August 24th 3419 | Marcus Jones | The Anomaly
The anomaly was a kind of space station that seems to have warp capabilities. Particularly ugly on the outside, but the inside was stunningly advanced. Makes the other stations look like country stores. It also seems that the interior might be bigger than the exterior? I'll have to take some measurements next time I visit.
I introduced myself to the proprietors of the station, Nada and Polo. Friendly enough, but their conversations tend towards the cryptic. They remind me of my overseer. I'd love to get all three of them in a room together. I could make a drinking game out of it: take a shot every time they mention dreams and visions, or cycles of rebirth, or being outside reality, or they pronounce the word "traveller" as though it has a capital "T"... on second thought, I would die of alcohol poisoning.
The station's other inhabitants proved more helpful. I met a dozen species that I'd never even heard of before, all ready and willing to trade. Except the base blueprints vendor - he just taped a note to his kiosk saying "Back in five meznarks, help yourself". (I don't know how long a meznark is, but I have yet to see the guy.) I zeroed in on the bio-dome plans as a potential substitute for my still-malfunctioning hydroponics tables, but the blueprint was very sketchy. It seemed to assume that the builder already knew 90% of what to do, so it only supplied the missing 10%. I realized that I needed a good amount of salvaged data to fill in the missing pieces.
On a lark, I spun through the "recent connections" log on the station's teleporter (who knew it had one of those?) and picked the first name that looked interesting: Snovoku IX. Turned out to be a three planet system: one irradiated, one cactus-covered, and one "spiny". (I also spotted something that looked like a wormhole entrance, though I steered away from it.) Fortunately for me, the non-spiny planets had a lot of architectural data for salvage. My current theory is that a roving band of general contractors were playing pirate, burying their "treasure" on every planet they came across. Granted, that doesn't make any sense...but neither does any other theory, and mine is more fun than the others.
After another visit to the anomaly station, which now appears to be stalking me, I received a surprise communication from the original sender of that distress signal that summoned the station in the first place. Her name is Artemis. She's a friend of Nada and Polo. Given that it's been over a month since the signal was first sent, I was very surprised to find that she was still alive. What little I could gather from her was - you guessed it - cryptic. The only point I really understood was that she was pinned down by sixteen enemies. Personally I'm uncomfortable with two enemies - you never know if one is sneaking up behind you while the other one distracts you. I felt bad for her, but was I really equipped to deal with a force that size? I went back to Nada, to try to feel him out on how urgent this whole rescue thing really was; he told me that I should listen to Artemis's plea if it really was Artemis, and not listen to it if it was an impostor, and be cautious if it was some kind of alternate version of Artemis. Sadly, this was actually more helpful than I expected him to be.
I returned to my base to install the new biodome and mull things over. Just as I was finishing my renovations, I got a surprise message from Captain Stevensen, who told me that he and Captain Flanagan were very interested in the "foaming planet" I'd spotted in the Ruziam System. We rendezvous at the nearby space station and headed down. Bubbles. Bubbles everywhere. Even the animals were bubbles. There was also a fair bit of gold on the surface, so at Captain Stevensen's suggestion we set up a mining station. We came off with a big haul - enough for me to make enough solar panels to add a second biodome to my base. I barely recognize the place.