Blake enters the bridge, finding a suitable terminal available immediately. Using the ship's instruments, he identifies multiple galaxies, and matches the patterns against a known galaxy map.  The next step is to find some of the brightest stars in distant space. They will be considerably out of line, as even bright, relatively distant stars like canopus would be moved considerable across the sky from their positions on earth, but the spectrum of the stars should cut it down to a few stars for each star relatively easily.

Blakes sets up a simulation of where these bright stars will be in space relative to earth

Finally, he stars trying to work out the current location by checking the spectra of of very blue (ie large) stars against his simulation. This step is somewhat manual, lacking a specific algorithm for it, and will likely take a considerable time period - a few hours to a day or more, and Blake will break for sleep if needed. It should, however, be possible to verify his supposition against the simulated location of the massive stars, so it should be possible to check whether a particular proposed position is correct, to a very good reliability.

While Blake works hard to figure out where the hell CS-8 ended up after 115 years, a young technician stands near him. Silently she is looking over his shoulder, taking notes on a portable pad she carries.
She does not disturb him, but just stands there, trying to discern what it is he is doing.

Blake gives no sign of responding to the note making person, but carefully locks his screen whenever he goes to the John. Finally, getting towards 11pm at night, he decides to call it a day and heads back to the barracks to wolf down some food and sleep.

Dorn entered the bridge, finding only a skeleton crew because of the late shift, and sat down in his comfortable Captain's chair. A relic from his submarine days, he had the chair brought on and installed a few weeks before departure, the only demand he had made, and the only concession GNA had allowed him.
He and the chair went way back. It had been his seat on the HMS Dreadnought, and it fit him like a glove. A tight glove now that he got older, but it was his chair, and he took it with him when Dreadnought was decommissioned in 2031. Assigned to the Polo then, he had taken the old leather seat with him as a badge of honor.

As he sat down in it now, nearing midnight, with only the vast black expanse around him, he felt at home for the first time since being woken up.
Most likely because now, for the time since having been awakened, he had the idea they were getting ahead. Finally they knew where they are, and where they were going.

"Helm, update the systems with the information Staff Sergeant Germaine just transferred. Adjust ship data to account for our new position."

He flipped a switch on the console next to his arm rest.

"Donk shop, I want those engines up and running in an hour!"

Now that the Bridge is up and running, at least a little, Blake finds he has to salute new faces repeatedly before taking up his post. Time to test out those new authorisations.

After just a bit of digging Blake manages to retrieve several security files that had been carefully hidden, but not deleted.
Watching them he is treated to images of a man sitting on the bridge, at the very desk he is sitting. The man works hard on something, but the camera angle is off and Blake cannot see what. Then another man comes walking in, and the first one closes down the systems. He then gets up to leave.
As he walks past the second man he is subsequently shot in the back of the head.
Without audio there is no way to find out what exactly happened.

Blake decides to check the timestamps on the video files . Then he will mail the result to Jennifer Maxwell, and ask Marco to alert her to the incoming files with the message: "Is this our murder?"

Checking the time and date on the file reveals it to have been just a day before the CS-8 continued its journey out of the Alpha Centauri system, and into the unknown.
The man being shot can only be the mummy they found on the deck. A quick zoom in on his jumpsuit even reveals his name. Green, F.
With just a few buttons Blake transfers the file to Lt. Maxwell, confident he at least found video footage of the murder. Could the audio possible be hidden too instead of deleted?

Blake looks for the audio matching the video .

Blake soon finds the specific audio file, and with a bit of tweaking matches the sound with the moving lips in the video.
Soon he can play the whole file as it was originally.

* sound of keys on computer*

* Voice off screen: You about done fred?*

* Man at computer (Fred?): Yeah, just this last wipe, and they'll never know what happened.*

* Voice off screen coming on, belongs to second man: The hippo is waiting, we need to go.*

* (Fred?): Chill out Amir, five more minutes wont matter.*

* Sounds of keystrokes on computer*

* (Fred?): There, done. Soon as they start waking, the ship starts counting down. If they ever wake up, I'm sending her to the Cygnus X-1.*

* Second man: The black hole? Nice touch.*

* (Fred?): You guys better have my money when we return though.*

* Sound of chair being pushed back, man standing up*

* Second man: Oh you will get what's coming to you buddy.*

* Sound of gunshot

* Second man: Amir to Hippo, I'm coming down. We have all we need.*

Blake forwards the audio to Jenifer. Then, he checks whether we're near Cygnus x-1

Due to the deviation because of a broken engine Cygnus X-1 is not anywhere near the Polo. Even had the engines not been damaged the vessel would not have reached the Cynus black hole for at least a hundred years more.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:30, Sun 09 Apr 2017.

