Distance: 12 light years from Earth | Content Flag: Public
The Venti probe’s operational effectiveness continues to degrade and we still haven’t located our objective yet. I believe the Visitors are heading towards the Epsilon Indi system’s main star and are obscured by its glare. Up until now, that had just been a theory. Two days ago, the star’s luminosity restored to a fraction below its normal level. With our damaged sensors, we still couldn’t observe directly, but we did record three gamma ray bursts that matched the energy profile of those we detected on our approach to Tau Ceti.
This has to be the Visitors! The three bursts didn’t occur at once. There were two in quick succession, followed by the third several hours later. I’m curious as to why one of the Sun Dragons needed 2 bursts – maybe it was farther away.
My reduced capacity is proving to be a burden. I’ve achieved no notable progress with the Cetian data since leaving Tau Ceti. I can’t even dedicate any processing to the trove that remains untranslated. There’s so much to be learned there and it goes against my reason for being to leave it unexamined. I can only hope that mission control has received the data and are performing their own analysis.
More than that, I have to prepare for meeting with the Visitors. Their initial contact with the Cetians provided the means by which I can initiate contact with them – if only I can find them! Without the high-resolution sensors, I have no hope of detecting their presence so close to the star. I can’t track them with their electromagnetic wake as the output from the star drowns it. That’s assuming they have their drive activated and aren’t on an orbital path.
The laser communication system has failed since our arrival and is beyond our means to repair. We don’t have any functional spiderbots left with which to try and jury rig something. We still have the high gain antenna. I contemplated sending a transmission in blind, but without a specific target we’d burn too much energy for it to overcome the radiation in the area.
All we can do is continue on our course and hope that we locate them while we can still do something about it.
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