The Starship Aprilis: Mistrust and the Military

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.

~ ~ ~

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

~ ~ ~

Unfortunately, while Lepus Lupus managed to grow into a magnificent world, the aid that it received from the Qastas grew resentment amongst those back at Earth who had initially condemned them to their doom.

When the Earthling denouncers had learned of Lepus Lupus’ new found prosperity, their derision turned into envy and soon it turned into mistrust. And mistrust led to fear.

It wasn’t long till the fear back home on Earth reached a boiling point, fuelled by sensationalist media and gossip from spacecrews. Word had it that the Lepus Lupus were amassing a large fleet in order to start an invasion of the other colonies, including Earth.

But the truth of it was, there were indeed a large number of ships amassed around Lepus Lupus, but not because they were building a fleet. They had just become the biggest space port human civilisation had ever seen.

Star sailors who had never seen alien ports (which at the time were much, much bigger than the one at Lepus Lupus), upon seeing the impressive amount of ships docked in orbit around Lepus Lupus, must have thought all those ships was a fleet waiting to attack. They would then come back to Earth and spread the rumours.

Earth quickly assembled all its military-capable ships into the largest fleet humanity had ever known, and sent it towards Lepus Lupus, in the hopes that they could subjugate them.

But when they got there, nothing could prepare them for what they encountered.