When I think of the Good Ship Yutero, I think about the Tower of Babel. Pretty fucked up story, right? Man tries to get closer to God, man gets punished. Man tries to expand out of this shitty little rock, man gets punished.

Broadcast kicked on at 5:45 in the afternoon exactly. I remember because I saw the lights on my broadcast deck light up, all at once- especially the ones that I had been told were never supposed to light up. Ones that wouldn't light up unless the world was ending. It wasn't, at the time. But fitting, now that we have the Miasma, and the Hole, and all this shit going on everywhere. Monitors said that something was broadcasting at nearly one hundred times our broadcasting strength, on the same channels. I nearly spewed coffee all over the board because the only thing that could broadcast that big without taking down half the local power grid was the Yutero.

Mind you, this was nearly a third of a decade after it went missing. So I make some calls, try to confirm, and halfway through rattling off the monitor stats, my boss just tells me to turn on the fucking T.V.

And there's Captain Alderman, sitting in her command chair. Like some kinda sick parody of her launch address. Her hat and coat's all sorts of fucked up, covered in black sludge and like, red eyes she fingerpainted into it with... well, it was probably blood. And her eye, man... it was like someone had crammed a bunch of fucking squid ink spaghetti in there. And she spoke once- and she didn't even seem like she was talking to a camera. "If you want my advice," she said, "leave early to avoid the rush."

Then she blew her fucking brains out, and the feed cut.

The Yutero and her crew made landfall a few weeks later. I wasn't around to see the crash. I'd been put on psych-watch, for a suicide attempt.

I dunno, in retrospect it seems stupid to slash your wrists over one creepy broadcast.

But I swear man, the way she stared forward... the way she looked around... it felt like she was talking to me.

Don't tell my caretakers, but sometimes,I watch the news, and whenever a Yutero dies, and another fucking calamit hits... I wonder if her advice wasn't any good.