ENTRY 009 SURVIVAL LOG BEGIN DICTATION: This morning, I awoke inside Varek's Refuge, climbed forward into my pilot's seat and prepared to lift off. With the launch thrusters fueled and warmed up, I eased back on the stick, and felt my ship rise from the ground. With that, I pointed her nose in the air and went slicing through the sky. There was enough of a cloud cover that my view forward was obscured for a time, but soon enough the Refuge broke into the clear and raced through the ever-thinning air of this world I'd called home for the past week or so. And then ... well, my ship cleared the atmosphere and millions of tiny lights flickered into view, and I found myself with tears running down my face. I was back among the stars, which I'd come to fear would never happen again. But now what? I keyed the control that I hoped would still bring up the map of our Euclid Galaxy, and sure enough, it flashed on my HUD almost instantaneously. The view was puzzling, though. The map told me I was in the Heinff XV star system and that I had just left the surface of Wakuc 73/U4. Neither the star system nor the planet were anything I'd ever heard of before. So, I punched a few more keys to call up a companion program that, I hoped, would give me a reading on where in Euclid I was now. The answer was impossible - and devastating: I was in the Gamma Quadrant, 704,459 light years from the Galactic Center, and perhaps twice that far from my home world of Eden, in the Alpha Quadrant. I confess I wallowed in despair for a bit, but then I noticed an insistent beeping in my ears, and cleared the galactic map so I could see ahead. I saw a familar icon in the upper right of the viewer telling me there was a space station nearby. So, with a deep breath, I locked on to the station signal and prepared to engage my pulse drive to take me there. If there was a station, that meant there was life and civilization here. And something else, too. Hope. END DICTATION My approach to the space station that, I pray, contains some answers to this cosmic mystery.

ENTRY 006 SURVIVAL LOG BEGIN DICTATION: Today, I took to the skies. My ship's self-repair subroutines guided me through fixing the launch thrusters and pulse drive, and helped me deduce what I needed for fuel. I assumed all I needed was to look for plutonium crystals, but no. This "new" galaxy demands a mix of ferrite and di-hydrogen - and seems devoid of plutonium, anyway. It took me awhile to figure out how to gather di-hydrogen, but some methodical exploration and scanning soon found deposits in small, azure crystals that seem to litter the surface of this world. Once I had the fuel crafted and loaded into the launch thrusters, I brought The Refuge back to life and sat in the cockpit listening to the reassuring thrum of the engines. I needed to test her air-worthiness, and decided to take a quick jaunt across the surface of the planet to see if I could find any signs of life. If all went well, I would consider a return to space tomorrow or the next day. So, I eased the throttle upwards and with a "whoosh," The Refuge lifted into the air. Then I gingerly engaged the horizontal thrusters to begin my expedition - and I was off! As The Refuge surged forward, I saw a desolate - but strangely beautiful - landscape of yellowish plains broken up by deep valleys and soaring mesas. After maybe 30 minutes of such cruising, I decided to land and get a closer look. What I found was an austere, desert beauty teeming with life. My training quickly kicked in. Yes, I am in a fight for survival and a quest to find home, but I've also made a life and career of studying extraterrestrial life, and here I was surrounded by it on all sides. My repaired scanner and analysis visor are, I'm afraid, fairly basic - but I put them to heavy use as I tracked several surface species and one skittish bird that proved hellishly difficult to scan. When I had finally captured the data I needed, I couldn't contain my glee and shouted aloud. It was then I made a decision: if I must travel a path through this strange and unknown piece of the cosmos, I will do so as a scientist and explorer. I owe it to my science, to my colleagues and myself. END DICTATION The winged species that gave me (and my scanner) fits today.

