I found a pair of messages in the system. One meant for me, which I'd have seen weeks ago, if I hadn't fixed the false notifications. The other was meant for the eventual crew that was supposed to join me at Kohelic. That is why the ship has so much room, so many spaces that didn't make sense for just one person, and why there were so many stores. It wasn't meant for just me. The message for me explained the reason I was given the training I was. I was supposed to keep dong what I am doing. Keeping the ship running, while the exploratory crew, did what they were trained for, as specialists.
The extra training I was given was because the techs simply did not know what the ARC drive was going to do. Therefore, I was trained up so that, should I have ended up lost in some distant corner of the universe, I'd be able to perform the needed functions to keep the ship running, and do the explorations, and the data gathering that the specialists waiting for me on Kohelic would have done. I suppose I am fulfilling that role, even if the ET/EC is still dead.
Yeah, still obsessed with that. The ET/EC system behaves as if it is still functioning, and yet, nothing. I've got it doing a full diagnostic. I'm rather hoping it is just a blown circuit that I can replace and be back in contact with home.
In the super deep field scans, the ones I was using to try and find quasars or other deep field objects that I could use as sign posts to find home and identify where I am. In the extreme distance I have captured something truly amazing and a bit terrifying. It looks like a lightning bolt in space. Yet it is hundreds of millions of light years in length, and tens of millions wide in some places. It is such a massive structure that I stared at it for hours trying to wrap my brain around what I was seeing. There are actual galaxies that float between the forks of the structure.
The sensors say that it is a fissure in the very fabric of space time. A fissure in space time, a rip in the fabric of space. That is amazing, and terrifying. It is beautiful. It is also so far away that I made the system do the distance calculations ten times, not two, not four, but ten times. The universe is supposed to be something less than 15 billion standard years old. This object, this structure. This tear in space and time is more than 200 billion light years away, and it is clearly not a young structure.
That.... I don't know what to do with that, because that suggests a few possibilities, none of which I am ready to deal with. No really. I am not ready to deal with any of those possibilities. I stared at it for a full day trying to wrap my brain around it and failed. I'm just going to deal with what I can handle. The Viteză Furie, and making the next jump.
I have initiated the sequence to jump again. Main's are back on and we're up to .93228c. Drive will be ready for jump at 10 tomorrow morning, ships time. I'm going to get some sleep. Sensors are confirming that we are already in Smooth space and there is nothing that could cause gravity waves within light years. So long as there is nothing I cannot see out there. I will be jumping again in approximately 8 hours.