CS 11: A Glaring Red Eye

Mars lies scattered like so much glistening dust and rubble. An avalanche smeared across its former orbital path. Dhole-infested and knitted together by the thin white webs of beings like the Podder Captain in charge of this packet-ship. Arachnoid zealots who believe they are the successors to humanity. They're a relatively new faction. Arose after my last descent into the deep freeze. But there's not enough information in any of my chemobriefing ampules to decide one way or another, whether they might be right, or just another self-deluded bunch of cultists looking for salvation from some outside force, some new tech, or a benevolent creed. For me, those sorts of things, those childish dreams died when Jupiter became a massive, red sunlet. Ten thousand great ships were lost in the shockwaves. We won't pass very close to Jupiter on this route. It's half-way around the system from us now. But I can see it well enough. A smoldering, scarlet eye surrounded by a brittle nimbus of wreckage no one has had the time or opportunity to salvage. I watch the glaring red eye as it slips inexorably behind us. We're accelerating now. The polite fiction of the so-called safe-zone falls away and we're out in the cold harsh blackness. Cold. Alone. Just the way I like it.