Trails of the Past - Salomé's Mystery - End of the Line
02 Jun 2024Kasumi Goto
"So, there I was, near this derelict floating through space forever, finally within reach of the answers that I wanted. A long journey, certainly in regards to the distance, but I didn't feel tired when reaching its end. Instead... I found myself asking whether the knowledge I'd sought out was really something I wanted to know. Yet I did, now, and I definitely intended to do something with it."
April 4, 3310
Syreadiae JX-F c0
Orbiting planet 1
This was it... hopefully.
The Zurara eerily floated in front of me, a derelict orbiting its resting place for decades already, in a cold, dead silence. Yet, that same silence betrayed the mystery which it held to clues to. The only thing I had left to do, was to get it out of the old ship.
I'd already scanned it from afar, revealing all of its inert sub-components, external and internal. As I expected - everything was long dead, without power, as cold as the vacuum surrounding it. But some of its external data uplinks remained functional, still, and there appeared to be a total of... seven.
Rather than do what I did before, I went with a routine of scanning one log uplink, first, then listening to the log it provided me, as I started out with the first one - located right at the back of the megaship, and oddly labelled as "Ship Log Uplink 0".
THE ZURARA 1/4
Zurara Ship Log Entry
01/10/3270
"We managed to overpower the invaders, but not before they took out the main reactor. We’re dead in space, with twenty minutes of life support left. Didn’t get nothing out of them before they died, but clearly it was all planned. They took a drug which killed them. Doc says it’s nicknamed ‘Hexedit’. First it kills your memories, then it kills you. Neat and tidy.
So we’re dead, just waiting for the end. This will be the last log from the Zurara. Some of the crew have already killed themselves. Others are praying to whatever deity they believe might help them. A few are drinking themselves into oblivion. I don’t know what will get us first, the lack of oxygen or the cold. Battery power is about to die."
PAUSE RECORDING
That explained... the damage to the reactor which my scans had picked up. And the idea that saboteurs had been planted on at least some of the ships... if not all of them.
The mention of that 'Hexedit' drug was curious, too... not that I could do a lot with it. Right now, anyway, but it was doubtful I'd ever been exposed to it, even during my involuntary stay with Azimuth... the one my logs referenced, anyway. I had no reason to doubt them, but apparently I'd just been kept unconscious throughout it before getting tossed back out with 'control measures' in place, at the time of it happening, years ago. Equally unlikely was that it could even fix any of my memory problems, given their nature, and cause.
I could only hope that the person recording this had managed to stay alive long enough to record whatever their thoughts were... and that it was useful. Next log uplink was more or less at this end of the ship, too, so didn't need to go far to get it.
THE ZURARA 2/4
Zurara Ship Log Entry
01/10/3270
RESUME
"Me? I’m leaving this log. This far out I doubt anyone will ever hear it, but well, what the hell?
We all signed up for the promise of big payouts, a year of your life in exchange for enough to retire on. I guess I should have looked closer at it, but you would have probably done the same, right? No need to work again. What’s clear now is whoever was behind this mission never intended for any of us to come back.
Damn, it’s cold in here now."
PAUSE RECORDING
I could definitely hear the man shivering through his breath, in that recording... but I wasn't sure what to do with his thought material. Neither on whether I would have done the same, or if it even mattered to consider it. At least, he'd realized that the mission was always going to be a one-way trip before the end. Luckily, these saboteurs hadn't blown up the reactor, unlike the one log recorded by the woman in one of the surface outposts in the Rift suggested. Else... I would not be listening to this, now.
Log uplink "2" was square in the middle of the ship, just before the - still rotating, oddly - habitation rings. I would have expected them to have stopped moving long ago, already.
THE ZURARA 3/4
Zurara Ship Log Entry
01/10/3270
RESUME
"The folks managing the cargo, jees, they were all psychos. The moment we completed the mission they just ‘snapped’. Killed the ship and killed themselves. Some kind of mental conditioning, Doc said. We tried to get word out to the other vessels when we found out. We got a signal out, but I don’t know if anyone received it. It will probably freak them out, I don’t think they know we’re here.
