It takes four hours for the away team, their shuttle, and the matte black coffin shaped data archive to go through decontamination. You meet the midshipmen at the exit of the temporary decontamination facilities to welcome them back aboard.

“Congratulations on a successful away mission. And full marks, in my book at least, for your actions too. Well done.”

“Thank you Sir.”

“The next question is where we set up this data archive. We can just store it here in the cargo bay, and probably will in the end, but we'll need to crack it open for the preliminary reports for both the Surveyor's Corps and for the Ministry of Colonization. I'm no expert but I don't see a lot of computer equipment hereabouts.

Midshipman Huckle shrugs, “the best place for the moment would probably be the Communications Officer's quarters. It has the best data access points if nothing else.”

“But will that be the best work space for you?”

“Aye Sir, it will. Once this casket is hooked into the Night Horse's data net I can work on her remotely from anywhere as needed.”

“Proceed then. Midshipman Engel, seeing as the other half of the away team is busy, you get to draft the after action report. Telemetry and camera feeds have been archived in the usual place. Let me know if any of them wound up restricted and I'll get you access.”

“Aye aye Sir.”

“It's due before we warp jump out of Zures, but that's going to be a few days from now anyway. Take the rest of the day, and tomorrow too, to rest up. You can work on it during our shift while we sit in orbit and do a second round of planetary scans.”

June 19th, 8252

It takes five days to complete all of the needed reports, send them out, get back acknowledgments and requests for clarification, gather the additional details, confirm them, and send them back out. In that time you also receive word that the salvage ships SES Aubrey Sandry and SES Luke Mayfield are en route to recover the wrecks of the SES Ann Child and SES Robert Harbird. Although the wrecks and their valuable salvage are being taken in the Navy has decided to award the prize money for their 'recapture' to the crew of the Night Horse in lieu of the survey award you and your crew would normally receive. It matters little to you given how much your invested prize money returns in a given month but each of your midshipmen receive four hundred and forty two credits.

The run up to the warp jump back to the Cloudbury system passes without incident and the calculations needed to map the entry point for the route practically solve themselves. It will be a five day run back to Cloudbury. You make sure Midshipman Huckle gets plenty of rest and actual sleep before you summon the crew to warp jump stations. You want him ready in case the damn warp jump screen generators go on the fritz again.

June 20th, 8252

The warp jump screen generators have held solid so far but midshipman Huckle is kept busy chasing minor electrical faults in their general vicinity. It proves to be the result of unsecured low voltage wires rubbing out and shorting. Even with the automatons helping it takes a bit over two hours to trace them all down and a further eleven and a half hours replacing and properly securing all of them.

June 22nd, 8252

The lights in the now empty communications officer's quarters flicker without warning. An egghead sent to investigate finds no faults or anomalies. Six hours later the process repeats itself and you decide to just 'park' the egghead in the compartment and see what happens. Five hours later one of the overhead bulbs burns out with a sputter. You heave a sigh of relief and set the egghead to check the fixture and replace the bulb before heading off shift for the night.

June 23rd, 8252

The next day the lights in the cargo hold flicker briefly. Midshipman Huckle and a trio of eggheads spend eight hours investigating, repairing various bits of wiring and sundry light fixtures, and chasing faults to the deck plates and beyond. At one point, dropping into a grove in his work, midshipman Huckle starts to sing along to the music playing on his headset. The faults soon fade away but one of the eggheads logs a brief audio anomaly as midshipman Huckle's voice seems to echo strangely in one corner of the cargo hold. Further investigation reveals no fault or further anomaly.

June 25th, 8252

You stare at the bridge displays and their depictions of the Cloudbury system. It's been a bit over a month since you were last here but the Star Empire has move swiftly to claim and secure the system. Already an array of standard Watchpost class navigational beacons float at each of the Lagrange points in the system and an Edwards class construction ship, the SES Basil Watson, is hard at work assembling a scientific observation platform in high orbit over Cloudbury 2-1.

The display beeps with the distinct signature of an ship emerging form a warp jump. You pause and watch the purple light of the star shine off the hull of the Skylander class colonization ship as it spins up its screen and sets course for Cloudbury 2-2. It's IFF identifies it as the Solar Wind and you thumb your palm at the ill-chosen name. You wish the settlers aboard all the luck you can spare for the eyes of the Gods Below are surely on them even as you lay the Night Horse on a vector to warp jump for Celesmore.

