Where I Live Now (Expedition to the Kathol Rift)

[Ashin Varanin]

Peregrine-class armed freighter 'Alec Aday'
Kal'Shebbol
Kathol Sector (map)
Day 1

Captain's log. Setting mission timer to day one.

Kal'Shebbol is the sector capital and a major trade world. Right. Major for all the way out here -- go to the very end of the Rimma, then make the jump onto the Triton, then find your way to Kal'Shebbol. The place is damp, with lots of open plains. and herds. There's a decent market here, and decent food too -- cholla ribs, bantha cutlets and the like. I've stocked up and gotten Angromor to coordinate shore leave. It's been a long trip, getting out here from Rebellion Actual, and this'll be the crew's last guaranteed chance of Outer Rim civilization. We're right on the edge of Wild Space; by some reckonings, we're in it already. I've asked Bartuse and the Clan Rekali mechanics to stock up on spare parts; good thing Kal'Shebbol is part of the Silk-built HALCYON space train network, and this is a Silk ship. That should bear some fruit.

A lot of people would say that Kal'Shebbol is the edge of everything. Then again, I can think of five or six places beyond this that would merit the label too. The farther out you go, the more there is.

We're drawing from an old New Republic project called Lifeline. Crazy travel times, mental troubles and comms interference are what we're looking forward to, and we can do something about that last bit. Turns out that you can drop probe droid buoys as signal boosters to piggyback signals all the way into the Rift, so we're leaving our lifeline's endpoint here on Kal'Shebbol. We'll be dropping more buoy probes on our way in, giving them enough station-keeping autonomy to steer clear of shifts in the local mess. We'll also be improving on Lifeline by dropping them in overlapping range, so losing one or two little relays won't break the chain. And fundamentally, I get to see what the Undergrounders and my clansmen are made of.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Peregrine-class Armed Freighter 'Alec Aday'
Kal'Shebbol
Kathol Sector
Day 2

Still rotating the crew through shore leave. My focus is on travel time. Merrill's maps are good; put them with the local scouts' current intel, and they're downright excellent. Problem is, it's not forming up to be a very pretty picture. I've got five maps and some firm nav data to go with them, but travel time starts to add up. My composite chart helps me keep it all straight. I've got a map of the Kathol Sector proper, then comes the Marcol Void and Pembrellian League, then the Kathol Republic, then the Qektoth Confederation, then one of the distant Rift,

I'm aiming to proceed straight up the Triton to where it ends at Kolatil - with lift here and traffic over Torize, that's almost exactly two days. I'll be leaving some of the small craft here -- they have their orders. Go to ground at Brolsam, Oon Tien and Charis to cover current and future escape routes. I don't plan to stop at Kolatil, just keep going to the choke point at Pembric, dropping a few small craft and longtime scouts along the way. With luck we'll be able to fill this sector with boltholes, and if we get an instinctive astrogator in here we might even be able to drill secret proprietary routes past the choke points in case we need to encircle or evac.

Kal'Shebbol to Kolatil is two days; Kolatil to Pembric is another five days almost exactly, once you factor in the long jump from Shintel. A week, then. We'll stop over Pembric and get our bearings, send a shuttle to Tanquilla Beach to mark out some options for the astrogator.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Peregrine-class Armed Freighter 'Alec Aday'
Kolatil
Day 4

I've tossed out a hypercapable interceptor on the route to Aaris. The only route, really -- well, there's two, but they both connect to Kathol around the same place. Aaris is a very old witch colony, and I've got enough Rekali clan onboard to send a witch envoy. Make some local contacts, quietly. She'll rendezvous with the others I've dropped off, and the rendezvous point is Kal'Shebbol. I'd have preferred they try and catch up with me at Pembric, but they'll be less likely to be noticed over the sector capital. Pembric's an old shadowport; people there notice when half a wing of assorted military-grade fighters gets up a congregation.

Also, dropped another little relay probe in an unobtrusive corner of the system. Link with the Kal'Shebbol probe is solid.


Pembric II
Day 9

Landfall again, first time since Kal'Shebbol. No real need for shore leave, but I let them have it anyway, just for six hours or so when we land. Pembric's my kind of place. Sort of nasty, swampy, lots of shadowport business going on. I made some...friends, or at least people who'll remember me with a smile. Hearts and minds, right? Plus Doctor Trange is good at what she does, so no worries about permanent souvenirs. Fairly sure my crew is out right now closing down every strip joint, sabacc table, and all-you-can-eat buffet on the planet.