We dropped a series of beacons out here, all targeted around Earth-like or terraformable worlds. We prepped some of the terraform candidates with seeders and biofilters. No one can figure out why it was necessary, but that was the mission. Just as we were turning back… boom, those cargo-handlers went nuts."
PAUSE RECORDING
Knowing the 'why'... that definitely would be quite good. And, at that, the reasons for needing to go to such extreme lengths to ensure nobody would ever find out about this existing... as a contingency of some kind, maybe? This being named the "Dynasty" project and beacons having "Exodus" in their firmware definitely seemed to suggest that.
But what would that contingency have been for, if I was right? The thought had been going through my mind... for some time, already, but this only materialized it more. And told me that the resting location of this ship being a terraformable candidate world was not a coincidence, at all. Maybe, this also explained why there - apparently - were so many Earth-like worlds in this particular sector of the galaxy, but no one had ever reported anything about unordinary beacons in it. Unless they were deliberately being hidden from ship navigation systems and scanners...
Couldn't rule out that possibility, either. Not if all this existed. I also had my doubts the distress signal had ever made it out to any of the other expedition crews around here, else some of them might have made it back to the Bubble... but then, if they had, they'd likely just kept quiet about it to avoid any kind of repercussions to revealing the truth - those likely juts being outright death. Because, clearly, those were the kind of idiots being dealt with here. Those to whom human life at the individual scale meant absolutely nothing. If that wasn't already a good description of most politicians at power in the Bubble, currently...
I decided to move on from those thoughts before they spiralled further downward. The next uplink in line was at the front of the ship... and I flew through the rotating rings, to find it right on the nose of the Zurara.
THE ZURARA 4/4
Zurara Ship Log Entry
01/10/3270
RESUME
"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 l 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…"
END RECORDING
Definitely... not a good way to go. And I would definitely be delivering the 'message' being referred to here... if I ever got the opportunity. For right now, that seemed quite far out of reach.
Any doubts that something beyond the obvious, regarding this supposed "Club", was going on, had pretty much been erased from my mind. They'd slowly been crumbling away as I had time to think about the significance and implications of this whole project, already, but some part of me remained hesitant about... something. Maybe, about whether there truly was a 'force' in the shadows trying to steer humanity according to its whims and desires.
But that wasn't something I could just answer here... maybe. There were still three data uplinks left which supposedly had something that I could recover, but if that fourth log was supposedly the last one recorded by the crew, who'd left another three - or possibly more - behind?
There was only one way to find that out... though, it wouldn't take much effort. The fifth uplink was pretty much right 'behind' me, on the central body, for a start.
THE ZURARA ADDITIONAL LOG 1/3
Zurara Ship Log – Additional Log Entry – 21/08/3273
FILE ACCESS ADDITIONAL
"So this is what they were hiding. I’m leaving the old logs for reference. I might need to come back this way again and re-educate myself. Chances are my memory will get zapped again. If I don’t make it I’ll have to leave clues for others to follow. So, if you’re reading this and you’re not me, here’s the deal…"
PAUSE RECORDING
Definitely, somebody else who'd come here. Sounded quite on purpose - and like an older woman, too. I wondered, who, and why? There weren't any particular clues, aside from apparent loss of memories, and 'leaving clues for others to follow'... well, I was definitely following them now.
The other thing that came to my attention was the date stamp, almost three years after the last log of the Zurara's crew. Whoever this was that'd found the ship, it had taken a while to. And had to be on purpose - this wasn't the kind of thing you'd just stumble across accidentally, or the chances to were astronomically low, anyway, especially in the pre-FSD era.
Since the log seemed purposely left open-ended, almost inviting me to check the next ones out... I decided to follow it. I certainly wasn't too concerned about malignant data packets, with both my own stuff and an AI watching for anything like that. Sixth data uplink, I found it to be right by the center of the body, again.
THE ZURARA ADDITIONAL LOG 2/3
Zurara Ship Log – Additional Log Entry – 21/08/3273
RESUME
"Found this ship. Took me years. This is the evidence. Nothing inside but void-frozen cadavers, perfectly preserved, some with drinks still in their hands. But the log. They sent these poor souls out here because they needed waypoints, all prepped for every eventuality. Three different zones it would seem."
