But first of all, here's one of my favorite pieces of art probably in the history of ever:
This story was inspired by the picture above, I saw it and wanted to know more about this character, with nothing to go on I decided to write it myself. I give to you The Navigator!
(PS All thanks goes to tobylewin, the creator of this beautiful piece of art. You can check out The Navigator and all of his other wonderful pieces of work here: http://tobylewin.deviantart.com/)
The navigator stood high upon the
mountain ridge above the hallowing valley below. Blistering cold winds
chaotically swirled aimlessly the throughout the valley, the currents twisting
and turning, forming whirlwinds and eddies uplifting the thin layer of snow
that covered the basin, and occasionally dislodging small boulders propelling
them up and away towards no particular location. Fortunately the freezing winds
stayed contained in the valley, only their screams and hallows could be heard
from where the navigator stood.
The moon was approaching towards the
eastern horizon. A massive sphere of ice and rock, its surface eerily emulated
the planet of which it orbited dangerously close to. The frozen surface
reflected an alien aura of blue and white, just illuminate enough to blot out
most the stars above, as if the moon were expelling its icy surface upon its
orbital planet. Its size and proximity made the navigator nervous, there was no
way an object that close and large could orbit an Earth sized planet without
violently smashing into the surface, yet there it orbited filling up a quarter
of the sky with its ominous blue aura.
The navigator activated his Q-Tool,
a standard piece of wrist-worn equipment for most space travelers. It
functioned as a smart device providing the traveler with a multitude of tools
and applications, customizable for the journeyman’s needs. Everything he ever
needed for his countless spaceflights sat upon his left wrist.
Three cyan halos not much larger
than his own wrist drifted out of the Q-Tool into the air. The halos floated
each with its own unique route, rotating about an unseen axis, and expanding. A
few seconds later the halo’s dance finally subsided into a spherical formation
twice the height of the navigator. The navigator’s feet crunched into a patch
of ice and gravel as he entered the sphere. Pale white dots accompanied by a
three dimensional grid flickered into existence within the cyan sphere, a
composite star map of the entire known galaxy; and his way off this dead
planet, so he hoped.
The bottom of the moon sat upon the
horizon, meaning only half an hour until moonset, if his calculations were
correct. It was premature to use his stellarchart just yet, but the cold had
made him fidgety and anxious. He had no idea how he ended up upon the icy
planet’s surface, nor where he was thanks to the moon’s aura, but that time was
about to end. He activated a fourth halo, this one didn’t dance into the air to
join its brethren, but sat obediently upon his left wrist. The fourth halo
functioned as a controller for the spherical chart. The 3D grid warped into
sine waves of varying amplitudes and wave lengths as the navigator set the
chart to display the gravitational waves, he began looking for any
gravitational anomalies that could explain the moon’s absurd orbit.
Half the moon had disappeared beneath
the horizon when the navigator had given up. He had no idea the galaxy was
filled with so many anomalies of warped space-time. Fortunately the western sky
was beginning to fill with dim specs of white light. He quickly switched the
Q-Tool’s mode.
The three halos began rearranging
and reforming themselves again, two halos grew smaller and brighter as one
remained unchanged in size but grew dimmer, as if the other two were sucking
the light out of it. Each ring finalized its transformation, forming into a
trio of rings of light standing obediently above the icy surface. The navigator
made one final touch, with a flick of his left hand the control halo shot off
towards the trio of halo, landing within the lower right quadrant.
The navigator took one glimpse at
the western sky, and without hesitation, the navigator’s right arm began its
diligent work. A bright orb formed at the tip of his index finger as it made
contact with the rings, leaving a trail of tiny white specs behind it every
time he flexed his wrist. He only gazed back upon the sky above to check if the
curtain of moon’s light had receded. In times that the light hadn’t receded
significantly, he would go back to check his work. His Q-Tool cross-referenced
the series of dots he had inputted into the hologram with its immense database
of cached star charts. The tool expressed its findings via the control halo, as
it dynamically shifted from one night sky to another in search of a matching
night sky; it was as if a swarm of fireflies were constantly astir within the
small ring. With straight focus and determination, the star chart was complete
by the time the moon had retreated over the horizon. He turned his head towards
the star filled sky, then back at the halos, everything was spot on. His work was done.
The control halo continued its dance
for a few moments afterwards; the galaxy was a huge one, until it eventually
found a night sky possibly matching the one that draped above. Sector: 34-Bc,
System: Ue156. Shit, the navigator
thought. Ue was the abbreviation for unexplored, a system documented but
uninteresting enough to send an expedition, not even an unmanned probe.
“Well at least I know where I am,”
he spoke aloud for his first time since crashing upon the frozen waste, “now
just how do I get off?”
