Well, sometimes one doesn’t realise how lucky they are…
Had an exceptionally slow start to the day. Coffee wasn’t kicking in and there hasn’t any way to boost the effects. Woke up late into the afternoon too. Guess the combat yesterday had taken a bit more than i thought outta me. No matter. Time to see what Delta had planned for today. Turns out, not much. Cat, Daros and the Enclave vessel Omnisciens appeared soon after. The usual conflict had begun once again in the farther reaches of the sector, but they kept it away from the enforceable area, which was a relief.
What wasn’t a relief is what Daros told me after Cat had gone. Aparrently he set me up on a date. With.. Nina. Daros. Why would you do such a thing!? You know how close i came to getting spaced by her?? Damnit… now i got more to think about than the events of yesterday. In the meantime though… there was a strange freelancer. Seemed more interested in the Enclave vessel than anything else.
It got a little frustrating. They were probing and pushing as to why we tolerated the artificial presence.. and didn’t seem to give a damn about how helpful in protecting Freeport they’ve been. After making a small recording, they went towards the Cores main base of operations… Great. More possible problems. Stepped away from the console to contact Cat and the Concord Militia. Nothing. Attempted a reach out to Zoners too, nothing. Like my calls weren’t reaching anywhere.
By the time i turned my receiver back on, an all-too-familiar voice was counting up. I assume this was a warning for being absent. Sometimes, its not even enough to be doing something for good reasons… Aside from the countdown, the rest of the… chat, went smoothly. She took her whiskey, and like was agreed, she would forget my mis-spoken words. Some relief washed over me. No mention of any kind of date, nor any seeming interest of such. I was just glad to have fixed one of my careless mistakes. Singularis noticed such too.
We spent a little bit talking, but not on much. Except for somewhere called earhart. Never heard of it before. No hints, not even logs of them in any place. But they spoke of it like it was a place. So… why isn’t it on any chart i’ve seen? Naturally, i asked to tag along for the excursion. They agreed to let me come with. They plotted the route, and we flew together. Through Omegas, into Rheinland, to Liberty. Then, into Zone 21. Doesn’t fail to amaze me how a cruiser and a fighter manage to explore a heavily restricted area. But, we did.
The main buoyed path was easy to follow, and we maintained easy separation for cloak effectiveness. Then there was a split in the path. One route i had been before, the other not. Singularis was certain that the secret was here… so we took the path i hadn’t travelled before. sure enough…. A jump gate. One id never seen. Not registering an end location either. A familiar itch to explore was creeping up my spine. I wanted to go through. So too, did Singularis. So, with our mutual want, we headed through the mysterious gate.
Neither of us could be prepared for what was on the other side… and what a sight it was! A debris field, with a small, dark nebula, and some strange alien-looking structure. Singularis pointed out that we weren’t on any Sirian map, and that our star charts were basically useless. I wondered if we were even able to return home… because it seemed there wasn’t any return point at first glance. I was more curious about the structure. A curiosity that was even more dangerous it seemed, when these strange beams of energy were fired, moving rapidly towards me. Curiosity died down a little, so i retreated to a safe distance and began exploring the local area.
Singularis reported an anomalous reading, while i was scanning many of the wrecks littered around. There seemed to be ships of every known human group scattered around… amazing. Each one had been missing at a different time in history, outdated technologies… some no longer compatible. We skirted the edge of the central structure to see if there was any more anomalous jumps. There were four in total. Two led to Sirius, and two… led to somewhere i hadn’t known existed.
Singularis’ vessel was too large to make the jump to the unexplored places… but my vessel would be able to cope. Truly unexplored territory… something i knew i couldn’t leave alone. Singularis seemed to sense this too. Even had a hint of… jealousy in their artificial voice. But they did state they would remain for my return. First through one, with a strange alien structure at the centre, similar yet different to the one where Singularis was. Some light scans through the mild radiation, but nothing conclusive, except “alien”. Then the second. A system that… looked like it had two eyes. Several planets and nebulae, some strange points, like an in-system jump hole of some kind? Seemed that way when i locked onto it, and attempted jump sequence. It brought me out behind one of the planets id been to before.
I left the undiscovered space, returning over to Singularis who was waiting outside the entry to Omega 11. At the time i wasn’t sure if we would make it through… but we seemed to prevail. And quite close to the Omega 41 jump. The nearest base that Singularis could repair and re-stock their cloaking batteries. After that… we went our separate ways. I wanted to capture what i saw in the system beyond the Alaskan Super Jump gate. As i saw it that first time…
It took me little time to return, taking the shortcut through Minor to Alaska. Now i knew where it was, and what it was… it was a swift return with little issue. I made it through and sat there, choosing to capture the image through my art. True beauty, something so far from home, something unexplainable or really truly explored.
![[Image: etIvURC.png]](https://imgur.com/etIvURC.png)