PAUSE RECORDING
Pretty much what I knew already, or had come to as a conclusion, thanks to the evidence that had presented itself over the last few weeks... maybe, just two and a half. If that... I hadn't kept track of time, too much, during this void endeavor.
The log definitely confirmed that this person had sought out the Zurara on purpose, much like me, but unguided. She seemed to know a lot more than I did, though, or maybe had suspected more. And likely hadn't just come out this way just to not tell about it. Last uplink was back toward the rear end of the ship.
THE ZURARA ADDITIONAL LOG 3/3
Zurara Ship Log – Additional Log Entry – 21/08/3273
RESUME
"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 l’m going next. Wish me luck."
R.
END RECORDING
My expression went from raising an eyebrow with my head tilted, to frowning, then back, until it settled, and the thinking machine kicked in, processing this much more important hint.
I had some clue about the 'conspiracy' already - which had prompted me to come out here in the first place, subconsciously or otherwise - but what was that "Something"? The Thargoids? I couldn't imagine anything else, but they seemed to be oddly uninterested in actually uprooting humans from the Bubble despite the repeated aggression toward them, from our side, and the very likely capability to do so if they wished.
Had the war with them been planned by... whoever that "Club" - as I apparently knew it, even before now - was composed of? To realize this project? That seemed quite far-fetched, because it was preferable to keep to the already established infrastructure there... but I was quite aware of an odd resistance to anything that ever seemed to try doing anything other than "Shoot at Thargoids, stop asking questions", even beyond any 'natural' cause. But if they had planned to go to war with them, while remaining uncertain of the result... maybe it did make sense to have this contingency in place, for the event that everything went catastrophically wrong. In a way, it had, but not to the degree of necessitating an abandonment of human "core" space.
I still needed more answers... but even with as small, yet significant, of a clue that this was, I already felt a little in over my head. What could I do about this? Felt like I had skipped or missed a piece of the puzzle, too.
I became fixated on the 'R.' added to the transcript of the recording. Somehow, it seemed... familiar. And then it clicked - I had seen it before, back in the Bubble. In an unassuming system by the name of Teorge, where a bunch of beacons were scattered around and referenced a "Ragazza". The same person, maybe?
Still having the records, I decided to go digging. Sure enough, the final one of them was marked in the exact same way, with an 'R.', and I had the files marked as something important, yet lacking some context to fully understand... so, now seemed like a good time to go over them again.
RAGAZZA Log 1 – 31/03/3275
…RECORDING…
“If you just stumbled across this message, nothing of what I am going to relate will make any sense. My advice? Don’t read on, kill this holofac now, don’t go looking. You really don’t want to be involved, trust me. Just fly on like nothing happened. People will kill you for knowing.
If you found this because you were led here… congratulations, you must be reasonably smart.
I don’t know what you were expecting, but this probably isn’t it. There’s no payoff my friend, there’s no money to be made. You haven’t won. You may have just made things much worse for yourself. If there is any fame to be had it is what you make of it, maybe some chronicler will immortalise you in the future.”
…PAUSE RECORDING…
…RECORDING…
“If you just stumbled across this message, nothing of what I am going to relate will make any sense. My advice? Don’t read on, kill this holofac now, don’t go looking. You really don’t want to be involved, trust me. Just fly on like nothing happened. People will kill you for knowing.
If you found this because you were led here… congratulations, you must be reasonably smart.
I don’t know what you were expecting, but this probably isn’t it. There’s no payoff my friend, there’s no money to be made. You haven’t won. You may have just made things much worse for yourself. If there is any fame to be had it is what you make of it, maybe some chronicler will immortalise you in the future.”
…PAUSE RECORDING…
When I'd found those things around mid-March, I definitely hadn't been there on accident, nor for money. And I definitely was getting that feeling I was just making everything worse for myself... but like the cat, I had to follow where my curiosity pointed. Even if it was liable to kill me.
