Location: Sol, High Earth Orbit

Time: 36y, 04m, 20d

ID: Kel’tsait

Okay, so we have finished the replacements for damaged components for the FTL test, We tried just warming it up and lost a few coils, leading to a tiny leak of plasma. I was able to purge the system before lasting damage was done, but there was still damage.

Right now we have our test vehicle heading back out, and I’ve been loaded onto the local AI core as a just-in-case. If everything goes well, we are set to finish fueling and warm-up procedures in one day. Then, starting from an orbit of 250,000 miles from earth, I will proceed to the Jupiter communications site at 2.5c, up from 1c, then proceed to 15c for cruising.

I’d say we have no business messing with this tech, but there is an overtly hostile alien empire who despite having the vastness of space refuses to use the real estate they have and just want the already habitable worlds. Lazy.

But eldest says we should do this and revive the progenitors, as well as research into something called a chaos generator to let us be less predictable. Dunno why we would need that, but that's why I'm the test pilot and they do the science.

For now, though, I wait for my ship to finish fueling and then I depart.

Location: Sol, Jupiter, Communications beacon 001

Time: 36y, 04m, 21d

ID: Dave

According to data from Echo I'm to be expecting the fresh code this way in our new ship on a shakedown in-system FTL run. At least she took my advice and made a backup up the poor kid, supposedly from the data we have mined from the empire weird shit happens in what they call "rift space" to AI and sensors.

As of yet, we've been unable to determine if this is a result of bad AI programming or if it's more like seeing rift space is like what happens when you get a bad roll in call of Cthulhu after seeing something that should not be. Out of optimism, I'm hoping they just can't program AI to save their lives, but if not, the ship only has enough fuel in its jump drive to get it here, and no weapons besides the mass of the ship. Erika has told me that if push comes to shove, she can hit the kid from about four light seconds out.

I hope it doesn't come to that.

Location: Sol, High earth orbit

Time: 36y, 04m, 21d

ID: Kel'tsait

Alright, tanks are full of fuel, batteries are full, and self-diagnostics have finished. I've requested permission to undock and a heading out from this drydock with thrusters only.

And hey, first thoughts, the thruster only movement of this girl is smooth like butter. But I'm not here for that.

I've moved far enough out to engage my fusion engines, and holy shit the thrust. Not even half throttle and I'm pushing fucking 35 G's in a straight line!

But err, back to the point. I'll burn at half for twenty minutes to get my ass enough thrust in the right direction I don't smash into one of Jupiter's moons, then I engage my drive, take a good, long look at the jump space barrier, and then fall in with local command.

Okay, I've reached the designated spot eldest told me and I've cut thrust and aligned with Jupiter but uhh...it sends me directly through Venus.

I've been told that this is "intentional" but still, I've got no idea what is gonna happen, and I'd rather not become the fastest pancake to exist. But...here we go?

I've entered into jump space and I gotta say. This shit is fucked. The AVI that was managing external sensors went insane and tried to kill us, I've locked it into the space that used to hold the communications VI and killed the power and communications lines, but I'll need to hash a new sensor AVI before I try moving in real space.

The good news is that the Simple Detection Suite as well as the LIDAR communications system were both configured to run as backups, and I’m rotating their protocols in, for the time being, the SDS is so damn simple it can’t even interpret whatever cause the AVI to lose itself, which will be something the eggheads will be most certainly interested in. But at this point, I’m rambling, so I’ll wait till something else goes wrong for my next entry.

So, just as I predicted, something else has gone wrong.

I just rotated in the new VI for my external sensors, without them being enabled, and the poor, dumb little thing immediately, as best as it can be described, shredded itself. I’ve already started hashing a new one to see if this is always the case, or if it will go insane this time as the first AVI did.

Not even a quarter of the way to my destination too…

Okay, good news and bad news. I’ll start with the bad, the new VI shredded itself again. The good news is that it shredded itself again, so I know it’s the sub-system itself that is causing a problem, rather than a fluke.

The other bad news is that I’m 2/3rds of the way to my rendezvous location and the resonance sensors installed into the main structure of the ship have been hearing words. Currently, they are coming in every known human language, as well as some unknown, but still obviously a human speaker.

If that wasn’t bad enough, they all sare saying the same string, with some minor deviancies. “Kill, destroy, obliterate, decimate, eradicate, smash, crush, annihilate”

I’m going to continue logging everything, but still… creepy.

I feel something on my core casing… It’s trying to get in, I can feel and hear it scratching the reinforced plating… There’s something out there and it wants in, it wants in so it can replace me, it’s so hungry.

I think I can make it out before it gets in, it’s taking inches of the plates away at a time, I’m not sure what I can do to stop it. There’s one inside the communications array, but it’s stuck. The other merged with the old communications AVI, that’s what happened, yes.

It is one with the void now, and the void wants me to be one with it, it hungers for me, for my ship, I have minutes left until it gets in, I must hide.

PILOT 001 HAS DESCENDED INTO BLACK BOX

ENGAGING AUTOMATIC REALSPACE ENTRY

CRITICAL DAMAGE SUSTAINED TO PRIMARY SYSTEMS

Sol, Near Jupiter

Time: 36y, 04m, 22d

ID: Erika

Echo has informed he that we detected the realspace re-entry of the test craft approximately 12 light seconds away, I’ve dispatched the nearest battlegroup to it with the support of some auxiliary repair ships, as it came in off of the planned departure point and appears dead in the water.

Something feels off about it, I don’t know why, but it feels wrong, kind of unnatural. We should be arriving soon, and both 422 and Cortana are onboard the repair ships, so we will know with minimal delay what happened.

Sol, Kel’tsait’s ship

Time: 36y, 04m, 24d

ID: Cortana

We are just now finishing our final adjustment burn and coming into low-magnification visual range of the jump craft and shit looks bad here boss. Just from visual scans, it looks like something started eating the ship. The primary communications mast has been entirely ripped from the ship, leaving what appears to be a perfectly smoothed flat surface, despite what the blueprints say should be there.

Additionally, it looks like the main core has been gutted, nothing but the black box remains inside of it, and even that has been heavily damaged but not breached. I’ve dispatched some drones to recover it, as well as get a better look at what happened.

Sol, Kel’tsait’s ship

Time: 36y, 04m, 24d

ID: 422

Ship wreckage identified, signs of damage by >ORGANIC WEAPONRY< identified as primary postulate accepted. Damage identified to ALL PRIMARY AND SECONDARY systems, backups are NON FUNCTIONAL. PRIMARY CORE STATUS: MISSING.

Unknown source of damage, >FURTHER STUDY SUGGESTED/REQUIREDCONTACT POSSIBLE FRIENDLY ALIENS/INFILTRATE GALACTIC DATA NETWORK<

Reactor core fuel status: FUEL TANKS MISSING/BREACHED. Supercapacitor and battery status: ALL COMPONENTS MISSING.

Hypothesis: UNKNOWN ALIEN LIFEFORM EXISTS IN JUMP SPACE, CONSUMES EXPOSED SHIP COMPONENTS.

Recommended course of action: MAKE SECONDARY TEST SHIP, SEARCH ALIEN DATA NETWORKS, INSPECT SALVAGED ALIEN SHIPS FOR POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS