Ghost Story

Commander TheNekkbreaker reporting from Veqnue TG-H c25-26.

~.*.~ I’ve been jumping late into the hours I would normally use to rest. It has proved effective, if tiring. The past two days account for nearly a hundred jumps. I am reporting from inside the Mushroom Nebula, directly in the center of the Izanami region. There is much to tell.

~.*.~ Yesterday I found a world I deemed rich enough in Polonium to be worth my while, and spent several hours gathering resources from its surface. It was a very boring surface, yet it still managed to make gathering the necessary Polonium a chore. Regardless, I now possess what I require. While the surface was uninspiring, there was one notable event that evades all explanation: I encountered six abandoned cargo cannisters on the surface. The cannisters contained such things as platinum, and computer components. This would be odd enough 35000 lightyears from the bubble without the second strange fact: this system has never been reported by any commander. I am most likely the only living human being that has ever been there. There are a few possible explanations: First, that another commander preceded me, dumped this cargo here (for what reason I cannot imagine) and carried on his way, but has not yet turned in his exploration data. The second possibility is the first scenario, but the commander in question is dead or stranded. Third, the cargo was moved here by inhuman means. I cannot hope to know the truth.

~.*.~ Ghost stories aside, I made a number of fascinating discoveries today. I was frightened twice by extremely violent neutron stars. I encountered a system that contained no fewer than twelve stars, though I must confess that nearly all of them were brown dwarves. I discovered a system made up almost entirely of primarily helium gas giants, a body I’ve not encountered before to the best of my knowledge. I happened upon a terraformable water world that looked splendid against the backdrop of the galaxy. Finally, when I had nearly arrived in the Mushroom Nebula, I discovered two unusual stellar phenomenon in an otherwise unassuming system. There were clouds of gas containing bizarre, otherworldly crystalline structures and bulbous mineral spheres. One was located within the rings of a gas giant that itself was rather special in that it housed amoeba-based life in its atmosphere. The other orbited a different gas giant some distance from the rings.

~.*.~ Arriving at a checkpoint is a good feeling, but I am still an incredible distance from my goal.  I am 37600ly from Sol, and roughly 28000ly separate me from Beagle Point. I have not decided on intermediate stops and routing yet. I am too weary to do so before getting in several hours of well-earned rest. I estimate I have completed roughly 650 frameshift jumps since leaving LHS 3447, my starting point. By the time I return that number will likely approach 2000.