Smart... that was arguable. Or maybe smart, but hopelessly stupid in the silly way, considering what I'd let my form go to before deciding it was getting too much. Yet serious enough to be looking into this and not write it off as hearsay immediately. Some more time definitely had passed between when "R" found the Zurara and recorded this series of messages, too, looking at the date stamp.
RAGAZZA Log 2 – 31/03/3275
…RESUME…
“I put this message in this system for a reason, the old lore will tell you why. I’m not the first and I’m not the last. I’m old now and it will soon be time for another to take my place. Maybe it’s her who has led you here. If she’s anything like me she’ll be one feisty little lady, hope you had fun.
By now you’ll have been to the hind-end of space looking for, well… something. Guessing you found it. I make no apology for all your trouble, you decided to go out there, same as me. I don’t know what tech you have in the future to make that voyage a little easier, but I spent years following this, trying to unravel it all and so did many others before me.
You weren’t alone, suffering that boredom and loneliness in the void. Don’t expect any sympathy, no one told you to go. Decide for yourself if you think it was worth it.”
Was it worth it? I couldn't tell yet. More time to reflect on it all was needed.
That message had to be referring to what I was looking at here, the Zurara. Currently, somewhere near its engine cluster. FSD tech definitely made coming out here a lot more bearable, even more so with me taking the 'lazy' option of bringing a fleet carrier to shuttle me around.
"Her" maybe meant Salomé... seemed like the most likely one, anyway, but I hadn't been led to this mess by the woman directly... on account of her having been dead for a good few years already. Apparently, her legacy had survived until now, though, such that I could learn about and - sort of - follow in her tracks. If in my own way.
But what was the "old lore"? If I knew...
RAGAZZA Log 3 – 31/03/3275
…RESUME…
“But I figure I owe you some kind of explanation. So here it is.
They’ve known. They’ve known for decades, maybe centuries. There’s something out there and it’s heading this way. Everything you’ve seen: all the wars, all the investigations, all the abductions. It’s their way of getting stuff done, getting things ready, keeping things quiet.
You don’t build a fleet of warships for no reason – too many questions get asked. So you manufacture a threat, you start a phony war. You keep the populace amused with any diversion you can think of. You play powers against each other, you boom and bust the markets to tilt the economy. Anything to stop people looking at the real issues.”
…PAUSE RECORDING…
…RESUME…
“But I figure I owe you some kind of explanation. So here it is.
They’ve known. They’ve known for decades, maybe centuries. There’s something out there and it’s heading this way. Everything you’ve seen: all the wars, all the investigations, all the abductions. It’s their way of getting stuff done, getting things ready, keeping things quiet.
You don’t build a fleet of warships for no reason – too many questions get asked. So you manufacture a threat, you start a phony war. You keep the populace amused with any diversion you can think of. You play powers against each other, you boom and bust the markets to tilt the economy. Anything to stop people looking at the real issues.”
…PAUSE RECORDING…
What was this referring to? What kind of unknown threat, and was it really the reason for this constant human infighting?
I struggled to get my head around it. If this was referring to the Thargoids, they were definitely not unknown, and known to not be on best terms with humans. But... I could maybe see the rest of it in how, somehow, humans somehow always found a reason to constantly belittle each other and fight over the most meaningless of things, even beyond the quarrels that would occasionally come up over things naturally. Yet, the system had remained stable... it could definitely be a sign toward this manipulation.
Whether I wanted that explanation - or not - I now had it.
RAGAZZA Log 4 – 31/03/3275
…RESUME…
“Who are they? Don’t go thinking this is the Feds or the Imps or even the Alliance, it’s way beyond all that. Most of what you think you know isn’t true. It’s all a fabrication, woven by those who have appointed themselves the protectors of humanity. They’ve been keeping us all in the dark, hiding the truth, secretly prepping for a confrontation.
If you’re unlucky enough to stumble upon a part of it, they simply remove you. A shadowy revolution that decides what to reveal and when.”
…PAUSE RECORDlNG…
…RESUME…
“Who are they? Don’t go thinking this is the Feds or the Imps or even the Alliance, it’s way beyond all that. Most of what you think you know isn’t true. It’s all a fabrication, woven by those who have appointed themselves the protectors of humanity. They’ve been keeping us all in the dark, hiding the truth, secretly prepping for a confrontation.
