<< BACK TO RS001 LOG Message Incoming... Source Melchizedek.0294 Approach β Hyi Ascension 00h 25m 45.07036s Declination –77° 15′ 15.2860″ Distance 24.33ly Equinox J2000.0 SOL Year 3781, QEC adjusted [Autotranslator enabled...] Jerome Somerset Pasani, Warrant Master ::: Doctor Moussa Idjani led a full crew evaluation on the pods over the last twelve hours. His recommendation for remaining awake stands, unfortunately. The four of wardroom officers, myself, Doctor Moussa Idjani, Prezzi Adeyemi, and Eva Hämäläinen, along with Specialist First-class Stephanie Janssen, represent conscious crew on the Melchizedek for next four months. We have a series of course corrections to execute, some minor issues in hydroponics, and what Adeyemi describes as "ick" growing over a quarter of the cryo-pods. It is most likely unattended fungal growth, but we'll investigate further. Our ship is a Vos 144A from Visscher, sporting a pair of the more-than-capable Peterse 773 Overtreffen Motoren. When launched, the Melchy was a damn-fine ship, if I say so myself. She's held up admirably while we slept. We were commissioned in EY 2480, and set out on mission just three years later. RS001 timestamps on my last transmission suggest that just over 1300 years, relative, have transpired since we set out. 1300 years. It's what we signed on for, of course. We all had the training and the psy-evals to prep, but there's still that shock when it hits you. There's no undo, no reset. Everyone we knew is long gone. Hell, the Earth itself is long gone, at least in the way we knew it. Adeyemi says she has a cousin who set out on a long-haul colony support freighter at about the same time as us and their star is only a few light-years off schedule from ours. She doesn't remember which direction, but it's possible she's got people out there somewhere. The math always gets away from me, but it's possible some of my own ancestors' family could be thawing out from craft launched before I was born. Oh, and don't even get me started on reality-drive mechanics. Who knows how many blended universes we've stirred up with that monstrosity. I can only hope humanity learned their lesson and banned it while I was dreaming. To the Speaker Elect of Cheer Systems, Susan, aboard the Starbloom Communal Distributive Projection goes our many thanks. If the disconnection of time weren't jarring enough, the silence that awaits one's first lonely transmission is infinitely more terrible for all its brevity. Your words, blessings, and spells are a salve bringing healing. I queried Janssen about your ship designation but nothing in our databases aligned. Based on relative time-debt adjustments, it seems you may have set out long before us. We hope your time has been peaceful. I'll be setting a daily ordo and assigning work duties following this transmission. Getting our hands busy will ground the ineffable incongruity from reality that's rattled everyone. Our navigation issues are of primary concern, so Hämäläinen and Janssen will bear the brunt of that work. Doctor Idjani is the closest crew member we have awake to a botanist, so he'll be investigating our sensor abnormalities in food and air circulation. No alarms were tripped, so we're hoping it's just a mutation in one of the algae tanks or something equally trivial. The cry-pod growth will fall to me, with possible assistance from Adeyemi, though she has very little background to be of use. Unless the fungus starts talking, I don't see how Adeyemi will have much of anything to translate or negotiate. She's probably in for a boring four months. It's time to get moving. Our shifts will be light until muscle regeneration reaches 60% and the doc clears us for full rotations again. That's probably for the best. We'll take things slow. .