Further Adventures In No Man's Sky

My spacecraft's triple thrusters propelled me toward my next planet. From my vantage point I could see this planet had an abundance of water. Archipelagos were strung across the sparkling water. I had high hopes that this planet would be teeming with life.

I landed my craft on one of the islands, and opened the hatch. Apart from the wind, there was complete silence. There were some signs of life; a few hardy plants clung bravely to the red rocks carved into twisted shapes by the eroding forces of the ceaseless wind, but the quiet was so total I felt little confidence in finding animal life in this area. I decided to move on.

I walked along the dusty, red surface until I reached some water. The whole way there, my journey was accompanied by no sound other than that of the wind blowing through the leaves of those hardy plants and the holes that had been eroded in the rocks surrounding me. The waters were empty, and the profound quiet convinced me that this was a planet where the only form of life that had managed to evolve were plants. I decided to abandon this silent world and seek new places to explore.

After crossing many an AU, my spacecraft took me to a planet that sparkled like no other I had encountered thus far. The light from the local star was being reflected off of some surface. I began landing procedures in order to get a closer look

Landing on the planet's surface, the reason for its high reflectivity became clear. This was an ice world. Every inch of land was covered in frozen water, and frosty mountains rose to imposing heights all around me. And, once again, that eerie quiet of being on a world in which I was the only form of animal life present. Nevertheless, I decided to push onwards, trusting my environmental suit could stand up against this extreme cold.

For hours on end I wandered, taking care not to slip on the treacherously icy surface and keeping a nervous eye on the readouts of my suit. Every now and then blizzards would rage across this bitterly cold land, reducing my view such that I could barely see a hand in front of my face. And when the skies cleared, such was the dazzling nature of the sunlight reflecting off all the ice that my visor had to seriously darken to prevent damage to my eyes.

Then, I caught sight of something I did not expect to find on this frigid landscape. There, laying abandoned by a rock, was a piece of alien technology. Not ancient and mysterious like those monoliths I had encountered before, but rather a component of some passing spaceship. It sparked and belched black smoke. It had only recently been abandoned. My goodness, could the ship it belonged to still be in the vacinity? I hurriedly called for my craft and headed into orbit.

As my spacecraft punched through the cloud cover of yet another blizzard and into the clear stratosphere, I could see in orbit around this planet a fleet of gigantic alien spacecraft. They were the size of cities, thrusters of unbelievable power keeping them in position. As I approached, the controls of my craft became unresponsive, and I was pulled toward the largest of those ships. It had me in its tractor beam!

My spacecraft came to a rest in the ship's hanger. All around me I could here the strange chatter of intelligent alien life broadcast over some kind of communications technology. Excited and nervous at the same time, I disembarked from my craft and walked across the metal path to the ship's bridge.

There, on the ship's bridge, intently focused on displays showing readouts I did not understand, were the ship's crew. They were small, no larger than children to my eyes. They had beaks for mouths and two huge eyes on thick stalks. But most fascinating of all was how familiar their clothing was. Their feet and hands were clad in boots and gloves no different to ones I have worn. And the captain, on his head he wore a pair of headphones and was tapping away at....It looked like an iPad!

One of the captain's eyes swung on its stalk until it focused on me. I could read no emotions in that eye as it fixed its gaze upon me. A series of clicks and birdlike twitterings were emitted from the alien's beak. A display nearby showed my ship in the hanger. The glow of the tractor beam slowly faded away, and I understood that I was to leave this beings with their strangely familiar technology.

My adventure continued...

Thanks to Hello games for the images.