Diary of Zar

The diary of Zar recounts the last leg of the Chai'din’s flight to Pinnacle.

Date: Location: Aboard ship.

Dear Diary, Not sure why, but Jain seemed to think it was a good idea for me to keep a diary, so here you are. He said it would help me think things through before saying them, or something, but I told him that saying things has nothing to do with thinking. He just gave me that look.

I've taken over tending the bar from Olly, who was injured in the last attack. I think I might like it, but I still get awfully nervous. People don't seem to mind too much that I spill their drinks a bit.

The view from the portholes never changes when we're in a wormhole like we are now. Knowing we are hurtling across space is hard to reconcile with the pitch black motionless space outside, but I guess I'm getting used to it now, we've been doing it so often lately.

Better go, I think the gunshift is about to end, and they'll be wanting their firebreath and ale right quick.

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Date: Still not sure. A few days since last entry. Location: Aboard ship. (like I could go anywhere!)

Dear Diary, I know I've been a bit neglectful of writing as much as Jain said I should, but to my defense we have been busy aboard ship.

We dropped out of the wormhole to see if we could find a convenient planet because the formsmiths wanted to restock from all the battles. We found one right close to where we were, and the forms were amazing! There was practically a party in the birthing chambers, the formsmiths were stoked! We dubbed the planet Storangus, but only managed to collect a few Toliate and Vsepia hosts before we detected an incoming wormhole so we had to shift it back to ship and jet ourselves.

Hopefully this will be the jump we lose them on.

--

Date: Who knows? I shall call it Tuesday. Location: My bunkroom.

Everyone at the pub has been really grumpy lately, and going through tons more shells than usual. I don't think they all realised, but since I get to hear a bit of everything, they all seemed to keep returning to the subject of time.

I drew up a new calendar, and stuck it above the bar last night, and when people started filtering in after shifts, they couldn't stop talking about it! Jain gave me a weird look again, but he was smiling. So today, diary, is called 'Tuesday'.

I'm trying to figure out how long our current jump is, working on these new calendar 'days', but my head hurts so I'm going to sleep.

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Date: Thursday. Location: The Traakshun pub.

Since the pub is empty and I'm done restocking, I thought I'd make a quick diary entry so I can stop Jain giving me looks when he comes in later.

The jump continues - I think everyone is getting a bit stir crazy already - it must be because we've been on the run so long, they've never reacted after such a short time in a wormhole before. It means the pub is busy after shifts though, hopefully the jump isn't too long or we'll run out of supplies!

--

Date: Tuesday. Location: Infirmary.

I'm still not sure what happened, I've only managed to snatch a few fragments of conversation between coming around and people rushing in all directions. I'm in the infirmary anyway, and can't get up until the formsmiths get around to extracting me from this broken host, but they have more urgent matters to attend to.

From what I can gather, something or someone knocked us right out of the wormhole. That shouldn't even be possible, but it happened. Everyone is hoping it's not something the K'tan have discovered, otherwise we're humped.

I can pick up orders being broadcast and hear people rushing about - from the sounds of it the Traak was damaged, but they're checking to see how much, and if we can jump again in case it was a deliberate attack and they're coming.

I think the drugs are working, having trouble keeping my eyes open...

-

Date: Thursday. Location: My bunkroom.

Well, they finally got me a new host this morning, and so I got out of the infirmary a little while ago. I think some of the drugs must have slipped through into my system while I was out, I still feel a bit out of it.

We're underway again, and from what I've managed to pick up there are no signs of pursuit, so maybe the wormhole just collapsed or something - I don't understand them enough to begin to guess. I should pick up some more gossip tonight at the pub, if I feel up to going.

---

Date: Thursday still. Location: The Traakshun Pub.

I've managed to piece together a bit more from people who have been trickling in. I don't know how much is true, there are still a lot of conflicting reports.

It looks like somehow the K'tan managed to launch an attack through the wormhole, though everyone still thinks it's impossible, and would mean we're not even safe while jumping. The attack knocked the Traak right out of the jump, causing significant damage and heavy casualties - the formsmiths are only now getting some rest!

I don't know how they did it, but somehow the crew got things running again and we jumped again, but not before faking a couple of jump signatures. The strain blew our generator though, so we need to make this jump count and get distance so we heal the Traak and repair the generator.

The rumour is we've locked onto a small planet really out of the way, and can hopefully hide there before we're located.

Estimated time of arrival, late Friday, local time.