The Cosmic Nomad's Burden

The Star-Sworn was not a ship; it was a tombkeeper’s silent procession. Its halls echoed with the ghosts of worlds. In its climate-controlled vaults rested the last of their kind: the Final Seed of the Xylosian Crystal Forests, the Last Egg of the Azure Wyvern of Lyra, the Root-Spore of the Singing Fungi of Kepler-186f. Kaelen was their guardian, the last of the Starfarer order. His purpose was singular: to keep them safe until a new, safe world could be found.

His own world, Veridia, was among the ghosts. Its memory was a constant, quiet ache in his chest. He was nine when the stellar flare scoured it clean. He was the only one who made it to the emergency ark. The weight of an entire planet’s legacy was a burden he had carried for forty lonely years.

The most precious cargo was the Veridian Heartwood seed. It was not the largest, but it was the last piece of home. In its genetic code was the blueprint for the vast, whispering trees that had once covered his world, trees whose leaves turned silver in the moonlight. He would often sit before its stasis chamber, just to look at it.

The alert was a soft, persistent chime that shattered the ship’s deep silence. Life Support System Failing. Primary Oxygen Scrubbers Offline.

Cold dread, colder than the void outside, seeped into him. The repair was complex, requiring a rare mineral catalyst he did not have. The ship’s AI presented him with two options, its voice devoid of emotion.

Option One: Divert all power to emergency life support. This will sustain one human occupant for an estimated 47.3 standard years. Non-essential systems, including the Biological Legacy Vault, will be depowered.

Option Two: Initiate a distress beacon and enter cryo-sleep. Power to the Vault will be maintained. Probability of rescue before cryo-system failure: 0.03%.

A choice. His life, or the lives he carried.

For three days, he floated in the silence, staring at the star charts. The choice was a monstrous thing. To let the last living memories of a dozen worlds turn to dust was a betrayal beyond comprehension. But to choose a 0.03% chance was to choose a frozen death, a final failure.

He found himself in the Vault, his hand pressed against the cool glass of the Heartwood seed’s chamber. He thought of the silver leaves he would never see again. He thought of the other guardians, long gone, who had passed these burdens to him with unwavering faith.

And then he saw it. A small, yellow dwarf star on the chart, classified as ‘Unpromising – Rocky, atmospheric, but nutrient-poor.’ A world where nothing complex could ever evolve. A dead world waiting to be born.

A third option, one the AI had not calculated, bloomed in his mind. It wasn't about survival. It was about purpose.

He wouldn't save himself. He wouldn't wait for a rescue that would never come. He would deliver the legacy.

He programmed the ship’s final course. The Star-Sworn turned, its engines burning the last of their fuel for one last, desperate jump. When the ship dropped out of faster-than-light travel, the planet hung below him—a brown and grey ball of rock under a thin atmosphere.

There was no time for surveys or landings. He sealed himself in an evac-pod, but not before he did one last thing. He bypassed the Vault’s security and programmed the dispersal system. He set the coordinates for the planet’s largest continent.

He stood before the chambers one final time. “I’m sorry I could not find you a greener home,” he whispered to the silent seeds and eggs. “But even the poorest soil is better than a metal tomb. Grow well.”

He launched the dispersal canisters. They streaked like shooting stars down into the planet’s atmosphere. Then, he entered his own pod and jettisoned.

From the window of his pod, drifting slowly into the endless night, he watched. He would die here, in the cold silence. His body would become one with the void that had been his home for so long.

But then, a miracle. A signal on his pod’s weak scanner. A single, confirmed biological signature. The Veridian Heartwood seed, engineered for harsh conditions, had not just survived impact. It had taken root. A tiny, persistent beacon of green life on a world of grey.

Kaelen smiled, a true, peaceful smile for the first time in decades. The burden was lifted. He had not saved himself. He had not even saved the entire legacy. But he had planted a single memory. The last son of Veridia had given one last gift to the universe. The weight was gone, replaced by a warmth that filled him more completely than any oxygen ever could. He was no longer a nomad. He was a sower, and his work was done.