January 1st, 2199 - 10:33 AM
New year. No sightings so far. Finally gave sword a name. Crystal Night. May change later.
January 2nd, 2199 - 3:20AM
Name changed. Crystal Snow sounded better. Still no sightings.
January 3rd. 2199 - 1:00 AM
Final name change. Crystal. It seems to like it.
Sasha slowly flipped through the pages, finding more short timestamps and increasingly lengthy descriptions. One thing was clear as day the moment she read the first entry. This wasn't just some scientific journal Iris left behind. It was her diary. Her personal diary. Sasha had to pause every so often due to how squeamish she felt. Iris was one of the most reserved people she knew. And here she was reading her innermost thoughts. She quickly sped up, trying to skip past anything that seemed too personal. Especially the parts where her name came up.
From what she could garner, Iris had been traveling on her own for a while. There were no mentions of liaisons or the AIC, though she often went on lengthy tangents about ship designs. And the weather. And minerals. Several drawings and notes were buried between the wolf's personal accounts of people she hated or how much she missed home. Most of it was incomprehensible jargon, but acquiring the help of a robot remedied that problem.
"These appear to be notes on quantum mechanics,” the scanning bot said, floating by her bedside. “That is an Einstein–Rosen bridge. First discovered by humans on the planet Terra. They utilize quantum entanglement-”
"Three words or less, please," she said. "Small words."
The bot was quiet, its curved antennae spinning as it processed the directive.
"Wormhole moves stuff."
"Wormhole?" Sasha nodded. "Alright. And this?"
"Ships eat fuel."
"I see. I see."
As the bot continued to translate, she started to glean more and more from the mass of jargon. She had zero clue what any of it meant, but she could at least deduce that it was science. Where the heck did she even learn all this? Iris had always been smart, sure, but she'd usually made it a point to explain things simple enough she could understand. But this. Her unfiltered thoughts in their raw form. She finally had to stop the robot as her attention had started waning.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
"Alright," she said. "So what you're saying is this is all space crap, right?"
The bot didn't respond. She took that as a yes, nodding in understanding.
“I guess it makes sense," she went on. "We're out here beating up monsters, and Sulky's nerding out to cosmic junk. Wonder if she ever found that co-”
Sasha froze.
She looked at the pages, her eyes squinting over the impossible-to-decipher symbols. The space stuff she knew she would never understand. But even so, as she started to flip through more of the pages, she felt the briefest hit of nostalgia.
"No way."
She skimmed faster. Faster. More and more pages gave her the same familiar sensation. The drawings. The symbols. Her heart jumped when she landed on a page dedicated solely to a white streak across the sky. An image that, like the others, she could remember clear as day hanging over the walls of her hideout. She held her breath, staring at the notes written under the massive drawing.
Not a comet. Man on fire. Ship?
“Sasha?”
She jumped, nearly dropping the notebook as she whirled around. Mr. Xan was standing in her doorway.
"Geez." She relaxed. "Knock next time, will ya'?"
The panda scoffed. "Well, the door was wide open."
Sasha groaned, returning to her findings. She'd almost forgotten. Anytime she borrowed a robot they made her leave the door open. A safety precaution, according to Mr. Erin. He wouldn't tell her the exact specifics, but she got the sense she was better off not knowing. Not if she wanted to sleep at night.
"Anything world-shattering in there?" Mr. Xan asked.
"Not sure yet. I think Iris was on to something. It looks like she was...researching. I think she's trying to learn about the Comet Man."
"Who? Oh, you mean that fire guy you told us about."
"Man on fire," she corrected. "And yeah. That jerk burned down my hideout. Cripes. If Iris is after him, then we really need to find her. No way she's kicking his teeth in without me. Or Cici. Heck, we can all stomp in his face together."
She smiled at the thought, the image of all three gleefully caving the Comet Man's face in giving her all the motivation she needed. Though she was still no closer to figuring out who the people were setting the legionnaires loose all over the cosmos, finding the one who attacked Shiny would be more than enough. Besides. The AIC was supposedly keeping track of all that. Let them handle the others. That comet jerk was for her and her friends to take out.
She read more pages, finding more technical jargon interspaced with words she could understand. Strong signals. Icy chill. Human. Whatever Iris had been researching, she’d been thorough. As expected. She only stopped reading when she saw Mr. Xan still standing there.
"What?" she asked.
He pointed towards the window. Her ears fell.
Tall buildings of vibrant neon stood outside their ship, a world of bright green skies stretching out around them. She starred from the city to the people with fins growing out their heads to the commpad resting at the edge of her bed. It confirmed what she was all too slow to realize. They'd finally reached their newest destination.
"Oh."
Mr. Xan smirked.
"Might wanna get ready, Panther."
She sheepishly shut the notebook.