Overdue Update

Posted on Tue Oct 3rd, 2023 @ 8:32am by Captain Brett Watson

Captain Brett Watson sat down in his chair looking out of his Ready Room window. He pondered that for a moment, "Ready Room".....Ready for what? he wondered. For the past year, there wasn't a whole lot to get ready for. In fact, his job was barely higher than that of overseer and less of Captain. What meaning did such a title have after this long? How much longer would the "crew," if we still called ourselves that really need a Captain or any rank for that matter?

These thoughts occurred to Brett more and more these days as he began to resign himself that his crew had ventured further into the universe than anyone from the Milky Way had before, and no one would even know about. The Apollo would just be assumed to be lost in space, while expanding the Federation out into other galaxies unwittingly. It is why he had never bothered to make a log entry in over eight months. What was the point? He had kept a small journal, but an official log seemed an act of nostalgia, if that was even the right word.

Nonetheless, he had resolved that he would make an entry at the one year mark, and every six months after that as long as he was still "in charge." So, with water in hand, he began.

-----

It has been one year to the day since the Apollo was chased from the beta quadrant of the Milky Way by the Borg. Having slipped into a sudden transwarp field caused by the cascading effect of the cube's destruction and some unknown other chain of events, the Apollo was flung roughly three million light years away to what our best calculations and data show to be the Triangulum Galaxy. That would be the furthest anyone has travelled outside of our galaxy that we know of. But, I guess that is the rub, isn't it? We wouldn't know. Neither will anyone back home. It is hard to find solace in an event so grand as this when you know it will not be remembered.

Getting off on a tangent. That's easy to do these days. In the past year, we have scouted and explored the face of this planet which we are calling Ceyx. There are pockets of fledgling civilizations, but they are of little concern given their current level of technology, small population densities, and distance from us. Plant and animal life is compatible with our own biology, but we have been hesitant to hunt and gather in order to not disturb the ecosystem too much.

We have begun to expand out of the ship itself. Commander Tigerlily has taken point on this endeavor, and in the past year we have moved roughly forty percent of the crew into a small village about a mile off of the current starboard side, which would be this planet's northeast. About six miles past the settlement is a mountain range containing some of the highest peaks on the planet. We began moving off ship in order to conserve the power resources we do have as well as to begin farming operations.

There have been twenty-two babies born in the last year, Dr. Talbert has been busy with such things. Six crewmembers have been lost since the initial three lost during the Borg encounter. Five were lost to accidents in the wilderness of this world, and one unfortunately succumbed to his own mental demons. Their files are all marked and noted in the official medical records kept by Sickbay.

As of now, I am still in command. However, the day may come when such a structure no longer fits the society that may develop here. The crew is solid and well disciplined. They are clutching to all they have left of their training, order, hierarchy, traditions, and rank, but nothing like that lasts forever, even under ideal conditions.

The future is an unknown. We did use runabouts to explore the immediate solar system, but found nothing of note save for a moon of the seventh planet that contained an atmosphere and a material that may be similar to dilithium, but more tests would be needed. The need to explore is significantly toned down due to the vast distance back to "home," so for now we will work to decide our future and build a legacy here.

Updates will be given every six months via logs. Other data of importance will be kept in the appropriate systems as needed.
------

Brett sat back. The silence of the room had become a familiar presence to him without the hum that used to fill the space. The ship ran on minimal power; the warp core at twenty percent of operation to keep the reaction running and needed areas available. The plan was to bring that to five percent by the end of the next year with all but essential areas shut down.

He sighed, took a sip of water, stood and walked toward the door. "Computer, lights out."