The Starship Aprilis: Karaboudjan

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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We have left Gallimimus and are back on our journey towards Lepus Lupus. But the spacefolder engines had barely warmed up when we received a distress signal from the Karaboudjan, a luxury liner.

We found the Karaboudjan trapped in what I can only describe as a giant crab claw that emerged from a nearby asteroid. We assume there is a giant crab somewhere at the end of the claw, but nobody really wants to go and find out. Some have even speculated that the asteroid itself is the crab but no one really wants to talk about it further than that.

Our arrival coincided with a military ship called the Enthusiast and their crew has been performing the bulk of the rescue work. Our ship has been tasked to carry some of the survivors on to Lepus Lupus and let them sort it out from there.

In the meantime, I’m still stuck with the team that is cleaning out Hangarbay 9. Haven’t seen Dr. Irina for several days now. She’s probably busy tending to the survivors of the Karaboudjan.