Log Mundy, 13118-2237

[Adele Mundy]

Personal Log, SubKdt. Adelaide Mundy, ISN Oblivion, 2nd Flotilla, 4th Hunter Group
Stardate: 13118-2237

The energy plant on Stormhold is online, so repairs can continue. The repairs teams are beginning to bring back status reports, and it seems, from the types of damage they’ve encountered, that the base was shot at from ships, but there was also combat on board. Not only that: the energy plant was shut down while it was overloading, and it was shut down manually, as the control systems to do so remotely were found by our damcon teams to have been damaged to the point where they could not have been used. So whoever shut down the energy plant to prevent the whole base exploding would have suffered a lethal dose of radiation exposure. Yet we found no bodies on board. From the damage inside the base itself, it’s clear there was fighting on board, too. And again, no bodies of combatants from either side.

From all this, and the number and types of wrecks we’ve found in the vicinity, we can deduce: there was a battle. This was an Imperial base. Who attacked it? What happened to the attackers? There would have been a number of craft docked to an industrial base normally; we found no remains of ships, and no emergency shuttles, on the base, from which we can conclude that an evacuation was at least attempted. How far did the fleeing personnel go? Were they all killed on the way out, by whatever ships were attacking the base, or were they picked up? And who came aboard to remove the bodies of the dead?

More clues: from the damage caused by micro-meteorites, it looks as if the base has been abandoned for at least a couple of years. I’m still trying to find a way to confirm this from the station logs, but all the files are corrupted, and if anything is recoverable, it’ll take a while.

Thanks to our damcon teams, the radiation leak has been fully contained, and decontamination is well under way, so we should have access to more areas on the station soon. Our engineers have brought the ore processing plant back online, and we should be able to produce P-shocks soon; we are already able to manufacture torpedo warheads; and they’re working on bringing the heavy ordnance production facilities online.

As for the living quarters and crew facilities, they’re pretty basic, with many systems still jury-rigged, but that’s better than they were. Our shipboard cabins, however cramped, are safer and more comfortable, but at least the damcon crews and the engineering crews have habitable space on the station, and can continue their work without the interruption of shuttle flights to and fro.

Talking of cramped space, Adelaide: your wardrobe is, shall we say, rather tightly packed. Why do you need so many clothes? I mean, the uniforms, fatigues, dress uniform, that’s all standard. But the cachemire suits, the linen shirts, the cocktail dress with the pheasant feather trim, the silk embroidered evening gown, the velvet opera cloak? All of them lovely, but I mean, when do you get the chance to go to the opera?

Meanwhile, we have been searching through the memory core, to find any details of the attack, but the files are badly corrupted, and we haven’t been able to piece any significant data back together yet. Not much progress on the astrographics yet either, but we did find sensor buoys, and the Group Leader decided they could be used to set up a sensor net as an early warning system, and as an aid in triangulating our position.

So, after initial sims, we set out to deploy the sensor buoys. Relentless (Aramond commanding) had the buoys aboard, Oblivion, Invictus, and Excision were escorting – Excision under Captain, I mean, OverKommandant Jemel, Invictus under Kommandant Matsiyan, and Oblivion, of course, under the Group Leader. As a secondary objective while Relentless worked her way to the points that had been selected for deployment, the other three ships searched through the nearby asteroid belts for potential mining resources.

All of which was interrupted by biomechs closing in on the buoys. We don’t normally bother the biomechs, as they will generally go on their way eventually; but this time they seemed to be attracted to the buoys, and we simply can’t afford to lose any chance of gathering information. We tried to drive them away, but when they returned again and again, in greater numbers, we had to destroy them all.

We had some interruptions from pirates and Torgoths too, and had to deal with them so they wouldn’t take news of our presence out to anyone. They came from the sector spinward relative to us, so if we want to continue to go unnoticed, that’s not the direction to go exploring at the moment.

A few N’tani ships moved into the sector too – and there was a little consultation about whether to contact them or not. We did reach out to them, accepting the risk of being noticed as worthwhile, if we could obtain some information from them, but they did not respond to requests over comms, they merely mined a few asteroids and proceeded on their rimward course. Whether they remark on our presence to anyone else, we may find out the hard way… In fact, I believe the plan for next shift is to explore rimward.

Returning to Stormhold, we were surprised to hear a fragmented, crackly broadcast of The Pulse… a voice from home, talking about the Poseidon Rift Disaster, the restrictions that have been placed on the area and the Arietis Gate, the search and rescue mission that’s being carried out. With no result, of course. Here we are, listening to them talking of us being lost… And we daren’t try to send comms messages back, because where do we send them? Who might intercept them? Hell’s Bells…

I took a turn on Weapons for the final sim, because I need to become familiar with Oblivion’s systems. That large beam is quite something, though slow to recharge. I’m still learning what Oblivion can do. I’d be interested to know what you think of Sabre, but that’s not how the psi-link works.

[end log]

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