June 26th, 8252

You wander down to the cargo bay after your shift on the bridge in search of a place to stretch your legs. The black coffin shape of the Zures 1 data archive sits under a spotlight in the corner, ready to be loaded aboard a shuttle and shipped off to whichever of the Star Empire's various ministries or investigative agencies will be conducting the inquiry into the loss of the SES Ann Child, the SES Robert Harbird, and every singe one of their crew and passengers. The thing gives you the creeps so you do your best to set it out of your mind. You drop your headset over your ears, queue up some music, and set to jogging.

Three songs and fifteen minutes later you trip over something on the deck. You instinctively curl forward into a roll, let your legs come around high to slow yourself down, and wind up sitting on the deck. Your headset falls forwards off your head into your lap. You pick it up and stand up. Turning about you look to see what you tripped over. There's nothing there. Not even a seam in the deck plates.

As you lift your headset back to you head you pause. Your music is playing both through your headset and over the speakers in the cargo bay. The spotlight over the Zures data archive turns off and then back on again. You get the feeling that the Night Horse just winked at you.

June 27th, 8252

The continuing anomalies, electrical issues, and assorted 'haunted' things happening has you and your whole human crew on edge. No one gets much sleep without some sort of chemical aid. Midshipman Huckle leaves his still disassembled and set aside for a deep cleaning. Midshipman Engel has set aside his own music in favor of singing old working songs from memory... badly. The synthesizer's coffee function develops a fault that has midshipman Huckle cursing for five minutes without repeating himself more then twice. At the end of it he slams a hand down onto the top of the synthesizer and the whole machine shuts off abruptly.

The whole compartment goes silent and still. The prospect of nothing but MREVs to eat haunts all three of you and sets stomachs to complaining preemptively. The lights flicker and you can see midshipman Huckle start to swell back up in frustration.

The synthesizer turns back on with a happy chime. All three of you stare at it in utter confusion. It cycles through some sort of self test, sprays a stream of foul smelling waste down the disposal chute, cycles again and dumps another deluge of liquids the smell faintly of cleaning chemicals, then cycles a third time and sprays clear water. All three of you look on in confusion as the synthesizer grumbles again and chimes out a 'drink ready' jingle.

Midshipman Huckle tip toes up with a clean carafe and inserts it into the synthesizer. It gurgles and dispenses a black brew. As the aroma fills the compartment all three of you recognize the smell of Navy night shift coffee. Black, strong enough to melt a spoon, with a pinch of salt and enough caffeine to keep a man awake for hours without any other stimulants.

The three of you look at each other and silently agree to never mention this again. Midshipman Huckle takes a paint marker from his pocket, marks the spot on the top of the synthesizer, and retrieves the carafe.

June 28th, 8252

You awake from some of the best sleep you have had in a week as the Night Horse lurches violently. You scramble to pick yourself up off the deck and the alarm blares. You feel your teeth clench as the now familiar sensation of a damaged warp jump screen generator shakes the deck beneath your feet. You know midshipman Huckle is already racing to address the issue so you throw on your uniform and make for the bridge.

Halfway there the Night Horse heaves and shakes like a wet dog. The only time you can recall a worse lurch is when the Golrak seeder ship's warp jump drive let go. An egghead helps you to your feet and then runs off in the other direction. Deciding it is heading to some damage control station you let it go and keep moving.

You make it to the bridge ad drop into your command chair only four minutes after you were thrown from your bunk. You pull up the damage control schematic and wince. The aft most warp jump field generator is blinking yellow to indicate ongoing repairs. It flickers to the solid yellow of 'damaged but functional' even as you watch. The primary thruster array however is the surly red of critical damage.

“Bridge to Engineering. Status report please.”

“Aft warp jump screen generator is running on backup control with tertiary controls standing by just in case. Primary thrusters ate a debris strike though. Looks like engine bell damage but I can't be sure without an external examination. I've got them locked offline for now. What's our ETA to Celesmore?”

“Nine hours to revision plus the in system crawl to the dockyard.”

“We can make that under secondary and maneuvering thrusters alone even if they don't send a tug.”

“It's going to be a long shift for you.”

“I'll make it to revision at least Sir.”

“I'll send an automaton over with the coffeepot anyways.”