THE WRECK
The derelict spacecraft was obviously the product of an advanced technology, and had been slowly tumbling through space for countless years. Its hull was a dark flat black, and even in the proximity of a star it was difficult to see. It seemed like it was actually sucking up light. When you could see it, it was obvious that it had suffered some kind of catastrophic event. What was once a sleek integrated hull and a testament to the genius of its creators. Was now a ruin. It had been twisted and stretched, smashed and scared. Whatever it was constructed of, had been able to withstand forces that could only be guessed at.
But being the product of an advanced, highly intelligent civilization, doesn’t mean that you’re not subject to the same universal chaos that is the only true constant in the universe.
The craft had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now it was just another mote floating through the vastness of interstellar space. The years passed and its course was altered again and again by chance encounters. Sometimes falling close to a massive gravity well and being flung off in a new direction. Sometimes it would impact or be impacted by another body and ricochet off in a new direction. A celestial game of pinball or pool.
By its very nature, chaos and probability can favor positive outcomes as well as negative. The dark craft always managed to continue on. After an unknown amount of time, its wandering path led it towards a small, yellow dwarf star. Its travels had led it halfway across the local galaxy and that trip was about to end.
Speed is not something that can easily be measured in open space. If you have no reference point there is no way to judge the speed of an object. Once you have a fixed reference, only then can you determine velocity. As the craft entered the system and passed one of the outer planets, a gas giant, it could now be seen to be traveling at a speed much greater than anything else in the system. The gravitational attraction of this gas giant had already captured small planets and moons, as well as many millions of rocks in countless sizes.
Like many times before, the path of the derelict was altered by this huge gravity well. Altered, but not captured. As it approached the giant its speed could be inferred by how quickly it approached and overtook some of the moons. In that close pass it also vaporized many smaller orbiting rocks. As the wreck approached the giant it acquired ever more velocity as its path reached the perigee of its encounter. The speed was much more than enough for the craft to climb out of the gravity well and continue its journey to this solar system’s primary.
As it continued, it crossed the orbit of another rock. This rock had been orbiting the gas giant for hundreds of thousands of years and had survived many encounters with smaller objects. About 20 miles in diameter and composed of the typical nickel iron base like many other pieces floating in the void it became the target for the wreck’s next to last impact.
Slamming into this rock, the craft hit slightly off center and at a speed that would vaporize any lesser material, the craft flew through the asteroid like a high powered rifle bullet shooting through a bowling ball at close range. With much the same results. Some of the asteroid simply vaporized, smaller pieces scattered in all directions. The remaining rock fractured into dozens of smaller rocks destined for other orbits. One of those orbits took a six mile diameter chunk deeper into the star system.
The spacecraft as well, having shed much of its velocity, continued falling inwards to the star until chaos and probability reversed that lucky streak and it slammed into the moon of the third planet out from the star.
This little airless rock had already been the target of millions upon millions of years of impacts. For eons it had taken the brunt of impacts of a newly forming solar system. But this piece of space debris was a little different from other rocks. Whoever had constructed the craft had wanted it to last. Its construction, the angle of impact, and its terminal velocity, actually allowed it to bounce after initial impact and come to a rest at the base of a much larger crater, miles away from the first impact site. After untold billions of miles and millions of years its journey was completed. Once the dust and debris had settled, its death was illuminated only by the light reflected from its parent planet. Sometime later, the derelict’s final resting place was once again illuminated by the moon’s primary. A brilliant flash, almost as if its picture was being taken as a large piece of the asteroid it had encountered earlier slammed into the primary.
Partially covered by regolith from the lip of the crater where it had come to a final rest, it remained. Over time other impact strikes threw millions of tons of broken rock in all directions. The craft became covered under the debris from other strikes.
For 65 million years it lay there, just another rock like any other…