Week 10 Planning: Desolation

Andromeda Galaxy (Wikipedia)

The story takes place in the distant future, told from the perspective of the lead pilot of a transport convoy taking a shipment of goods to another galaxy. They're travelling through space at thousands of times light speed but it's been 4 days of constant travel already. The pilot makes calculations based on fuel remaining and figures that they can switch the compression device (a device that crumples space around the ship to travel faster than light) to overdrive to more quickly compress space, burning off extra fuel and making it there faster. Though dangerous as the ships carry a lot of momentum, the pilot trusts the autopilot systems to calculate hazard trajectories and navigate them out of harms way. Activating the device, the pilot sits back for a few minutes until the ship strikes an object, knocking the pilot out.

The pilot wakes up to the red flashing of error lights, messages and beeps and sirens going off indicating a multitude of failures across the ship's systems. He checks his navigation terminal and finds that the ship overshot the galaxy by some 36,000 light years. He worriedly checks for the closest outpost and finds that it's over 10,000 light years away. He switches his destination to the outpost and attempts to activate the compression device. It fails as he realizes the ship used up all its main fuel while he was passed out, aimlessly travelling at max speed. He only has enough fuel to sustain life support for 2 weeks. Despite knowing the futility of it, he broadcasts an SOS message out into the void as he stares at the galaxy behind him, which seems so close that he could touch the stars in it.

Bibliography: The Sandy Road from The Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt