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Source Melchizedek.0294
Approach β Hyi
Ascension 00h 25m 45.07037s
Declination –77° 15′ 15.2860″
Distance 24.34ly
Equinox J2000.0 SOL
Year 3782, QEC adjusted

[Autotranslator enabled...]

Jerome Somerset Pasani, Warrant Master
:::
I hesitated to use the QEC since we lost Moussa, worried what the
others might think reading this. That was until Janssen so
eloquently told me to take the, um, stick out of my rear. Prezzi
suggested that acting stoic was pissing everyone off and doing
nothing to hide how I was taking it anyway. So, here I am.

She's right. I've been walking the corridors in a daze. Moussa and
I went way back. Waking up in this creepy blue light every morning
reminds me that there's a hole in our lives, in my life. Without
him the ship is pregnant with silence.

I signed up for merchant shipping as a kid. I've flown in rust
buckets and tin-cans of all shapes and sizes. There's been close
calls before, but never--not on my watch. I just keep asking
myself why? Why him? Why us?

The deep doesn't give us answers. It just gives us more questions
and a long, damn time to think about them. With botany dispatched
from the Melchy there's nothing left to us but these questions.
What the hell is happening out here?

In hopes of learning something, anything, our hydroponics
specialist and our doctor of phytology, Hove Xavier and Sandy
Kroups, have joined the crew awake. I regret that their rising was
in mourning. Needs demand, we answer. They're tackling the food
shortage with the seriousness it deserves, though I expect it's to
keep their minds off everything that's happened while they slept.
They keep each other's company and a distance from the rest of us.
I can't blame them. We are not a cheery crew to be around at the
moment.

We're just a few weeks out from Beta. The grav sheer drops in six
days and we'll be back under thrusters. There's a star out there
somewhere. It called to us from nearly 25 light years away. We are
going to reach it and make a home here. Moussa's loss is going to
mean something.
.