A small diary rests on the dark oak table. Covered in a rich leather, the book has a warm scent to it and a smooth feeling. Flicking through it, there appears to be a whirlwind of words, drawings and scrawls. Turning to the first page you are greeted by a single, lightly coloured word...
Ukiyo
Day 2133
Myself and the crew have stumbled across something that may be of great interest to many.
The planet Jericho, in the Coronado system, holds a secret wrapped up in a mystery. We intend to solve that mystery and find out the secret.
There has apparantly long been rumours of wreckage of some sort on the planet. Only more recently has anyone obtained visible proof of the claim. Seemingly a crash site with some wreckage on one of the planet's poles.
When the Lotus Heart heard of this, we were immediately interested. We attempted to get the most thorough evidence of the wreckage but could only manage a single image taken from near-orbit. The fierce radiation fields surrounding the planet wrecked havoc on our sensors and we had to leave soon after arriving as the radiation was rising quickly enough to pose a risk to the crew.
What we did obtain was this:
The darkened areas appear to be crashsites, containing debris or wreckage of some sort.
What we ask is this:
What is this wreckage?
How old is it?
It is claimed to be ancient but how people would know this from far off visual scans and no material evidence we do not know.
We have contacted the ICMG in the hope that they may be able to assist in at least landing on the surface to obtain better scans or material evidence of the wreckage. We also hope to see if there is any technology or knowledge to be gleaned from the wreckage.
We shall soon know if our curiosity will be fulfilled soon, or if we will need to contact other sources for assistance.
It looks like the ICMG have pulled through and a bit more too. They have already manuevered a fleet into the Coronado system and near to the planet and established that their mighty Argus class vessels could get within 4k of the planet before the radiation gets dangerous. We only got within 7k, so this should be of great interest.
We are also enroute to Coronado, after taking some damage due to crossfire in yet another fire fight between Bretonian and Kusari forces in Tau-31. They need to watch where they are firing before they make more enemies for themselves.
It would seem that the ICMG are serious about this venture and even refused credits but instead wanted to share in any discoveries that we make. This is a great boon to our expedition. A dedicated, efficient and knowledge driven group with the resources to effectively carry out what needs to be done.
The crew have got high morale with the news of the ICMG's rapid movements, which has definitely helped dispel the dismal mood after Engineer Lawson was injured during the firefight. He should hopefully be alright but the medical officers couldn't give a definite answer. If he does end up dying, I'll have to look for a new Engineer from somewhere.
We would probably need to head back to Kusari if such a thing happened, not many are experienced with our new propulsion systems.
Still, such idle thoughts are not going to be helpful now, best I get back to the data we collected from our last trip to Jericho, perhaps I can pinpoint some sort of pattern in the radiation readouts. Would be a great help towards finding the source of the energy.
Can't help but wonder what awaits on the surface of that desolate planet. Perhaps it will be a fruitless waste of time but it could also be the opposite, a discovery akin to those that the Zoner's made out in the Omicrons years ago.