It's funny. We usually don't pay much attention to the passing time. Reality is boring, filled with constant work, family and our little problems, and everything seems to stay in relative order. That makes our minds so vulnerable to the Things that don't fit into our idea of the sorrounding universe. I've recently come across one of those Things...

My story starts a few days ago, when I was coming home from Latos system, where I work for certain corporation. My ship shook a little as it ended its subspace jump and I started to look around for any signs of danger, as I still haven't left the unclaimed space, or "gray space", as some call it. After a few seconds my navigation computer finished scanning the sector and symbolic map of the sorrounding space appeared on my radar.
"Huh", I thought when I noticed a faint purple dot. Something behind me was sending signals saying: "I'm here, pick me up". Such transmitters are commonly mounted on cargo crates and are really helpful when some stupid pilot forgots to close his cargo bay and undocks from station, leaving a cloud of rotating mass, potentially dangerous to other ships in the vicinity. As I turned my ship towards the source of the signal, I counted how many times we had to clean up the mess left by oh-so-proud Serco pilots, who unfortunately had little idea about ships they had been flying in.
One minute later I could clearly see what might had been some kind of ship in the past, but at that time was only a shattered wreckage with signs of fire and many, many holes burned by hot plasma. I looked carefully at various parts and finally realised, that it must have been some variant of the Hornet attack ship - five years of experience I gained while working as a mechanic on a major commercial station turned out to be really useful.
Pink dot on my radar was very bright, indicating that transmitter was somewhere close. I carefully manoeuvered around flying debris and scrap metal, and finally found what was looking for - almost untouched case of the on-board flight computer.
"That's interesting", I whispered to myself.
Using an external manipulator I managed to cut the last cables connecting the case to the rest of the wreckage and put it into my cargo bay. At that time I couldn't do anything with the information stored in the retrieved computer, so I decided to return to my home in Dau system as if nothing had happened. To be honest, I didn't sleep much that night, constantly thinking about secrets I might soon find out and cruel fate that the Hornet's pilot had to meet.

One day later.

I came to work really, really early, so I didn't have to meet with my co-workers. I quickly browsed the ship database for the blueprints of Hornet's electrical installation and connected the flight computer to the diagnostic station.
"Now or never", I thought as I switched the power on and waited a few seconds for hardware to initialise itself. Suddenly a prompt appeared on the screen and I could start my search.

Now that I think about it, I shouldn't have done it myself. Maybe if I handed the computer over to the appropriate authority I'd be still living with my mind at peace... If only...

What I found was a log of the last minutes of what seemed to be some kind of a group surveillance mission into unclaimed space. At that time computer seemed to be seriously overloaded by the amount of radar data it had to process, which left me puzzled. You won't find that many ships in three systems together... Then I found a few pictures from the close range optical sensors. I opened the first one and staggered. I took a deep breath and opened the next, and felt as if my heart stopped beating. I'll show them to you:

http://stealth.math.uni.lodz.pl/~grzywacz/hive/dump0012.tga.jpg
http://stealth.math.uni.lodz.pl/~grzywacz/hive/dump0033.tga.jpg
http://stealth.math.uni.lodz.pl/~grzywacz/hive/dump0034.tga.jpg
http://stealth.math.uni.lodz.pl/~grzywacz/hive/dump0035.tga.jpg
http://stealth.math.uni.lodz.pl/~grzywacz/hive/dump0040.tga.jpg

The space... the space was swarming with Hive bots. Unrealistic, isn't it? I thought like that myself, but the data was real. When I finally managed to calm down, I started thinking. What mind has control over the power of the Hive? I used to consider these rogue mining bots a constant nuisance for mining expeditions and easy prey for an experienced pilot, but there seems to be more to them. I recalled recent rumours about increased activity of drones in the Odia system, and some mysterious mission, that the BLAK guild supposedly took part in, as a part of their contract with Tunguska Mining Concern.

While browsing through this pictures I felt small. Unimportant. Fragile. There are things around us that we cannot conceive of as we're all missing the larger picture. What will our future be like? I think I need to see some head doctor, otherwise I may never be able to sleep calmly again. My friend, member of the VPR guild, knows a good doc, maybe he can help me.
Oh, almost forgot: I won't post any new entries for some time, as I'll be busy with my own investigation. See you in space.

Nice read, I await more.

Thanks. I've allowed myself to connect it slightly with your story (which I really liked, btw.).

I saw that reference nicely done. Nice to have another good RP writer around. :D