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- = AKI03 SHUTTLE LOG = -
< EXPEDITION 5, DAY 46 >
Still no sign of Selena. Maybe Dr. Rauth is right, maybe it’s time to give up. I’ve been searching for almost seven months without any real progress to speak of, no evidence that she even survived.
I am nearing the end of my fifth expedition now. The first two expeditions lasted less a month combined. The main limiting factor was energy—I need to recharge my power core periodically just like any other battery, otherwise I will shut down. After the second expedition I found a way to mount my recharging alcove in the shuttle, which solved that problem. The other limiting factor was fuel for the ship, but a pair of externally-mounted reserve tanks increased my capacity five-fold. This way I don’t have to worry about returning to
Ur constantly, and I have plenty of rations stored up to keep me going. I don’t require much, not like humans and Newmans do. The artificial nutrients keep my systems lubricated and running efficiently but I could do without them for an extended period of time if necessary.
With the recharging alcove and reserve fuel tanks on hand I was able to extend the third expedition to a period of eight standard weeks, four times my previous record. I could have continued longer but I promised Dr. Rauth I would check in periodically, and I was getting lonely after spending two months alone in a cramped shuttle. I have to admit, it was good to see my sisters again. Zero One was overseeing the current batch of ARKS trainees and Zero Two was busy helping Irene with an upgrade modification—or maybe it was the other way around. Zero Two has gotten so proficient at CAST engineering lately that she’s nearly as good as Irene now. Of course, since my sisters and I share our knowledge and memories through the recharging alcoves, that means I’ve become quite the engineer myself.
The fourth expedition lasted ten weeks. I would have kept going longer but I received a message from Dr. Rauth through a local comm relay politely asking me to return. I obliged but only returned for a single night, just long enough to restock and refuel the shuttle and catch up with the Doctor and Irene. I didn’t even see my sisters before I set out again.
Dr. Rauth means well. He is only concerned for me, I know that. Even so, I cannot bring myself to abandon Selena. The Doctor doesn’t understand what Selena and I have been through together. She saved my life on more than one occasion and was—is—my closest friend. I can’t stop until I know for sure what happened to her. Did she survive the Darker attack on
Orpheus? Did she escape in time? I have no way of knowing. For now, all I can do is keep looking.
To that end, my next stop is a planet identified in the computer's databanks as “Charmusk.” This deep into the Rift very few planets have names, so the fact it has one means someone took an interest in it at some point. It’s also the right size, composition, and distance from its star to support life. That makes it an ideal candidate for my search.
Assuming she’s out there at all…
* * * * * * * * *
< EXPEDITION 5, DAY 47 >
When I last saw Selena she was trying to reunite a young boy named Marten with his parents. That was aboard
Orpheus the day of the Fifth Fleet Massacre. Since her status is still M.I.A. there are only a limited number of possibilities I have to work with. First, either she escaped from
Orpheus or she didn’t. If she didn’t, one of two things is true: either she died or is still trapped aboard… and I have no idea where
Orpheus could be right now. On the other hand, if she did manage to escape, she never made it back to Oracle. That suggests one of several possibilities: her escape craft may be stranded in space somewhere, in which case her chances of survival at this point are extremely slim, or she managed to reach a planetary body.
But if she’s on a planet somewhere, why hasn’t she returned by now? Did her craft run out of fuel? Was it damaged beyond repair? Or worse… no, I don’t even want to speculate about those possibilities. She’s out there, and I’m going to find her.
* * * * * * * * *
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< EXPEDITION 5, DAY 48 >
The trip to Charmusk proved to be rather… interesting, but let me start from the beginning. I used the shuttle’s scanners to locate the largest concentrations of life and headed in that direction. During my initial flyover I made an unexpected discovery: not only is the planet rich with life, it is also home to a race of sentient beings! I spotted a number of their settlements, which appeared crude compared to a spacefaring society like ours, and set the shuttle down next to one of their larger “villages.”
