I found something. So strange, but I suppose it make sense, given everything else I have seen, that there would be things like this. I found a solar system out in the void. Just two main worlds, a big rocky world, and a gas giant almost a brown dwarf. All orbiting a really long lived Red dwarf.
The rocky world is not a big deal. A lifeless husk of a world. Good for mining, but otherwise pointless. I'll probably churn out a few mining bots and drop them off to see what can be found. There are however, three worlds of significant note. Three of the myriad, more than one hundred, worlds orbiting the gas giant that could support life. They don't, but they could. It was nice to get off the ship, even if the skies are truly weird. Just blackness. Not black because it is overcast or anything, but because there are no other stars out there. Any life that grows up here could be easily forgiven for thinking they are truly alone in the universe. Because their universe is composed entirely of just one star, two planets, and their moons. One of which is the world upon which they will grow up, if they ever do.
This system is where I am planting a flag. There isn't any life that I can identify. Some bacterial forms on two of the other worlds, but on this one, there is none. It is sterile. So I am planting my flag here. I am going to do some work here. I am going to establish a larger garden here. A base of operations, including a landing pad for the Viteză Furie. I need a home. A place I can come back to, and this fits the bill. Out in the middle of the void, all by itself. A little shining jewel in the darkness. I feel a bit of kinship to the worlds here, just like I do with Trost.
Another thing. The sensor net my other self finished setting up. It has detected something in the void. Don't know what it is, what it looks like, and it could really just be some weird interference that I don't know how to compensate for your. Yet, it.... They... Move in ways that suggest that the signal I am picking up is not interference or issues with the sensors, but an actual something.
That is terrifying. These things, that I have detected. They are huge. Little ones are the size of large stars. The biggest one, assuming it isn't made up of many of them, is a thousand light years at it's longest cross section. Then again, I'm guessing at that, because I can only barely pick them up. They were initially detected as an interference pattern in the gravity wave signal of a newly detected universe birth. However, as time went on, it became clear that it was something large, moving, and gravitationally significant between the sensor net and the newborn universe.
I really don't know what to make of that. Could it be some kind of dark life. A life form born in the void. Coalesced from the few stray atoms out there, or perhaps it is just clouds of cold gas, pushed around by the very gravitational waves I am using to take measurements of them. Still.... I'm not sure I buy that. Based on what I am seeing of the way they move. But what do I know?
I have checked, and this is something that even CT didn't write about. What I have detected is something totally new. Yet, it is all just speculation, and wild speculation at that. In the mean time I have a small base of operations to build, so I have a home to come back to.
Oh yeah. The ET/EC connection is working, and I am seeing a very slow transfer of data. Though that could just be due to distance, or there not being anyone on the other end to turn on the system on that end, which means that the data is being dropped on that end and just eternally overwriting the memory buffer. For that reason, I have ensured that everything is backed up. Another reason to create this base of operations. It will house a ET/EC linked backup data-repository for me. I'm going to establish more. The sensor net is another one. I just have to figure out what kind of puzzle to use to allow access. I'll probably go back to Trost at some point and set one up there, near the birth scar.
Back to work.