The Journeymen

Three astronauts set off from their homeworld to find new life, a new home, and a new future.

We began our odyssey in the late half of the 27th century. Our technological capabilities were vast, and had given us many benefits. One such benefit was a deep-space radar scanner, which had recently been used to scan for hospitable planets within the nearby area.
And our luck had proved true, as it had found one some distance from our own planet.
A crew of three specialists were picked for the task of traveling through deep-space to inspect the new planet. There was myself, a geological surveyor, then our science officer, and then finally our superior, the captain.
We left our home planet with much fanfare and applause, and we were known as the Journeymen, the first to embark on an odyssey to a new world. We said our good-byes, tears were shed, and we said farewell to our home. We all knew there was a chance we wouldn’t return.
The last we saw of our home planet was it growing ever smaller as our ship carried us further and further away. It was like a tiny marble, dropped into an inky black well, getting ever more minuscule as time passed.
The Captain explained to myself and the Scientist that the ship we possessed was a specialised deep-space craft, allowing it to move through massive amounts of physical space, in short amounts of time. In terms of normal acceleration, it would have taken us some several thousand years to reach the new planet we had discovered. With the deep-space craft, it would scarcely take a week.
The craft had a smooth, circular, streamlined design, allowing it to move sleekly through the negative atmosphere of infinity, and even through denser atmospheres, with no interference.
Activating the deep-space engines, we sliced through space, heading towards our new destination.

The first few days of our journey were largely uneventful. We were all excited to see what we would find, but we had no options other than simply wait.
For several days the Scientist was almost insufferable. He constantly wittered away about what could happen, or what we could find, spouting constant theories and hypothetical ideas. If it hadn’t been for the Captain to keep us both sane and calm, I can’t be certain all three of us would have arrived.

During the halfway point of our journey, we began to question what the new planet would be like. The Scientist and I had been brought to study the new world, and its life-forms. We knew from our deep-space scanner that the planet had a tolerable atmosphere, and was already home to several species. We were uncertain of if they were intelligent or not, but we dearly prayed they were not violent. Or at least, if they were, they were not further developed than we were.
We were an advanced species, certainly, but there’s an old adage which says that no matter how skilled you are at something, there will always be someone even more skilled at that than you. No matter how advanced our technology was, there was the possibility that we were still just a sub-species.
The thought alone was enough to chill our bones, and we did our best to put the thought from our heads.

We finally reached the final length of our journey. The last three days were the worst of all. We drew closer and closer to our destination, passing through some of the worst solar catastrophes and cosmic storms I had ever seen. Even the Scientist was baffled at some of the things we had seen.
We passed by an insurmountable amount of planets and moons, of all shapes, colours and sizes, before we finally reached our target.
It was a large, askew rock, with water visible from our location above it. It drifted lazily around a single large sun, which burned a brilliant golden orange.
We plotted a course to land, and began our slow, steady, and careful approach.

As we were landing, we noticed that there were a great many creatures watching us. We could only hazard a guess that these beings were the natives of this planet, utter aliens to ourselves.
Our craft silently touched down on the course, uneven surface of the planet, and we prepared to dismount. All of the Scientists scanners displayed that the air was indeed breathable, despite some minor pollutants, and the gravity was roughly equal to our own.
The Captain was the first to step onto the planet, followed by the Scientist, then myself. The Scientist was carrying a device, which he explained would translate their words into our language, and vice-versa.
The Captain cleared his throat, and spoke to the aliens.
“Greetings. We have traveled far, but we assure you, we have no desire to hurt you. We come bearing tidings of peace, and happiness.”
There was a murmur between the aliens, then one of them nodded. It stepped forwards, presumably their leader, and spoke to us, translated by the Scientist’s device.
“We detected your arrival some time ago through our machines.” The box squawked as it translated the alien’s words. “We have much to learn from each other. Perhaps one day, our two species may live in peace.”
I smiled at the Scientist, who smiled back. The Captain nodded, and smiled at the alien.
The alien extended its limb, in some sort of greeting gesture. Our Captain did his best to copy it with his own different appendage, and there was another murmur through the crowd.
“Tell me,” The Captain said to the alien. “What is the name of this planet?”
The alien looked at us, and spoke.
“Earth.”

Author's Note

Apologies for the brief summary, but once you've read it, you'll understand why it was so hard to summarise.