Data Log Recovery Project
Ark 07
Date Created: May 24, 3050AD
Entry Start . . . . . .
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We were trying to go to Mars. Six centuries past, in 2450AD, NASA had sent various samples of hardy molds and other flora to the red planet in an attempt to terraform it – it worked. Sure, we had a space colony now which orbited Earth, but it was proving difficult to maintain the sophisticated systems that sustained human life. Why all this? Because Earth was terribly overpopulated, and with the short-sightedness of society as a whole, global warming had made living there harder than anyone had ever thought possible. Add to that overpopulation, and, well, you’ve got yourself an all in all unpleasant experience.
It was 3050AD when we departed for Mars in our fleet of twenty-one vessels that were aptly named Arks. One vessel had carried sixty of each species that would support a rich ecosystem, all of them cryogenically frozen – biologists said more would be better, but sixty was the minimum viable gene pool. The remaining twelve vessels carried a mere 2.1 million out of the then-current world population of 40 billion – that was, 105,000 people per ship, cryogenically frozen, discounting the crews needed to maintain the colossal vessels.
We were en route to Mars starting February 8th. The solar flare had been predicted, and the ships were more than sufficiently shielded for it – what no one had anticipated was the stars vanishing around us, and for all 21 ships to be sucked into a black void. Our systems went haywire, and my entire crew was in a panic throughout the event, unable to get anything to respond. I wasn’t at the helm to witness everything, but I remember hearing a bang shake the entire ship, loud enough that to this day I am still deaf. One of our engines blew out, and we had to hit the emergency release systems to dump it into space to put out the fire. We could function on one engine, but we found soon enough even that wouldn’t be necessary.
After I was treated in the med bay, I was allowed to go to the helm with an escort. I wasn’t the only one there standing slack-jawed, staring out the uncovered windows. At first I thought I was looking at Earth, but the lands were all wrong shapes, and this planet was like none in the solar system I was familiar with – three moons? Once we had radio contact again, I saw some crew members scrambling to get in touch with the other ships. Though I could no longer hear, I was familiar with the controls they had to use.
The obvious question was: Where were we?
After the planet’s orbit drew us in, rendering every last bit of electrical equipment useless and forcing us to crash-land haphazardly across the globe, we had our answer.
Although I could not hear, a voice rang out in my mind, and I thought: telepathy. These strange aliens have telepathy. And the planet’s name was Vruanhai. They called us intruders, aliens, freaks.
Diplomatic relations are still ongoing, but it’s starting to look positive. These folks look like they walked out of a fantasy novel – someone called them elves, but they took offense to that and insisted to be addressed as ‘shadreagh;’ the particular breed we spoke to were eleshad. There are beings here similar to vampires as well, but living, and quite different. I’m told there are many more species, but with my disability, I haven’t been allowed to wander outside our makeshift Ark-remnant habitat. Instead I’ve been reduced to chef duty, but everyone likes my cooking, so it’s not a terrible occupation.
What time I have to myself, I spend writing. So far, it looks like there’s no hope we’ll ever get our systems back online. We’re stuck living in our repurposed ships, and we’ve had to wake up the thousands of people who were locked in cryo-sleep, or they would have died. Thankfully the pods had backup mechanical systems that made manual intervention possible in the event of an electrical failure. Thawing was a more difficult matter, but some generous eleshad helped us with that part with what I can only describe as magic.
We are very fortunate. We have landed on one of the major continents, near the central-northern part judging by the map, and the natives have been kind to us despite tensions. They supply us with food and materials, as we had initially been relying on refrigeration to keep much of our stock from spoiling, which of course was no longer a possibility. What surprises me to this day is that the atmosphere is friendly to us. It’s a little more nitrogen-heavy than Earth’s, and the gravity is stronger, so it took some adapting, but so far there have been no deaths attributed to it. All crew members were trained by NASA, but the regular citizens of Earth didn’t have much more difficulty than ourselves with the new environment.
The watch I built out of spare gears and quartz tells me it’s almost time to get to work. Thankfully, such non-electric devices still function perfectly. To my great pleasure, the natives here have built their own versions of automatons, like what used to exist in the Renaissance period. Oh, but I’m rambling. I’ll continue this entry after dinner is done with. Thankfully, we’re all acclimatizing to the strange native foods we’ve had to incorporate as our own stock runs out.
End Data Log
