After a week of humming and hawing over this bit of Photoshop detritus, I decided to publish it anyway.

Below you will see the binary Nelisen System floating about in the Pegasus Arm of our Milky Way galaxy. The planet in the foreground is Nelisen III, a habitable world with it’s moon. In the far distance (upper right red blob), Nelisen IV and one of it’s two moons. The asteroid swarm passing in front of the planet was added last; I needed some action in the picture.

Here’s some different formats for you in case you have aspect ratios to contend with and don’t want to crop: [1920x1080] [1920x1200]

As with any of my SciFi wallpapers I like to write a bit about the scenery I photoshop together. It’s more of an experiment, this time. I suck at writing dialogue; I’m used to doing copywriting for e-mail and web marketing campaigns. It’s also the first time I’m trying first person perspective. Enjoy (I hope).

The narative:

I woke up with a start, eyes wide open, fully awake.

It was dark around me. After what seemed like an eternity of looking around, I tried to relax. I let all my senses come back to me, trying to remember where I was. Bunk bed? Home? I flexed my muscle groups one by one; first neck, then legs then… Hm. My wrists seemed to be surrounded by something soft but constraining. Not home or the barracks then. I was tied down. Everything was still there though. My head ached. Must be dehydration.

Pain. First one, then two lights burned into existence above me. I shut my eyes tight, hoping to extinguish the agony of the infernal brightness growing above my head. It made little difference. It seemed as if a blazing sun was igniting behind my eyelids. I tried to cover my eyes instinctively, the wrist constraints prevented it. Four.. five suns. I felt as though on a beach. I sweltered under the light of the multiple suns above me, tightly shut eyes streaming with tears. A soft melody chimed somewhere in the immediate vicinity and a voice warbled in a strange language. I shouldn’t be here.

The thought faded and then blazed into focus in the light streaming through my useless eyelids. Where was I? The realisation of the impossibility of my situation hit me like a shovel. A helmet surrounding my face should have protected me from the light. A whole damn cockpit with rig and… the Experiment. That was it. The Experiment. I reeled, hoping I was dreaming. Finally I opened my eyes in desperation, hoping for a grip of sanity in the face of the burning inferno in front of me. I screamed.

I woke up with a start, eyes wide open, fully awake.

I was in a small but pleasant room, lying in bed under a slanted roof which stretched upward and outward from my perspective. The new and unfinished wood of the beams above me reflected the sunlight streaming from a window to my left, birds tweeting outside. A freshly painted dresser was positioned below the window, creamy white with sparse floral patterns of red and blue scoring the front of the drawers. To my right was a door, also unfinished wood, new pine judging from the whorls and swirls of knots offset sharply by the bright, fresh yellow beneath. A bit odd. The beams above me had the same newness. As if the house had been finished only in the last week. The door was also missing something. It seemed to be a flat piece of pine, no features whatsoever. No keyhole, no doorknob. More of a featureless pine panel. Everything was new and sparkling, but just slightly off. I ran my finger across the closest beam and recoiled. Splinter. Again, odd. Unfinished, unvarnished, not even a sand-job. Where was I? I remembered a bright-

A knock on the door. A pause. A not quite female voice spoke through the door, “Sir, are you decent?”

I stuttered an affirmative: “Yes?” unsure, and waited for the door to open. It didn’t. After a moment I added a hesitant “Come in?”

“I’d rather not,” the high-pitched voice quavered through the door. “My name is Feef. What’s yours?”

“I’m Bob,” I answered. “Where am I?”

“You are in an infirmary, Bob,” Feef said. “You were gravely injured in your travel.”

I considered. This didn’t look like an infirmary at Utopia base or Earth. Vague memories of home, assignments and – a chill spread down my spine. The experiment. My sight went black for a second as my brain tried to cope with the memories flooding in. I was Bob. Bob Henrys. Lieutenant, United Nations designation 751X92-0012-4241-C. I was firing the jets on the Experiment, nudging it into orbit around Mars. Then.. nothing. My commander..

“Where is my commander?” I croaked. My voice was failing me as the shock of being in bed in an unvarnished, un-sanded room somewhere, talking to a door, when I should be weightless and floating above a dead world was constricting about every muscle I had.

There was no answer. I tried again, starting to sweat profusely. “I am Lieutenant Robert Henrys, U.N. designation 751X9-”

The voice interrupted, “Your commander is well, Bob. He is also in the infirmary.”

I paused, nonplussed. An infirmary made of unfinished wood, somewhere out in the suburbs of one of Earth’s cities? What had happened? The situation almost seemed laughable. I decided to play along.

“Here? Can I see him?”

“That can be arranged at a later point”, Feef said. “First we must make sure you understand your situation and then we must meet.”

“Why’s that?” I asked. It was all a bit much for me. I lifted the covers and swung my legs out of the soft bed. I was still wearing my uniform and my boots. My apparel was oddly discoloured, lighter than the navy blue it should have been. As if it had been exposed to the elements for a fortnight. Vague lines of the original colour lined the creases that had inevitably crept into the fabric by use. My boots hit the uneven floor.

“You were in what we deem an industrial accident, Bob,” Feef’s voice warbled from behind the panel. “You are quite a way away from where you were before.”

That’s it for now. More of Bob’s adventures next time. Let me know what you think, please, if you have the time. I enjoy constructive criticism.