In retrospect it’s not very surprising. A habitable, named planet… of course the chances of running into intelligent life would be higher. What I didn’t expect was the form that life would take. Aside from the color of their feathers, which are a brilliant shade of red, and a number of other minor physiological differences, a Charmuskan is the spitting image of a Rappy! I wonder if the two species are related?
When I first entered the village they erupted into a flurry of what can only be described as stunned panic. I can’t say I blame them—with their primitive tools and huts made from tree branches, a CAST like me must have seemed like quite a fearsome creature indeed. Or so I thought at the time. As a side note, the ARKS really need an official protocol for dealing with these types of first contact situations…
I didn’t want to scare them more than I already had so I simply sat down and waited. Eventually they emerged once more, timidly at first, until at last they sensed I wasn’t a threat. They got to talking amongst themselves in a chirping sort of language when suddenly a hush fell over them. The next thing I knew they were lying prostrate on the ground all around me! They even refused to look me in the eye.
I tried communicating with them, asking them questions, but they (unsurprisingly) couldn’t understand me. It was a long process, but after several hours of patient instruction I finally began to grasp their language and modified my vocal processors to match their speech patterns. Though I could only communicate using simple ideas and analogies, it was enough to be understood. I started by asking the obvious question: Why were they all bowing in front of me? As it turns out—this is rather embarrassing—they think I am some sort of “metal goddess.” The fact that my armor and hair match the color of their feathers only enhanced that perception. I tried to explain about Oracle and the different races but I don’t think they knew what I was talking about. How could they?
Despite my pleas, the Charmuskans insisted on constructing a throne for me… if you can call it that. Once that task was accomplished they set about making me as comfortable as possible. I insisted repeatedly that it wasn’t necessary but they refused to listen. Finally, when they were done pampering and grooming me I was able to ask the question I’d come all this way to ask: Have they seen Selena? Actually, I think an accurate translation of my question would be something like, “Have you seen the pink-skinned, pointy-eared one?” The answer I received was a definite no. It was a disappointment, but one I fully expected to receive. With much apologizing I managed to free myself from their hospitality and departed the planet shortly after.
My next stop is
Ur! After traveling the Rift for six straight weeks a change of scenery will do me good.
Also, I’ve been hearing a strange chirping noise ever since I got back to the shuttle. I should probably check that out…
< ADDENDUM TO DAY 48 >
I appear to have found the source of the mysterious chirping: a baby Charmuskan, so small it can fit in my pocket. Or it would, if I had any pockets to put it in. I need to return it to its people but unfortunately the shuttle’s fuel is nearly depleted and I was already on my way home by the time I discovered the infant. I have no choice but to take it with me for now. I’ll stop by Charmusk again on the return trip.
* * * * * * * * *
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< EXPEDITION 6, DAY 1 >
The end of every expedition leaves me with mixed feelings. I’m glad to see everyone—Zero One, Zero Two, Irene, Alpha, and Dr. Rauth—but I hate returning empty-handed. My sisters were happy to see me for the first time in months, though I could tell they were disappointed I didn’t bring Selena with me. We tried not to talk about it much.
On a different note, the Charmuskan infant—“Charmie,” as Zero Two calls it—has nearly doubled in size during the few days we’ve been together. I had nothing to give it except the cache of military rations when we were aboard the shuttle. Now that we’re on
Ur it’s been eating like a ravenous beast, consuming whatever we put in front of it. It’s quite a friendly little thing, chirping and bouncing around and generally following me everywhere. Irene jokingly called me its mother, but if I don’t return Charmie to its people soon I fear her joke might come true. As a CAST I have no parental instincts to speak of and know very little about being a mother. My sisters and I cared for an injured telpin bird once, but that was a very… different situation.
It’s been nice having some company these past few days but it’s time to move on. Time once again to leave
Ur… and in a few days, to return Charmie to its proper home. Then I’ll be alone again. It’s for the best, I think. This way I can give the search for Selena my undivided attention.
