Part 20

Click on the portraits to listen to the audio!

UNN RICKENBACKER - POD 1

Date: 26.JUN.14
From: Bayliss
Subject: re: Tau Ceti



We arrived planet side via the shuttle on June 15th at 0800 hours. Korenchkin was the first one out the door, never even bothering to do a level B Hazard Suit exam. Not wanting to let that little TriOp suit get a head start, Diego went right after him. I thought it was crazy, sending the senior officers of the Rickenbacker down to the surface of an uncharted body, but both those idiots were going to get all the glory for the UNN and TriOp they could. Damn, time for inspection... more later.

Date: 26.JUN.14
From: Bayliss
Subject: re: Tau Ceti, Pt. 2



The eggs were lying in a semi-circle in the middle of what looked like a crash crater. There were hundreds of those things. Hundreds. As we got closer, you could hear them... not the eggs, the things inside them... it was like music... I was scared out of my mind, but that music... all I wanted to do was see those things up close... find out their secrets...

Date: 11.JUL.14
From: Croker
Subject: re: Nacelle B access



In order to reverse the gravitronic generators, I need to get into nacelle B. In order to get into the nacelle, I need my damn access card. But I left the it on the opposite side of the hull breach. Wait a minute... if I can extend the auxilary support struts, I could... if they've survived the blast, that is.

Date: 26.JUN.14
From: Bayliss
Subject: re: Tau Ceti, Pt. 3



After a couple of hours it was... it was like being on a bender... long periods that you couldn't remember... one minute we were in that crater... the next minute we were loading up the shuttle with the eggs... I remember hearing that idiot Korenchkin calling the Von Braun and ordering them to clear off the ENTIRE hydroponics deck. Diego seemed to think this was strange and said, 'Are you crazy, Anatoly?' And Korenchkin smiled and said back to him, 'Oh, Captain... WE are not Anatoly...

Date: 11.JUL.14
From: Anatoly Korenchkin
Subject: re: Rapture



What did I think power was? What was my concept of joy? How empty life must have been. As I merge my body with the biomass, I begin to sense the borders of rapture.

Date: 08.JUL.14
From: Croker
Subject: re: Betrayed by Diego



The worms are everywhere... and Captain Diego is the one who let them in. Nobody knows who to trust anymore... nobody's even sure who's human anymore. I've blown out the access ladders in the torpedo room to restrict access to Pod 2. Let's hope that holds them back. As long as we're alive and drawing a paycheck from the Navy, those bastards are not getting the Rickenbacker.

Date: 10.JUL.14
From: Croker
Subject: re: The resonator



Simpson, Malone, Chandara, and Perez are dead. At least those are the ones we know for sure... Those bastards sabotaged the meson acceleration coil. They blew out the entire driver core, six subdecks... From what I can tell, somebody tapped the frequency resonator to refract human sized movements. The overload of all those people moving around must have blown the resonator. We've set up a magnetic shield and the ship's still functional... barely. I've quarantined the entrance to Pod 2... the secondary coil is right there and I don't know how thorough the son of a bitch who did this was.

Date: 11.JUL.14
From: Croker
Subject: re: Cut off from pod 2



Until I can reverse the gravitronic generators, we're effectively cut off from Pod 2. Wozcyek's e-mail said the only way to do that is by resetting the power grid from the access station in engine nacelle B. Of course, he didn't volunteer to do it himself. What a goddamn mess.

Date: 27.JUN.14
From: Bayliss
Subject: re: Wafer on Tau Ceti



For some reason, they couldn't get a hold of my mind they way they could the rest. So when I found the remains of the data wafer near the crater back on Tau Ceti, I didn't say a word. I just slipped it into my belt and thought, 'Dr. Polito will know what to do with this...'