The third relay chain link is on Pembric, in a rented storage locker. All the small craft checked in through the relays. Seems like they're making about as much progress as could be expected, but I don't think any of them will be able to catch up, so their orders stand. We'll be proceeding with half hangar capacity.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Sebiris
Day 12

The shuttle's back from meeting our contact with the agricultural cabals on Galtea. An ag world this far into Wild Space -- who'd have thought it? Sebiris is a lot more what I expected. The native reptilian people are strong, fast -- they've got night vision and a great sense of smell, not to mention a massive amount of pharmacological knowledge. Poisons, antidotes, medicines. They trade with offworlders frequently, but as equals: their civilization doesn't require our toys. A few of their curious young warriors have hired on as security. We'll see how that goes. At the very least, I'd take them over the standard trooper types on your average death world. There are some instincts you can't get through training. Also, I want to hear more about 'those that came before,' the people who built stone temples on their world without using tools. Our protocol droids are a little disgruntled: the warriors speak Basic with a reasonable amount of accent.

Next branch of the journey is the Sebiris Run -- fourteen days, nine hours -- to Dolstan in the Pimbrellan League. The League is the first of the little pocket republics we'll be running into. I'm a little nervous about this, and here's why. The Pimbrellan League was founded by Pinacists, who -- here's the quote -- "taught that individuals who did not interfere with galactic events should await a major Event after which the galactic community would fall apart. At that time, the Pinacists would be able to take control of the galaxy." That's a pre-Gulag Virus prophecy of the Gulag Virus, or at least they think so, and the Pimbrellans have launched a handful of relatively pitiful crusades in the past couple hundred years. They also have a navy, nothing bigger than a frigate I'm told. We'll see how that goes too. Dolstan itself is a low-level agriworld, mostly savannah; I don't anticipate landing, though I do anticipate a hefty customs fee. I could have gone around the entire League using the Galtea Run, but the League is a solid relay point -- and a potential threat to what we're trying to build here. We need more intel, so I'm making preparations to leave eyes and ears on Dolstan if possible.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

En route to Timbra Ott
Day 28

Haven't had the chance to update the log. That didn't go so well. We were under major scrutiny as soon as we reached Dolstan Customs. Apparently they'd caught wind of our earlier scouting missions with starfighters. Then they stumbled across one of our relay drones on the Sebiris Run and were under the impression that we wanted to deploy more probes in Pimbrellan space. Well, we did, and they weren't amused. Individually, Pimbrellan corvettes are nothing, but get ten or twenty of them on your tail and they start taking on a different colour. Made repairs during the two-day jump to Bresan, biting our nails all the way, and what did they have to greet us but an interdictor. We shredded it and moved on.

First casualty reports: seven crewmen dead. Barth, Korr, Jevwel, Lopohai, Mucurgi, Stenn and B'renka. We'll have the funeral and jettison once we reach Timbra Ott. Our new Sebiri security officers got their first taste of space combat, two weeks after their first taste of starship travel. They acquitted themselves pretty well, even if it was only against a single boarding crew that had just taken a trapped hatch to the face.


Timbra Ott
Day 42

The funeral was...

Well.

Timbra Ott is another shadowport choke point, heavily volcanic, hardscrabble colony. No resources here, no serious shelter, but we're not at the point of needing it. From here we have two options: go straight to Jangelle, or loop through Sapella and Binaros first, and try to set up the side-stations we wanted in Pimbrellan space. Well, no, we have a third option: take the direct route to Galtea and Pembric for repair and resupply. We're doing well enough without it. We'll do fine. Straight to Sapella, then: five and a half days. Plenty of water, and we may be able to barter for access to a refit dock.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Sapella
Day 49

Two months since Kal'Shebbol, or close enough. Apparently the Pimbrellan League has been making aggressive overtures again. The Sapellans are sympathetic, and I bartered with their defense flotilla's commander. They have a handful of large old ships, much bigger than the Pimbrellans' but much fewer. The Sapellans' scouts saw us coming over Timbra Ott, so we've been expected. We've been allowed to drop comm relays, but we've had to send another shuttle to drop another pair of relays on the Galtea Run, just so we can connect with Pembric. It's been a little nerve-racking, being out of contact with the people we left in the Kathol Sector proper. By the time we reach Jangelle, the chain should be back up, and we should have contact again. Jangelle is in the outskirts of Kathol Republic territory, but like Sapella, it relies on Pembric or even Gandle Ott, way back there, for the occasional run of high-tech supplies. Jangelle is a lot more temperate than Sapella, though, so we intend to take on fresh food and let my boys and girls have their first serious shore leave since Pembric. By then it'll have been 54 days since then.


