Twelve Days Later...

RSC-2W-0063 “Dara Tonn” at Krigertenkere's L5 Lagrange point

Sinn'Are'Sen rubs his eyes in frustration as he lies awake on his bed. With a sigh he pulls out his personal communicator and opens his audio diary.

“Begin entry.

“Dara Tonn and I have reached our warpjump locus, Krigertenkere's L5 Lagrange point. Dara Tonn has already began rotating on thrusters to align our entry vector prior to warpjump. The dreams are becoming more vivid as time goes on. This is the sixth night in a row that I have come awake from them. I am beginning to retain details of these dreams: comforting coolness, sudden unwelcome heat, and distant metallic screeching noises. The last time I recall dreams like this was when I was four, before being inducted, or should I say conscripted, by the RPC. I have had bad dreams and night terrors constantly for as long as I can recall, but increasingly I am becoming sure that they are all the same dream. Republic dreamshaper modules and psychoactive 'standard nutritional supplements' may have been trying to bury them for the majority of my life.

“In a little less then twenty four hours I will begin the second ever warpjump in my life. This will be the first I spend outside of cryosleep and thus the first that I will be able to remember. RPC and RSC both recommend staying in cryosleep for the duration, but Dara Tonn and I are still trying to figure out if there are any psychoactive in the cryosleep fluids. Nutritional feed, suspension solution, hell even the revitalization injections could be carriers. I suspect, but still need to prove, that this is not the case. Instead I suspect that the dreamshaper module reinforces the Republic's artificial moral codes and obedience to the governing bureaucracies. Given that I have no test subject aside from myself I dare not conduct any tests.

“End entry.”

Sinn sets his communicator down and cracks his neck.

“Dara Tonn, how long until I'm needed in the cockpit?”

“Honestly? Not until we reach Steinhull parking orbit. My autopilot subroutine is fully capable of handling things until we get there.”

“Not a problem, I'll leave that to you then, unless you want me to take over...?”

“Nega... damn it, every time I think I get rid of those... Ahem. That won't be needed. Or rather, I'll inform you should it become necessary.”

“I trust that you on that one. No need to be stubborn though, If you need me to pilot or perform maintenance let me know.”

“I can certainly do that Sinn. While you have time, and I have spare processing cycles, would you like to go over the results I have gathered from the Medical Observation Suite so far?”

“Yes, but please keep it in terms that I can understand. I'm not a medical expert.”

“Neither am I a purpose built Medical AI, but I do have the full manuals and relevant teaching materials needed to interpret the records. They are... Disconcerting to say the least.”

“How so?”

“Your brain activity is changing. Your amygdala is becoming more active for one, leading to different tones of voice and, I suspect, emotions when you make your audio diary entries. Yes, the medical diagnostic suite picks them up, no I'll not be sharing them ever. Invasion of privacy aside, it would be unethical according to all of the data available to me.”

“Alright, so I'm now more emotional. So what?”

“Becoming more emotional. We still don't know what those unknown compounds in the 'nutritional supplements' do, but emotion suppression appears to be one of their intended effects. Why the Republic would intentionally use this effect on their entire population is beyond me.”

Sinn rubs his chin in thought.

“The Republic also scans every individual for the possibility of being a psion. In RPC training we were instructed to mitigate our own emotions to keep our abilities under control. I wonder if there is a link between strong emotional responses and psionic power? Perhaps as a sort of fuel for stronger effects at the cost of over straining the psion's control...?”

“If your speculation is correct, then the presence of emotion suppressors makes sense. No testing methodology is capable of perfect detection in every instance. If one such latent or undetected psion suddenly utilized a skill under duress and lost control it would be a public relations nightmare for the Republic.”

Sinn rolls his eyes, “alright, so there is probably some logic behind that decision, but it's biting us in the ass now. What else did you find?”

“You have a metallic device implanted deep inside of your brain. Most of it is located at the bottom of the cleft between the two halves of your brain and neuron-sized 'tendrils' link it to all sections of that organ. I have no data to suggest a Republic surgical method that could have installed such a device, nor any data on what function this device might serve. Extracting it would certainly prove fatal under all but near-perfect circumstances.”

“Huh. I wonder if that is what is triggering those 'visions'...?”

“What visions? The device has remained inert as far as the medical observation suite can tell.”

“I haven't had any for over a year now, and only three times total in my life. I get a blinking winged eye icon at the top left of my vision, like a notification on a communicator or a warning icon on a heads up display, that I can activate via blinking at it. Each time I have done so I 'remember' a message and 'unlock' more stored information.”

“The crystalline components of this device might be information storage units. Individual entries are unlocked via action and experience?”

“That seems to be the pattern so far. Next time the Icon appears we'll make note of it and try to sort out what caused it to appear and what the device does when I trigger the 'notification'.”

“You would need to return to your personal quarters for the medical observation suite to 'see' anything.”

“That can be arranged. Have you learned anything else about me?”

“Nothing yet, though with your permission I would like to continue the observations.”

“Granted. I will need your ability to analyze effects without emotional interference if we are to figure out what is 'wrong' with me by Republic standards.”

“One moment... We are aligned for warpjump and are waiting in the queue to depart for the Hylli system. There are three cargo ships ahead of us all passing through the Hylli system on their way elsewhere.”

“Estimated time until we are clear to jump?”

“Given that we have no special priority to jump the queue, twelve hours at least.”

“That's not too bad. I'm going to try and get some more rest, perhaps meditate a bit. I'd like to be in the cockpit for the jump itself. The sensor recordings of warpjump translations are rather spectacular to watch.”

“If you say so. I have seen quite a few in my years.”

“You get to see them live all the time. This will be my first chance to do so and I'm not going to miss it.”

“I'll keep an eye on your vital signs in case there is a good reason for the RPC and RSC to recommend cryosleep during warpjump transits. Outside of your personal quarters I'm reduced to only heartbeat and visual sensors, so I might miss something critical. If you like I could display a near real-time feed to your personal communicator so that you could watch it...”

“Save it for next time Dara Tonn. If something goes wrong you get to say 'I told you so' and I'll sit in my cabin like an obedient little boy alright?”