Sand to Stars

Prologue

Deep within the dunes, a young lizard lived. His home was the husk of an ancient starship. The morning after a massive sandstorm he dropped from his hammock onto the cold grating that was the floor. His movements were sluggish, his home still cold from the night, waiting to be warmed by the suns. He glanced at his food nervously, seeing how much he had left. It wasn't much. He'd have to set more traps once his home was repaired. At least he had water. Enough to not die of thirst at least. Better than the previous week. Much better. The tip of his tail flicked nervously as he moved to get his small set of various tools that he'd found, repaired, or traded.

The ship moaned and groaned as the tail end of the sandstorm continued to batter and threaten to dislodge it, causing the boy to jump occasionally at a particularly loud creak or groan. But he needed to reinforce some of the windows. So he kept moving, occasionally glancing at the windows he could still look out of to see the whipping winds and flying sand. He wished it'd just stop already.

He discovered two ends of a dusty wire in his repairs, severed at some point since the ship crashed. His curiosity lead to him splicing in an extra length of cable from his scrap stores.

With this the ship hummed to life, lights flickering on and computers booting up as the power core whirred to full power. The young lizard moved his way to one of the monitors, looking at the now active computer. It went through its startup before his eyes, and he watched as it flickered onto the last screen that it had been on. A long series of data files and logs, each titled by stardate. To the side of each were a few names, likely the ones involved in the writing.

The young lizard reached out and poked the first one with a claw curiously. He didn't know how to work this.... then he recoiled as it whirred and powered on. The log stretched out before him on the screen in neat rows. The first few were simple information, date and the name of the main 'author', being the captain. Then it began going into a description of the last few days they had gone through from the date, although this was the earliest log he could find.

He read it quietly, before moving on to the next document. Documents that began to tell the story of his people oh so long ago, the countless words glimmering in his eyes. Shaping his young mind.

It went into the process of how his people had been taught, of how they began to change during this all. Then of the anger of what they'd been used for. The young lizard leaned forward, pulling a seat over to keep reading.

It went into it all. The good and the bad. The fear and the anger and the primal instincts. But also the learning of how to love and how to care and cherish. The emotions that went through their population like wildfire. The confusion and the mild chaos that they hid from their masters. The battle where they turned. The bloodbath it had been. The fires that had forged a bond between the 'officers' and soldiers stronger than any other. It had been devastating to all who faced them. Had left them the only living thing for a good distance. And they'd left. Wanted nothing to do with the ones who made them.

How they had left as far as they could and eventually found this place on their way to somewhere better. How they had crashed and found themselves unable to escape.

And when their leader died they lost all cohesion and scattered across the dunes. Which left him at the present. The current state of his people. Where he was alone in the ancient craft. He stood and looked away, his eyes still glimmering as he looked at the dunes out the window.