To make an end is to make a beginning
01 Jun 2017Isaiah Evanson
<<Begin recording>>29MAY3303 // HIND MINE // T TAURI
I'm home.
Over 140,000 lightyears later, I'm finally settled back in aboard Hind Mine. The nebula here is... different. To tell you the truth, it's a nice change of pace - but the red sky unnerves me. Maybe it's because it reminds me of blood. In a way, it's fitting, considering what I'm certain is soon to come.
I honestly didn't expect to make it back.
As I sit here, unpacking my shit and looking over the hours of flight time and the distance traveled, I can't help but feel alone. I went to the edge of the galaxy and looked into the abyss. I came back from one edge and flew to the other.
I went to the Zurara. I'm amazed it's still out there and that it hasn't been scuttled or destroyed by the powers that be. Maybe they lost track of it and assumed it was gone for good. Thing about assumptions is that they're never good to make.
The logs... God, I can't imagine what those poor souls aboard must have thought - knowing they were going to die. The man who left those last messages - he knew, even as he took his dying breaths. Something happened out there. Something was hidden, kept away, concealed - ignored.
"So that's it. We don't even know why we've been killed. But someone out there knows. someone out there has blood on their hands, a lot of it. If you figure it out. give them a message from us. You know what I mean.
Funny. We were told there was something bad out here, that it was haunted by ghosts...
I just never figured it would be us doing the haunting..."
And then Rebecca...
She found it out here, decades ago. Left logs of her own. Explained it to anyone who might find it later on.
There's a conspiracy. Guess you figured that out already, but it goes way up, way beyond the Feds, the Imps and the Alliance. Something is coming, don't know what it is. but it's bad and it's all being hidden. All this weird stuff far out in the void? It's some kind of contingency plan. The answer to why and who is back in the core, not out here. That's where I'm going next. Wish me luck.
Her words... terrify me.
I listened to these logs, along with the ones left behind at the Dynasty Expedition bases in the Rift. I don't know what to make of it all. There's pieces... missing. I have answers to questions that I don't know how to ask. And that scares me worst of all.
I've thought considerably about my next steps. I've come to grips with the fact that I can never go back to the life I was leading. I was too comfortable. I thought that I could get back what I'd lost. But I've changed too much. I believe in something now, and that means I can never return to a life of blissful and willful ignorance.
There's a weight on my shoulders that I'm not quite ready to bear yet. I have to confirm my suspicions first. That's going to take time. And it's going to be risky - because if I'm right, there'll be forces at work in places that are so far beyond my reach... it's unfathomable. If the conspiracy really does reach above the superpowers and into the Pilots Federation, I'm going to need help.
My father - the bastard though he is - once told me something that I've had in the back of my mind since I left on my trip. "You can do what you want to do until it's time to do what you were meant to do." It's been running over and over in my head like a dropped k-cast.
What if I'm meant to rebel? To upset the established order? Bring chaos? Destroy and uproot? What if I'm meant to warn others? What happens if I fail?
I hate it. Hate the fact that things are coming full circle. I am my father's son. Just as he ruthlessly waged war against his ideological adversaries, I'm preparing to wage one of my own. And I am enraged by that, because I feel as though I'm no better than he is.
Is this how he felt?
I'm hurting. This is the weight of Kahina's death that's bearing down on me now. I feel it in my bones. I feel the failure and I'll never forgive myself for not being there when she needed me.
But I can't let it control me. I have unfinished business to tend to.
I've been told that there are traitors being flushed out of hiding, ones responsible for the security breaches that may have led to her death. A few of them are tied to a group of pirates that are currently blockading HR 6421 - the home system of the Children of Raxxla.
I'm saddling up. It's time that people remember. Someone is going to pay and I intend to be the one to visit it upon them.
Wish me luck.
<<End recording>>