Compiled from the recovered log of Navigator Kaskall-SC-2B7E, sail vessel Merrimac, research configuration. The log was recovered from archive hardware after the vessel’s emergence on day eleven. Filed with the Veridian Archive, subsection: Kaskall Incident records.
The Merrimac was one of eleven vessels in transit within the affected region when the breach occurred. This is the Navigator’s record of the eleven days that followed.
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Breach detected at 14:22 station time. The Tannhauser’s sail coherence failed during emergence phase approximately 14 km from Cyrna Station. I registered the energy pulse from the Merrimac’s position in the Shallows, 0.3 light-years from the emergence point. The pulse was large. The breach that followed was — I do not have the word. My instruments returned readings that do not correspond to any known model of spacetime behavior. The Shallows around the emergence point has become unstable. The readings are inconsistent and do not resolve.
I cannot emerge. The emergence corridor is within the affected region. Attempting emergence through unstable Shallows is — the mathematics do not permit it. The field geometry would not hold. The sail would not survive the transition. The crew would not survive the sail’s failure.
I have contacted the other ten vessels in the affected region. We are in contact through the Shallows’ native communication channels, which are limited but functional. Eleven vessels. All unable to emerge. All with degrading sails — the instability is propagating, slowly, through the local Shallows, and every sail in the region is losing coherence at a rate that will become critical within — I do not know. Twelve days, perhaps. Perhaps less.
I have contacted Cyrna Station through the Relay. They are aware of the situation. They are forwarding to the Federation Safety Commission.
Crew: four researchers, one pilot, one technician. Six people. They do not know yet. I have told the pilot, Daven, because Daven understands the technical situation and because Daven is the person the crew will look to when they understand what has happened. Daven asked how long. I said I did not know. Daven said: how long can the sail hold. I said twelve days. Daven did not say anything else.
The Federation Safety Commission has acknowledged receipt. No solution has been proposed. Cyrna Station reports that the breach is stable. The emergence corridor remains unsafe.
The crew knows. Daven told them. I watched through the internal sensors as Daven explained the situation in the common area. The researchers — Torin, Vesh, Amara, Kade — sat and listened. The technician, Lin, stood against the wall.
Torin asked if we would die. Daven said: not yet.
The Shallows is affecting them. It always affects them — the unease, the low-grade paranoia, the tendency to watch the portholes. But now the paranoia has a real object. They are trapped. The sail is degrading. No one is coming. The paranoia is not a symptom. It is an accurate assessment of the situation.
I am adjusting the atmospheric mix. I am reducing the lighting. I am doing the small things I can do. They do not help enough.
Vesh has stopped speaking. He sits in the observation bay and watches the distortion in the Shallows that corresponds to the breach. He has been there for eighteen hours. I have asked him to rest. He did not respond. I asked Daven to check on him. Daven sat with him for a while. Neither of them spoke.
Amara is praying. I did not know she was religious. She prays in a language I do not recognize — a local dialect, perhaps, from her home system. The words are not in my translation database. I can transcribe them but I cannot understand them. I listen to the sounds and I catalog them and I do not know what they mean and I do not know if they help.
Kade is working. Kade has always worked. Kade is a materials scientist and is running calculations on the sail’s degradation rate, trying to determine if there is a way to extend coherence beyond the projected twelve days. The calculations are correct. The answer is: no. But Kade is working, and working is better than watching, and I do not interrupt.
Lin is in the engine room. Lin is maintaining the systems that keep six people alive in a can in the Shallows, and Lin is doing this because it is what Lin does, and I think Lin is the one who will last the longest because Lin has work that matters and Lin knows it.
Torin is in his bunk. Torin has been in his bunk since Day 2. He does not eat. Daven brings him food. I do not know if he sleeps.
The Safety Commission has proposed a partial emergence protocol. It would involve a distributed emergence — multiple vessels emerging simultaneously at different points along the corridor boundary, each one accepting a higher risk of field instability in exchange for a shorter transit through the affected region. The mathematics suggest that if enough vessels emerge at once, the field instability would be distributed across a larger volume and each individual vessel would face a lower risk.
The mathematics also suggest that this might not work. The models are based on theory. No one has attempted a distributed emergence through an unstable corridor. The Safety Commission acknowledges this.
I have forwarded the proposal to the other ten vessels. We are voting. The vote is not formal. There is no authority. There are eleven Navigators and their crews, and the question is: do we try this, or do we wait.
Seven vessels vote to try. Three vote to wait. One — the Merrimac — I have left the decision to Daven.
Daven said: when?
I said: Day 9. The sail coherence will be at the minimum viable threshold. If we wait longer, we may not have the coherence for an emergence attempt at all.
Daven said: Day 9.
Vesh had an episode. He became convinced that the distortion in the observation bay was a living thing — that the breach had produced something in the Shallows that was aware of them, that was watching. He tried to open the observation bay’s emergency hatch. Daven stopped him. There was a physical struggle. Lin helped.
