Author: Unknown

To: Whom it may concern

Subject: Voyar Derilin 01

It was a terrible mistake. A fool's errand from the very start. In the Gergosphere, at least those marooned in space have the stars of the galaxy to gaze out at. Here, there is but a couple dots, and the eternal sea of obscurity in all other directions. It is a glorious and terrifying thing here in the high void, a place where identity and significance are crushed to death beneath pure indifference. For the weirdos and outcasts of society, it is vindication, but it is also wounding. Whatever we were meant for, it no longer exists. 

We have spent more time in hyperspace than entire civilizations have existed. I do not remember my destination nor my starting point, but I believe it was a routine journey. Year 2980, the year followers of wheat and barley sung their hymns for the shattered heart of civilization. They were rodents, uplifted by grace and providence to fulfill the glory of that Old Terran God of Agriculture. I recall more clearly now, 25,000 of our number departed in that year from MG-4, a rust-colored living fossil, the land of cold dunes and arches resembling sandstone. To mourn the fall of Old Terra, we were to set out to whatever was left in Venvi, Disiplina, and Solis using what I believe is now called a hyperdrive. I couldn't believe it, how could such a realm unholy as Jell be used to bring the glory of the Scarlet Harvest to the wider galaxy? But it worked good enough then.

The first five months we crossed that galactic Gap, an abyss that parodied my current situation. There was nothing of note there until we arrived in the gravity well of the star Hyperbrasil to see to the developments localized here. The people there did not know who we were, they didn't need to. We provided what we could, obligations of the holy way to tend the needy. We set off once more on our pilgrimage when our work was done, and we saw the turmoil the stars has wrought. Warlords had filled the vacuum where there once was civilization, but our ship was well built. Repeatedly did the Ibixian scourge fall by our guns until they ceased to even try once more. 

The corners of society we thought we would see were the planets of Venvi and Dispina, whatever could be said of Boreas, and any growths of the Solis star system. We were greeted to silence there, the new cornerstones of civilizations instead growing in the systems of Dyron, Kotyne, and Clementina. Though they were embroiled in war, they were remarkable. We had no problems in any of those places, for the people were receptive and mindful. 

We could have been back to MG millennia ago had we not botched the course of our return trip. The feasts and celebrations of the previous days had taken their toll, so that a combination of sleep deprivation and blind hubris led to our navigators setting sail for the galactic west rather than the north. The journey was expected to last a year at least, so we set ourselves up in suspended animation, not bothering to check if we had made any errors. What a terrible oversight! When the first of us awakened from stasis and checked our position and time, three hundred years had passed and we were located near the star Urd-Alon, on the very edge of the galaxy. The poor man suffered a heart attack from the sheer shock of our predicament and got off easy as the rest of us drifted into intergalactic space. 

I come in three hundred years after that, when I rose and came across the skeletal remains of at least three of my kin, likely having passed much the same way, though I know not how the decomposers of flesh survived long enough to do their work here. Thousands of light years away from even Urd-Alon, too late now to turn back so it seems, it was us until the ship's systems failed for the rest of eternity. The further we drew from the lights of the galaxy, the less things changed, until time ceased to exist as a relevant factor. I was set to outlive the Heat Death of the Universe, unlikely to encounter anything ever again.

However, we did encounter something. The ship was abruptly snatched out of hyperspace due to the presence of a strange force interacting with the hyperdrive. Visuals picked up a body; a rogue planet as lonely as we were. Dying for a change in scenery, we parked here to refuel the ship with what natural resources we could find on this world, which we named Ultima Thule. The planet was so desolate that there weren't even any craters, only jagged hills of rock and ice. The body did prove valuable though, possessing enough for us to continue, however pointless such an endeavor would be. But during our prospect did we uncover something artificial. 

A tomb lay before us, perhaps not in form. but certainly in spirit. This building was nothing like any galactic building, it lacked a hinge door and possessed what resembled a flap, a barrier between the outdoors and various structures so alien in design I could not guess their purpose. Whatever inhabited this structure must have been so far removed from Terran norms that even their remnants are incompatible with ours. All except one clearly obvious structure: a rectangular box composed of carved stone, positioned on the ground like a sarcophagus. The three of us who were in at the time were curious, so one gently slid the lid open. What he saw before him I cannot fathom, for in the blink of an eye did he remove his helmet and liberate himself from his coil. Us remaining two did not even bother retrieving the body, neither of us wanted to risk catching a glimpse at whatever had driven our comrade to end his own life so abruptly. 

I send this log to where we came from. I pray whoever is still around may receive this, so that they may learn from our mistakes. Though Ultima Thule may never see visitors again, the very memory of its being has left an imprint on my mind and the minds of my comrades. The sheer improbability of encountering that cursed world was so low that I believe it to be divine punishment for what we had done so long ago. As we drift through nothingness and our fuel reserves once again grow anemic, I hope we may be left to our fate this time. Never again shall our vessel contact the outside world, and that is fine. Peace has been made, though reluctantly. 

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