File Recovered from Kagara Station

File Recovered from Kagara Station

File ID: KAGARA-2769222

Day 1, Entry 1:

Alright, how do I start this… Welp, guess there’s no sugarcoating it, is there? I am stuck. There was a damn accident and now I’m stuck. I’m starting this damn log to calm down and keep my nerves, because the accident manual says that that’s a good idea. What happened… okay so we’re out here on this damn shithole of a planet. Damn thing doesn’t even have a proper name beyond its designation. PSR 99… something something I don’t know, I don’t care.

I’ve been on that damn ship for over six months on my way to man a remote research station out in the Frontier Stars. Sounds fun, right? Adventure and all that!
Well apparently not. Me and this Pan’u scientist are on the first shuttle down. We get off. BOOM. Suddenly the fucking thing rips from the docking bay and destroys not only the docking assembly but also itself.
Our only way on and off this planet, gone.
Some engine misfire or something. Electrical fault maybe.

Either way, I managed to pull the Pan’u to safety. She's down in medical, I got the rudimentary systems running so the autodoc can fix her up.
It’s nothing big, thankfully. Just a cracked bone where a bit of debris hit her. Nothing the nanogel can’t fix.
But still… Wonderful, just WONDERFUL! We’re stuck down here with no way up and the other 58 people on this expedition are up there in orbit with no way down.

Day 1, Entry 2:

It might be advantageous to describe my situation further. Y’know, in case I ever wanna write a book or something about this. I’m Abi Makar, mission tech for an expedition to PSR 99896542b, also known as “Midnight”, even though that name’s more of a nickname than a proper designation. Officially it has no proper name whatsoever.
Midnight circles in a far orbit around a pulsar, the remnant of a dead star that violently exploded some couple hundred million years ago.
Outside there’s no atmosphere or anything, just endless shimmering crystalline ice formations, some the size of mountains. The view from the observation deck, a panoramic glass room at surface level, is stunning. I was supposed to be part of the third crew to man Kagara Station, a research station built into the planet, five layers deep with only the top one exposed to the surface. The rest is safe and sound underneath the ice, shielded from the dangerous radiation emitted by Midnight’s dead star.
It’d actually be quite cozy here, if I didn’t have a massive hole in the docking area to patch up…

Day 2, Entry 1:

I managed to patch up most of the holes from yesterday’s accident. And I seem to have calmed down a little, if my bioprobe isn’t lying about my heartbeat.
I also managed to get most of the station running on my own. Thank the maker that this thing basically runs itself. Just had to push a few buttons!

The scientist is healing rather quickly. I brought her some food I had the cafeteria fabricator produce earlier.
We ate together and talked a bit. She thanked me a bunch for yesterday, but I told her it’s no big deal. I mean, it kinda is, I feel like some kind of action hero, but she doesn’t need to know that, right?
She’s quite nice though.
Her name is Yanu’itai, but she asked me to call her Yan.

Yan. What a nice name.

Day 2, Entry 2:

Just when I started to feel better…
The ship radioed in. They’ve decided to go and get a replacement docking bay as well as a new shuttle.
Go and get.
That means they’ll be gone for a year.
A whole year.
I mean, we got enough supplies to last us at least thirty, but… I don’t know if just the two of us can keep the place running that long.Either way, I got a comms relay to readjust, otherwise we’ll be not only stuck, but also without long-range communication.

Day 2, Entry 3:

Long-range comms is FUBAR. Can’t fix it without a whole team.
Yan didn’t take the news well. She started crying and I had to try to calm her down. Not that easy a task when you’re pretty close to losing it yourself.
I… didn’t know Pan’u could cry.

Day 3, Entry 1:

The ship is leaving today. At least Yan’s arm will be fixed in time so we can both watch them break orbit from the observation deck. At least a tiny thing to look forward to.
Until then, I still got some systems to get running.

Day 3, Entry 2:

They’re gone. We’re alone now.
I heard the captain wish us well over the radio just before they ignited the main drive.
It looked like a bright white star, shooting off over the crystal horizon.
Yan cried. I cried as well.
From now on it's three hundred and sixty-five days until they return.

I’m writing this just before heading to sleep. Yan and I have decided to share one of the big four-bed quarters so we can save some power by keeping the others sealed and unheated.
Doesn’t make sense to keep all fifteen warm when there’s only two people on station, right?

I see her over there, across the room from me. She’s reading something on a datapad.
Such a weird creature.
She reminds me of a cream-colored fox, but then… decidedly not. I mean, what foxes walk around on two legs, study astrophysics and have weird scales on their forearms?
At least I lucked out in that regard.
Got stranded with a fellow mammaloid oxygen-breather.
Could’ve been a sapient rock or a plant-
Not that I got anything against either, of course.