Jangelle
Day 63

All went as planned. Friendly locals, more than willing to barter food for spare parts - it saves them a round trip of a month and a half. Spotted Pimbrellan scout ships, but the Kathol Republic monitors this system, and the Pimbrellans didn't make waves. We'll take two days to load the food and let the crew explore, within reason and with the advice of our Sebiri friends. I'll spend a good chunk of that time trying to contact the Kathol Republic and make advance passage agreements. You can get around the Pimbrellan League; you physically can't get around the Kathol Republic, which has two hyperspace choke points for the entire sector, plus nine worlds rather than three.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Jangelle
Day 64

Success, I think. The Kathol Republic takes itself seriously, and frankly it deserves to. For being this remote and this poor, it's got an impressively firm federal democracy and the fleet strength to back it up. I was wrong -- it has twelve worlds, all terraformed eight or nine hundred years ago. It has the wealth to buy and maintain capital ships from farther Coreward. What it doesn't have, apparently, is a modern tech base of its own, or its trading partners on Sapella and Jangelle would be coming here for parts rather than making the trek to Pembric or Gandle Ott. My gut feeling is that someone could make a killing off this place with the right kind of factory ship and mining contacts. We're right at the edge, just outside the Kathol Republic's border, and I'm already getting a sense that this is a little place to take seriously. Our initial diplomatic and trade contact has been very promising, and after dropping off deep-space relays, we're cleared to visit the Kathol Republic's systems and worlds.

I've commed back to those of our scouts that've rendezvoused on Pembric, ordering them to stock up on whatever tech they can carry and come ahead to Sapella and Jangelle via Galtea and Timbra Ott. I've informed the Sapellans that they're on their way, and they seem more than receptive. Hopefully, that's a connection made, and if things go well in the Kathol Republic, our scouts and small craft may be able to catch up with us at Pitann. We'll have to spent an extra week in the Republic, but my gut says it's worth the delay -- both to be fully armed as we go farther into the Outback, and to strengthen local connections in ways that will let us set up bolt-holes and fallback options.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Dayark
Capital of the Kathol Republic
Day 96

We came through Dayark to enter the Republic proper, but things have gone smoothly enough that I felt comfortable circling back to Dayark; it's only one jump from the rimward exit of Republic space, and we've been able to finalize repairs and top up consumables. This place, unlike Jangelle, actually has night life that isn't trying to digest you, so we're seeing the sights. My crewers from the Core Worlds admit that Dayark is 'halfway civilized', which is just a lovely attitude, but even they are more than happy to spend some time in an actual city again, first time since Kal'Shebbol over three months ago. I went and played some sabacc, then some pazaak, then tried some more inventive local amusements, and I can vouch for the quality of the shore leave my crew has received. I don't think any of us were expecting to find such a comfortable place so far out. Don't get me wrong -- Dayark can be pretty grim. It drizzles constantly here, the Moross Crusade's footprints are everywhere, and like most agriworlds there are some income gaps, urban poverty issues...

On the plus side, we've been able to hire a few locals as replacement crew and guides, and the local officials are quietly just fine with letting us ship off some of their dissidents Coreward. Recruiting is a thing.

We're about to head for Qektoth territory; it's unavoidable. And it's going to be...interesting. The humans of the Qektoth Confederacy have a long history of bizarre biotech and insular politics. Our guides suggest treading very lightly. This was a major reason we waited the extra few days for our small craft; apart from a couple of shuttles packed with Kathol Republic dissidents and Underground recruiters, our hangars are now full. If it comes to a fight, though, we may well have lost the momentum for this mission. The Qektoth may be able to bring Project Sanctuary to a screeching halt.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Ehjenla
Day 102

Just pausing over Ehjenla for hyperdrive recalibration. The planet has no tech base and we have no real need for Tuhgri trade goods. Left a relay insystem and moved on, on the advice of our guides.


