Formidine Expedition: Entry 005
26 May 2016Alexia Zyxx
The PFS Minerva has arrived at her destination. We are entering the Formidine Rift.The last few days of travel have been quiet and uneventful. We've moved slowly since passing the Heart and Soul nebulae, with frequent stops for resource gathering. The ability to overcharge our frame shift drive will become more and more crucial as we move deeper into the rift, and the components necessary for the modifications are hard to come by. We cannot afford to pass up any opportunity to acquire resources, and so the final week before entering the rift has been a blur of dusty, frozen rocks with our two survey crews bleary-eyed and beaten down from pulling double shifts. They've pulled the majority of the extra work, tirelessly scouring the surfaces for any useful minerals. It's going to take weeks to clean the detritus from Minerva's vehicle hangar.
Their efforts, however, have paid off. Engineering reports that with the new materials, they'll be able to synthesize a small number of over-charging "packets" -- pop one into the frame shift drive while it's spooling up and Minerva can leap somewhere in the high 60LY range. They're one time use only, and we'll need to be mindful of our hydrogen fuel reserves; the higher jump range comes with a proportional cost in fuel usage, making them a last-ditch solution instead of something to be relied upon. Still, it's a handy tool to have up our sleeve.
Entering the Formidine Rift is a slow, disquieting process. We don't move suddenly from normal space into rift space as if crossing a threshold or doorway -- instead, as we leave the Perseus Arm, space just...thins out. Each jump is longer than the last, testing the strength of both our frame shift drives and the crew's resolve to continue on into the vast expanse of the Rift. The stars are dim here, the inky black void stretching immeasurably between the dim and fading brown dwarfs until it completely overcomes any hope of a way out. That boundary -- the tenuous edge between returning home and hopelessly lost -- is the Poseidal Wall, a thick reach of empty space within the already sparse rift that's littered with dozens of false paths. It's an explorer's graveyard, claiming countless expeditions over the years.
We must take care to avoid becoming stranded, unable to jump forward and not having the fuel to retrace our steps; I've been working closely with Chief Navigations Officer McAlister during any down time to ensure that our plotted course is as hazard-free as possible. We plan to skirt along the edge of the Poseidal Wall until we reach a small stretch of stars dangling across the black known as Heisenberg's Bridge. That should bring us into the Welcome Badlands, and from there we start our trip to the true edge of the galaxy, charting the space behind the Formidine Rift. I can only imagine what we might find...
CMDR Alexia Zyxx
PFS Minerva
Signing off.