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Personal Log, Lieutenant-Commander Conrad Matsiyan, XO TSN Viper, 4th L.D.
Stardate: 12817-2237There was a moment when I didn’t think we were going to make it, but you would never have known that from the reactions of the crew. It made me feel unworthy of their trust, that my belief might waver.
Where do I begin? It has been a long time since my last log. Ever since my promotion there has been too much to process, too much that is new. If it isn’t simply commanding the ship, it’s mentoring cadets, or backing up SciComs. If I’m even on a ship. I put in several shifts with a fair amount of time in the Command Information Centre. By the time I had finished control network ops admin and written up the ONI analysis report and briefed the command staff, there was just no time or memory to capture a personal log.
And then I was away from the division for half a dozen shifts with a combination of more ONI training, senior officer admin training, shore leave in Japan and some cultural outreach for the Academy intake program.`
While I was away a lot happened. Hunter was lost and they decided not to replace her, so our cadre has been on temporary assignments. Her captain, Cdr. Tuor is away and has not returned since I came back. With the border unrest and the austerity measures I think he is out of contact, or perhaps on a covert mission. I haven’t had time to delve and in the current firehose of border events, I should probably not worry about it and just keep moving.
What did worry me is that I lost touch with Mundy. I didn’t expect that we would be in the same place or that we would be calling or messaging every day, but I did expect the occasional sense of her presence through the rapport we share. But towards the end nothing at all. A few flashes of headache and then nothing. I was distracted because I thought for a while I was having hearing problems. I would miss things people said. I thought maybe I was getting distracted because I would suddenly realize more time had passed than I expected. I had the base medical officer check me out, but hearing seems normal. He just told me to take advantage of the leave and get some good rest.
So I was relieved to see her back in Promethean, though to be honest she didn’t seem as rested and energetic as you would expect after some time away. She hadn’t been well, as evidenced by her sore throat that first shift. And she came back to no good news either.
Raven was destroyed after being severely damaged by a mysterious artifact and Phoenix was destroyed protecting Hunter and our Zolmari allies from a major Hegemony strike against the new N’tani homeworld which is harbouring the refugee faction. Again because of the austerity measures the battlecruiser Raven has been replaced with an Ares-class light cruiser, TSN Sabre. Also TSN Phoenix will not be immediately replaced. In truth, until the austerity measures allow a greater flow of recruits, a permanent establishment of four hulls probably fits our capabilities right now. They also make fairly good pairs for heavy work and close engagements
In the previous shift, I was in CIC when a major Caltron incursion at Promethean Command took out one of the weapons platforms and damaged two thirds of the shipyard capacity. In the aftermath of the attack, while sensors were offline for the upgrade from Beagle Mod 8 to the new Bloodhound III system, pirates absconded with a significant amount of shipyard equipment.
In the teeth of a major ion storm, the division was called upon to split up and hunt them down. Sabre and Lancer had a fairly smooth time of it by all accounts, not only recapturing significant equipment but locating and destroying a hidden pirate base too.
After Hunter was lost in action and with Cpt. Verok moving over to command the missile-oriented Valkyrie-class LC, Horizon, Tuor was given Viper, the Apollo-class LC kitted out with uprated beams and shields, which I have now inherited while he is away.
And so I found myself in command of an unfamiliar close-combat cruiser with only our trusty helmsman, Lt. Jr. Beaumont of the regular crew, who stepped up as my XO. We were fortunate to have Lt. Greybeard aboard. These two officers were both of immense assistance in mentoring the two Cadets, Ben and Silvertail, who comprised the remainder of the crew. Assignment was an issue. The cadets’ primary interests were in Engineering and Helm. I wanted to give them the opportunity to get experience, but with a real mission in the offing, an unfamiliar ship and a crew that lacked practice of working together, I felt I had to play to what strengths we could muster. So we assigned Ben to Engineering, Greybeard to Weapons and Silvertail to SciComs where I could provide some support and kept Beaumont on helm.
Engaging a strong force of pirates, the combination of their speedy high-tech drives and an unusually high number of tractor beams, or perhaps warp bubble interference from the stolen shipyard equipment, had us dead in the water, having expended all ordnance and being almost out of energy. Horizon and Viper took turns at running interference for each other when one was a tractored sitting duck. Towards the end, with all DamCons in MedBay, Lt. Greybeard had to take the shuttle to the nearest station to bring back three fresh teams to repair the completely inoperable manoeuvring thrusters.
Several times it seemed to me that with no manoeuvring, no warp capability, severe systems damage, little remaining ordnance and no energy reserves, it was only a matter of moments until a pirate beam destroyed the ship, but each time Horizon broke free and came swooping by to grab hostile attention. We managed to return the favour at least once. I bit my lip and hoped I remained calm. I don’t know if I succeeded, but the bridge officers never faltered in their calm professionalism even as the location of my espresso machine in the nearest life-pod flashed before my eyes.
I can say that our two cadets have been paying attention in class. Mr Ben knows his engineering and Silvertail did fairly well on Science. As to be expected with a new crew there was some uncertainty about what to communicate and when. Mostly it was an excess of zeal rather than a lack of information, which is a good fault and one that will diminish as they get used to working together. There was some good humoured recommendation for uniform changes along the lines of red shirts and brown trousers.
Once the equipment was returned, we were scrambled in fairly short order to rescue a convoy to Atlantis that came under pirate attack. The convoy was quietly moving out the Artifact that damaged Raven to the point where she was lost. During the attack the freighter lost containment on the device and a swarm of Caltrons showed up. Fortunately they were mostly the small primaries, although, given their uniformly small dimensions, Viper had a nasty shock at one point finding a six-fold Senary in front of us.
Finally we received intel from the Zolmari that they had an agent with important information whose cover had been blown and he was on a Kralien freighter headed to Hjorden. The division scrambled and Viper spent an uncomfortable few minutes staring down a Hjorden customs patrol boat, because we did not have jurisdiction. TSN Sabre finished scanning freighter X58 and Viper was ordered in to extract the agent. Lt. Greybeard again took out the shuttle, this time with our complement of marines to board and retrieve. They came back not only with the agent but also his asset, a Kralien seer from an Oracular temple, carefully preserved in a medical stasis container.
This may be the big breakthrough we have been looking for into what is behind all the Kralien activity probing across the border these last several months. But it was very uncomfortable keeping a lock on Hjorden ships that might contain friends from S-12, who may be required to cut off Mundy’s Hjocoa supply.
[End log]
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