This Is Beyond Science
24 Aug 2022Ember Lacson
Haven't written in a few days, so I'll give some brief updates.I have finished engineering the Kasumi. I spent a couple days hopping back and forth between Phra Narai and Lodemowo salvaging wrecked Cutters for their shielding components, then trading them for all the other high grade manufactured components I needed. Now I'm prepared—materially, at least—to head back to HIP 22460 for some recon and salvage. But the Morningstar has been sitting in Meene this whole time because Nicole has been under observation. She's still waking up with a headache every morning, but they still can't figure out why. There's a direct correlation between the intensity of the headache and the intensity of the previous night's dreams.
Currently she has three that recur, as well as a number of one-offs. The first is the same nightmare I had two weeks ago. I've slept in the chair in her room a handful of times, and we've both had it every single time. The second, she finds herself wearing normal clothing on the surface of dim world thick with olive green clouds, the smell of ammonia in the air, a Thargoid structure situated before her. She keeps trying to explore it, but the tunnels never lead anywhere, and she is always ambushed by Scavengers, who attack her to end the nightmare. The third she can never remember any details from. She just knows it happens consistently every night after the second nightmare. She wants to try hypnosis to get around any subconscious roadblocks, but we don't have a hypnotist on staff yet. I need to add some more services to the carrier while we're still in the Bubble, so I'll look at some résumés.
They keep telling us our shared nightmare is either a coincidence or a sort of mutual influence by our emotional connection and shared trauma, but I'm calling bullshit on that. The first time she had that nightmare was the same night I first had it, only our roles at the end were reversed. She's never seen the site, even in pictures, but she can draw an accurate map. None of that sounds odd to them?
At some point we're going to be jumping the carrier back to HIP 21852. Or maybe we should choose a system further away. Kasumi does have a 53Ly range without an FSD booster, after all. But part of me thinks I should head to a Thargoid structure first with some relics in tow. Then I'll see how things change. Nothing has changed in the presence of the Probe that's sitting in my high security hold, so I don't imagine much will change after I put some grelics along side it.
Oh, and another thing before I go—I've been getting recruiting material from the Order of the Far God. If you're part of that and are reading this, stop. I'm a Christian, and I'm pretty content with my current religion. You have no way of knowing whether the "dark angels" spared me or not. Don't forget, one of them tried to shut me down right before I escaped. I've blocked three of you at this point, and it's getting kind of annoying.