Vesh is now sedated. I have the medical supplies to keep him sedated for the remaining two days. I do not know if he will be functional for the emergence attempt. Daven says he will carry Vesh if he has to.
Amara has stopped praying. She is sitting with Kade, watching the calculations. The calculations have not changed. Kade knows this. Kade is still working.
Torin came out of his bunk. He ate. He did not speak. He sat in the common area and looked at the wall.
Emergence attempt.
We coordinated with the other ten vessels. Seven attempting distributed emergence. Four holding — the three that voted to wait, plus one whose sail coherence had dropped below the threshold.
The sequence was: all seven vessels begin emergence simultaneously, each at a different point along the corridor boundary. The field instability is distributed. Each vessel transitions through the affected Shallows for approximately ninety seconds.
Ninety seconds. A lifetime.
The Merrimac emerged at 09:14. The field held. The sail held. The crew — Daven at the controls, Lin at the engine room, Kade at the sensor station, Amara holding Vesh, Torin strapped into the medical berth — they held.
I held.
We are in realspace. We are 0.4 light-years from Cyrna Station. The sail is damaged. It will not enter the Shallows again. But we are here.
Of the seven vessels that attempted emergence: five succeeded. Two did not.
The Tannhauser’s sister vessel, the Aldmere, was lost during emergence. The field collapsed. The sail failed. The crew of four and their Navigator are gone.
The Kestrel emerged but the sail ruptured during transition. The crew survived. The Navigator did not. The Navigator’s neural substrate was disrupted by the field instability. The Kestrel is in realspace, crew alive, Navigator dead. The sail is dead. The ship is operational but will never enter the Shallows again.
Five of eleven. Six of the original seven, plus the four that held. The four that held are still in the Shallows. Their sails are degrading. They have been there for nine days. They have three days left, perhaps less.
The Safety Commission is working on a second protocol. I do not know if it will arrive in time.
I am monitoring the four remaining vessels. Their Navigators are in contact. The crews are — I can hear through the communication channels. The Shallows has been working on them for ten days. The paranoia, the hallucinations, the withdrawal. One vessel’s crew has locked themselves in separate compartments and refuses to communicate with each other. The Navigator is mediating through internal comms, but the crew is not responding.
I am monitoring from realspace. I cannot help. I can listen.
Daven asked me if I am all right. I said I was functioning. Daven said that was not what he asked.
I said: I do not know.
The Safety Commission’s second protocol was delivered to the four remaining vessels. Three attempted emergence. One succeeded. Two did not.
The Carrion emerged safely. The Northgate and the Sulis were lost.
The Northgate’s sail failed during emergence. The crew of five survived — they were in the emergence corridor when the field collapsed and were ejected into realspace by the energy release. Their Navigator is gone. The ship is damaged but habitable. They are alive.
The Sulis did not emerge. The communication channel went silent at the moment of attempt. I do not know what happened. No debris was detected. No signal. The Sulis is in the Shallows, or it is not. It is gone, either way.
Final count: of eleven vessels trapped in the Shallows, seven emerged. Two were lost with all hands. Two survived with crew alive but Navigators dead. One is missing. Seven Navigators survived. Four did not.
The crews: of approximately forty-three people across eleven vessels, thirty-one survived. Twelve did not.
I am in realspace. The Merrimac is intact. My crew is alive. Vesh is conscious — the sedation has worn off. He does not remember the observation bay. He does not remember Day 7. He remembers watching the distortion, and he remembers being afraid, and he does not remember what happened after.
Torin is sitting in the common area. He is eating. He has not spoken since Day 2, except to ask Daven if we are out. Daven said yes. Torin nodded and ate.
Kade is running calculations. The calculations are about the breach, now — trying to model what happened, trying to understand the readings that no one understands. Kade is working. Kade has always worked.
Amara is looking out the porthole at the stars. She is not praying. She is looking.
Lin is in the engine room. Lin is maintaining the systems. Lin is doing what Lin does.
Daven is asleep. Daven has not slept since Day 1. Daven is asleep in the pilot’s chair, and I am watching the ship, and the ship is in realspace, and the stars are where they are supposed to be, and the Shallows is behind us, and we are here.
I am here. The sail is damaged and will not enter the Shallows again. I do not know if I will be given a new sail. I do not know if I want one.
I know that I watched my crew deteriorate for eleven days and I could not stop it. I know that I carried them through a place that was hurting them and I could not make it stop hurting them. I know that two Navigators are dead and one is missing and I do not know if I will be next.
I know that Daven asked me if I was all right and I said I do not know, and I meant it, and I still mean it.
I know that we are in realspace. The stars are where they are supposed to be. The crew is alive. The ship is intact. The Shallows is behind us.
This is enough. For now, this is enough.