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Personal Log, Lt. Adele Mundy, TSN Eagle, 2nd Flt, 4LD
Logging in before the shift, that’s unusual. But then, there have been unusual events on the station: the Arvonian spies, their attack on Blaze when he found them out as they were setting the decoy device, all the investigation that followed, and the chase after the fugitive last shift. Meanwhile, last shift, I was overseeing bridge crew after bridge crew of Academy applicants and new cadets, while replying to their instructors that no, they could not have access to the main areas of the station because of an unscheduled maintenance situation. Which was true, if uninformative. It would not have been helpful to have non-station personnel in a panic about Arvonian sabotage.
So, having remained on the station while the division was out on their mission, I had to find out from official reports about the way the device fooled our station and ship sensors into seeing phantom escaping ships; and about the massive fleet that seems to be gathering near the Sierra Gate, and the Hegemony base that is being established there. The formal meeting with the Fleet Captain and all our officers made matters fully clear: similar Arvonian devices have been placed on other bases, and, had they all been activated simultaneously, they would have provided cover for a Hegemony attack. Fortunately, they have been found, and tech crews are continuing to search for any that may still be hidden. Meanwhile, it seems we are to be sent to the Sierra sector do deal with those bases before the Hegemony get too comfortable.
And, while the strike against the main force in Sierra is going on, Lancer‘s crew… well, how shall I put it? First, Lancer was damaged last shift by a mine dropped by Phoenix’s Tactical Officer by mistake; damaged badly enough that she won’t be able to take part in the mission. So, Lancer‘s crew are going to change into civvies and they’ll be off on a plausibly deniable adventure. I rather expect van Leigh to ask for a temporary transfer, since the covert mission would fulfil his Penzantian (yes, Computer, I know that wasn’t a word. It is now. Deal with it.) ambition.
And that’s the signal to go and report for the shift. Computer, pause log.
—–
Computer, resume log.
I thought I’d taken enough time after the shift to finish swearing, but apparently not. Dammit, and ow. Where are those painkillers the doctor prescribed, and why are they wearing off so damn fast?
Manticore was flying the metaphorical skull and crossbones in order to sneak into Erebus sector and steal a daka generator. And dammit, the DO came on board Eagle to ask for me as Manticore’s Science officer, and I was ready to go, but Lt.Cmdr. Allard said “No, you can’t take Mundy, I need Mundy here,” which is flattering, but dammit, we were on a sim! A sim! And guess who ended up on the Science console? Matsiyan. The best engineer on board, and he’s assigned to Science. And from what I saw and heard when I could pay attention, he did a fine job, but dammit, in a critical mission you put your crew at the posts where their primary expertise is. Manticore ended up with a cadet on Engineering – on a delicate covert mission! I don’t care how good the cadet is, you don’t put a cadet in charge of the engineering systems on a ship that’s out there on her own, without support… Computer, pause log, I need to go and shoot something.
[A long session at the shooting range and many shredded targets later]
Computer, resume log. Where was I? Oh, yes, righteously indignant. Because it doesn’t end there: Aposine, one of the best pilots I’ve ever seen (and apologies to the Little Horror, but, boy, I suspect Aposine could fly rings around you), where was Aposine? On Comms, dammit. And who was the XO who assigned the crew? Hmmm…
Meanwhile, the rest of the division fought tech gremlins in a border war sim. And that makes sense, particularly since we’re now at war with the Hegemony – the Arvonian Supreme Understander is very unhappy about our widespread destruction of computer systems – by the way, Computer, if you turn out to be an Arvonian sympathiser I promise you the kind of reprogramming that will leave you unfit to run a food dispenser. Where was I? All my sentences are breaking up. Eagle destroyed six bases with fruit salad. Tech problems. More sims.
We were sent on mission in Sierra system, attacking the bases in Sector 5 and the fleets that tried to defend them. My view of the mission was rather more limited than normal, because, as we were rather short-handed, Lt. Cmdr. Allard took the Science console as well as his command post, and I was on Engineering. I narrowly escaped being on Helm – and I know, I know I’m supposed to be proficient on all stations at this point, and had it been a sim I would have had no problem with the suggested posting, but dammit, when the crew’s life and the success of the mission are on the line, I would rather take a reprimand than drive us into a mine. Which is bitter irony, considering what happened.
