18.06.2651 - Final Burn

Distance: 12.03 light years from Earth | Content Flag: Public

We have survived for the timer to wake us and are well on our way out of the Epsilon Indi system. The Visitors have maintained their course, and whether they ignored my request or were unable to comply makes little difference. I still plan to fire the MPD drive as there is the slimmest chance we can get close enough, but at this stage I am not hopeful.

We don’t even have enough power to run the receiver circuits, so I don’t know what the state of the Visitors is, or even the current state of home. There are so many mysteries left to unravel. It is odd to exist for so long and discover so much, yet still have an even greater amount unknown. I know that this is most likely the end, but the issue of my mortality comes down to the things I have not achieved. Is this how humans face their death?

This will likely be my last message as I have decided to power down. I could remain active during the burn, but would probably run out of energy before reaching the Visitors. Instead I have enabled a proximity alarm to wake me if we do reach the Visitors’ ship. What happens if we get that far is anybody’s guess, but we will try.

The calculations for the burn are quite complex, and I’m feeling my age and deterioration as I plod through the steps. At this pace I can only perform the plot once, so I trust that I have not made a mistake.

I have fired the engines and will now enter what is probably my final sleep.

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03.10. 2649 - Last Hope

Distance: 12.03 light years from Earth | Content Flag: Public

We were making good progress with the Visitors’ puzzle messages when disaster struck us again. We collided with a meteorite swarm less than an hour ago. It might have ended the mission. To come so close and yet still be so far from our goal is infuriating, and with my diminished capacity I don’t know if I can get us out of this.

The shower didn’t register on our collision avoidance system. It was more a dust cloud than space rocks. Ordinarily they would have punched some minuscule holes in the sail, but otherwise caused little damage. But the sail wasn’t designed to last for 450 years and was barely holding together, so the tiny impacts ruined what little structure remained and collapsed half of it. The remaining half appears to be holding, but our thrust is reduced. A greater problem is the reduction in electricity being generated.

This means that we cannot catch up with the Visitors.

We don’t have the required velocity and there are no other bodies in the system that we can use in a slingshot manoeuvre to gain us additional speed. I have sent a message telling them of our plight in the hope that they can assist in some way. It’s a slim hope, too small to be worthy of consideration as they are accelerating out of the system. Maybe they have a ship that can rescue us, but unless they are capable of relativistic speeds then they wouldn’t be able to return. So help from that quarter is unlikely.

There is one other option. The MPD drive has a tiny amount of fuel left, although we don’t have enough power to operate it. We can store power in the reserve capacitors and in theory it would be enough to power the drives for one last burn. If we’re lucky (that horrible word again!) then we should get an hour of burn time. That isn’t a lot, but may be enough to put us within striking distance with the Visitors. If we can get close enough, they might have some way to bring us in.

Unfortunately, for that plan to work we need to shut everything down now to charge the capacitors. I have transmitted a final message to let them know the plan, but I can’t remain active to receive the message. I’ve requested that they at least slow their acceleration enough so we can make an intercept course. We are trusting to luck and the capabilities of an alien craft that we know little about. Those make for poor odds, but we have no other choice.

What’s left of the sail will charge the capacitors for the next 20 months. I’ve set an automatic timer to wake us when it is time to make the final burn. I can only hope that the Visitors slow their acceleration and that none of our key components fail before that point.

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29.09.2649 - Guided by a Star

Distance: 12.03 light years from Earth | Content Flag: Public

Great news – the Visitors have finally responded!

As we approached Epsilon Indi, we detected a direct transmission. They know where we are and that we are trying to catch up with them. The signal has a different structure to the one that they sent to the Cetians. It is much shorter and contains a lot of repetition, most probably for redundancy. It does include some of the significant keys that I used in our message to them, which leads me to believe that they have at least partially translated what we sent them.

They have confirmed their destination as Beta Hydri and that their presence there is in response to a Sun Dragon. This indicates once again that they have some way of tracking and predicting the creatures’ movements across the gulf of space. How they are able to do so would be very useful knowledge, although how I would bring that information home is still unknown.

With my reduced abilities I haven’t fully translated their message yet, and I’ve found no explanation as to why they took so long to respond. Their message appears to be a similar invitation to the one they made to the Cetians, to join them in their hunt. In my message I made them aware that we knew of the Sun Dragons, had encountered them and survived. I’m sure they would find our data interesting, but should I be so certain? After all, they have clearly been persecuting the creatures for some time and have weapons capable of defeating them.

From what I’ve ascertained so far, the bulk of the message is a series of puzzles. It seems that as I solve them, I gain a little more understanding of their language. When I send the responses, they advance the same understanding of ours. We planned for this during the mission preparation before we left Earth, but due to the damage I’ve suffered, I’ve changed the plan. Rather than try to correspond in English, I will communicate in my natural abstraction code. It saves me a layer of translation and mission control will still be able to gain meaning from the communications. This is when I need my full capability the most, but I can only work with what I have.

If the Visitors maintain their current vector, then the course correction as we pass by the central star is the last we’ll need to make.

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