If you’re unlucky enough to stumble upon a part of it, they simply remove you. A shadowy revolution that decides what to reveal and when.”
…PAUSE RECORDlNG…
And one that apparently thought it was above it all. Those "self-appointed protectors of humanity"... often had a tendency to not be best-suited for that role. And if my guesses were right, actively engaging in a conflict with a far more advanced alien species, was just... not really how to protect humans from them. The only reason was to obtain their technology from spoils of war, and there was no describing how despicable I found such an idea.
Now you understand why I decided to go against those idiots., Kira remarked in my head. Might not have a clue who they are specifically, but that hasn't stopped me from trying to fuck with their idiotic bullshit. If they think we needed to be at war with the Thargoids, I'd like to see what they think when I... I guess, you, get to bash their head in. Or if, more like.
I would do it... for us both. Even if we are technically, kind of, the same person., I answered. And I understand it, too.
Only one of us is a lot bigger than the other.
I saw no reason to go into that tease... even if I knew it was right and it kind of made me... smile, a little, in a silly way. Then I got back to my reading task... because the audio to the messages had apparently been lost.
RAGAZZA Log 5 – 31/03/3275
…RESUME…
“But that’s not all they’ve done. They had all manner of contingency plans drawn up over the years. Maybe they had a premonition of failure. If you’ve got this far you’ll have read the old lore, you know there was a conflict with an alien race. Yes them. You know what they were capable of in the past. Who’s to say what they could do now?
Our so called protectors thought the core worlds might be overrun. Maybe we might need somewhere else to go. That’s what they were looking for out there in the void. Somewhere to flee to, somewhere to run and hide. An Exodus, the Dynasty plan.”
…PAUSE RECORDING…
…RESUME…
“But that’s not all they’ve done. They had all manner of contingency plans drawn up over the years. Maybe they had a premonition of failure. If you’ve got this far you’ll have read the old lore, you know there was a conflict with an alien race. Yes them. You know what they were capable of in the past. Who’s to say what they could do now?
Our so called protectors thought the core worlds might be overrun. Maybe we might need somewhere else to go. That’s what they were looking for out there in the void. Somewhere to flee to, somewhere to run and hide. An Exodus, the Dynasty plan.”
…PAUSE RECORDING…
The "old lore" again. As a term, that was just... really confusing. Old, ancient history? Was it referring to a conflict with the Thargoids? There was only one I was aware of... prior to this idiotic madness with the Titans, anyway. But, definitely, the same person as the one who'd recorded the additional logs for the Zurara, here.
It was unfortunate actual records of the first war with the Thargoids seemed to remain sparse, or just not publicly available... yet, I also doubted that eight Titans just sitting there, poking the edges of the Bubble without posing an extreme threat - even if they were one - while waiting to become target practice, was all the Thargoids were capable of, even after the mycoid. It had brought down, it seemed, around two-hundred of their smaller motherships, which were significantly less large than a Titan, though still imposing nonetheless. If they had that same amount of Titans, if not more, the only thing preventing humans from getting squashed like the "bugs" they claimed that Thargoids were, on loose association of being insect-like, was willingness on the part of the other side.
I myself wouldn't bother fleeing to wherever humanity's supposed protectors decided to set up even more easily controlled spheres of population, however. It was unlikely I'd bother with the Thargoids, but there were definitely better places to be than under the heels of egotistic megalomaniacs who believed angry apes with glowing rocks and sticks had any number to hold to a species that survived space flight for millions of years, and made our own technology look like a toddler's toys. Yet, apparently, that was where we were.
RAGAZZA Log 6 – 31/03/3275
…RESUME…
“So they sent out ships, lots of ships, looking for earth-like worlds in the far reaches of the galaxy. You know where, you’ve been there. When they had that data they planned to kill the crews and bury the missions. Some kind of suicide pact. No one was supposed to know. Some of those poor souls managed to survive for a few years it seems, marooned in the blackness, but none of them made it home. If you’re here you’ve probably found what was left.