Uukaablis
Day 111

The Uukaablians are exhausting. I'm no diplomat, and this species -- highly advanced in medical science, among other things -- prizes diplomacy heavily. Many Uukaablians served the Moross Crusade as diplomats or doctors, even though their homeworld is so remote. It also happens to be the gateway to the real gateway to the Qektoth Confederacy, and well within the Qektoth sphere of influence. We've spotted odd sensor contacts, things our guides confirm as Qektoth bioships. So far, though, no direct contact.

The Uukaablians are fine with us leaving a relay here, and are extremely anxious to barter for our medical databases. There's a lot of history there, lots of cultural imperatives. I saw an Uukaablian-trained doctor in the Kathol Republic, and didn't know what I was seeing at the time. These knobbly-foreheaded, green-skinned folks really know what they're doing. But they're still exhausting.

I've asked for another meeting with local dignitaries, nobody too high. Between them and our existing guides, I might be able to come to a decision about the Qektoth. They're xenophobic, especially towards technology, but not aggressively so -- not right now, anyway. I don't have the background information I need. They haven't poked us yet. Part of me wants to just move on down the long road to Shatuun, but part of me knows I won't be satisfied until the issue's been thoroughly explored. I wasn't sent here to bring back unknown quantities.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Uukaablis
Day 117

Against the advice of my first officer, the Uukaablians, and the Kathol Republic guides, I took a single Niathal mapping shuttle into the Qu'mock system, the gateway to the Qektoth Confederacy. I was able to capture comprehensive scans of half-biotech, half-salvage space stations, including large quantities of biomass, and what I believe to be research facilities. I encountered shield-piercing plasma weaponry and shield-disrupting ion webs. My considered opinion is that the Qektoth are very dangerous, at least to an expedition of my size. They kept quiet, or were forcibly kept quiet, during the Moross regime, but that's long gone.

The Uukaablians, though some distance from reinforcement by the Kathol Republic, and though they're pacifists, have enough planetary shielding and passive defenses that they seem to function as a stopper on the bottle. Their world is the only possible Qektoth path to the rest of the galaxy, and that is a very good thing. We'll remain here for a week to ensure that my scouting mission hasn't incurred Qektoth retribution on the Uukaablians, who are not pleased that I went ahead with it. The Uukaablians' welfare is the sole reason I'm not attempting a rescue mission on some of those research facilities. The needs of the few can't outweigh the needs of hundreds of millions, and I'm not dragging the locals into a war just because I'm...furious.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Day 140
Shatuun

I'm not one to miss planets, but I miss one now. And not Yavin, either. I miss Dayark. Gentle rain, a low-key but vibrant city with hundreds of years' worth of history, nice location, nice culture, good people. A gas giant hanging overhead, like Yavin, but more...alive. It's been a month and a half since Dayark, and I really do find myself missing it. Word down the relay is that the Etherway arrived to shore up trade relations. They took a more direct route than we did -- only a couple of months. And with the Etherway has come...mail. I've had letters from Aaralyn and Grandpa Ember and that's about it. I've never seen morale so high, but I can't stop worrying about the Qektoth. I made a serious mistake there. Went into the darkness one step too far.

None of our guides know much about Shatuun. The locals keep to themselves -- starfighter-sized, with wings, capable of space travel as well as atmospheric flight. Reminds some of our more knowledgeable people about Duinuogwuin legends...or the stories about General Merrill. They say he learned at the Graveyard of Dragons, which isn't too far away in galactic terms. This is one place where I very much want to tread lightly. I've deposited a pair of relay drones two hundred AU from the Shatuun system primary, and we're moving on without attempting to make contact. If Merrill or one of his people is aboard the Etherway, they might want to make contact.

From Shatuun, there are two options: Exocron, planet of secrets, and Danoor in the Nah'malis system. Danoor is our path into the Kathol Rift, but you can't come this far out without visiting Exocron. That's about nine days round trip, but Exocron's apparently a good place to gas up.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Day 145
Exocron

Navigating the protostar proved challenging; we lost a day on that. It would have been easier with a good word from the Uukaablians, but I shot myself in the foot on that one.

