Message Incoming...

Source Melchizedek.0294

Approach β Hyi

Ascension 00h 25m 45.07037s

Declination –77° 15′ 15.2860″

Distance 24.34ly

Equinox J2000.0 SOL

Year 3782, QEC adjusted

[Autotranslator enabled...]

Jerome Somerset Pasani, Warrant Master

:::

I hesitated to use the QEC since we lost Moussa, worried what the

others might think reading this. That was until Janssen so

eloquently told me to take the, um, stick out of my rear. Prezzi

suggested that acting stoic was pissing everyone off and doing

nothing to hide how I was taking it anyway. So, here I am.

She's right. I've been walking the corridors in a daze. Moussa and

I went way back. Waking up in this creepy blue light every morning

reminds me that there's a hole in our lives, in my life. Without

him the ship is pregnant with silence.

I signed up for merchant shipping as a kid. I've flown in rust

buckets and tin-cans of all shapes and sizes. There's been close

calls before, but never--not on my watch. I just keep asking

myself why? Why him? Why us?

The deep doesn't give us answers. It just gives us more questions

and a long, damn time to think about them. With botany dispatched

from the Melchy there's nothing left to us but these questions.

What the hell is happening out here?

In hopes of learning something, anything, our hydroponics

specialist and our doctor of phytology, Hove Xavier and Sandy

Kroups, have joined the crew awake. I regret that their rising was

in mourning. Needs demand, we answer. They're tackling the food

shortage with the seriousness it deserves, though I expect it's to

keep their minds off everything that's happened while they slept.

They keep each other's company and a distance from the rest of us.

I can't blame them. We are not a cheery crew to be around at the

moment.

We're just a few weeks out from Beta. The grav sheer drops in six

days and we'll be back under thrusters. There's a star out there

somewhere. It called to us from nearly 25 light years away. We are

going to reach it and make a home here. Moussa's loss is going to

mean something.

.