52 lines
2.0 KiB
Plaintext
52 lines
2.0 KiB
Plaintext
Message Incoming...
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Source Melchizedek.0294
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Approach β Hyi
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Ascension 00h 25m 45.07037s
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Declination –77° 15′ 15.2860″
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Distance 24.34ly
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Equinox J2000.0 SOL
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Year 3782, QEC adjusted
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[Autotranslator enabled...]
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Jerome Somerset Pasani, Warrant Master
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:::
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I hesitated to use the QEC since we lost Moussa, worried what the
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others might think reading this. That was until Janssen so
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eloquently told me to take the, um, stick out of my rear. Prezzi
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suggested that acting stoic was pissing everyone off and doing
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nothing to hide how I was taking it anyway. So, here I am.
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She's right. I've been walking the corridors in a daze. Moussa and
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I went way back. Waking up in this creepy blue light every morning
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reminds me that there's a hole in our lives, in my life. Without
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him the ship is pregnant with silence.
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I signed up for merchant shipping as a kid. I've flown in rust
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buckets and tin-cans of all shapes and sizes. There's been close
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calls before, but never--not on my watch. I just keep asking
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myself why? Why him? Why us?
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The deep doesn't give us answers. It just gives us more questions
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and a long, damn time to think about them. With botany dispatched
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from the Melchy there's nothing left to us but these questions.
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What the hell is happening out here?
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In hopes of learning something, anything, our hydroponics
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specialist and our doctor of phytology, Hove Xavier and Sandy
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Kroups, have joined the crew awake. I regret that their rising was
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in mourning. Needs demand, we answer. They're tackling the food
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shortage with the seriousness it deserves, though I expect it's to
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keep their minds off everything that's happened while they slept.
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They keep each other's company and a distance from the rest of us.
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I can't blame them. We are not a cheery crew to be around at the
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moment.
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We're just a few weeks out from Beta. The grav sheer drops in six
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days and we'll be back under thrusters. There's a star out there
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somewhere. It called to us from nearly 25 light years away. We are
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going to reach it and make a home here. Moussa's loss is going to
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mean something.
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.
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