7

July 22, 3309

CMDR Harkness has left for Colonia and I think it's my time to go, too. The Thargoid War's stabilized; although nothing's guranteed, I'd take up more space than I'm worth if I kept running passenger missions for the war. Refugee counts have gone down, too, thank goodness, but ever since they stopped flowing in, I've found myself at another loss. I've spent so long in a dissociative haze, going from port to port, fighting random factions just to feel something, and honking stars that already have names plastered on them. I am done with it all. I can feel the black tugging at me like a siren's call. I've begged it to stop. It does not cease.

My squadron's still around. I don't know where they are or what they're doing. All that I have left to lose is them, but with Harkness' departure and their silence, I've had enough. I'm leaving everything behind. I'd just stopped by Heck Reserve in Skardee: from here, it's 227 jumps and 14,460.62 LY until I reach the DSSA Sesame. I'll find momentary rest there, sell my data, then carry on to Explorer's Anchorage by Sag A*. From there, it's to Beagle Point, and afterwards, I don't know anymore.

I have so much left to learn and see. My story's just begun. But this exhaustion: I can feel it returning. I'm afraid, but I have nowhere to go other than forward.

-CMDR Catherine Lockwood

6

December 13, 3308

The tides have turned: HIP 23716 is now in recovery. It feels like a raw win. Everyone’s celebrating, but to me, the rug could sweep out again at a moment’s notice. I’ve invested in a passenger-ferrying Phantom: the MNRC Blue Jay. Still feels too small for the work that needs doing, but I don’t trust myself with a ship larger than this.

Under all the stress, I’ve been toying with the idea of a day trip out to those black holes I’d tagged on my map. Today CMDR Eliza Harkness, one of my squadmates, finally managed to convince me to make the trip as a cheers to our victory. I didn’t think celebration was a good idea, and I still don’t, but I crumbled all the same. What can I say: I’m a sucker for astronomical phenomenae.

When I jumped out, I felt weariness hit me again like a brick wall. Explore and I feel tired; go home and I stare at the sky. Something changed in me out here. I pressed on despite the ache.

Harkness and I met up in Dabih Minor, a system with 3 black holes and so many T Tauri stars that the system map looks glitched. We wove between the black holes, threading the needle, making a game out of nature, then dropped at the edge of one of them. When we aligned our ASPs back-to-back, they looked mirrored, like time had broken.

The warped sky reminded me of Sag A*, where I tried to dive my Dolphin into the singularity. I couldn’t even get close before the heat exploded the hull. That was my first lost ship. Staring into that abyss, I was tempted to try it again, but I’m not the same person I was before I first left the Bubble. This galaxy has laws and rules, patterns and functions, inescapable limits. Not everything is possible. I know that now.

We talked about everything from war to cosmology. What I’ve seen is nothing compared to what she’s suffered. Those bugs are relentless. But she’s still here, and so am I. She wants to explore. I want to tell her not to, that deep space steals something from you, but I stayed quiet: as much as it can take, it also gives, and maybe out there, she’ll find that peace she’s searching for.

We talked and talked and the stars were too warped to watch.

-CMDR Catherine Lockwood

5

December 8, 3308

This war is ruthless. We lost Wolf. Knight was on the brink, but now it’s gone for good. Wakata’s under attack. Even outside of HIP 23716, over in Matshiru… The whole squad - no, the whole Bubble - went in, guns blazing, and we still lost. CMDR Shard Markov, our squad lead, says we did all we could, but it still doesn’t feel like I did enough. Everything that I do leads to a dead end. At least out in the black, I scooped my own fuel and took up no space. Here, I feel like a waste of a docking pad in a refugee crisis.

I’ll have to do what I can. Maybe that means upgrades. A new ship. Passenger cabins. I don’t know, just… anything. I’ll spend any amount of credits so long as I can save more human souls than I hurt.