But that wasn't the problem. The problem was this jumped-up fad religion based on twenty-something Forcers with big words and what I'm guessing is mind control. Then again, if you're the only one with power, people will believe whatever you tell them to believe. We got a glimpse of Exocron - smallish shipyards, big ugly temple, heavily secured, but a lovely place regardless -- but we got turned away before we could land. Apparently the locals are having some kind of ongoing cultural crisis now that the gods have, embarrassingly, failed. We weren't that low on fuel, but it would have been nice. Now comes the long haul. We'll take four days to get back to Shatuun, then another seven and a half to Danoor. Force, am I glad we have a Class One on this beast, or we'd have been out here a lot longer than five months.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Day 149
Shatuun

Comm relays confirm that the Uukaablians haven't spotted any Qektoth ships. This is a problem, because we just did. Two frigates, both with weapons nasty enough to punch through shields. Their own shields have a directionality issue, though, and we're much more maneuverable, with fastmount capital guns to boot. We've taken their wreckage for analysis and buried our dead, eighty-six of them. I won't record their names here. None of the Qektoth got away to report on our capabilities, so there's that.

I'm not willing to waste a month going back to Uukaablis, then returning to Shatuun. A week and a half wasted on the Exocron jaunt was more than enough of a delay. We go forward.

On the plus side, Danoor is the last bastion of what calls itself civilization. Kal'Shebbol was the last, then Pembric, then the Kathol Republic, then Uukaablis, then Exocron, to say nothing of the rest -- but Danoor really is the last one. It's right at the gates of the Kathol Rift itself. There'll be guides, people who can help my crew deal with the hallucinations we expect. I have three hundred thirty-one crewers out of a maximum effective complement of four hundred twenty; we're a long way from skeleton crew, but I intend to hire a few on Danoor.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Day 160
Danoor, Nah'malis System

I fething hate this place.

We've been tied up in customs and immigration, refuelling protocols, repair protocols, hiring protocols and various obstructions, to say nothing of the last vestiges of Moross religion, which I'm starting to find downright annoying. Cognitive dissonance meets pretty fascism, and so far just about everyone who follows it has turned out to be a dick. Wouldn't be surprised if they'd gotten word from Exocron about the turnback and that thing I said.

Also, the capital city here, Eror Zeen, has buildings four stories tall at maximum, with blue lights everywhere. It's ugly as feth.

On the plus side, we're now at four hundred and three crew, and we have a qualified, experienced guide into the Rift. We leave tomorrow or I start breaking legs.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Day 173
Q'Maere

I count myself fortunate that we only took two weeks to reach the craphole waypoint that is Q'Maere. One to three weeks is standard.

The hallucinations are bad today. Arachnoid, mostly. We've modulated our shields like a local advised, but if it helped it wasn't for long. Placebo, maybe, or an adaptive threat. You can't really quantify hallucinations. We're all on edge. On the plus side, the new crewers have all done this before. Security concerns are still a thing, but they're earning trust fast, helping everyone learn to deal. Q'Maere offers no refuge. Abandoned research facility, poison atmosphere, volcanoes, ammonia oceans. We're not landing in that murk, there's nothing to be gained or learned here, so we're dropping a relay and a droid-piloted shuttle with labor droids to fix some seals and get a dome or two closed off. Place could serve as a backup bolthole. We're moving on.

The next stretch will be three to five weeks. We have space for six months of consumables; we're down to four, and we'll be down to three once we hit the next waypoint, some kind of alien construct. Kark Exocron.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Day 208
Alien Construct

I guess I haven't been sleeping much, or maybe I've been sleeping all the time. No command edge. Fortunately, all I have to do is sit in a chair all day and handle little problems remotely. Sometimes I have to smack someone around. That's fair; that's contribution. The hallucinations are getting stronger, the doc says. Funny, I'm starting to feel like everything else is less real. I've started naming the spiders, just for fun.

The construct has spider legs. Even the droids see them. Tentacles that grab. The 'Alec Aday' is pinned against the outside of the station, which looks like a dump a few miles wide. Sensors say the inside is a maze. There's no rest here and no reason to linger. Three months of food left.

But I can't help feeling I want to go in.

Bartol, get three engineering crews together. The tech in there is odd. I'm going to lead an away team.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Day 210

We've partitioned off one of the aft subhangars and crammed it full of spider legs the size of starfighters. The engineers have no idea what they are, but we've done...

