Day 100

I really wish I had another human with me.

It's no coincidence that I chose to write in this summary-style again since my novelist-like narration is too remote and impersonal for this very special day.

And before you ask, yes, Crick allows me to use the singularity stone for these chapters. They're kinda important for me. I'm not allowed to text by thinking though, as cool as it is, as Crick fears our enemies could pick such transmissions up.

Back on topic, it's no coincidence that I chose to wait until day hundred to write this. A hundred days have passed since I departed from Earth. I wouldn't blame you if you had already long written me off as dead.

I just want to repeat how much I miss you. Sure, I only had Iris and my family, but now I have nothing. Not a single fellow Homo sapiens for these entire hundred days. Even if someone like Mr. Graves was together with me on this spaceship, it'd improve a lot. These aliens don't know enough about us to make convincing people simulations.
All I do here is eat, sleep, and train.

I'm not improving much with my training and I believe I'm depressed. We still haven't gotten in a serious space battle yet and I hope it stays that way.

Anyway, maybe I should summarize what I've learned about our current solar system so far.

As noted above, it's a binary system. I know you're sick of me being the astronomy professor, but a binary solar system is a solar system with two stars.

Here, we have a small M-star (a red dwarf, basically) orbiting a larger K-star (between a red dwarf and our Sun in space). Plus, five planets are orbiting the K-star.

The closest is a so-called hot Jupiter.

Hot Jupiters are gas giants that formed where gas giants normally occur, but later wandered into the inner solar system, did you know that?

Anyway, after that, we have two more terrestrial planets and two more gas giants.

The innermost of these terrestrial planets is where Starsnatcher is right now. Okay, technically, it's near a space station, but you get the point.

They have dropped a dropship on that planet which keeps emitting strange signals to the Dragonfly. If you think that's where they dropped another human, you're in good company. General and Crick think so, too.

Helix disagreed.

Here's how their conversation roughly went.

"Are you serious?" Helix asked. "Do you really think they're that stupid? They won't use the same trick twice. They probably know that we are after their humans and thus pretended to drop one on that planet to trap us. I mean, what's there to spy anyway! It's within their own solar system."

"It should be clear that what is occurring within this solar system is not under their control," Crick transmitted. "They have every reason to drop a second human."

"You're just searching an excuse to do more exobiology! We have scanned it. We know this planet has a rich biosphere and you're like 'I'm Professor and I'm the best exobiologist in the observable universe, please excuse me while I bolster my ego!'"

"Your disobedience is disappointing Doctor. You should know full well that we do not vote on this ship."

"Oh, we do. Your vote counts twice since you're the Captain and all, but we absolutely do vote here. General's the boss, not you!"

"I vote for landing on the planet."

As expected, Helix voted against it and so did Tesla.

It all depended on me, in the end. Maybe it was out of desperation, but I voted for landing on the planet.

General respected our decision, although they directed most of their automated fleet towards the space station rather than the planet.

Crick was happy.

Once the decision was made, I got informed about the planet. According to our spectroscopy, it was an Earth-like world just a bit heavier than Earth or Shadowmoon. It was one of those planets scientists called "superhabitable" due to having the optimal size for life or something.

I called it "Eden" for this reason.

So, yeah, that's the situation for us right now.

Only a few weeks until I go out in the field on this "Eden".

Day 118

Trouble.

Starsnatcher is still obsessed with its space station. As we guessed, it's likely informing its allies what it learned on Shadowmoon. That can't be why it's taking so long though.

We couldn't shoot it down. It was too fast and dodged everything.

Even worse, it sent off another spacecraft.

That spacecraft was about as large as the Dragonfly and similar in shape, only that its radiator fins were larger than ours, spanning the entire craft like the wings of a kite. Its thrust was also much brighter than ours.

Much like Starsnatcher, it's too fast to be shot down and even has forcefields.

I call it "Firefly".

Luckily, it's fairly peaceful so far.

And it's heading towards Eden. Whatever's gonna happen there, we'll have company.

Day 121

"Field X1, Y33, Z63," Helix transmitted.

Crick let the hologram on the table disappear. "You just destroyed my last cruiser!"

"Looks like I annihilated your fleet!"

3D battleship in space must have been a fun game. The Dragonfly orbited Eden, accompanied by several automated ships and several Starsnatcher ships that were apparently neutral.

We couldn't verify that they were, but it was best not to provoke anyone.

With the battleship game long over, I found my place at the table, too. Crick let a hologram of Eden appear, a blue planet whose continents grew red vegetation. Exactly one moon circled it.

"Our automated ships have mapped this planet," Crick transmitted. "While they are not programmed for planetary exploration, they have nonetheless supplied us with valuable data. The planet exhibits no evidence of sapient life, but plenty of non-sapient sentient life."

There were planets the Starsnatchers chose not to colonize? What strategic advantage did that offer?

It was up to me to ask the obvious again.

"Do we know why they didn't colonize it?" I asked.

"No," Crick replied. "They might have chosen to preserve its natural wildlife. Why they chose not to make use of its resources in times of war is an enigma to me, but that should not be our concern now.

"There is something else I would like to discuss with you."

Crick took out my singularity stone and removed it from its Faraday cage. I don't recall giving it to them.

"While Human hibernated in nanostasis, I borrowed this AI. Curiously, it emitted erratic radio wave transmission patterns once we entered the proximity of our target planet."

The hologram of Eden showed a huge red dot on its largest landmass.

"It appears like the AI is communicating with someone who is on the planet right now. Perhaps-"

I interrupted them. "-another human with another singularity stone?"

Crick suppressed an angry blink. "A possibility."

"Could still be a trap," Helix transmitted.

"Perhaps, perhaps not. Either way, this information gives us a concrete place to land and it is roughly where the enemy ship has been observed to land its dropship. We will prepare a ... Pilot?"

Everyone's eyes turned on Tesla.

Tesla was like Sye, a person so silent that you never had an idea what they were thinking. Kinda like how I must have appeared to others.

Right now, they had their tentacles wrapped around their body and emitted faint, unintelligible mindwaves.

Tesla struck me as sort of autistic, like me, given how they had those three laptops on their panel and always made sure that they were never removed from their place. In situations like this, they occasionally slid one tentacle over the laptops as a form of stimming.

Only now did I realize that the number of buttons and levers on their panel was also divisible by three.

"The ships," Tesla transmitted. "The enemy sent a radio wave transmission. Now, they are attacking us."

With that said, Tesla cranked up the acceleration again.

The Dragonfly experienced its first serious space battle.