The Starship Aprilis: Candor

This blogpost is part of the A to Z Challenge which begins on April 1st. The goal is to post every day (except Sunday) in the month of April. Each blogpost will be associated with a letter of the alphabet. Check the A to Z Challenge page for more information.

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The Starship Aprilis was a common and unremarkable transport ship built on Earth, back when humans were still bipedal and mostly organic creatures. The ship travelled between the many human colonies that were established at the time throughout the galaxy and served as both a cargo carrier and passenger transporter.

The ship finally met its end when it was stuck in a crushing gravity field off of Taurus Baqara C, which killed all who were aboard and destroyed all the on-board data and most importantly, the ship’s log. Of the ship only a small section survived, which was discovered quite recently several million light years away, in a slow decaying orbit around a black hole.

The remains of the ship offers no clue as to what really happened to consign the ship to its fate. The only document that could be salvaged from the remains is a travelogue, believed to be written by an unknown crewmember. The travelogue offers a glimpse of what life was like for a traveller of the stars in those heady days, thousands and thousands of years ago. Most importantly, it gives us a glimpse of many different planets and what they were like during the time.

The following entries are excerpts from the travelogue. May you find amusement and enjoyment from reading them.

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M

N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z

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Candor

Rumour has it that this colony was originally meant to be named “Condor” but when the mistake was realised it was too late to change it. I suppose the colonists were lucky that their new name had a positive meaning as well. I will not repeat here my dislike of spelling “Candor” with a dropped “U” but this sentence will serve as a short reminder of it anyway.

Candor is a cold, blue rock situated near the rim of its system. Humankind would not normally colonise such a miserable place such as this but this small planet happens to possess large reserves of a mineral that is in large demand but in rare supplies in other parts of the galaxy.

What exactly this mineral is has been a topic of great discussion not only amongst the crew but amongst many other space travellers as well. But as it is a well-kept secret, we will never know what mineral it is exactly.

So it goes that large mining corporations have set up shop here and begun operations in earnest. We dropped off a great number of passengers here, many of them understandably not looking forward to their new jobs. Their lack of enthusiasm was readily apparent on their faces as we processed them and showed them the door to their new home.

I must profess that as weary as I often get with my own job on this ship, I am glad I am not in their dirty mining shoes.