Recently, I have turned my journalistic attention to Shannon Day, the scientist whose occupied escape pod was miraculously recovered, and is now being protected, by CMDR Josh Hawkins, some thirty thousand light years from home.

Two of our commanders are out there searching for Josh right now, drawing ever nearer to his location as each day passes, on a personal mission from Arcanonn himself to recover Shannon and bring her home.

It’s his eagerness to see her back home again that piqued my interest. Dr Arcanonn has not previously shown any real emotion towards anybody (frustration at Palin notwithstanding) in the year since he rose to fame – so why now? And why her?

I mean – I know she’s ‘one of ours’ but, well: call it instinct. I’ve developed a nose for these things.

So the other day, after working with him on a statement regarding the Canonn Institute that’s soon to be deployed in IX-T D3-43, I asked Dr Arcanonn outright why he is so keen to see her returned. Needless to say, he was not forthcoming.

I told him that I would be investigating, and he simply said ‘you will do what you must.’ Enigmatic, to say the least.

I started by thinking about why the dark forces who were behind Socha’s ‘turning’ would want Socha to sabotage her ship. Socha’s contact suggested that it was because of the mission she was carrying out, but having looked at the transcript of the message they sent him, it doesn’t ring true. The message clearly states that if Socha hadn’t done what they asked, then she would simply have been killed instead. Now, that could’ve been an empty threat, but they’d already shown they were not above ordering a murder or two, as evidenced by the slaughter of Marietta, Socha’s rejected betrothed from his days back with the Penitents of Remor Veld.

For me, this inevitability of Shannon’s demise means only one thing: they didn’t want Shannon to fail in her mission, they wanted rid of Shannon full-stop.

Which seems a little odd, right?

Although we don’t know why they are opposed to the Canonn’s research, it makes sense that there might be people who are: if the UAs and Barnacles represent an alien presence in the galaxy, then there are many who would want to avoid, or delay, contact with those aliens, especially given humanity’s history in that regard. And that’s only the most generous interpretation. There are conspiracy theories abound about all of this, plus also the psuedo-religious angles like those espoused by the aforementioned Penitents of Remor Veld.

So threats towards Dr Arc can be understood, if not condoned. But Shannon? Nobody had really heard of her outside of the teams she worked within at Thompson Dock and Bond Hub. Simply put: she was not on the radar. But for some reason, this dark and powerful organisation actively sought out a way to target this poor woman, and leave her stranded thousands of light years from home, as an alternative to having her murdered.

The answer is clear: she isn’t as unimportant as she initially seemed.

I have nothing to back these ideas up right now – but I’m going to do a bit more digging to see if I can find out more.

I’m going to start by talking to Shannon’s last team at Thompson Dock, and I have made an application with the security authorities there to gain access to her quarters to see what I can find. They agree with me that there could be security implications with this story, so I anticipate getting clearance within the next few days.

I have a feeling that there’s a lot more to uncover in this story, and I promise to bring you whatever I learn as soon as I can.

Verity Gavroche, signing off.

Verity Gavroche