﻿Log 2: Fearless, and therefore powerful.

Leaving Earth behind was… not as easy as I thought it would be. That’s home, after all. The cradle of humanity, blasted and ruined though it is. We threw a leaving party… Fletcher actually had a bottle of whisky, which he was glad to share. Not good whisky, but the first alcohol I’ve had in a long time.

We stood there and said our goodbyes, or… well, tried to. I think we were still trying to decide on a toast when we clearly saw a flash somewhere along the west coast of North America. A nuke. Hard to imagine there’s anything left in California that’s worth nuking, but...

Anderson’s toast was to “those poor bloody souls down there,” and that was it. We spooled up the hyperdrive and left. 

We hopped a few systems over, stopping only to mine whatever we could find. Didn’t bother the other ships. We’ve heard stories of some crews going rogue, turning to piracy or slavery. We’re academics, not fighters. Best to keep a low profile.

After a dozen jumps or so we found a particularly promising system. Lots of resources, with not far to jump to get more, no other ships in sight... We took a vote and decided to build a small observatory station. Chase and Ray designed a telescope, and then came up with a very appropriate name for it: the Big Exoplanet and Anomaly Survey Telescope, or B.E.A.S.T. Very apt for a ship named after the author of “Frankenstein.”

What none of us expected was how quickly it would find an anomaly. We barely had to turn it on before it told us where to find… well. Something.  Honestly, these readings don’t make any sense at all. I certainly can’t think of any natural phenomenon that would produce data like these…

Which of course leads the mind to imagine an unnatural phenomenon. But no human ship would produce these kinds of readings either.

Could it be…?

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