But they didn’t tell us plebs about this. No, not a word. They claimed it would cause riots, panic and confusion if the truth ever came out. Maybe they were right. So they lied, time and again.
But you can’t lie forever, truth is a dangerous thing.”
…PAUSE RECORDING…
…RESUME…
“So they sent out ships, lots of ships, looking for earth-like worlds in the far reaches of the galaxy. You know where, you’ve been there. When they had that data they planned to kill the crews and bury the missions. Some kind of suicide pact. No one was supposed to know. Some of those poor souls managed to survive for a few years it seems, marooned in the blackness, but none of them made it home. If you’re here you’ve probably found what was left.
But they didn’t tell us plebs about this. No, not a word. They claimed it would cause riots, panic and confusion if the truth ever came out. Maybe they were right. So they lied, time and again.
But you can’t lie forever, truth is a dangerous thing.”
…PAUSE RECORDING…
Had it led to those things?
It was hard to tell. Most of this... was probably not even accessible to the common citizen. Nor would they be likely to care for it... or would the "protectors" care to dump them on an icy rock after convenient 'elimination' of a problematic individual. If a protector deemed this to be acceptable for the sake of their task, were they really worthy of being called a "protector"?
My answer would have been no, but I hadn't been asked. Yet, I didn't appear to be 'problematic' enough to outright kill. Or, if they knew of me - which seemed quite likely - too important in their eyes to do that. Apparently, not even those logs or the Dynasty mystery itself were things they bothered hiding from... at least, some part of the public domain. I did have to wonder, what it would achieve, if someone decided to broadcast it across all worlds, and all systems... and how many would believe it. But that was not to be my task - humans were already too doubtful about me because of what the Thargoids had done, without asking me. Were it not the only reason I was still alive, now, I would have been... more upset, at them.
RAGAZZA Log 7 – 31/03/3275
…RESUME…
“I figured someone should know the facts one day. So now you have it. What you do with it is your business. Could be they have let you find this message, maybe the time is right at last. Maybe there is nothing left to hide anymore. I don’t know if I’ve played them, or they’ve played me. There’s probably one last question burning in your mind. I know I’d be asking it. How do I know all this?
That’s simple. My memory has been shot to pieces, edited by them and by me over the years, But I finally put it back together, most of it anyway. Turns out I was one of them. I was part of it. I helped them do it. Somewhere along the line I had an attack of conscience.
Guess they didn’t take too kindly to that. Here’s hoping I made a difference…
R.
…END RECORDING…
…RESUME…
“I figured someone should know the facts one day. So now you have it. What you do with it is your business. Could be they have let you find this message, maybe the time is right at last. Maybe there is nothing left to hide anymore. I don’t know if I’ve played them, or they’ve played me. There’s probably one last question burning in your mind. I know I’d be asking it. How do I know all this?
That’s simple. My memory has been shot to pieces, edited by them and by me over the years, But I finally put it back together, most of it anyway. Turns out I was one of them. I was part of it. I helped them do it. Somewhere along the line I had an attack of conscience.
Guess they didn’t take too kindly to that. Here’s hoping I made a difference…
R.
…END RECORDING…
Better than most of the people who'd have been involved with this 'conspiracy', that was for sure.
I'd definitely wondered, and now I had that answer. I couldn't yet tell if it made a difference, or one that mattered... because things didn't appear to have changed much, since then. If they had at all, for the better, at least. It'd certainly gotten worse in a lot of aspects.
Possibly, it would end up making a difference for my personal life. But... I really just had to decide, first, if this was a path that I wanted to follow. Or if it was the right one for me. But with the way the Thargoid conflict was going, it was pointless to hope I even had any role left to play in it, since nobody was actually trying to even attempt a resolution, with the only thing getting exchanged being gun shots. Whether that was plasma projectiles or something else.
Maybe I had a reason to get on their nerves a bit. I had my reasons to suspect that Salvation and Azimuth would have been, and possibly still were, involved with 'them'. I couldn't see how any company would otherwise have survived a failure as colossal as that of the Proteus Wave, or how they had achieved what they did, leading up to the construction of that weapon... now, it was just the shattered dream of a lunatic, shining brightly as a beacon of his failure.
