Log Matsiyan 7516-2237

[Matsiyan]

Personal Log, Lieutenant Conrad Matsiyan, TSN Lancer, 4th L.D.
Stardate: 7516-2237

After last shift I was late to get to the bar because of refitting, adjusting and balancing the power efficiency upgrades on Montgomery. But all that was quickly forgotten as the fleet captain himself turned up to socialize and let us know what had happened. He had a couple of friends among Ximni officers and one had intervened in time to get him out while we were taking too long to recover the dreadnought Montgomery. He was able to let us know that the Ximni took the threat of the weapon very seriously and were escalating up their chain of command to get support for us. In the meantime, the extent of the resources revealed by Moonsec makes it very likely they have a high level contact in the heart of the USFP with access to either serious money or decision making power.

We behaved fairly well as guests of the Hjorden. I quickly had a couple of DC crew clean up the spray-painted “Benjamin’s” some wag had tagged near the S-12 bar.

There was a lot of excitement over the Ximni jump drive system, a very different technology to our Warp drive. Slate had always been fascinated by it and had even done some pretty extensive research into its theory, operations, and tactics for Academy seminars. Her treatise stunned quite a few of the division’s junior officers, myself included. And I think it made Xavier somewhat nostalgic for his first experiences with it some years ago.

So I was excited to find before the shift that I was offered a post aboard the Ximni light cruiser “Rolling Thunder” with Mundy, Aramond, Garion, and Slate, captained by Xavier. These moments are always difficult, I was just getting used to Monty’s dreadnought ways as both Engineer and as Helmsman and I was reluctant to give up that progress and to be separated from the “Light Cavalry” as I think of Jemel, Aposine and Morlock. On the other hand, to have the chance to be one of the first to gain experience of a modern Ximni jump-drive Light Cruiser and work with two of the most experienced officers in the division was not to be passed up.

The shift started with a sim which we used as a solo exercise aboard ‘Thunder to shakedown the crew. Slate was not available this shift so our XO, Aramond sat in at Weapons while Mundy covered SciCom and Garion manned the Helm. It went remarkably smoothly, though we did run the ship very hot. I am not quite sure whether that is a result of jump drive tactics per se, the captain’s pushing of the ship and crew limitations or rather underspecified systems.

A second sim interoperating with the rest of the division revealed that cooperation is hard. With a jump drive ship you have to think ahead and execute planned manoeuvres with a high degree of precision. You do not have the Warp capacity to flexibly adjust your tactics on the fly. We learned that even 300% impulse will not protect you from elite Skaraans or let your missiles catch them. It was awfully satisfying though to jump across the sector and start engaging an enemy fleet while waiting for Raven to catch up with us. They peremptorily ordered us away while they deployed an Omega-3. It was such a joy to let them know we already had completed that before they arrived.

With some crew aboard Rolling Thunder, the decision was taken to split up Dauntless’ crew and ensure the others had a full crew. Our isolation and the need for a lot of maintenance and second shift support while we are away from a permanent base is keeping us a bit short handed. So this is giving an opportunity to a lot of cadets on their field experience assignments to rotate into mainshift. The distribution was a bit uneven. After crewing Thunder and defaulting mostly to regular assignments elsewhere, Hunter, assigned to the command of van Leigh, was crewed by ensigns Blaze and Feil and three cadets. When van Leigh experienced his fainting fits, this left command in the hands of an ensign! It is probably a little unfair to the cadets not to give them experience with more seasoned officers.

After the sims to keep us sharp and shakedown Thunder, Captain Evans delivered the mission briefing. We are heading into Moonsec territory, Ajax 112 a main Blackwater station with science satellites and significant defenses. The objective is to capture the stations and intel to get at the weapon. Each science station has less than 18 marines. 3 ships security teams can take ‘em. So we will approach each science station, debark our boarding teams and take control. With all of the science stations captured hopefully the main station will crack with less resistance, or we will find intel to make taking it over easier. The only problem is a comprehensive minefield and significant tonnage of warships.

We departed cheerfully, glad at last to have a path back either to reinstatement or honourable death trying. Mew made our transit safely out of Hjorden space, following a Hjorden convoy who kindly scouted ahead and gave us the all clear. We rapidly transited TSN space skirting a command base and transited to the Krisenda system. Scouting using the intel provided rapidly located a securely encrypted gate hidden in the densest nebula I think I have ever seen. The division converged on the gate and prepared for transit. We did get initial telemetry images and seemed to experience severe local time dilation. The transit did not complete and ONI are now working on some additional ecoding before we can complete the transfer.

So we have been told to stand down for an hour or two. With a big mission coming up it is definitely time to make some espresso, even if a Ximni escape pod is laid out a bit differently than I am used to, there is at least a locker space for the machine. And it would only be diligent to check the power couplings.

I wonder if there is some way we could get together to decompress during this lull. We can hardly all congregate at a bar on one of the ships. Wait a minute. What about a virtual bar, I remember “Pocket D” in that old virtual based on the Paragon colony. Do I have the client in my archive? Yes! Now all I have to do is isolate it from central processing and route it through a very low priority comms channel – don’t want to step on any operation traffic. This may be glitchy and low-res but it might give us an amusing break. OK! Publishing.

[End log

[Feil]

//Thanks for keeping such good records on the briefing. Mine were a bit lacking for that weeks log.
I liked the part at the end where you realized you could make a digital bar. But answer something once and for all for me, is the bar a glorified chat room or VR?
We might have to use it again in case of another two part mission and I want to know so I can join.

[Matsiyan]

//Let’s chat on teamspeak, but for the purposes of your question, which I did try to answer in the original Bar thread, it is VR. It allows us to interact, speak, emote, use body language and move as if we were physically present. So once you enter that space, you can pretend you are in the Bar, plus or minus a few avatar FX. 🙂

[Matsiyan]

//My briefing notes tend to be detailed or non-existent. Briefings go by so fast that I find that if I blink, I missed it. And I really do like to know what we are aiming at and why!

[Feil]

//I’ll be in teamspeak for a while. You might have to send me a message on there to get my attention because a few TSN guys are gaming.

[Blaze Strife]

//It’s interesting to read the log of someone who has served aboard the jump ship. It’s interesting to see three out of four/five people who regularly write logs (Mundy, Aramond and you) are on the same ship. You will all be able to shed light on the mysteries of the ship to the rest of us. 🙂

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