2. Part XI - Treddispa (Doomsday Comet and the Twelve Moons of Beledde IV)

Awkwardly enough, it turned out that Treddispa, being a rather small lump of rock in the middle of space, wasn't actually warm enough to keep the ocean from freezing. This was fortunate, because otherwise, it wouldn't have had enough atmospheric pressure to keep the ocean from boiling away into space. The colonists, after considering a proposal to simply use the thing as an immense ice-skating rink, discarded that notion after one enterprising young inventor provided plans for a special kind of ship which could melt its way through the ice.

Interestingly, despite the hostile conditions, several microbes brought over by the colonists formed populations in the ocean. Sustained by the radiation from Beledde IV, they thrived and quickly evolved to form large, brightly-colored mats which floated to the ocean's surface whenever the colonists' vessels thawed the ice around them. As a result, the ocean possessed a curious patchwork appearance, as if several jötnar had decided to take up crazy quilting to pass the time until ragnarök.

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This is the second story in a series about Doomsday Comet and his journey across the moons of a distant planet called Beledde IV. This story contains: An unusually-sized swimming pool, a relaxing melody, silvery psuedopods, some back-of-the-envelope calculations, and the smell of rotting bananas.

Doomsday Comet and the Rogue Asteroids were a galaxy-wide phenomenon, their single, eponymous album topping charts in every system. There's nobody who hasn't heard of Doomsday Comet, and there's nobody who doesn't love his music – except for Doomsday Comet himself.
The eccentric musical genius who led the band now wants nothing to do with his fame. When he speaks of his fellow band-mates, he mutters darkly, cites infamous deeds, then quickly changes the subject. Whatever the circumstances surrounding the album's production were, he doesn't care to be reminded of them - which is hard when those hits find air-time wherever music is being broadcast, those melodies stick in the heads of every sentient being to have heard them.

These stories follow the misadventures of Doomsday and his companion, a monk from a space station monastery, as they journey between the moons of a backwater gas giant called Beledde IV. Doomsday only wants to find some peace and quiet and to enjoy himself as a tourist, but between his persistent fame, his penchant for getting himself into trouble, and the distant presence of a strange and ominous saxophonist who has been shadowing him for unknown reasons, his experiences on the moons rarely go so smoothly.
But that's okay, he's a brilliant musician: He knows how to improvise.

You shouldn't need to have read the rest of the series to appreciate this story, with the exception of the prologue, which can be downloaded for free here.

You can find out about the series and subscribe on a roughly pay-what-you-want basis to receive the stories as they're released at www.patreon.com/DeepwaterCreations, or pick them up individually here.

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