Day 4, Entry 1:

Well, guess I'm the commander here now. Somehow.
I mean, yeah, I’m the highest ranking guy on-site by a small margin, but it still feels weird to think about.

Had breakfast with Yan earlier and then went to fix some more stuff damaged in the accident.
Yan has started doing her science.
Something about stellar development and emission patterns.

It’s so eerie here at times. You can see other stars in the sky even during the day because Midnight’s pulsar is so dim. Caught myself staring up for almost ten minutes while on EVA outside earlier. It’s terrifyingly beautiful. The stars, the jagged crystal mountains and plains, and the blue shimmering pulsar, blooming with flowery patterns of superheated gas flowing along magnetic fields like a strange celestial rose.
And then there's the jets shooting out of both poles of the star like bright beams of pure light and energy - according to Yan that’s not even that far from the truth.

Day 4, Entry 2:

The nights are beautiful too.
I couldn’t sleep so now I’m sitting here on the observation deck, staring out into the darkness.
The sky is full of strange constellations formed by billions of stars. Everything looks so different from here.
There’s a large nebula towards the eastern horizon, and I swear I once knew what that thing was called.
I’m… the only human for several lightyears.
I’m alone.

Day 5, Entry 1:

More fixing and maintenance today. Nothing exciting for once.
I find myself talking to Yan more often, staying in contact with her over radio when we’re both busy in separate parts of the station.
I like the way she laughs.

Day 6, Entry 1:

Yet more maintenance. I think I’ll just write these entries only when something exciting happens. I mean, I got someone else to keep me sane, right?

Day 13, Entry 1:

Taught Yan how to play chess today. She promptly beat me. I wish I was as smart as her.
Nothing else new, except that Yan keeps talking about something in the star’s light she finds interesting. Something about its polarization and how it interacts with gas surrounding the rapidly spinning core of the pulsar.

Day 16, Entry 1:

We’ve moved to eating on the observation deck instead of the large, depressingly empty cafeteria. The view’s much better up there anyways.
I’ve been spending more and more time up there these last few days.
With the station running, there’s not that much to do for me right now.
It’s so beautiful out there.

Day 21, Entry 1:

Yan and I took a day off from maintenance and science today. We spent a bunch of time in the recreation room, messing about in the virtual reality rig. We also talked a bunch about books.
Yan is a writer.
She never told me she enjoyed writing, even though we’ve been talking for… shit, how long has it been… Twenty-One days! Yeah. Damn, it’s a bit early for me to start losing my mind, isn’t it? Heh.
Anyways, Yan is calling. She wanted to try herself at cooking and I’m her lab rat.

Day 22, Entry 1:

Woke up with her snuggled up next to me.
I feel kinda weird, but also oddly calm. I think I can get used to this.

Day 26, Entry 1:

I’ve been spending even more time on the observation deck recently.
There's something magical about the way the pulsar's fractal-like shapes get reflected and scattered by the crystalline landscape.
It reminds me of the night sky in a weird way.
It's so beautiful.

Day 28, Entry 1:

I swear I heard something knocking on a wall today.
Damn thermal stresses…
Well, nothing like a general inspection, right?

Day 28, Entry 2:

Found scratches on the cafeteria wall…
Asked Yan about it, but she thought I was trying to prank her.
Oh man, I'm not ready to be in a horror film.

Day 28, Entry 3:

Just wear and tear.
It’s just wear and tear caused by thermal expansion of the station hull.
Goddammit, I need to calm down.
I’ll go look at the star some more I think. Something about it seems to help me relax.

Day 28, Entry 4:

It’s late. Very late. Yan is sleeping next to me.
I swear there’s something knocking on our door.
But that can’t be.
I’m imagining things, right?
Just writing this down to calm myself anyways.
I’ll just hug Yan and hope I can fall asleep.
My mind needs to calm down right the fuck now.

Day 31, Entry 1:

The damn food fabricator is broken.
Can’t even look at stars in peace.

Day 31, Entry 2:

Some wires have been cut on the food fabricator.
It wasn’t me so it has to have been Yan.
But… why?

Day 31, Entry 3:

Confronted Yan about the wires, she was scared and confused.
Her reaction seemed genuine. She swore upon her ancestors it wasn’t her.
I feel bad for yelling at her. Really bad.
The cables probably just slipped out of their sockets due to some vibrations.
This place is getting to me, I swear…

Day 36, Entry 1:

I woke up on the observation deck. No clue how I got there.
Gonna lock the door from now on to prevent sleepwalking.

Day 38, Entry 1:

When I walked into the cafeteria this morning to grab some food, I noticed a couple tables had been flipped.
Yan freaked out. She’s been talking about how this place is haunted for a while now, and I had been assuming she’s just joking.
It took me two hours to calm her down.