-CMDR Catherine Lockwood

4

December 1, 3308

Thargoids used to be a concept to me. I used to use autodock. Everything’s changed now. I don’t know what came over me today: I was looking at my route, and when the Thargoids attacked and those systems lit up, I turned around and got back in the Scav Crab. I chose HIP 23716 at random and ended up at an attacked outpost station called Knight Orbital. Now I’ve got wounded bodies in cryo in the hold and inert caustic fluid on the windshield and I just learned how to manually land for the first time in my life. It’s a miracle I’m not dead. In hindsight, it must’ve been a hysterical scene: an experienced CMDR like me belly-slamming a landing pad, over and over, cursing like a sailor. There’s still sweat all over my controls, but the adrenaline in my veins has me laughing like a maniac. There’s fear under this mania somewhere. I’m electing to face it later.

The black still calls, but I can’t answer. If humanity dies, then there’ll be no one left to witness the wonders of this galaxy. No one to send colony ships out to Earthlikes. No one to read the data I send back. Explorers are the eyes of humankind, but what use are eyes without someone to see through them?

I’m staying. And with the little skills I have, I will do my part, if it’s the last thing I do.

-CMDR Catherine Lockwood

3

November 20, 3308

This is a hollow existence. I just can’t get on my feet: I’ve got no direction or purpose or job, so I keep riding the tailcoats of my Squadron. I’ve spent some of my hoarded money on another ASP. I crammed a limpet controller in alongside some cargo racks. Covered it in spikes and rust and named it the MNRC Scav Crab. It looks like a rock and moves like one too, so it’s perfect for cleaning up the scraps of bounty hunters in the rings of Braun’s gas giant.

Still, money doesn’t fill my need for purpose. I don’t know why I have this ship, or why I have these credits. I spend my days sitting at the bar on Braun, drinking lukewarm water and eating questionable lunch meat. I can’t remember the last trustable vegetable that I had. Even when I lived on scraps, exploration gave me an end goal. I gave up when I lost sight of that goal, but coming back didn’t fill that hole. I need something - anything - to look forward to when I wake up each day. I need to make a difference in this galaxy. If I can’t be useful here, why stay?

I haven’t told the squad, but I’ve been plotting out a route that should take me past some black holes. It’s not too far, but I’m planning on not coming back. I still feel so bone-tired from my expedition. I can’t keep doing this. But it calls to me. I must answer.

-CMDR Catherine Lockwood

2

November 11, 3308

24 hours in the Bubble and I’m already back in the thick of it. I don’t know when I traded on the black market, but someone high-up in the trade reached out to me insisting that I worked with associates of his. The timestamps point to when I was out in the black, though, so someone must’ve taken my accounts in my absence. Whatever happened doesn’t matter now: my friends gave me a warm welcome and, after burning through an old ship or two that I’d abandoned at dry dock, I woke up on The Armoured Saint, a prison megaship, not even a full day after getting back to the Bubble. They let me off with a fine and a slap on the wrist. My friends say it’s normal for them: they’re into combat, so that adds up.

It was fun. The relief of being with others, the break in the honk-scoop-jump loop, seeing so many stations, so many people! This is what I needed, but I already feel out of place here. I’m planning on building a support ship to back my squad up in fights, maybe scavenge the wreckage of people they shoot down, but it feels wrong. I’m not meant to be here, but I don’t know where I’m supposed to be.

The hallucinations are gone so far. We’ll see if it gets better.

-CMDR Catherine Lockwood

1

October 15, 3308

Years in the black and I never once thought to write my thoughts somewhere where death can’t reach them. If you’re reading this, I may already be back, or I may be dead, but I’m risking the journey to the Bubble. It’s been too long since I’ve sold my data; too long since I’ve seen another CMDR; too long since I’ve messed up the mailslot of a station. I couldn’t care less about the millions of data I’ve got in this ship. I am going mad. Seeing shapes, hearing voices. This isn’t what I signed up for. Not anymore.

If I make it, I’ll be at the bar in Braun Enterprise, over in Samequit. I’ve got some trader-miner-or-something buddies who tell me they’re running that system, say something about Muscovite. I know jackall about mining, but they know how the bubble runs, and I’ll be lost without the help.

Apparently there’s a ferry running out of Colonia. It feels cheap, taking a ferry back after cutting no corners for so long. I feel like a fraud for giving up like this. But my ship’s on its last limbs, and when I fix it at Colonia, I think my mind might go, too.

I can’t wait to see another face and speak to it, knowing that the reply is human.

-CMDR Catherine Lockwood