Gareth reports that the ship's sensors have found nothing.

"Theres nothing here. We should jump to the next system unless someone can think of a reason to stay."

Brent looked over at the sensors himself and nodded in agreement. "We've come all this way.  Let's head to the mainworld now that we know a bit more about the status of the system.  It'll be faster to take a week and do a microjump that boost in real space even with constant acceleration."

After one last check of the emergence point and the resulting vector at Poznan, Wanderer's jump drive comes to life, wrapping the ship in a protective bubble of energy, and the normal universe vanishes.

"The jump field looks good from back here," Veronica reports.

Brent checks the instruments carefully.  This is still very new to him and he's a bit nervous.  "I show a green board on the navigation systems as well.  I think we made another clean Jump." He locks down the astrogation station and sets the systems on automatic.

"Let's get something to eat."

She gives Veronica a nice smile.  "No, not at all...please do."

Brent heads down to the galley and draws a glass of mystery fruit juice.  He sits down and brings up the holo in front of him covering the system history and information.

25/V/1402 1930hrs

The week in jump passes quietly as the crew goes about their daily routines. Just after dinner, the computer states that the ship is fifteen minutes from emergence.

Brent looks up from his studies on the bridge as the chime sounds.  "Standby for Jump emergence in 15 minutes.  Let's prepare for the worst."  He dons his vacc suit except for helmet and gloves and buckles in to his station.

Fifteen minutes later almost to the second, Wayfarer drops out of jump space. The reddish-tan planet sits about seven hundred thousand kilometers away, and the nav system shows a travel time of three hours to reach a low orbit.

There are no emissions detected, and no artificial structures or ships are detected by the passive sensors.

When the ship comes out of Jump Brent checks over the instruments and sighs.  "It looks like we made it," he says to no one in particular.

Brent looks over at Gareth.  "Let's go active on the sensors and see if anything lights up or takes notice of us.  I don't want to run into orbital debris that doesn't show on the passive sensors."

He calls out to the crew.  "Jump is successful.  No emissions from the planet.  We're going active on the sensors."

The radar doesn't pick up anything around the ship. The emergence vector is pointed to leave them in a wide orbit at about 100 diameters. A course change is required to put Wayfarer into a close orbit.

"Maybe we should move in closer to get a better look,"

Gareth will scan as he is able for now, and continue scanning once in close orbit.

He will also report any findings immediately.

Brent nodded to Gareth and punched in the course to take them into a low, sun synchronous polar orbit so that they could scan the planet most effectively.

25/V/1402 2300hrs

Wanderer completes her last burn to circularize the chosen orbit, and rolls to point the port side toward the planet. Pozan is a small, tan and ocher colored world, with, according to the library data, has substantial underground water reservoirs, making it more habitable than the arid, dusty surface might suggest.

The sensors, active and passive, detect nothing manmade in the system. As they sweep down over the location of a city on the surface, the passives show a series of craters and ruins where the city once stood.

"Oh," Joxe says over the comm. "It's all gone..." She bursts into tears, and she closes her comm channel.

"Crap..." Brent curses softly as he sees the ruins below him.  He wasn't surprised given the utter silence in the system but it still hurt.  And it tore at him to hear the pain in Joxe's voice.

He glances at the sensor read outs and sighs.  "Let's hope that they're not all dead even though they were hit hard.  At least the biosphere seems intact." He stood and looked around.  "Keep the scan going Gareth if you would please.  I'm going to check on Joxe.  I think she knew that all was likely lost but seeing it first hand is hard to bear."

Brent finds Joxe curled up in her workstation chair, with Veronica standing next to her. "I'm glad you're here," she says, and steps past Brent to the door. "I'll be with Naimh at her workstation if you need me."

Joxe looks up as Brent comes in, tears streaking her tanned skin. "They're all gone, Brent. I knew they probably were, but..."

Veronica enters the upper lounge and finds Naimh at her station. "Joxe's taking this pretty hard, as one might expect. How are you holding up?"

Each orbit takes about forty-five minutes, and, after two hours, they find no sign of anyone on a planet that once was home to four hundred million people. Gareth is able to match shattered ruins to an old map of the planet.

Brent kneels on the deck next to Joxe and wraps his arms around her in a gentle hug.  He strokes her hair softly. "I know... it's one thing to think about everyone being gone when it's just being in cold sleep for so long but... when it's all gone, and you can see it then it's real and final."

He was quiet for a moment.  "Just let it out.  I'm here for you...  We can go on with our plans if you like.  I think we should still land and... look for survivors."

It takes Joxe a few minutes to regain her composure. "Thank you, Brent. I'd like to land at Berna. It's a small town just north of the equator, near a mountain range."

Naimh lets out a sad sigh, and turns her gaze to look at Veronica.  I feel sad for her sake...I probably wouldn't be a living and breathing sophont if I *didn't*...but I feel oddly numb too, almost as if my mind is still trying to process all of this."

She pauses for a second or two, clearly trying to sort out and gather her thoughts.  "And when I try to think of all of this in an analytical way..."Niamh lets out a single, sad-sounding chuckle before adding, "...I guess I can't stop thinking like a researcher even now, huh?  Anyway, when I try to extrapolate what we've experienced so far in our little corner of Charted Space to the Imperium as a whole..."  She closes her jade-colored eyes for a moment and swallows hard.  <Purple>"*Trillions* of lives lost.  *Hundreds* of planets reduced to burnt-out shells...just like here.  Just like Khesanadu."  A forlorn look briefly creeps onto Niamh's pretty, freckled face as she lets out another sigh and casts her gaze down towards the floor.  "How can I...how can *anyone*...even *begin* to get their head around something like that?"

Brent remained silent as Joxe gathered her emotions together.  He couldn't imagine the sense of loss that she was going through now and had experienced earlier in the weeks since they'd picked her up.  He was just glad that he could provide her with support and perhaps so much more.

"We'll finish our scan of the surface to make sure of things and then bring the ship down at Berna.  I'd expect we'll need another two hours or perhaps a bit less to complete the orbits required." He paused.  "Can I bring you tea or anything?"

"My world proves that there are survivors," Veronica says quietly. "Some of the other systems have worlds a person can live on without a lot of tech to survive. It's not totally hopeless."

"No, I'll be okay." Joxe smiles weakly. "Thank you, Brent. While you're flying, I will get our gear ready for us to go outside."

Brent kissed Joxe gently on the cheek and after a hug rose to his feet.  "We'll all be with you."  He paused and touched her shoulder.  "You know that I love you."

"And I love you," Joxe returns. She stands and begins pulling an environment suit out of a locker.

BRent left and headed back up to the bridge.  He glanced at the instruments and then turned to Gareth.  "Did you find anything other than desolation?  We're going to try and land at Berna which is important to Joxe.  I think she wants to make peace with the situation."