Where was I?

The engineers dream of spider legs just like me, and mostly when they're not asleep. Commendations are in order for cutting off the docking tentacle spider legs and pulling them inside still twitching. Commendable. Not what we came for and we're wasting two days. But it should be fine, and it might save lives, and I want it. Leaving some droids here to set up a bolthole. Leaving two relays because one might not be enough. Our relay chain is fuzzy now.

The next stretch is three to six weeks depending on how the Rift shifts. At the end of it, maybe fresh air, maybe. The spider legs smell, more so when we cut them open. Ceramic gears that sweat silver. Spinal cords that crunch like celery-

Get it together, Alec.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Day 245
Yvara

Well, circumstances. We're on Yvara and none too soon. Maybe six weeks' consumables left for one reason or another. Nice place. None of us are in the right frame of mind for first contact with the Yvarema hive mind. The guides say they're highly specialized, non-insectoid, sentient as individuals, they've got personalities -- but they get smarter depending on how many other Yvarema are nearby. Pheromone triggers and empathic links. Funny: they may be the only species in the galaxy that gets smarter as a group. Well, no, there's Bafforr trees, but they're sort of the definition of groupthink.

We've landed a few hundred miles from the nearest Yvarema settlements. Shore leave for fething everyone. The hallucinations aren't a thing down here. I feel like my mind's my own and the doctors are reporting far fewer suicidal thoughts. We lost four to local plants and animals before people smartened up. We've got teams out on speeders, hunting herbivores and foraging for fruit. Four hundred mouths to feed, and we've been on ship rations for a while. Normally we're fine with that -- most of us are career spacers -- but coupled with the way the Rift glows and swirls and makes you think wrong things-

Well, good thing we're here. Good thing. I think some of us want to stay. Once we decompress and make contact with the Yvarema, some of what we've got can make for-

We're going to build here. Relay, too. Nearly the final link in the chain.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Yvara
Day 290

We're all fine. That took a while. Open land, clean air, fresh food, newly-built home, safety from the Rift's dreams, fellowship with the Yvarema. Some of us still don't think they can take the return trip, and I can't force them. They say they feel the galaxy pulling them like a rubber band that this trip stretched out. I say we're on a world like any other, and anyone can live a whole life on any world. No need for any other place to be the center of everything. If this wasn't my ship, I might stay here too, but I won't regret finishing this.

The construct's docking tentacles are still quiet. No harm done so far. Science and engineering officers still can't understand them.

The fort is a pretty basic affair. Permacrete stockade on a rise between a river and a forest. Prefab shelters inside the walls, and a shutter shield generator. The 'Alec Aday' is still grounded beside the fort, but even once we take off, the fort will have good shelter from the wind. There are bunkers, too, enough to last through a mild orbital bombardment, and a bunch of boltholes all over the planet. We've got good relations with the Yvarema; we've even taken on some of them as crew. They have to travel in units, so we have two royal explorers -- bred for space travel -- each with one lore-gatherer, three workers, and two explorer-scouts. Total of fourteen Yvarema crewers. They've helped design and build the fort, and they're up to speed on most ship systems. We're leaving shortly. I've just announced it. My bet is around a hundred twenty of the crew will want to stay. The Rift has been lethal lately, say the guides. Troubled. We lived it; we understand.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Demonsgate
Day 294

This world looks deeply inhospitable. It looks like it's on fire, frankly. At first I thought the hallucinations had gone up a notch, but they're manageable now. The Yvarema have space exploration capacity, and the roots they chew to beat the hallucinations wind up working fairly well for the rest of us. At worst, you get a bit of a rash.

The 'Alec Aday' made its first landing on a dormant volcano; that didn't go so well. Our secondary landing spot, where we are now, is half a continent away. This whole place is incredibly diverse. All kinds of non-sentient life.

My father and mother came here once. Demonsgate orbit was where they met the Aing-Tii and learned flow-walking from them. I don't have a Force connection like them, at least not one I can use in a serious way, but I'm twisted in time like my father, and I think a large part of that comes back to this place. I was conceived here, born here, in the Kathol Outback. It hasn't helped me much if at all. It's possible it's made things worse.

I've given the crew time to look around in shifts, and set up a relay and a small craft pad for a bolthole. I'm taking a Niathal into orbit alone.