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BEGIN RECORDING
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This is Pilot Gustav Breckenridge, giving my official account of wrecked ship # R3EE8U. Sunburst class, scientific load-out.
I approached the asteroid belt at too high a velocity. Retro-rockets fired, but didn’t slow me in time. I hit Partial-Planetoid 3475 at a speed far exceeding what the hull could take, and it crunched like a soda can.
After I climbed out of the safety-foam filled cockpit, luckily still in one piece, I did a systems check on my suit. Functioning, rations pod filled with food and water. As I looked around, the surface looked like many of the pocked chunks of rocks I’ve seen during my career. The rescue equipment on the ship was disabled in the crash, so I knew I had sometime before a retrieval vessel was sent out.
I remember recalling the details of my mission as I slowly began to explore the asteroid, which was one of the larger ones in the asteroid belt. About the size of Maine. I knew that looking around on foot was going to take some time, which I had plenty of. I didn’t have a whole lot to look for, other than lava vents. Partial-Planetoid 3475 had a molten core, and is very similar to the early celestial bodies in the solar system. For some reason, a few Pre-Planets didn’t continue their transformation from rock to planet, and collected in the asteroid belt with the solid-cores.
The face of Commander Peachtree kept me motivated, I had it in my memory, remembered that he said this was an important mission, that finding out more about our solar system and Earth’s creation would help with New Terra’s battle against the Religious Extremist Nations. It would help prove that science and logic are right.
I needed core samples, ground data and samples, and other scientific evidence. Locating a lava vent would be a good start; I still had some of the collection equipment, the stuff built into my suit, and Peachtree would be pleased that I got some data to him, especially during a crash type event. He would commend my bravery.
About 7 hours into my investigation of the asteroid, I found something. At first it looked like a lava vent, but as I approached it I saw that it was actually carved into the surface. It looked like a smooth open mouth, yawing at the dark, star filled sky. A faint, yet strangely robust orange light permeated from the opening, and I could see that the angle of the tunnel descending down into ground was optimal for exploring. It beckoned for me to walk down into its depths, and I obliged. Tiny holes along the lower walls and ground of the tunnel seemed to be projecting the glow, hinting at the lava beneath the ground.
I should have turned back when I saw the first statue. It was strange, something like a goat mixed with a whale, fur and blubber fused in unholy unison. The detail was exquisite, it looked laser carved. I should have realized right there that I was dealing with something beyond my realm of understanding, but I kept telling myself that maybe one of those Religious nut-jobs back on Earth somehow stole a Federation craft and made it out to this rock, and sculpted it somehow.
Against better judgment I continued into the tunnel’s depths. For about an hour, it was all walking, passing an occasional Whale-Goat. But then I came to a large chamber, sealed off by a decorative door, built of a strange metal that exuded a sense of durability. It begged for fools to try and breach it.
At the time, I was feeling foolish. I poked and prodded around, but found no buttons or control panels. I knocked, for fun, and nothing happened. I remembered I had a small amount of mining explosive in the suit’s on-board science kit, and I planted it at the base of the door. I moved to an acceptable range out of the blast zone, and detonated. I didn’t count on a chunk of rock falling from the ceiling and piercing my suit.
Luckily, these suits have nano-tech and the hole sealed quick, not to mentioned my newly acquired wound was almost immediately stitched. But not before a few drops of blood spurted out onto the suit, un-noticed by me. As I brought myself to my feet, while bracing my hands against my legs, little specs of that blood must have gotten on my suit-gloves. I ran to the door to see if that was all worth it. Nothing visibly had changed on the doors.
Upset at all that wasted effort, I leaned against the door to take a quick rest. A small red smear was painted across it as my hand brushed by. The metal of the door howled, and made gurgling noises as it absorbed the blood and seemed to want more. Before I could process any of this, the door opened. I went inside, lured by some unknown pied piper.
It was huge. A slug-like whale tube the size of nine back to back school buses, with stubby centipede goat legs, bobbed around the giant room. Eye stalks were set atop a doughnut like mouth ringed with teeth, mounted to a strange pig head, and attached to the slug body. Near the head were little prehensile hands, ready to usher something into it’s maw.
The next thing I remember was waking up back at the ship…dizzy…looking up into the void at the stars, they were swirling in my blurred vision.
I figured I should start documenting this and grabbed this recorder out the holster on my suit.
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