CMDR Eldrich Thames Logbook, Entry #18, November 11, 3303
11 Nov 2017Eldrich Thames
recommended audio track: Ghost in the Shell OST - Floating Museum, by Kenji Kawai
Palarran's test cruise is going very well so far. I've decided to plot a course for Coke Dock the LFT 424 system - where I bought Gipsy over eight months ago - to continue with my new Anaconda's outfitting. I decided to take it slow and easy and instructed the computer to plot a course using only economical jumps, producing a 22 hop route.
Palarran is currently equipped with Gipsy's engineered FSD drive (giving her a solid 45+ LY jump range) and Greedy Mamba's power plant (also engineered for extra juice). I also took my Corvette's SRV and fighter bays, and my trusty crew - Commanders Jules Lara, Leland McMillan and Khalia Davis. They are quite excited to participate in an exploration trip, as it's a change of pace from being mere pilots for the Condors.
For this first part of the journey we won't be leaving the Bubble, which means there are no expectations of finding any interesting discoveries. Indeed, most of the stars in our route are red and brown dwarves; the majority of them are lonely wolves with no planets, and on those who do have planets they are little more than tiny balls of ice and dust. The few interesting systems in the route are actually inhabited, but with populations so small that Stellar Cartographics isn't particularly hard pressed into including them in the next update of the Galactic Map.
Mu Cassiopea would be just another unremarkable star system in our route, where it not for the derelict generation ship orbiting one of its planets.
The Generation Ship Artemis, according to the information available on Canonn Research's Galnet site, was one of several such ships launched from Earth centuries ago, long before FTL was even invented. These vessels were designed to traverse deep space at sub-luminal speeds, taking them hundreds of years to reach their targets. Thus, the colonists arriving at the destination would be the descendants of those who left Earth at the start of the journey.
Some people would be born, live and die inside those ships without ever setting a foot outside it. For them, the ship would be the world they'll ever know.
I shudder at the mere thought of leaving for a place I would never actually reach, or live my entire life inside a ship... and I can't help but marvel at the bravery and tenacity of our ancestors.
Most of those early colony ships did reach their intended destinations, and their passengers were the founders of humanity's first interstellar colonies. But the fate of a few of them remained unknown. These forgotten ships are referred to as "The Missing".
Some of those lost ships have only started to be found recently; the Artemis is one of them.
Doomed to orbit planet C 1 of the Mu Cassiopeia system until its slowly decaying orbit finally brings her rotting hull crashing into C 1's surface, forever basking in the eerie dim red light of the nearby brown dwarf, the wreck of the Artemis is both an awe-inspiring and unsettling sight to behold.
Its habitat rings still rotate even while they are partially destroyed by centuries of neglect. Some trees and shrubs seem to still grow inside its hydroponic bays - or at least that's what I could discern since the dome's panels have become almost opaque. While her hull is weathered and some of its titanium plating has been breached by micro-meteorites - though I noticed some of the holes seem to have be created by explosions from the inside of the ship - there is still minimal power on the vessel, as evidenced by the sparks coming out from the ruptured lines here and there, and the still functioning radio up-links scattered through the Artemis' hull.
Scanning these nodes enabled us to recover some of the ill-fated ship's logs. According to the recovered files, the ship left Earth and spent the first few years of its long journey without any major incidents, until a string of gruesome murders started to happen. It was first thought that the culprit was a dog smuggled into the ship, which was swiftly put down - even though the report stated the animal seemed to be quite docile. The Artemis' captain deemed the issue solved, and everything went back to normal.
After that there are only unregistered log entries with no name attached. But they all seemed to be recorded by the same person. This man claimed that the ship's occupants were mere "sheep", unaware of "the true nature of things". He claimed to be "a wolf among sheep", tasked with teaching them the truth. This man apparently killed every single person on board the Artemis, until he was the last one standing. His final entry was recorded as he apparently killed the last survivor.
"Damn!", Leland exclaimed after we finished the playback. "That was a really sick bastard!"
We were sitting in Palarran's view deck, located on the ship's bow. It provided a nice view of the Artemis, the planet below and the brown dwarf above them. Nice and kinda spooky at the same time.
"Wonder if the guy's still in there...", Khalia mused.
"I he's still alive he must be like 700 years now, give or take...", Jules chuckled. "Wanna go there and say hi for us?"
"No way in hell I'm going to that creepy rust bucket!", Khalia rebuffed. We all laughed at her expense, which flustered her even further. "What about you guys? I mean you're so brave after all..."
"It's OK, we are just teasing you, girl!", Leland said, patting Khalia's shoulder. "I'm sure there's nothing to see there. anyway."
"But more importantly, this place is a graveyard.", I said. "I think this and all found lost Generation Ships shall be off-limits to everyone."
"I concur, Commander.", Jules nodded. "We should let the Barge of the Dead continue its journey to Hades undisturbed."
"Wow, that sounded so... solemn!", Leland remarked. "The Barge of the Dead..."
We all agreed this was indeed the Barge of the Dead... and it should be left to the dead. We deployed the sensor probe to get several good angles of the ship before resuming our journey.
But even it we haven't taken any images of it, the sight of that derelict spaceship will forever haunt me. I make a mental note to seek the other discovered Generation Ships and visit them, to learn about their fates and pay my respects to those brave men and women who left the safety of Earth to walk into the unknown.
They knew their journey would be dangerous, and there was a probability they would never reach their destination. In the case of the Artemis, however, I don't think none of them could even fathom the possibility that their odyssey would meet a tragic end at the hands of one of their own...
... And so we left the Barge of the Dead as we found it. In peace...
CMDR Thames signing out!