It is taking a lot more fuel to get past the Universe Nebula than I expected. There is this drag on the ship, even in Jump, that is simply unbelievable. So I have had to drop out of Jump to refuel. Not as if there isn't plenty of fuel to be had. I'm just nervous about getting back into Jump. Smooth space is abundant, but it moves around here.
I'm really not sure how deep in the Universe Nebula I am. The views are kind of how I think a newborn universe looks, from the inside. At least, based on my Trost observations. Planets, stars, just everything all jumbled together. Things crashing into each other. It is chaotic, so I suspect I am very close to the central fissure in space that created the Universe Nebula. At least that is what my readings say. Cannot actually seem much where I am.
The readings really are all over the place, and there is even some static on the ET/EC comm signal. Easily filtered, but definitely there, and not just signal noise, but actual interference. Radiation off all sorts, including types I only have hypothetical descriptions of, wash through the region I am in like waves through an ocean.
I took this picture just as I was starting to refuel. It is a world that just appeared out of the clouds surrounding the gas world I was refueling from. I plotted its path, and at first I thought it was on a collision course. Then other gravitational actors started working, and I realized that I am actually deep in a star system. One I cannot see directly because of all the clouds of gas.
I launched a dozen satellite's to start mapping the system. There are 10 worlds in this system, orbiting a larger Yellow star. The pocket of gas clouds that I found the Gas giant in, appears to be bound to it, like a ring system. There are four shells of gas clouds around the planet, which is the eighth out from the star. The clouds go out far enough that the world closer to the star, and it's three moons, actually pass through them; as well as the two worlds farther out. Their passage though the clouds create fascinating eddies and knots in the clouds that I think might one day create more moons for the gas giant itself.
The strange gravitational dance of the planet with it's neighbors is why the smooth space in the area is moving around. Once I leave here, I'll exit the gas clouds of the gas giant and hope I can find some stable smooth space elsewhere in the system, or if I have to, out beyond it.
The mapping is in it's early stages, so I don't know if I won't have to chase down smooth space. If it is even possible in this star system, or beyond it, here deep inside the Universe Nebula.
That said. There is something else weird going on that I don't know what to make of. With all the jumps, plus the lost time to that jump to escape the violent species, I was about 3200 years displaced from Home. After my passage through this Universe Nebula so far. I am now only 2100 years displaced. Which doesn't seem possible. I have time here while the tanks fill and I search for smooth space, so I will be diving into CTs writings. I wonder if that isn't why there is static on the ET/EC...
I have somehow regained 1100 years.... I don't even know how to handle that, because that would imply that there is another me out there, approaching where I am now. I can even look back at the logs of my position at that point, against the Home baseline, and see exactly where I was. I was in transit from the violent species. I was losing those 2500 years. Still... I wonder if my presence here, now, is why I lost as many years as I did. There is a lot of speculation about such things in the data stores, as well as some musings by CT. I need to go through them all.
Anyway. I have to feed Kotth and Lurr, and then do some maintenance work. Time to get back at it.