File: TZR - 010.JE

Date: September 15, 2487

Source: Private Journal (Recovered Data Fragment)

When I was a kid, my father used to point up at the night sky and tell me that the stars were a map of our future. I wonder what he’d say if he could see them now. They don’t look like a future anymore. They just look like tracers cutting through the dark.

We lost the outer ridges this morning. The reports coming through the comms were mostly static and screaming, and then, nothing. Just the cold hum of the monitors.

They are pulling the tarp off the prototype in the main bay as I write this. It looks like a ghost sitting under the floodlights. It’s the last piece of metal we have left that can still punch a hole in the sky. Someone told me earlier that we're praying for a miracle. Personally, I don't care about miracles. I just want to see the sunrise tomorrow.