* * * * * * * * *
< EXPEDITION 6, DAY 8 >
The Charmuskans won’t take Charmie back. If I understand them correctly, Charmie has already imprinted onto me. As I feared, it—“he,” apparently—now thinks of me as his mother. I… don’t know how to feel about that.
I asked the Charmuskans how Charmie got aboard my shuttle in the first place. After a long round of questioning and coaxing I finally arrived at the truth. It seems a pair of new parents offered one of their offspring to me, the metal goddess, in the hope that—this part was hard to decipher—I would “teach him the ways of the heavens.” I wanted to decline but that didn’t seem to be an option. Now I’m a foster mother to a small, rapidly-growing bird with a big appetite. I hope we have enough rations in the shuttle!
Well, at least now I’ve got company…
* * * * * * * * *
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< EXPEDITION 6, DAY 41 >
I think we have a problem. It happened while I was asleep in my recharging alcove—the shuttle skimmed the edge of an asteroid field. Here at the fringes of the field the asteroids are so tiny they didn’t even set off the warning alarm until it was too late. Many of them are smaller than my fist, which is why the shuttle’s computer didn’t register them as threats. Although the majority of these micro-asteroids bounced harmlessly off the shields, a few of them made it through. Just enough, it seems, to rip a hole in one of the external fuel tanks. Even worse, the main tank is nearly depleted and the other reserve tank is completely dry. The only tank with a decent amount of fuel left is the one that got hit. The computer shows a small but steady loss of fuel in the tank. That is… not a good thing.
Based on my projections using the current rate of fuel loss, the tank will be dry in less than two days. That may seem like a long time, and it is, but those projections were calculated with the engines shut down. Powering them up will consume the fuel much more rapidly, hence the problem.
Now, for the solution. My best shot at saving the fuel tank is to patch it, and the shuttle happens to have a patch kit aboard. It also has a spare spacesuit, which I’m going to need if I plan to be outside the shuttle. I don't need it to breathe but do I need it for warmth. Space is cold, extremely cold, especially so far from the nearest star. At some point my body will simply shut down and stop functioning. Like the fuel leak, that would be a bad thing.
There’s one complication to my plan. Patching the leak will take time, possibly hours, and more time means more fuel wasted. If it doesn’t work for some reason I’ll be in even bigger trouble. Right now I have enough fuel to reach a planet designated in the computer as “XCC-40872.” There’s not much information on it aside from the fact that it’s habitable—an important fact, to be sure, but entirely lacking in crucial details. Details such as the types of native life forms present and how edible they find metallic humanoids and bulb-headed birds.
My choices are far from ideal. I can take a one-way trip to XCC-40872 or I can point the shuttle towards
Ur and get stranded halfway home. If I patch the leak soon I should still have enough fuel to make it past the edge of the Rift, close to Oracle territory, but even then there's no guarantee we'll be discovered in time. Still, some hope is better than none.
Note: The reason I’m writing this entry now is in case something happens to me out there. At least this log can provide a record of what happened in the event I’m not around.
< ADDENDUM TO DAY 41 >
I failed. I patched the leak as best I could, and at first it seemed to have worked. After I fired up the shuttle and started us moving, however, the fuel leakage alarm returned. If the patch is so weak to come apart that easily there’s no way it would have held up all the way back to Oracle space. Saving the fuel tank appears to be a lost cause. And in the meantime, the hours I spent on the repair job cost us more fuel. Now we don’t have enough to reach XCC-40872. The situation is very dire at the moment. I would say hopeless, but I’m not willing to give up just yet.
It’s strange how calm I feel. After all, I’ve probably doomed myself and Charmie. Selena and Marten too, if they’re still alive. I suppose the weight of it hasn’t hit me yet. There’s no one out here to find us, not this far out. The Rift is a vast, uncharted region of space, much too large to count on being rescued. It’s not as if I filed a flight plan back on
Ur. No one, not even my sisters, knows exactly where I was headed. Even I didn’t know until I got out here.