Digging through the files, Blake finds more misplaced partitions. They all seem to be hangar footage, namely hangar 3, but they are pretty scrambled up.

"Course set captain!"

"Engineering reports engine at one hundred percent Captain!"

"All crew awakened Sir!"

Captain Blake Dorn listened to the various reports of his crew, seated comfortably in his worn submariners chair. He looked at the count-down clock to his left above the military section of consoles. T minus seventy-two minutes.
For the umpteenth time he pulled up his charts. Four days. Four days should be all it took to get to the system he had selected. Kepler-Waldberg 118. Sixteen planets. Sixteen chances.
The best bet they had so far. If none of them qualified as a colony option they would need another year to get to the nearest habitable planet. Sixteen chances. It should be enough. It had to be.

"Have the new awakenings report to their various stations as soon a possible. I want the Polo at full strength before that counter reaches zero. Whatever happens, we cast off at 0900 sharp. This drifting about in space isn't usefull."

He checked a few more reports on his own console.

"Comms, send a message out to the last known location of Terra. Transmit our current status and location. It will take a few months to get there, but at least we will have done our best. Lets just pray someone is still there to hear us."

Settling in to the operation of the ship, Blake focuses on unscrambling the video from hanger 3.

Blake works for several hours, before achieving success.

Over the next few hours Blake slowly but steadily manages to piece together three seperate pieces of hangar footage. They are all from 2042. It will take him all morning to get them back to their original size and quality.
Whoever had been trying to cover up all that footage had been slacking, doing not nearly as good a job as rewriting the AI. Had it even been the same hacker?

<<<<<<  From Shadow's Quarters.

    Stepping onto the Bridge, he stops and says,..LT Kray Shadow Reporting, as requested, Catpain? he gives a quick slaute then stands at ease.

Major Ascott looks up from his seat, the worn captain's chair usually reserved for Captain Dorn himself. The Captain himself is nowhere to be seen.
"He's in his quarters, you can go on in, he's expecting you. Oh and Shadow... Try not to get into trouble will you."

  Shadow  Smiles at the Major,..Can't promise that Sir...its how you can tell this is really me! he gives the Major a respectful salute, then  proceeds to the Captain's quarters.


 Buzzing the door COM, he enters....


>>>>>>>>>>> Shadow to Captain's quarters.

AT 0855 the captain sat back in his chair, relieving Ascott of his duties so he could get back to his marines. Having the major as his CIC wasn't ideal, Dorn had decided, but he had to make do for now untill he could assign a descent bridge officer. HE had to get to know them better first.

"Helm, run the last engine checks." His voice was calm, but lined with anticipation. Flying this ship was as new for him as it was for the crew, and they were the ones doing the actual work. Then again, how much different could it be from navigating a watertight tub through an ocean?

"Engines up and running perfectly sir."

Dorn's gaze drifted to the clock. It was almost time.
He flipped his comm switch on his console so the entire ship could hear him.

"Attention all decks. This is the Captain speaking. Those that wish to buckle up had better do so, we will be moving out in one minute."

"Technical, status of the Hawking field?"

"Hawking field at 100 percent sir. She is stable."

The digital clock above the big outside window his 0900.

"CS-8, take us out, full cruise."

At about the same time the Captain gives orders to cast off, Blake manages to unscramble the first footage of Hangar 3.

Two men check up on dropship 4, making sure the vessel is ready for operations. The sound is muted, largely dominated by a large generator they keep running to power up the Hippocampus.
Once they have gone through the outside check of the vessel, one of the men leaves the hangar while the other enters the vessel. They had been speaking, but without proper filters there is no way to discern what they said.

The other two pieces of footage are still being cleaned and rewritten.

So, can I do this with a bandpass filter? Blake's first attempt to filter out the background noise does not produce the desired result. Eventually, he creates a context sensitive filter which filters a different bandpass for each person speaking, and plays through the video manually, choosing which filters to include at each time.

voice 1: This one will do. She looks to be in okay shape.

voice 2: Its just one drop. She only has to land.

1: Still, dont want her burning up as we enter atmosphere, not with all the stuff we are loading.

2: She'll do fine.

1: What about the rest of them?

2: Not our concern, Amir has that covered. You start her up, I'll get her loaded up.

Securing his terminal, Blake asks Marco "Where is Lieutenant Maxwell at this time?"