Entry 1

Days since departure: 14
Been two weeks since we left Earth, not much has happened. The crew decided that we should visit the solar systems closest to ours so we went to Proxima Centauri, turns out, the eggheads at home were right and there aren’t any planets orbiting it, so we took some readings of the star (eggheads were right about those as well) and went to Rigil Kentaurus which happens to be a binary star system. As much as I hate to admit it, the eggheads have been correct about everything. We warp in, and there are two stars orbiting each other, it was awe inspiring. When the crew got finished gawking, we checked out Alpha Centuri Bb which was the system’s only planet, unfortunately, it was too close to the stars to dispatch the Mule but I doubt we would have found anything there anyways. Barnard’s Star, Wolf 359, Lalande 21185, and Luyten 726-8A all had the same boring results, readings were correct, planets were too hot or too cold to send out the Mule, no life. As head of security, I can already see some things that are going to cause issues. The crew is getting a bit restless, we follow a basic workday with shifts of 6 hours each with another 6 hours to do whatever, however, the lack of any excitement in the vast expanses of space are disappointing some of the crew. Another thing I can see causing problems is the entertainment system, we have a lounge with places to play video games, watch movies, eat food, etc. but it is limited. I already watched two movies a day which turned out to be a significant chunk of our collection, hopefully something happens soon or the crew might become irritated and some may even want to head back.

Entry 2
Days since departure: 21
The guys over at the science department keep telling me to make these entries so they can keep logs of everything from multiple perspectives. Like anything has happened! We went to a few new star systems with the same results, nothing new. Not even the machines are acting up, everything functions perfectly.

Entry 3
Days since departure: 24
Bit of excitement! We warped near the star Gliese 581 which has 5 planets, one of which is Gliese 581-g a potentially habitable planet. We warp in and we got readings, not just any readings but multiple readings including radio waves. I actually don’t know much about this stuff but the brains on the ship announced that there may be life there. I hope we don’t have to use our weapons, might be slaughter, and I don’t know which side would be slaughtered.

Paul sighed as he saved his entry and powered off his computer.

“Better be something out here in space, might go mad of boredom!”

Then he realized that he was alone in his room.

“Might already be happening” he muttered as he stood to leave for his shift.
Profile for Paul Burns
Candidate for Endeavor: Approved

Paul Burns: Head of security/head of “first encounter”
Profile: Born May 1, 1994 Paul was raised in a normal family consisting of a father, mother, and two brothers. Being the youngest of the three, Paul grew up as a fighter, able to take on either brother in a fight, however he claimed (in his interview) that if he fought, both him and his brother would be hurt during the encounter. [shows he fights knowing he will be hurt: Positive trait, possibly dangerous] He lost his parents during 9/11/2001 when the plane they were on was hijacked and crashed into the twin towers. [He knows death, possible mental scarring from loss of parents due to unnatural causes] His oldest brother was killed during “Operation Enduring Freedom” when an I.E.D (Improvised explosive device) detonated next to his convoy vehicle. Paul Burns remains unmarried and does not have any girlfriend/boyfriend. He only communicates with his older brother (the middle) on a regular basis. [Positive trait, few connections to Earth] After dropping out of college, Paul joined the Marines where he underwent basic training but never served in combat. After leaving the Marines with a dishonorable discharge (striking a superior for insulting his family) [Positive trait, he defends his honor and fights for what is right. Potentially dangerous trait, striking a superior] he was recruited by a private military company where he served as a mercenary for 2 years mostly as a guard for large companies. He claims he wishes to join the Endeavor crew because he wants to explore the unknown and possibly encounter other species. He also states that he does not care if the Endeavor ever returned to Earth or not. His psych profile shows that he has a low bias against the unknown and cares for others. (even those he does not know)

Possible occupations: Security, “first encounter” team

Paul stepped into the bridge to relieve the other security member. As it turns out, the other member happened to be Dante, who was sleeping. Paul grinned as his mind churned with all the possibilities to scare the crap out of a sleeping crew member. He quickly abandoned those ideas when he remembered that Dante was a light sleeper with quick reflexes… and a gun.

“Dante! Get up and go sleep during your break.” Paul said as Dante’s eyes shot open.

“Yes sir” Dante muttered as he got up and sluggishly left the bridge.

Paul made a mental note about Dante’s tendency to sleep on his shift in the bridge.

“You know, if the security team is sleeping on the most important part of the ship, I would hate to see what they do in other sections” came a voice from behind him.

“Nah, just Dante, and I will be sure that he gets some disciplinary actions if he keeps sleeping on duty. Anything happened while I was gone?”
“Would you understand anything I said to you?” said the crew member behind him

“Point taken, you educated ass!” Paul stated as he turned around to see Seth Brain, one of members of the science team. His name literally had the word “brain” in it, it was as if he was created to mock Paul.