Time for more painkillers. The medics did a fine job, and, as they said, no broken bones, just burns and lacerations, but dammit…
So, I’m clearly not up to Matsiyan’s standards on Engineering, but I kept us in one piece even when we went into combat with shields down… What’s the point of me boosting shields if Tactical doesn’t use them? (Oh, well done, Computer, you’re beginning to recognise rhetorical questions now.) And we were hit by a cloud of drones. Two DamCon team members badly hurt, they’re still in MedBay now with all the other crew members who only just made it to the life pods, which puts my burns in perspective. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The summary is, the Sierra mission was successful, the base in Sect. 5 was destroyed, and as a bonus we pulled reinforcements out of Erebus, leaving the way clearer for Manticore to complete her mission. She did her scouting, located the daka generator, stole it and ran off with it. On the other hand, we did trigger the invasion fleet to attack, and the Supreme Understander sent us its message declaring war.
While teams of engineers started work on reconfiguring the daka generator so it could be deployed, Matsiyan was reassigned to a team searching for those sneaky Arvonian devices, so he completed his shift on the station while the rest of us reorganised and set out for the rift.
I was on Engineering again, as we followed Raven, which was tractoring the generator, through the gates to the rift in Cronus Sector 9. The number of singularities in the sector was disturbing – and yes, I did have a Science screen open, because dammit, I feel better when I have some idea about where we’re going. There were Caltrons in our way, of course, and the occasional Skaraan, but in the end it seems we compressed the rift by surrounding it, with our front shields boosted to maximum, and closing in until it was gone. We fought more Caltrons on the way back, but on the whole everything went well enough – we used up so much ordnance that we were manufacturing torpedoes every time we could stop and deploy fuel collectors – and we were through the final gate and safely – we thought – into the home sector in Promethean…
Mines. Why did it have to be mines? I spent the whole of my previous shift, (perhaps not all of it, but it felt like most of it) telling cadets not to drive onto their own mines. I’ve driven us onto mines (in sims only, for which I am thankful) and continue to cringe at the thought. And what happens? An order to boost warp, and then a heading change at the last minute, and my finger made it to the key to boost manoeuvres, but not quite in time to press it, and the shields were down… Explosions cascading through systems, alarms blaring, smoke and flying shrapnel. We hit our defensive mine field.
Most of the crew made it to the life pods. Not everyone. I checked. MedBay was pretty crowded with Eagle‘s crew, once we were picked up and brought back to Command Base. I got away relatively lightly, so I was able to attend the debrief.
The rift in Cronus system has been shut down, and the remaining Caltrons there might be a good deterrent against Hegemony forces that might try to use the system as a staging post, now that war has been declared. It appears the rift caused significant environmental damage to Cronus sector, so TSN escort vessels are going to set up a sensor platform near Cronus gate to monitor what might be going on; and at some point we’ll need to send ships in to restore the sensor network. There was also mention of range distortions and possible disruption to the gates, because of the gravitational pull from the singularities – that sounds like a possible research mission in itself.
And we were dismissed. No idea yet about what will happen to Eagle‘s crew, whether we’ll get some replacement ship or be reassigned. Meanwhile, Raven‘s crew, being on Quick Reaction duty, are to refrain from alcoholic refreshment. I, on the other hand, only have the doctor’s warning about how alcohol might react with the painkillers I’m on, but they said nothing about avoiding chocolate.
[end log]
Mundy’s log, supplemental:
Oh, and another thing. Not only was Matsiyan aboard Manticore for the covert mission, Chuck Finley was there too. That makes two brilliant engineers on the same ship, and Engineering in the hands of a cadet.Chocolate. Definitely, this calls for chocolate.
//Looks like I might be giving powers to DO to overrule command officers when reassigning crew. I am sure I told garion at somepoint that a certain crews needed experienced officers for their mission. Perhaps some guidelines of organusing officers on critial missions is in order too.
//I did not even get a chance to look at the crew of Manticore… .they were formed and off they went 😉
BTW, love reading your logs Mundy.
//Jemel, Adele knows perfectly well it wasn’t you who assigned the crew, but your XO. Psi-link. 🙂
//which means I need to add: //
Mundy’s log, even more supplemental:
On Jemel’s ship! And all right, Cmdr. Eahain was in command, but that makes three brilliant engineers on Manticore, and Engineering in the hands of a cadet!
@garion, thank you 😊
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