ENTRY 005 SURVIVAL LOG BEGIN DICTATION: When I found the smoking mess of my ship, I told myself I would fix her, or die trying. I nearly kept the second part of that promise on my second Sol here. The ship's self-repair routine was walking me through the steps to fix the drive systems, so I was looking for ferrite dust (iron in my previous reality). I found some large green discs littering the ground around my crash site that my analyzer told me would fit the bill, and started working away with my mining beam. It wasn't long before I'd exhausted that supply, so I set out over the ridge surrounding my little vale here to find more ferrite. Sure enough, the discs were everywhere, so I began mining them in earnest. That didn't last long. My HUD gave me an odd warning - a curved white line on the left side of my display. I glanced over and saw what appeared to be a sentinel hovering near me. I didn't give it much thought. Sentinels were ubiquitous across the galaxy before the ... event ... that landed me here. Many theories have been advanced about their origin, but they seem mainly to protect planet environments. I've had some less-than-pleasant encounters with them in the field, but never anything I couldn't handle. That has changed. When I resumed mining, the sentinel was quickly overhead. I could sense its scan - and then see its display turn red and hostile. It opened fire immediately and began stripping away my exosuit shields. I tried to run, but it pursued and I finally had to turn and fight. My mining beam did consistent damage, but not as much as I remembered from previous encounters. By the time I took it out, the sentinel had reduced my shield to virtually nothing ... and it had called in reinforcements. Two sentinel drones sped towards me, and I confess I panicked. I ran and used my jetpack with no regard for where I was headed. I found a grove of towering fungi, and hid as best I could. My sensors, somehow, could pick up enough of the sentinel communication band to know they were searching for me. Within seconds, succeeded. My shield had regenerated some, but the sentinels began quickly blasting it away. Again I fled, with shots hitting me again and again. Within seconds, my shield was down , and the next few hits drew blood and pain. I dove into one of the craters that cover this plain, and cowered behind a boulder. I prayed to the Maker, and counted the seconds as my sensors updated the sentinels' search. I could hear the infernal buzz of their engines as they criss-crossed the terrain, and after what seemed like an eternity, my sensors picked up no more of their chatter. Still frozen by fear, I barely breathed until my shields had reached full strength again. Then, I poked my head up and scrambled out of my hole, keeping my head on a swivel to search for more drones as I made my way back towards my ship. My scanner told me what I'd guessed: my flight had taken me further from my ship than I'd intended, and I worried that my hazard protection would give out before I arrived. I cursed at my lack of planning, and vowed to build a supply of sodium to power the system - if only I could get home now. I ran until my strength gave out, and then I slowed to a labored trudge. With my power dwindling - and the suit's metallic voice reminding me of that every few seconds - I finally crested the ridge that hid my ship. I entered the cockpit with a feeling of profound relief, gasping from exertion. At that moment I decided to rename my ship: Varek's Refuge. With each passing moment on this world, I grow more certain that a refuge is paramount. This "new" universe is deadlier than I could even imagine. END DICTATION The plain where I nearly met my end, hounded by sentinel drones.

ENTRY 004 SURVIVAL LOG BEGIN DICTATION: I found my ship this morning, more than a mile away in a small valley surrounded by steep hills that would have been tough going without my jetpack. The exosuit repair subroutine walked me through fixes to my scanner and analyzer (thank the Maker - I would be bereft without them!), which helped me track the ship's homing beacon. The repair program must have included some upgrades, because the equipment was rendering much more sophisticated information than I'm used to, but the enhancement was most welcome. It was a tough slog through this world's damnable corrosive rain and rugged terrain, but I hardly noticed that because I was so preoccupied with the peculiarities my scanner was finding. And I don't mean unique alien plant or animal life, either, although there was plenty of that. As anyone with even a passing knowledge of xenobiology knows, there are several geological, environmental and evolutionary constants that spread across our Euclid galaxy and that account for similarities on many worlds. For instance, there is a genus of bright yellow flowering plants found in virtually every star system (with minor differences of root, stem and leaf structure) that all yield zinc when processed down. I found several stands of these flowers (or so I thought) while chasing down my ship this morning - and found they are wildly different than anything in my experience. While their appearance is similar to what I'm used to, their cellular makeup is completely different - and when they are processed, they yield sodium, not zinc. And this is not an isolated case. There are red flowering plants here that, everywhere else I know of, yield Thamium 9 when rendered down. Here? Oxygen. Oddly, my exosuit hazard protection and life support systems made use of both with no difficulties. So now, as I follow my starship's self-repair subroutines, I'm again wondering: have I somehow been cast into an anomalous section of our own Euclid Galaxy? Or did the phenomenon I experienced yesterday somehow shuffle me into another dimension -- a multiverse version of Euclid that's similar in some respects, but different in others? I can't afford woolgathering here. So, Ana, forgive me if I drop the personal tone to these logs. I feel the need to create a professional record of this journey and my fight to survive. Please know that I love you and our life together and I am doing everything I can to get back. For now, though, I need to get the ship operational so I can start figuring where I am and how to get home. If home, as I knew it, even exists anymore. No time for that. The ship is a mess: all of the drives are damaged and without fuel, so my task is enormous. Back to work. END DICTATION My ship - a smoking, sparking mess. My task now is to get her air- and space-worthy.

