Chapter Text
Rocky is my best friend. My closest friend, even compared to anyone back on earth. After all, we saved each other’s lives on multiple occasions. And now he’s saving me again by bringing me back to his home planet. Oh My God I was going to be the first human to visit an alien planet! I already had, technically, back on planet Adrien. But that’s not really the same thing. This was going to be touch-down in another solar system with an intelligent species waiting for us! I wonder what they will think when a completely different ship shows up than the one they sent out so long ago. I can imagine their shocked lack of faces. I’m not worried though, eridians seems like a friendly bunch. Unlike what humans might do, they’re not going to attack an unknown alien ship. Besides, I have rocky here to explain everything.
I’m incredibly grateful to Rocky, he found me when I thought I was going to be alone in space for the rest of my short life. I don’t regret going back for him even for a second, and I wouldn’t change a thing. But I still mourn the loss of ever seeing another human being again, the feeling of closeness, and a hug not through thick panels of xenonite glass. Rocky is the best companion I could ever ask for but he will never be able to give me that. And on this long journey to Erid the good old feeling of loneliness is starting to gnaw at me again. I feel a little selfish even thinking that.
By year two of our journey it’s safe to say I was going stir crazy. I’ve been reading a lot. Writing a lot. Several scientific papers on the properties of taumoeba. I’ve watched most movies worth watching. A lot of tv shows too. And now I’m slowly making my way through the library of videogames. The best part of all these activities is when Rocky looks over my shoulder with his texture monitor and I get to explain random earth stuff to him. I’m gaining a new appreciation for humanity by looking at it from the perspective of an alien studying us. To be honest I have always felt like somewhat of an outsider looking in on a world I was trying hard to understand, and now I get to share my observations with a very captive audience.
“Is that an animal, question?”
Rocky pointed to the screen I was playing some old fantasy game on.
“it’s a dragon, a made-up creature from old stories. Usually the hero of the story kills them.”
“So there is no animal on earth like that”
“No. I mean, they’re kind of similar to dinosaurs, but those died out long before humans evolved, now we just have the bones.”
“Humans imagine living version of a dead animal so that you can kill it, question?”
“Sure… I guess that’s pretty much true.”
“Humans Weird, Statement.”
Weeks and months went by like that. Though the Hail Mary is pretty spacious for a spaceship, staring at the same few screens in the same few rooms every day is starting to drive me nuts. The don’t-go-crazy-room helps, true to its name, but not enough. So when I saw the weird moon on the navigational screen I thought the confinement had finally gotten to me and making me see things.
“Hey Rocky, come look at this!”
He came scrambling through his xenonite tube into the control room. The boredom isn’t getting to him as much as me, but he still gets very excited whenever something happens.
“What is it, question?”
“This moon isn’t pre-programmed on Mary’s navigational software, so it wasn’t taken into account when calculating the route. We’re on course for a pretty close fly-by.”
“Ship in danger.”
“We will be far enough away that there’s no chance of collision. But it's going to be quite a sight.”
“Rocky can’t see.”
“Yeah, but you have to admit its cool. I think it’s a rouge moon. A moon that escaped the orbit of its planet and is travelling through space all alone. And that’s probably why humans never spotted it before” I look back to the monitor and continue;
“But that’s not the weirdest part about it. The x-ray spectrometer is telling me that it has large amounts of organic material.”
“Planet has life, question?” Rocky tilted his carapace forward.
“No, the spectrometer isn’t precise enough to detect something like that. It’s more like the planet is made of life.”