Personal log
Lieutenant Commander John van Leigh, TSN.
Stardate 250616-2237

With commander Verok on a well deserved leave, I ended up in cherge of the newly assigned TSN Viper, and will remain in command for at least some time. So I requested a temporary XO for the time being, and I got lieutenant Aramond. Excellent officer.

This is a time of change around here. Command is beginning a large-scale change in rank structure, and the preliminary moves already reached here: Jemel is now a Captain. Having him a step above the newly returned Brenner modified a bit our command structure, and we ended up as the battlegroup mate of Horizon. I have no idea why I like that name so much.

After running some simulations that frankly could have gone much better we were sent to recapture Volantis, which was done without many incidents. We were engaging the enemies outside the defensive ring, so we needed to review our combat positioning, then secured two weapons platforms. When I ordered an EMP to be fired at them my thinking was more along the lines of “we’ll force them to surrender”, only for C&C to report their transponders were succesfully rebooted. Damn, I actually expected real crews to be there, but technology moves on faster than my inbox’s contents go away.

When we were done the captains had to attend other duties, leaving me in charge of a combat sim with Lancer under Hall and Phoenix under Dante. It was a success even by my standards, but I suspect that if I put them again through that accelerated pace they’ll kill me. I made then run like madmen until the entire sector was cleared in a breathtaking 16 minutes.

The end of the ship was marked by the announcement of the ensign examinations: we have three new members in the division.