He was on his way back home.
Home for him and his machine was an underground bunker, accessible by a tunnel coming from beneath the old workbench in the corner of the disused shed behind the derelict farmhouse at the end of a pot-holed lane on the outskirts of the small hamlet. He’d been traveling back through the Andromeda Galaxy, when his small craft hit a series of dangerously high levels of radiation. It was bad enough to make his instrument panel flicker. It had to be caused by galactic cosmic rays, probably emanating from a supernova exploding somewhere nearby. Increasing his external radiation protection field, enabled him to use the panel to give precise readings. It was obvious that it was a recent event and the levels were increasing exponentially. In fact, he would barely make it before his time craft became irreversibly disabled!
In his vessel, there was no way to accelerate through time, only pass through it. It was on that basis, that he was literally holding his breath as he typed in a warning for future flights. It was quite obvious that this sector of space would cripple his vessel if he ever came this way again.
He only just made it through and was greatly relieved when, after uncloaking and dematerialising, his machine came to rest on the pad, in the bunker. It was not uncommon for him to feel exhausted after a long flight. On this occasion, even more so. In fact, before climbing out, he fell asleep in his comfy bucket seat. He snoozed for a couple of hours before coming to. It was also the case that his memory of any flight details often seemed to fade on his return.
Running a final check of his panel, he saw what looked like the beginning of some kind of cautionary note on the recording screen. It was both incomplete and disturbing. He had a vague memory of the instrument lights flickering, but had no idea what could have caused it. Whatever it was, it had caused the problem with the recorder.
Still feeling tired, he really wanted to call it quits for the day… but, it was a warning and he shouldn’t ignore it. He had the feeling that it may be important. The only way to find out what it was would be to reset the coordinates in order to precisely retrace the outgoing and incoming route of his last journey.
So, punching in what was required, he launched again.