The following excerpts are from the log and various communications of the Voyager class vessel SF James Cook and Long Haul class freighter SF Nike, when discovering the alien derelict the ship's communications officer automatically recorded every piece of communication on both ships, including crew data entries into their journals and letters being written back home, and tried to beam it back to earth, the communications, badly scrambled and incomplete, provides our only data from the first encounter with the alien derelict codenamed "Black 9", since both ships were lost with all hands.
- "Captain?"
- "Yes?"
- "We have something on sensors?"
- "Something unexpected?"
- "Yes sir, it appears to be an asteroid or small moon, however, it is behaving... Oddly."
- "What do you mean oddly?"
- "Either the instruments are wrong or it's trajectory isn't quite coherent with the way an object like that should move."
"Dear James... I can't believe this! You won't believe it when we get home! It's a ship a huge one, it completely dwarfs anything we've ever seen. It's at least ten times larger than the Long Hauls and probably has fifty times it's mass... And that's a low estimate! It appears to be drifting, mostly, but some of it's engines are firing which explains the odd trajectory that made us notice the thing in the first place I can't..." Communication lost.
- First Mate: "I wonder how old this thing is? Are the people who built it still around?" Answer inmpossible to decipher
- CAPTAIN'S LOG: I have decided to take the James Cook closer to see if we can discover anything more, the Long Haul will hang back, just in case the thing turns out to be dangerous, although given the frequency of meteorite scarring it appears to have been here for a long time... probably ages... Let's hope this is the right call.
- SF JAMES COOK SYSTEM MESSAGE: Reactor Core Breached! Please evacuate the ship in an orderly manner!
- "Unconquerable Sun! It just came alive, and it's firing! It's some kind of high-energy laser we have to..." Message Undecipherable
- "Captain! We just lost the James Cook, and it's firing at us now, appears to be trying to get firing trajectories, but we're within range!"
- "Return fire immediately!"
- SYSTEM LOG: Both Gauss drivers discharged to no noticeable effect.
- "We are all going to die! WE ARE ALL GOING TO-" Message Indecipherable
- "Some kind of... Beam? Not the high energy laser, something else! Just cut off the node-drive section! That's what happened! It just cut it right off!"
- "Try to gather as much..." Message indecipherable
- "I commend our souls to the Lord, in the name of the father, the son and the holy-" Message Idecipherable
- SYSTEM LOG: SYSTEMS NOT RESPONDING: Drive, life support, communications, weapons. SYSTEMS RESPONDING: Recording.
End of Transmissions
After recieving the mission, earth and her colonies were gripped by a state of panic, however, the alien derelict (later designated as black 7) did not pursue, later it turned out that it did not even possess FTL capability, and was simple programmed to annihilate anything that tried to disturb it.
