the latter.
The Light Dwellers guided him. Not with tolls, but thoughts. They showed him molecular patterns, energy waves, and how to realign the crystals in the ship’s core.
He didn’t sleep. He barely ate.
He modified the reactor’s core using minerals from the crater. It glowed a new color–green-blue, not red.
CALI rebooted.
“Power levels are stable. Communications… reinitializing.”
Eliot grinned for the first time in weeks.
Then he heard it.
“Captian Soren, this is Earth Command. You’re two weeks overdue for check-in.”
Chapter 9: The Farewell
“Requesting Immediate extraction,” he said.
“Copy that, Star Fire. Signal received. ETA for remote crew vessel: three days.”
He looked at the planet–still struggling, still poisoned in places.
The Light Dwellers hovered silent outside.
He stepped into their midst.
“Thank you,” he said.
One reached out to his chest–not physically, but into his memories. He felt Lyra’s hug, Micha’s firetruck laughter.
“Go home.” the being said–not in sound, but in soul.
“But carry us with you.”
Chapter 10: Homebound
Three days later, the rescue craft arrived. Eliot boarded with little more than his charm and a sample of the healing mineral.
The pilot eyed him. “You okay, captain?”
“Better than I’ve been in years.” Eliot responded.
As the Star Fire disappeared into Erebos-7’s atmosphere one last time, he looked back.
The clouds parted briefly.
Light–pale, alien, and beautiful–rose over the planet’s horizon.
He smiled.
“Let’s go home.”
Epilogue: Stardust and Fire
Months later, Earth Command debriefed Eliot, but he never told them everything. The mineral, dubbed Erebite, held energy potential beyond anything known.
Micah turned it into a science project. Lyra asked if stars really could talk.
Eliot never answered.
But sometimes, on quiet nights, he sat under the stars with them and listened.
Because he knew that somewhere, in a world unknown, they were still watching.
Still waiting.
And still full of light.