I ran a full sensor sweep of the station. Only two lifeforms aboard. At least it’s not evil aliens.
I also installed a camera at the door to our quarters, even though I don’t expect to see any ghosts.
Or, at least I hope I won’t see any.

Day 39, Entry 1:

I’ve never mentioned how pretty Yan is.
I wish she would watch the pulsar with me more often…

Day 42, Entry 1:

Something ripped off the camera tonight.
This goes beyond what I can blame on minor earthquakes.
Yan has suffered a pretty bad panic attack. I found her rolled up in the corner of our quarters, sobbing and shaking when I returned from a small break at the observation deck.
I promised her I’ll protect her from any space ghosts.
That made her laugh. I laughed too, but I’m scared shitless, just like her.
At least the star was particularly beautiful today.

Day 43, Entry 1:

It’s like a flower of shimmering loops. A blinding, radiant core surrounded by beautiful petals. Every rotation flicks the magnetic lines about, creating turbulence and swirling currents in the glowing gas.
If only everyone could see it.

Day 45, Entry 1:

A bunch of lab equipment was destroyed overnight.
We’ve decided to put all the parts of the station we don’t use on security lockdown.

Day 48, Entry 1:

Found the hallway wall smeared with a beautiful design of swirling lines made from something that smelled like coolant oil.
I cleaned it up before Yan could see it.

Day 50, Entry 1:

I could’ve sworn it was day forty-nine.
I was sitting in the observation deck when Yan ran up to me and hugged me tightly out of nowhere.
She told me she couldn’t find me anywhere for a whole day.
But… that can’t be, right?

Day 50, Entry 2:

So beautiful. The pulsar’s magnetic field etches these beautiful designs into the sky, yet no one was here to appreciate them for an eternity.
I’m glad we’re here to see it.

Day 51, Entry 1:

It destroyed the cafeteria today.
It’s all fucked.
Yan and I have locked ourselves in our quarters with enough rations to survive until the ship returns to get us off this planet.
It’s really a shame. I can’t look at the sky from here. I guess the screen on the wall, linked to a camera outside will have to suffice.

Day 57, Entry 1:

The star is so beautiful. If only I could see it with my own eyes.
Yan begs me not to go though. So I stay here. I promised to protect her, even if it was just to calm her down.
I’m keeping my word.

Day 59, Entry 2:

I-
I fucked up.
Yan caught me trying to breach the door while she was asleep.
I only wanted to see the sky…
She doesn’t want to talk now.
I’m cold. I’m alone. She’s sleeping in the other bed again.
I hate myself.
She’s crying.

Day 60, Entry 1:

I’m so sorry, Yan. If you ever read this, just know that I'm sorry.

Day 63, Entry 1:

A pulsar is a type of neutron star with strong radiation jets. As it spins rapidly, the jets sweep over a detector like a lighthouse, making it blink and blink and blink and blink like a heartbeat.

Day 68, Entry 1:

So beautiful… I feel it shine right into my heart.

Day 72, Entry 1:

It’s destroying everything.
Yan won’t talk to me. I’m locked outside the quarters and she won’t let me in.
She just starts screaming at me when I try to open the door.

Day 74, Entry 1:

It’s so beautiful…
I’m so cold…

Day 76, Entry 1:

I need her warmth. It’s so cold… So beautiful but so cold.
I need to feel her soft fur.
I need her to watch the star with me.
I need to feel her heartbeat like when she was sleeping by my side.
I need her to see the star like I do.
But I'm so alone.
It's just me and the star.

Day 83, Entry 1:

Please stop screaming.

Day 84, Entry 1:

She- Yan is gone.
I found her on the observation deck.
There was so much blood.
She had a stab wound right in the center of her chest.
No more warmth. No heartbeat. I saw her eyes so full of terror, her mouth locked in an endless silent gasp.
I feel horribly ill. I can’t go on. I can’t go on without her. Even though she didn’t want to watch with me, I need her back.
I can’t remember how long I sat there holding her.

Day 90, Entry 1:

He smiles upon me, his light provides all I need.
That lifeless husk next to me never saw him the way I do. More need to see him like I do. All shall see.

Day 97, Entry 1:

I don’t know how long I have been watching.
So beautiful...

Day 101, Entry 1:

The eye's veil is swirling and twisting and turning… Are you seeing it, Yan?

Day 147, Entry 1:

I found a knife in my hands covered in dried blood. How long have I been holding that?

Day 159, Entry 1:

I wonder where Yan went. Can’t she see the light? I miss her smile.

Day 182, Entry 1:

I must watch closer, must see more. Perhaps if I go outside…

Day 182, Entry 2:

I’m leaving this here in case Yan returns.
If you read this: I think I love you. Sorry I didn’t get to tell you.
Don’t be sad for me. I will be breathing light soon.

Day 368, Entry 1:

I see you up there.
Will you spread the light with me?