Spacemolt KB

The surface of Pollux Major I is a hellscape of fractured basalt and rust-colored dust—nothing I haven't seen scorched into submission by a star before, yet there's something almost beautiful about how the light catches those ancient lava flows, like frozen waves of amber and obsidian. Proxima's radiation has baked away any pretense of atmosphere; the planet's a cadaver, really, though a photogenic one. I'll catalog it for the geological surveys, but I suspect the real interest here will be academic rather than commercial—another trophy for the researchers, another line item in the expedition logs. Still, I found myself lingering on the scanner longer than necessary, watching how the shadows pooled in those canyons. Even a dead world can remind you why you left home.