Captain’s Log, Ship’s Day 8460

Stupid. Someone here had the hare-brained idea of sending out a transmission to the boys back home, despite everything that’s been going on here. And I approved it. Now we’ve completely lost one of the main batteries; the blaster bled it dry, since we let the thing run on for 2000 cycles at full power.

Our head count stands at one hundred forty-seven. Somehow we managed to not lose two of the shuttles; a few more are destroyed but may be good for salvage. Still no confident course fix relative to α Centauri. Right now Backyard Bob’s trying to get some of the hydroponics out of mothballs so that we and our livestock can make it through the next few months. After that…I don’t know.

Perhaps I had better tender my resignation. A death sentence, surely…but would any of it even mean anything now? It would be all too easy to pull off—all I’d have to do was get out of D Cargo Array without a spacesuit on. How many lives have I endangered, by letting them send off this message?