Personal Log - Expedition Day 1
25 Jun 2019Timothy Hooker
Personal log, Commander Timothy Hooker, Research Vessel Curiosity, 25 June 3305. Expedition Day 1.I spent most of the morning overseeing preparations to the ship prior to launch schedule. The navcom required an almost complete overhaul, and several other supplementary systems were removed or bypassed. A few hours before launch, I let the deck crew take over the finishing touches. Most of my personal effects had already been loaded onto the ship, so I took the time to enjoy the station's facilities one last time - a hot dinner and a shower, since shipboard rations and recycled water definitely do not hold up to real food and fresh water - luxuries I will be foregoing for the foreseeable future.
By 1830, I was finishing the pre-flight checklist from the cockpit. RV Curiosity launched from Pratchett's Disc at 1849 Galactic Mean Time and proceeded to jump away from system HIP 74290, near the edge of the bubble. The upgraded frameshift drive really pulled its weight. Within a half hour of departure, I was well over 500 light years away.
Shortly after 1900, I detected severely degraded emissions near the fifth planetary body in system M7 Sector EC-W A 18-1. Being nearly 700 light years from departure, I decided to check it out. The signal source was 407 light seconds from the planet, well outside of orbit, so I was surprised to drop out of supercruise into a sprawling field of wreckage. I managed to positively identify several vessels - a Lakon Type-6, a Federal Dropship, and a Diamondback Explorer - that had been completely ripped to shreds. There was a nearly intact Sidewinder among the wreckage, but whatever had destroyed these ships had shattered the canopy on the Sidewinder. None of the vessels had easily identifiable markings, so it was impossible to tell who owned the ships, where they had come from, or why so many of them had been in the same system this far from a station. Judging by the amount of debris, there were likely other ships in the field, but they were difficult to identify from what little was left of them. Around this point, I noticed that the off-board camera probe was malfunctioning, so I initiated a diagnostic routine before jumping away from the debris field.
At approximately 2030, I entered system Aucoks IV-O B 12-8, and scans indicated a number of planetary bodies. The second moon of the first planet seemed interesting, so I approached to launch surface probes at 2033. The probes detected 50 geological signals, so I decided to approach. At 2042, Curiosity made landfall on Aucoks IV-O B 12-8 1 B inside a water geyser field. I deployed Scarab-1 to take a closer look at the phenomenon - and also to effect the repair to the off-board camera probe. Within the geyser field, I found statistically significant amounts of sulphur, carbon, iron, arsenic, and tin during the first sweep. I re-boarded Curiosity at 2100 to begin planning a more detailed sweep through the geyser field - after a little nap, I think.
End log.