And they evidently had an 'interest' in me, too, being what I was. Holding me alive being one, so I could, maybe, use that against them. But whatever I could possibly do...
Part of me was still wondering how they had known exactly where I would be, given that I could've headed off in any number of directions after leaving the Bubble. Maybe they were still keeping track of those distant outposts' systems... or maybe there was a double agent somewhere on my fleet carrier. It wasn't possible to rule that out, as an alternative... either.
Then, it came back to me that, at one point as I was looking into those beacons in Teorge, a ship had randomly approached me in normal space, and run a deeper scan on my ship. I hadn't thought much of it, as a cursory scan on my part had revealed it to just be a Viper with a Harmless or Mostly Harmless combat rating, and no legal precedent in the system itself, making me write it off as someone new to the deal looking for unsuspecting pirates to pick on. Which I, evidently, hadn't been and still wasn't. But it would have been a good disguise for someone looking to spy on me for this 'Club', too, or anyone looking into those beacons in Teorge.
Whatever the case was... I'd survived and destroyed, or killed, my attackers. Some of them were stuck in a wrecked Anaconda, having to hope for a rescue, or that they can fix it enough before running out of fuel, food and water, or air, to get it off the planet again. As I was beginning to think of leaving the ghost ship in front of me behind... EDI alerted me to something.
"I have discovered something interesting within the logs you recovered, Kira.", she pointed out.
I raised an eyebrow at that. "Oh?"
"It appears to be nothing more than random pieces of data at first, but put together, they form a unique digital signature, which appears to somewhat mirror your own. It may be that somebody was attempting to get your attention that way."
"Hm... and?"
"Perhaps, introducing it into the system will prompt a response."
I decided to just try that. And... sure enough, something popped up. A simple message, only in text.
For Kira Goto... or Kasumi, as I hear you like to call yourself now.
I'm guessing you're probably still a little doubtful about what you've just heard, or read, or just a little lost about what you can do - if you're here for the reason I suspect you are.
Go to Salomé's Requiem in HIP 17519. You'll know what it is when you get there... and it could just help point you in the right direction.
If you're wondering who I am - for now, suffice it to say that I'm an interested party. One that would like to see you succeed. You might also find another little something from me there.
Good luck.
A lucky charm, finally? It certainly felt like it was about time for one... aside from the accidental but quite fortuitous changes those interesting 'parts' of my body had gone through. To say I was curious about the identity of the person behind this message.
The same woman who'd recorded the Ragazza logs? Maybe, or maybe not. Chances were just as high she was dead, and someone else wrote this. It even seemed quite probable - as I'd read, during my free time on the carrier travel, some of Salomé's collaborators had survived, and then vanished. Maybe they were still out there, themselves, working in the shadows. And maybe one of them had let this come my way, or buried it out here for me to find, now.
Whatever the case... I'd actually planned to go there, anyway, as someone had told me of it prior to my departure to investigate this project. Some place that was apparently her home, too, a station called "Pirate's Lament". Didn't fancy it just by the sound of the name... so I'd probably give it a pass.
Now, it was time for me to move on... and I felt unnerved by the eerie stillness of the ghost ship in front of me, too. Like there was an aura surrounding it, despite anything except me, the local DSSA and my own fleet carrier being the only living things nearby. Or maybe some primitive life on the planet below... it, itself, had the potential to develop some, after all.
This had been the end of the line for the Zurara's crew... and that of my journey into the void, but another one was just starting. Its beginning... would be marked by my return to the Bubble, for sure, but first I had a call to make to someone else that was rather interested in this mystery.
So, I distanced myself from the drifting megaship, and blipped into supercruise a moment later, returning to my carrier. Its own departure... could still wait for a day, and let me mull things over in my head. Then, it'd be back to the Bubble, destination, what I presumed was the final resting location of Salomé.
And maybe a little more star coverage. Staring out into the void, here, where there sometimes was nothing but the darkness in view, felt like it tried to pull you into it sometimes.