ENTRY 003 SURVIVAL LOG BEGIN DICTATION: I awoke to the sound of trouble. A metallic, vaguely feminine voice was sounding off system readouts -- scanner broken, jet pack online, multitool functional. In my semi-conscious haze, I gradually realized my exosuit was updating its status. But there was no ship, no sign of civilization, and acid rain was pelting down and exhausting what little hazard protection my suit had left. For the moment, I was too woozy to even remember my name or how I'd arrived here. But I knew I had to move or die. A cave off to my right offered temporary sanctuary, so I pulled myself up and ran for it. Inside, was a confusing mass of vegetation, minerals and greenish steam. I ventured too close to one pulpy mass, and was rewarded with a stinging, toxic fog that nearly ended my life right there. I confess, I lost my cool and blasted it to its constituent atoms with my multi-tool. Good lord. What kind of hell scape was this? Deep breaths, I thought. Calm down. The exosuit voice was back then, patient but insistent -- offering text readouts and prompts to walk me slowly through the steps I would need to survive. I sat in the cave for long moments, trying to gather myself. Slowly but surely, memories returned. My name. The universe winking out. My decision to land on a planet -- this planet, I assume. But where was my ship? How did I end up so alone and exposed? Why did some of the rocks and plants around me seem so familiar and yet so strange? Had I been thrown from my ship, or had I crashed and then wandered off to seek help? Those answers I didn't have immediately, and still don't as I sit here now preparing to leave the pitiful sanctuary of this cave. All I know is this: I'm in trouble. And lost in space. END ENTRY 003 DICTATION The acid rain-drenched hell scape I awoke to, looking towards the cave I sheltered in.

Dr. Varek Capella ENTRY 001 TRAVEL LOG FOR SELDEN CENTER CONFERENCE ON XENOBIOLOGY BEGIN DICTATION: Good morning, Ana! I know I'll be home soon, but the Selden Center conference went so well, I couldn't wait to tell you about it! Now I'm sorry I didn't use the terminus to travel, but you know how I hate scrambling my electrons. Anyway, it's only two hyper jumps to home, so it's not too bad. I should be home by early afternoon if Eden Spaceport isn't too jammed. So, to the news: my keynote address went VERY well. A standing ovation at the end -- and you know that NEVER happens. As you know, I unveiled details of the diplo species we found on the Todawat V moon, and it just created a sensation. Your images, I have to say, made a huge impression. I'll upload the one they loved most after I send this! If I were you, I'd get ready for a deluge of publication requests. There have been rumors of diplo sightings in some of the remote regions of the galaxy, of course, but these are the first we've been able to verify -- and so (relatively) close to home! There's going to be a hunger for still images and vids, so start picking out your favorites. A star is born! Anyway, I'll give you a blow-by-blow account when I get home, but just wanted to touch base and share the good news. I think our funding is assured for as long as we like, now! Love you baby, and see you soon! END ENTRY 001 DICTATION This one drew audible gasps from the audience, Ana.