The life support will give out first. No life support means no heat, and no heat means I’ll turn into an Aki popsicle. Even the spacesuit’s power cell will die after prolonged continuous use, so I can’t rely on that. Someone may find the shuttle someday; if they do, it’s even possible they might be able to thaw me out. That won’t do Charmie any good, sadly. I feel terrible for putting him in this situation at so young an age. He doesn’t deserve this fate.
I tried to save everyone, but in the end I’m going to lose everyone. I should have gone to XCC-40872. At least then I could’ve saved Charmie. And myself, if you consider being stranded in a remote corner of the galaxy being saved.
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Maybe I deserve this. Maybe this is the universe telling me I should have turned back a long time ago. I just… couldn’t let Selena go. Not only because she’s my friend, but because I didn’t want to give up. On that day, the day of the Fifth Fleet Massacre, I lost my home and most of my friends. The weight of it nearly crushed me but I forced myself to keep going. I needed answers, answers to the questions that have been burning inside me: Why was I the only one allowed to continue on, to survive? And why do I deserve that privilege?
I guess I felt that if I was able to find Selena, to save even one person, then somehow I hadn’t let everyone down. I was the commanding officer that day; it was my responsibility to get them all to safety. I failed them. And now I’ve failed myself.
* * * * * * * * *
< EXPEDITION 6, DAY 42 >
I was wrong, we’re not doomed after all. Half-doomed, maybe, but that is still a vast improvement over my diagnosis yesterday.
It turns out there was a second leak! In my despair I didn’t even stop to consider that possibility. Truthfully, I don’t think I would have figured it out if I hadn’t performed a second EVA (extravehicular activity). I didn’t know what else to try except re-patching the first leak, but when I got out there I discovered that the patch is still holding, which makes sense because that’s what it was designed to do. That’s when I realized there had to be another leak. After a few minutes of careful examination I found it: a crack, very small, on the other side of the fuel tank. It must not have been visible during my initial examination. I patched it and the alarm vanished.
Unfortunately this incident cost me nearly forty percent of my remaining fuel. That means I don’t have enough to reach XCC-40872, which I already knew, and I don’t have enough to get clear of the Rift either. Still, given those two options, the choice is clear. I’ll get as close to home as I can and, as a superstitious person would say, “cross my fingers.” I never put much stock in luck but I could really use some now.
* * * * * * * * *
< EXPEDITION 6, DAY 47 >
The hardest part about being stranded is the waiting. Charmie and I made it as far as the Arapakos Cluster before the engines finally gave out. Now we’re drifting through space, waiting and hoping for someone to pass close enough to hear our distress signal. Help could come today, tomorrow, or not at all. Is this how Selena feels right now? Is she stranded out there, waiting for help to arrive?
I met Selena during one of the lowest parts of my life. My friend and mentor Zack Grayson was killed saving me and I felt responsible for his death. I became withdrawn, afraid to open up to people for fear of losing them. Selena was in a similar place, having recently lost teammates of her own. In our grief we found something in common and became fast friends. I don’t know where she is now or what she’s doing, I just know that if the situation were reversed she wouldn’t give up on me, and I’m certainly not going to give up on her. Not if I can help it.
* * * * * * * * *
< EXPEDITION 6, DAY 51 >
I awoke today to the sweetest sound I could have possibly heard. It was a computer chime informing me of an incoming transmission! A simple query revealed the source: a cargo freighter, the
Lush Load, situated three kilometers off the port bow. They were in the middle of transporting foodstuffs to the First Fleet when they picked up our S.O.S. Normally they don’t fly this far out but they were trying to save time by cutting across the edge of the Rift.
The captain, an elderly Newman, was kind enough to take the shuttle into his hangar and give us a ride back to
Ur. It seems we’ve been saved after all.
But my search for Selena isn't over. I’ll be back in the Rift within a week, Charmie in the co-pilot’s seat, with nothing but possibilities before us.
And next time, I’ll definitely file a flight plan.
INTERLUDE: END
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Originally Posted by AIDA
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