“You know that we picked up some interesting readings when we warped in right?” Paul nodded “Well, those readings vanished about a minute after we warped. We are continuing scans, but nothing is being picked up.”

“Fascinating! Have you tried condensing the molecular spectrometer?” Paul said in a mocking tone.

“Ha-Ha, I don’t understand how you are head of security with a brain like yours, you should be head of all science!”

“Yea, well, someone has to do security and I take that burden with a heavy heart.” Paul said as he sank into his chair in the security cubicle.

“I’ll let you know when a spot opens up. Keep you updated!” Seth said as he walked to his station.

The security station was not much, it had a chair, a table, a few monitors to… monitor things, a rack of guns and ammunition, and a window. Paul sighed as he spun in his chair, 5 hours and 50 minutes to go. The Endeavor was positioned between Gliese 581-g and one of the moons which was much further than the one that Earth had. The ship was still quite a distance from the planet which was just a precaution until the scans could pick up a reading, any reading. From his station, Paul could see the moon, it was grey and had numerous craters, much like the one back home.

4 hours later, Paul was spinning in his chair occasionally glimpsing at the monitors and the moon.

“Hey! Stop spinning in there and do your job!” Came Seth’s voice from the comm system that was connected to every section of the ship.

“My job is to be bored. Bored is good, it means that no one is in danger or dieing” retorted Paul.

“Point taken, carry on!” Seth said as he returned to work.

Paul kept thinking about what he said and how true the words were. Fuck it, I am going to count the craters on the moon, Paul thought as he swiveled his chair to face the window. He started counting. 5 minutes later, as Paul was counting the craters on the bottom half of the moon with his count somewhere near 100 (he had lost count and was just staring at this point) when suddenly, a the lower right section of a crater seemed to move. Not a lot, but it seemed to shift a little before settling back to it’s original position.

“The fuck?” exclaimed Paul as he stared at the section of crater.

“See a ship?” came Seth’s voice from behind him.

“No, I must be going crazy from boredom. What are you doing here?” Paul said as he swiveled to face Seth.

“Well, I was going to offer you some coffee, but seeing as you are crazy and near a rack of guns, I might beat a hasty retreat.”

“Sure I’ll take some coffee. Take a seat and tell the doctor what is on your mind.”

“Just here to offer you some coffee, I don’t need a psych analysis.” Seth said as he placed a mug of coffee on the table and sat down opposite of Paul.

“Anything new?”

“Nothing, we thought our equipment was busted but it’s all working fine. It’s as if the planet doesn’t want to be scanned.”

“Aliens, has to be aliens” Paul said jokingly.

“Yea, but we can’t see anything by looking at the planet, so I doubt it.”

“Why are you away from your station? I doubt it was to entertain me” Paul questioned

“Just calibrating my equipment, which takes some time” Seth said as his gaze went to the window

“Ah, I would calibrate constantly if I were you”

“But you are not m- what the hell?” Seth said as he got up and moved to the window

“What?”

“The crater moved!” Seth exclaimed

“Which one? The big one? On the lower right part of it?”

“Yea! How did you know?”

“I saw it do that a while ago, I thought I was crazy! Glad the craziness is spreading…” Said Paul as he sipped his mug.

“I have to check this out” Seth said as he hurriedly collected his stuff and rushed out of the room.

“Ok, have fun!” Paul shouted after Seth “and now I’m bored again”

Paul’s shift ended without any developments or any more moving moons. He went to the dining area to eat a small meal before heading to the lounge. As he was entering the lounge, his walky talky (the unofficial name for the portable multi-frequency communicator) rang.

“Oh come on!” Paul said as he looked at the screen. Muttering curses under his breath he turned around and went down the corridor to the situation room.

“You called?” Paul said as he enter the room

“Ah, Paul, welcome. This is Ryan” Gesturing to a middle aged man staring at some pictures scattered around the table in the middle of the room who proceeded to greet him with a brief wave of his hand.

“This is Megan” Pointing to younger, very beautiful woman who was standing next to him.

“and this is Younghe” pointing to a Asian male around the same age as Seth.

“Pleasure to meet you all, what’s the problem?” Paul asked

“You know how we saw the crater of the moon move a little? We want to investigate.” Seth said as he handed Paul some pictures from off the table. “The moon has a very slow rotational speed which causes the distortion to occur once ever degree of rotation, or about once every 10 minutes and we think that whatever caused the distortion is either on the surface or is being caused by the thin atmosphere that the moon has, both of which are something we wish to look at, and with our scanner on the fritz, we will take portable equipment down to the surface and explore a little.”

“You mean we take a Mule to the moon?” Paul said with sudden interest in his eyes

“Yes” replied Seth

“Lets go!” Yelled Paul as he spun around and walked out towards the hanger.

