06/07/835: Report 1

Omega-2 greeted us with the strangest damn star I’ve ever seen. That one alone deserves a full expedition. It has more blackspots on it than my teenage nephew has on his face.

We exited Cayman into the Harstad Nebula, and — surprise — it’s red again. At least less violently so than Cayman. This one has more of an eerie glow to it than an angry one.
We gathered samples from the lava fields. Initial tests showed nickel, iron, and other metals still to be determined. Even if it turns out not to be worth exploiting, the volcanic activity alone is worth seeing.

The Hawfinch flew low along one of the brighter molten veins to get better readings. Looked impressive on the scope. Less impressive when the heat bloom made half the cockpit smell like scorched insulation for the next hour.

After a day spent in the field, we headed toward the supposed entrance to Omega-97. The De Sousa warned us about it: a maze of severe danger, laced with more unknown anomalies.

On the way to the rift, we detected a lone planet and another asteroid field in the southern part of the system. Once again: more questions than answers. At least we’re finally out of anything red.

07/07/835: Report 2

Nothing particularly significant turned up on the way to the rift. Long-range scanners did, however, pick up a small planet orbiting a blue dwarf.

Approach to Tija and Bahir Dar went smoothly. No major gravitational anomalies were detected near either body.

Tija reminded me a bit of Palmyra: vast ice plains cut through by crevasses kilometers deep. Quiet, cold, and the sort of place that kills you politely.
Bahir Dar is the opposite—fiery, unstable, and ugly in all the right ways.

Any proper expedition to either body will require very different equipment. Initial scans revealed nothing immediately valuable, and the probes failed too quickly to return useful deeper data.
One probe over Bahir Dar didn’t even fail cleanly. It kept transmitting broken telemetry and heat noise for twenty-three seconds after the hull should have slagged. Longest twenty-three seconds of the science officer’s week. He grinned the whole time, which is how you know they’re all damaged in the head.

Time to jump into the unknown. Our reliable charts end here. Everything beyond this point is stitched together from whatever fragments Expedition 13 left behind.

Crew mood before entry into Omega-97: quieter than before. Less chatter in the mess. More people rechecking harnesses and pretending they aren’t. Nobody asked to turn back. I’ll give them that.

01/08/335: Report 1

We regrouped with the Ichthus.

After exchanging information, we noticed something odd: our clocks were a few days ahead of theirs. That suggests the alien structure may exist inside some kind of distorted temporal layer.

Meanwhile, Ichthus received word that the Cayman rift had collapsed. According to De Sousa traffic, our way back now runs through Omega-43.

It’s rumored to be a more active corridor. That may actually help. More traffic means more navigational residue, and that means a better chance of identifying a safe route by following the scars others already left behind.

Nobody liked hearing that our clocks disagreed with reality. Damage you can patch. Fuel you can count. Time slipping out from under your boots is another kind of problem. The science team got excited, which is exactly why normal people should not be allowed near enough equations.

02/08/335: Report 2

After repairs in this much calmer system, we resumed the return journey. A few hours later we reached the Narvik Planetary Fragments.

Initial scans and samples look promising. We detected deposits of beryllium and molybdenum across multiple asteroids.

Still, nothing compares to Freyja.

Fisher’s halo is still burned into my eyes.
I’ve been dreaming about the structure.

I know I’ll go back there.

Ship status is ugly but functional. The portside living quarter is gone, sealed behind emergency bulkheads and fresh plating. The corridor outside still smells faintly of burnt polymer and sterilizing chemicals. Nobody lingers there.

Crew mood is steadier than I expected. Loss does that sometimes. It clears people out. Leaves them quieter, meaner, more focused. We held a short memorial between repair shifts. No speeches worth writing down. Just names, silence, and one of the mechanics leaving a ration tin painted gold near the forward hatch because Moreau once joked he wanted a “proper rich man’s coffin.”

03/08/335: Report 3

Finding the rift to Omega-43 was easier than expected thanks to the sparse asteroid field.
Unfortunately, data collected around the rift bears Corsair signatures. Given our current condition, we are in no shape to test their hospitality.

Initiating rift docking sequence.
See you on the other side.

One practical note: sparse fields are a blessing after Fisher. You don’t realize how tense your shoulders are until the cockpit stops looking like it wants to eat you. Even then, every radar ping made half the bridge flinch.