Chapter 2: Primary Objectives
The crew adjusts to life in the cosmos. Leads are assigned for Navigation, Farming, Biology, and Planning objectives as Alexandra Boldt conducts repairs. Several succumb to mental illness. In the storage room, walls are dismantled by an unknown crew member. Sahra Tofleson makes plans for long-term food needs while Paulo Cucco manages to determine Okulous-10’s location: The Auriga constellation. Confusion emerges as Boldt realizes they are far from their intended location with only 25% of their fuel was used and less than 400 hours of engine runtime. Foley is put under medical quarantine after she tried to jam their signals. Meanwhile, there is still no communication from Earth.
E5R LOG 36: Cucco
Navigation lead by Paulo Cucco. I need to fix two light sensors to finalize our location. Navigational database won't refresh without sensors. Paulo hoping to access our location history.
E5R LOG 37: Tofleson
Simulated farming systems operational and led by Sahra Tofleson.
E5R LOG 38: Serinath
Planning Objectives to be led by Aditya Serinath. He confirmed previous three objectives are critical.
E5R LOG 39: Tests
All of us are concerned about Foley, still under quarantine. Mishings is running memory tests on her now.
E5R LOG 40: Shifts
Silence in the ship and dark space outside effecting some crew members mental health. Others miss Earth. Instituted night and day shifts, three 8-hour rotations.
E5R LOG 41: Music
Schmidt thinks music may help with mental health. He instituted a daily requirement for crew to listen to music. The two crew members with potential signs of depression don't remember their time on Earth before zombie sleep.
E5R LOG 42: One
One exterior sensor fixed. The other isn't repairable without spare parts. Need to check storage. Surprising that I haven't been down there yet. Many areas of the ship we haven't seen. Still a lot to learn about OKULOUS-10's operational systems.
E5R LOG 43: Parts
Found engineering storage room, wall panels were taken down. Tools and parts everywhere, like someone was trying to disassemble walls. Very strange. Did find spare parts to repair second light sensor. Will attempt fix on next exterior walk.
E5R LOG 44: Meals
Crew members eating their meals alone. Mishings insists on regular family-style dinners for each shift. Still no signal from Site E5R. Repaired second exterior light sensor with spare parts. Getting more comfortable with exterior ship walks.
E5R LOG 45: Sibylline
Reinstalled storage wall panels. Foley hasn't spoken for 8 days. She paces ship continuously, keeps asking how we died and insisting we call her Sibylline. Crew with memory issues starting to believe they are dead also. Serinath to establish navigational plans after our location is determined.
E5R LOG 46: Database
Paulo refreshing the database history again. Need to locate exterior area where damaged interior panels are. Given mystery in storage, my new objective is to assess the complete physical condition of OKULOUS-10.
E5R LOG 47: Protein
Tolefson has three shifts set up for Farming Systems. Tomato and grape plants died during our flight. She's hoping to grow again with extra seeds. Good news today: other protein growth plants are substantial for meals beyond our lifetimes on the ship.
E5R LOG 48: Justice
Someone was in engineering storage again. The wall panels I re-installed have been taken down again. Waiting outside for rest of the day and see who is putting our atmosphere at risk. Aditya suggested justice system to deal with these types of issues.
E5R LOG 49: Tartarus
Boden came to storage area, surprised I was there. He was the one taking the wall panels down. He said he was “looking for a way out of Hell.” Mishings to set up special medical watch for Boden, Foley and Bismark.
E5R LOG 50: Gardens
It's very quiet out here. I don’t mind it. Family-style dinners seem to be helping with overall crew moral and mental health. Each crew member was assigned a gardening space in the farm.
E5R LOG 51: Fuel
Checked fuel levels, our tanks are still 3/4 full. Thought we'd use more during our flight. We're tapping our regenerative fuel tanks now.
E5R LOG 52: Loss
Mishings' and Schmidt's medical surveillance of Boden, Foley and Bismark indicate much more severe memory loss than we thought for the three of them. They have no memory of their time on Earth before our takeoff. Aditya to search crew directory for their histories.
E5R LOG 53: Weather
Weather out here is just fine. Sunny. Partly cloudy. In case you wanted to know.
E5R LOG 54: Erased
Aditya very worried. Our internal personnel files all erased, along with navigational history. Gone. Something happened during zombie sleep.
E5R LOG 55: Known
Database refreshed. Location not yet determined, but we have a status beyond UNKNOWN. Our location history is also erased. We have no location or trajectory history. We now know what we don’t know.
E5R LOG 56: Grapes
Tolefson starting grape plant growth. Still working on tomatoes.
E5R LOG 57: Taste
Food has been bland. Saving spices until Farming can produce more. Second round of health checkups are scheduled.
E5R LOG 58: Runtime
I've reviewed engine run times. Less than 400 hours. Impossible. To reach this distance from Earth, engines would have run much longer.
E5R LOG 59: Permanence
Mishings and Schmidt completed second health check in with Foley, Boden and Bismark. All three of them think we are dead. Refuse to perform their duties. All three under permanent medial watch by medical team.
E5R LOG 60: Light
I've confirmed that newly installed sensors are picking up light from nearby nebula cluster. Extremely concerned about location, still unable to determine.
E5R LOG 61: Evaluation
Serinath asked that we re-evaluate mission objectives. Cucco believes he is close to having our location confirmed.
E5R LOG 62: <CONNECTION#ERROR>
SIGNAL DATA PACKET EMPTY.
E5R LOG 63: Delays
Our delay in communications yesterday was because Foley tried to jam our signals. She forced me out. Schmidt helped me recover.
E5R LOG 64: Foreshadowing
Foley is now locked in medical bay under quarantine again. Checking logs, no other communications were sent by Foley.
E5R LOG 65: Diagnostics
Second round of health check-ins complete. Crew is healthy, with the exception of Foley. Even Boden and Bismark seem to be doing okay. Bismark asked to help me with ship system diagnostics. Will provide basic tasks for him to see how he does.
E5R LOG 66: Nebula
There’s a nebula on our sensors. Unable to see visually, but there’s significant light being emitted from a sector of space within range of our ship. Seems promising as this will finally help determine our location.
E5R LOG 67: Meetings
Had private meeting with Cucco. We're potentially few days from confirming location. Our mission timeline still indicates E5R1205:1346:xxxx, even after multiple resets of the database. Not sure what this means. Anyone from Earth receiving this? Can anyone help us?
E5R LOG 68: Animals
Tofleson asked for more space in Farming to accommodate animal growth from new cell modules. Serinath confirmed this was a good idea.
E5R LOG 69: Humidity
For Toflenson to expand and provide a sustainable long-term sustainable food supply, I need to find a way to increase the humidity in the farming modules. Need to confirm our environmental controls can handle additional temperature and humidity loads.
E5R LOG 70: Auriga
Cucco established our location. We are nowhere near the Milky Way, which is where we are supposed to be. We believe the nebula we see is Cluster M36, meaning we are in the Auriga Constellation. How did we get here? What happened during zombie sleep? Is anyone receiving?