First Entry

I don't even know how to start this.

Last night — and I mean that literally, last night — I went to sleep in my own bed. My wife was next to me. I remember the lamp being on because she was still reading, and thinking I'd ask her to turn it off, and then... not doing that, apparently. Just going to sleep.

And then I woke up here.

I don't have an explanation. I've been trying to build one all day and none of them survive contact with the actual facts. What I have is: it happened. It's still happening. And I'm currently writing this from inside a spaceship — yes, a spaceship— so I've decided the best thing I can do is just write it down. All of it. From the beginning.

I keep thinking about her.

This morning I woke up and I didn't know where I was, or when I was, or who exactly. There was a bunk — narrow, utilitarian, bolted to a wall — and the air tasted recycled and thin and the ceiling was definitely not my ceiling. I lay there for I don't know how long just taking stock. The light coming through the small window was the wrong color for Earth.

I got up, found a corridor, and a woman walked past and doubled back when she saw my face. I must have looked exactly as lost as I was, because she stopped and said "you alright?" like she already knew the answer was no.

Her name's Lin — she's the supervisor here on Vectera (I have since learned). She looked at me the way you look at someone you've worked alongside for a while, and I looked at her like a person waking up in a country where they don't speak the language, and somehow she chalked it up to a rough morning and moved on. She told me to get suited up because there was something in the rock they'd been working toward and today was the day, and she wanted me to go down and get it. So I went, because I genuinely couldn't think of a reason not to. Honestly I still expected to wake up from this dream soon and roll over to tell my wife all about how crazy it was dreaming of being a space miner...

The tunnels were long and dark and narrow, and I followed Heller through them because that was clearly what I was supposed to do and I had no better ideas. At one point there was a rockfall blocking the path and he handed me the cutter — That's what he called it, but it was like nothing I'd ever touched before in my life — and just sort of gestured at the obstruction like obviously I knew what to do with it.

And I did. That's the part that got me. I cleared the rockfall without hesitating, without fumbling, without having to think about it at all. My hands just... did it. I stood there for a second after and looked at the tool like it had betrayed me somehow. Heller didn't notice, or didn't say anything if he did, and we kept moving.

We finally reached a point where Heller and Lin stopped. Looked at some readings on their tablet thing, and argued briefly. Heller was very concerned about the readings he was getting. Lin didn't seem to think it was a problem. She sent me off on my way down this newly opened tunnel, telling me to find.... "it".

So off I went, still waiting to tell my wife all about this crazy dream.

Whatever it was I was sent after it didn't... it felt wrong.

By all reasonable observation it was just a strange metalic arc. But... the more you looked at it, the more it appeared to violate the rules of the Universe. It caught the light and reflected it as... and I know how crazy this sounds... as Sound in my mind. I don't think it even was producing actual sound, there was no echo or reverberation of this... this music in my head. I reached for it because that was why I'd come down here, because what else do you do, and the moment I touched it the tunnels disappeared.

I was... in space. But not like, on a planet in space I mean I was just... floating. Around me were stars, and bands of colors I don't have names for. Around me, oblivion stretched on indefinitely, but at the same time I felt I was... observing SOMETHING. Something on the scale of enormous — not a place, more like the shape of an idea so large I could only see the edge of it. I was there for no time at all and I was there forever.

When it ended I in the med bay, with Lin and her right hand man, Heller, looking down at me.

They asked me questions: what's my name, where am I, what did I do before I came to Vectera. Before I answered the simply asked "Does any of this sound familiar" and handed me a data slate (as they called it. I would have called it an iPad). I saw a picture - MY picture - next to a lot of data that I did NOT recognize. It even had my full name, though everyone up til now had just been calling me "Nova". Some kind of Nickname I'd apparently earned.

The slate had even more info on me that didn't make sense: Before Vectera, I was a long haul transport pilot. I have a family in a city called "New Atlantis". But otherwise, unremarkable.

I kept thinking about her. My wife. Whether she'd woken up yet. Whether she'd reached for me and found the bed empty and what she'd thought...

I don't think I'm waking up from this dream, anymore.

We went topside with the artifact and there was a man waiting — Barrett. He'd apparently arranged the whole dig and come all the way out here specifically for this thing, and when I handed it over his whole face changed in the way of someone who's been holding their breath for a long time. He started asking me about what happened when I touched the artifact, which was telling since I'd very much had an out-of-body experience. He also seemed to be the first person to realize there was something... off... about me. It was brief, the slightest flicker behind his eyes. He was definitely the smartest person I'd come across so far, and also the most... out there. I wanted to try to steer the conversation towards that, but I didn't get the chance.

Because the pirates showed up.

Crimson Fleet, Lin said, and it was clear from her tone that this was an anticipated but very unappreciated event. They came down fast and they were after Barrett. He'd just said "I really thought I'd lost them!" like a man saying he really thought he'd remembered to pick up milk from the store. Guns came out on both sides and I was behind cover before I'd consciously decided to move. A gun was knocked off the barrels I'd ducked behind. I picked it up and it felt... less unfamiliar than it should have. I returned fire alongside people whose names I was still working out, and somehow we took out enough of them to have their ship retreat.

Afterward Barrett came back over, looked at me for a moment, and held out the artifact. He asked me to take the artifact back to New Atlantis for him while he stayed behind to help Lin get the dig site packed up and ready for Evac. He even said I could take his ship, and his Robot.

I didn't ask why me. It didn't feel like the right moment.

So I walked up the ramp, sat down in the pilot's seat, and watched my hands run the preflight check on a ship I'd never seen in my life. Every switch in the right order, no hesitation, no second-guessing — The Frontier came alive underneath me and we lifted off an alien planet and rose up into the sky.

The Crimson Fleet came back for us as I exited the upper atmosphere. VASCO (the Robot) offered a crash course on dog fighting but somehow, I don't even think I needed it. Once again it felt like... instinct. I took down three enemy ships in The Frontier (which I had heard Heller back on Vectera mention is outdated). VASCO then informed me that we would likely need to take out the Pirate base on the nearby moon Kreet if we wanted to safely make the jump to Alpha Centauri.

So that's where I'm headed now, as I write this. I keep landing on: I don't know. I don't know what the artifact was, or what it showed me, or what Constellation wants with it, or why Barrett trusted a man he'd just met with his ship. I don't know what this body's life looks like or who's waiting for me in New Atlantis or what I'm supposed to do when I get there.

And I know that she's back home, three hundred years behind me, and she doesn't know any of this is happening, and as far as she's concerned I'm still asleep in the bed next to her. I can't think too hard about that right now or I won't be able to function. And I need to function, so I'm going to focus on Kreet, and then New Atlantis, and Constellation, and... I'll just get there first and figure out the rest after.

I'll write again when I have something to say.