The Unknown

We drifted.

When your entire frame of reference has been removed, there's little else you can do. There were no stars, no constellations, no dust clouds, nothing visible anywhere that could give us an idea of where we were. It was dark in every direction for as far as we could see.

Our instruments weren't of _no_ help - but they were close. Without stars or other landmark objects to orient from, our navigation systems were useless. The sensor array informed us that the space outside the ship had no atmosphere, no gravity, no life-sustaining value. We were clearly _somewhere_, but for all the good it did us, we may as well have been _nowhere_.

And so we waited. _Something_ had worked hard to get us here. It made sense that _something_ would eventually come along and tell us what to do next. We just hoped that something would show up before we all died from starvation or asphyxiation.

When, after several days, we were about to randomly choose a vector in sheer desperation, a distant light bloomed into view.