<< BACK TO RS001 LOG -------------- Ship : Lantashi Dance Log : 003 Date : 2496-07-22-08 Status : System Approach -------------- /* TRANSMISSION START * Commander Yonas' Report: It has been slightly over a month since the last QEC report, delivered by Captain Lantashi. Lantashi is still in command, but our Doctor, Kit, is very worried about her. The captain is spending much time in the Garden, often in a trance. I believe the predicament we find ourselves in has unhinged her. She is often speaking in a language unknown to any of us. We thought it could be an ancient form of Sylvan, but if it is, the ship AI is unable to translate. Current status - Entering Star System Kelev 01-072. We overshot the our destination by 125 light-years. The actual year we find ourselves in is an estimate, based on last known speed and direction. All crew are now awake. As the captain mentioned, 20 pods were lost during flight. Another 5 crew died on activation. Five are activated but currently confined to med-bay, still struggling from being activated from stasis many years past how long the capsules, or ship, were supposed to last. Most primary computer systems are down. Life support is working, and both suprising and thankfully, propulsion is online. 01-072 has two planets in the habitable zone, the 4th and 5th planets from the star. One looks to be 1.45 times the size of earth, the other .85 times. That is the most we can tell in this nebula. The gasses of the nebula, while lighting up the sky and helping the Garden to grow, heavily interfere with our sensors. The Dance was designed, among other things, to be a kind of an ark. As such we have a lot of ancient technology on board. The oldest computer on board is something called an Amiga. There is also an early 21st century GNU/Linux communication device (something they used to call a "cell phone") that some creative person, centuries ago, managed to port Serentity OS to. None of this is in my area of expertise. I'm not even an Earth native, unlike the captain, whose race somehow survived on earth thousands of years before humans came to be. However, one of the engineers woken up, a 25-year old (when she was put into statis) woman named Sarah West. Miss West unpackaged and reactivated the old hardware, modifying it and hooking it into the ship systems. Much of the hardware was way too old to be of use, but using it we were fortunate to bring enough systems online to learn about our local environment. Every vessel should have a resident geek, a hacker who loves to tinker and find uses for hardware and software no one has thought of before. I bow my horns to you Sarah West. You are a life-saver! *If* we make it to the closer of the planets within the habitable zone (01-072.4 - the 4th planet), which is closer within its orbit, and *if* it has a breathable atmosphere and decent life, and *if* someone we can actually land the shuttle (or the whole ship) somewhere on the planet... well, that will give us time at least. It is probably 2 more weeks until we enter orbit The greater threat, right now, seems to be on the ship. No, not the captain, as strange as she's acting. I've spoken with the other officers, and we all known to be careful which orders to obey of her's right now. But many of the crew are convinced there is something on the ship with us. A life-form, not of any race known to us. Several of us, myself included, have caught "glances" of something unnatural. But before we can focus on it, it is gone. The sensors, cameras, microphones, etc, have not picked it up. It is only being spotted with the bare eye. We've asked the AI. It has postulated that it may be a new life-form that exists in the nebula, and is not ship, or planet, bound. The other thought our AI had, even more disturbing, is that the life-form is made purely of software, but somehow "evolved" to no longer be bound to computer hardware. Chief Security Officer Dothmer is concerned with any of the possibilities. He thinks that onboard is not software, or an alien, but some sort of demon. I worry about Dothmer almost as much as the captain, because he wants to exit the ship, without suit, to become one with the cosmos. We can't reach that planet soon enough!