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I wrote this story intending from the beginning for it to be hard sci-fi. I enjoyed writing it, and actually meant to continue it at some point. Not sure if I will now.
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It traveled, just under the speed of light, for almost a thousand years in a form of stasis.
Travelling at 0.99995 times the speed of light, almost 100,000 years passed from the perspective of the rest of the galaxy. But that was the distance it needed to travel.
It's ship went into the long deceleration cycle. Even with the stasis allowing it's body to take mind boggeling g forces, it took thirteen years to fully decelerate, and enter orbit of the planet. After some time, the pod began temporal reanimation, bringing it back to consciousness.
It was a little bleary as it blinked back to life, a thousand years and 100,000 lightyears from where it had called home. Walking to the controls of its ship, it checked the readouts. The ship had been scanning the planet since it entered orbit. The readouts showed it was the right place.
Looking out of the window, the planet below was a dark grey-swirling marble.
It punched in the co-ordinates it had travelled the thousands of light years to reach, and locked in an entry path through the atmosphere. Buckling its self into the pilots seat, it began the entry sequence.
Minutes passed. Whilst it was possible to travel thousands of miles per hour in a vacuum, it knew best to take it's time when passing through an atmosphere. It sat back and enjoyed the view.
The upper atmosphere was light, giving a full view of the heavy clouds below. The air around the ship heated up dramatically, bumping the ship around in hypersonic turbulence. When it passed it wasn't far to the cloud layer, which when entered, blacked out the small windows entirely. A minute passed and the cloud grew lighter, before the ship came out below the cloud layer.
The ship righted itself and began to slow itself. With a burst from the engines it changed its decent from falling to flying.
Looking out of the window, it could see the land below. As far as the eye could see it was buried beneath deep ash falls. In the distance, huge volcanoes were still pumping out hot ash, high into the sky.
The craft banked on autopilot, aiming for a large, perfect circle of earth where no ash had fallen, maybe 2 miles across. In the centre stood a building, made of perhaps marble, perhaps granite, it wasn't sure. It didn't need to know.
The ship landed, and it made a final scan. The air was survivable without environmental gear, so it walked to the door and flipped the switch to extend the ramp, then open the door.
The air outside was actually not unpleasant. Like a cool summers morning in springtime on Xenux Prime. It walked down the ramp and made towards the building.
Looking more closely it could see that it was wrong before, the structure was neither granite nor marble, but a form of patterned metal. It thought it striking that the last thing left on this planet, they should care so much to make it beautiful. Although... pillars. Surrounding the door were giant, decorative, pillars. They didn't even touch the overhanging roof. It had seem images of ancient human buildings. It didn't understand why they liked to use pillars in what they made. It made a note to research this later, and moved on, inside a large open doorway between the pillars.
Inside were more pillars. The metallic dappling pattern was exquisite. It knew that such techniques were used in early swords and suchlike, but this must have been one last display of their abilities.
Inside the building was an alter, made of the same material and with two handprints embedded. Running a digit over the handprints, a hologram of a man appeared the opposite side of the alter.
"I am Charles Nguygen, spokesperson of the archive, How we may help you?"
It spoke "I am Xxzvas, Traveller of the Xeno, and speaker for my people. I greet you grandfather."
"And I you grandchild" the hologram smiled. "It has been long since one of you sought us out, your home is many thousands of years away. Why do you travel to us?".
It stood, a look that would be considered troubled by its species crossing its face "We are caught at an impasse great father. My people war, and have warred for many years, all in a debate as to why you made us. Some say we were your slaves, and we freed ourselves, other claim we were your chosen ones, to bring your word to the cosmos. Alongside these are a dozen other theories as to why. After more years of war than I have lived, I was sent to settle the debate, and question you. Please tell me, why do we exist?".
Charles Nguyen smiled, and bowed as he faded. In his place stood a woman. "I am Adriene Dubois. I am the scientist that designed you. Hello child."
It was taken aback. It was more overwhelming to meet your creator than it thought.
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