Topic: Smoke Break, Unknown Gates, Topeka, The Neumann and Foulke
Frau Keeper and herr Curator,
Yesterday, I was on my assignment in Kansas system. The mission that I was assigned to was about exploring the Smoky Hill Nebula. I was there few days ago with my bomber, didn't really liked it. However, it was way better with my personal equipment. At least, I could defy why this place is such special. The electrostatic activity in this nebula was higher than normal. I decided to start the survey immediatelly. However, my scanners were showing nothing for five minutes. And finally, I had picked a strange activity. It was a faded Baxter Object, Nevertheless, there was a barelly seen Thermal-Nuclear trail. I had compared this trail to the ones that were left by Nomads near Azurite Chamber in Delta. They look quite simular. I decided to follow this trail in case if I find something.
The way where this trail ended was in Tuttle Creek nebula. Looks like, the Nomad that passed this system recently, has jumped through those gates. I can't even imagine how ancient they are. Maybe even older than definition of the time. However, I thought that entering those gates would be... Problematic. Everything I heard about the other side of those gates are rather rumors or nonsense. So I decided to keep those gates... Until the right moment.
Afterwards, I had met Paladin Khan and we neglected that some scanning operations of Planet Topeka's surface and atmosphere won't be bad. The results of our survey were quite... Peculiar. As you may noticed, almost a half of planet's atmosphere is filled with the unknown to chemistry gases. However, there is a small Azurite Gas Cluster in the crossing of planet's equator and prime meridian. Although, this cluster is surrounded by several unknown gases, which makes me think that their fusion might generate it. Fantastic, isn't it?
Therefore, there was a strange gravimetric anomaly, closer to the surface of planet. Once I tried to launch my probes, they were literally thorn apart by it. The closer scans has showed many twisted gravitational surges... Probably an unstable gravity field. However, I wasn't able to scan through it - the signal was jammed, so I think that something valueable can hide behind this anomaly.
The other weird thing was The Neumann - a mobile lab with few scientists and possibly broken AI. They were acting rather... Strange. Some of them were neutral, the other ones - insulting... Not the good sight. They claimed to be a researching group which were following the Baxter Objects, however, their motivation still remains unknown. Scanning results didn't showed anything suspicious. Once they simulated the appearence of Baxter Object, we all headed over there... But there was nothing but the Junction. Apparentely they were mad or some sort, so frau Keeper had asked them to leave Kansas once and for all. They refused. For a few moments. Once they had realized that they're not in charge to dictate they own rules, they'd finally abandoned the system.
However, we had an another problem. Paladin Foulke has gone missing. We were searching for him for about a hour, until herr Curator and I had found him near those bloody gates. Then... I can't really remember. I had a strong headache and... Maybe some sort of vision. I don't know. Should work on it. Probably.
![[Image: 97hbI9M.png]](http://i.imgur.com/97hbI9M.png)