In the hanger were 5 vehicles known as “Mules” because of their ugly appearance. Each looked like a rectangular box with 6 wheels. More for safety and mobility over design, the wheels were filled with gel to prevent blown tires and had incredible suspension which allowed them to traverse almost any terrain with ease.

Ship Manifest: The “Mule”
Official designation: The All-Terrain Space Exploration Vehicle (ATSEV)
Designed by Lockheed Martin specifically for the Endeavor mission the Mule was designed to be able to explore planets without having the Endeavor land on the surface. With a crew capacity of 10 people, comfort is minimal. Because friction is not an issue in the vacuum of space, the wheels do not retract or move in any way during flight. Stationed in the hanger of the ship, the Mule is launched using reusable thrusters which can accelerate to almost 80,000 miles per hour before detaching and returning to the ship. The Mule must level out according to the landing spot using compressed gases to maneuver before igniting thrusters at the bottom of the mule to decelerate to acceptable speeds. The wheels are driven by a solar powered engine to prevent fuel use. For planetary exploration, the mule has two life support systems, multiple suits for extra-vehicular exploration, arms which retract into the Mule and can be fitted with an assortment of tools, and an airlock. For the return trip, the thrusters on the bottom are fired to escape the local gravity until it is free floating in space. Then the crew maneuver the Mule to point back at the ship and fire the more powerful rear thrusters which can accelerate the Mule to 40,000 miles per hour. Repositioning of the Endeavor for Mule recovery is suggested as the return speed of the Mule is much slower than the launch speed.

Ship Manifest: Dragon Skin Body Armor VE (Version: Endeavor)
Originally created by Pinnacle Armor as a personal ballistic vest, the Dragon Skin Body Armor VE was designed with the original concept in mind, with a few modifications. The original overlapping scales were kept to deflect and absorb kinetic strikes such as ballistics and physical strikes. That is where the similarities end. A layer of bullet-proof Lexon plastic was added to each “scale” to defend against electricity based weapons as well as acidic weapons. A layer of lead was added to aid in absorbing and diffusing radiation based weapons. A layer of kinetic gel was added to absorb crushing forces from explosions. However, due to the uncertainty of what weapons would be encountered, many things were not added. “Laser” weapons and heat weapons would cut through the armor as well as a well placed knife or claw. Different versions of the suit are being designed on Earth to protect against different combinations of weapons, they will be added to the Endeavor’s cargo when it arrives for re-supply. (planned in 2050)

Paul’s job was simple: Keep the science team safe. For that job, he decided to take Dante along with him. Each of them would be equipped with M4A1, dragon skin body armor, and 9mm Berretta pistols. Before the Endeavor mission, a lot of money was spent on the design of new weapons that could fire in space before a much simpler idea was implemented: an oxidizer was added to the ammunition so that the gas would ignite in the vacuum of space and accelerate the bullet. As for weapon choice, the shortened version of the M16 was chosen because it was reliable, light, and packs a punch… to humans at least. Paul and Dante each had a duffel bag with weapons, ammunition, and snacks which they loaded into a Mule. Their job was done, now they had to wait for the science team to load their equipment.

“Hey, want to help?” Seth asked as he lugged a large case into the Mule.

“Not in my job description” Paul said with a smirk “anyways, it provides some nice entertainment”

With that, Paul sat on a crate that was in the hanger and enjoyed watching the science team struggle with the heavy equipment. A few minutes later, Megan, part of Seth’s team came into the hanger with some heavy looking duffel bags. Paul stared for a little, admiring the young, beautiful woman… who was struggling with her load.

“Here, let me” Paul said as he got up and walked over to help Megan with her bags

“Oh, thanks! Here, can you take this?” Megan said offering one of the bags to Paul

“Just one?” Paul asked

“Just one, I can manage” Megan said

“Ok then” Paul said as he accepted the bag which must have weight a ton “wow, you just handed this to me with one arm! It weighs a freaking ton!” Paul managed to say as he almost dislocated a shoulder carrying the bag.

“I work out” Megan said with a grin “A lot”

Paul kept glancing at disbelief at Megan’s non-muscular arms which had been carrying the bag much easier than he was.

With the last of the equipment loaded in the Mule, the team packed in and commenced pre-flight checks. When everything checked out, the crew in the hanger hooked up the reusable thrusters to the outsides of the Mule before evacuating the hanger.

“Opening hanger doors” Ryan said as he flicked switches above him

With a mighty whoosh the air in the hanger was ejected into space and the Mule became silent as the thrusters were warmed up.

“Keep the coffee warm. Launching in 3...2...1... Igniting” Ryan’s voice was drowned out as the thrusters fired with a mighty roar and the Mule sped away towards the moon.