Log Mundy, 141017-2237

[Adele Mundy]

Personal Log, Lt. Sr. Adele Mundy, TSN Sabre, 2nd Fleet, 4th Lt. Div.
Stardate: 141017-2237

Back on duty, and I thought I was doing fine. I was doing fine during the sims, we had a good smooth run. And then we reported aboard for the mission to the Erebus System, with the instructions to patrol, board enemy ships and load information from their data cores, and protect allied ships including any Zolmari. Nice and straightforward, except for the Void-damned headaches.

We started out by finding large Kralien and Torgoth fleets near the Sierra gate, including some transport ships who refused to surrender… Why would you do that? You’re a transport ship, not a cruiser. I had Kraliens surrendering all around, but those damn transports were either obstinate or deaf… There was a sprinkling of Skaraans too, and when one of their Defilers surrendered, we sent over a contingent of Marines on Proteus, collected the Skaraan data core, and brought it back aboard Sabre.

I suppose I ought to clarify: we started our patrol around the Sierra Gate, in Erebus Sect. 10, moved on to Sect. 11, and the fleet split up to attempt to board some of the Kralien bases there. But that’s where the headaches started, and I’m struggling to make sense of anything. Sabre concentrated on Station A17, and we were able to send Proteus out to collect its data core while we kept the Kralien ships busy.

The fleet moved coreward to Sect. 7, and we continued to attack Kralien bases and fend off Kralien fleets; meanwhile, a small Zolmari battle group took on some Kralien ships, and managed to persuade one to change sides. I wish I’d had the time to listen in on that conversation, it would be useful to know the kind of arguments that work. Meanwhile, Excalibur (the ONI frigate, under its now customary temporary callsign), commanded by Aramond, was able to extract the data core from another base.

Did I mention that Aramond was promoted to Commander? I think I did… No, that’s right, he was promoted at the end of the shift. Did I tell you about the remark I overheard? No, not that one, the one about how many of our ships you have to destroy in order to be promoted to Commander rank. Yes, I’m putting gossip in my personal log. It’s one of the things that makes it personal. I thought I’d explained to you what “personal” means, Computer.

There was a Command ship in the sector, escorted by several Torgoth vessels, so we coordinated with Lancer and Horizon to take down her escort, isolate her, and board her: our Marines are seeing a lot more action these days. They returned aboard with the data core, and several casualties.

The poor Zolmari, meanwhile, were making slow work of a single Torgoth ship. I can tell them what to attack, I can’t tell them the best way to do it. Or, actually, I can, but they don’t pay any attention at that point. I’m just grateful that sometimes they do as they’re told.

At this point CIC sent us the information they had been able to decode from the first data we had sent them: finding a lot of comms traffic activity in Sect. 8, they sent us there to investigate.

There was, indeed, a lot of activity, between ships and stations and the foul headache, it’s all a bit of a blur. We were avoiding clouds of fighters, circling stations, sending out the shuttles for our Marines to board, and collecting them up again. I know Excalibur took a data core from Station S34; we recovered a black box; there was another Command vessel. But really, it was so loud in my head that I only barely noticed the biomechs turning up just as we were about to head back to the Sierra Gate. I’m glad they ignored us, and we left them alone.

The headache receded as soon as we went through the Gate. So what was in Erebus to set it off? Given the pattern of these things, I’d guess an Artefact… Is a headache the kind of clue the Senior Officers are going to take seriously? Dammit.

We shifted bridge stations for a couple of sims – always good to take a turn on Weapons, though I would have liked to have more frequencies info from Science. The last sim though… felt like a damn waste of time. It was a vast number of Caltrons in the Poseidon Rift, designed to be a no-win scenario. And I have nothing against a no-win scenario in a sim, on the principle that sooner or later it’s going to happen in real life, and we might as well have our heroic last words all worked out. But this situation seemed set up to deny us even partial successes: there were more than enough Caltrons to destroy us, without the need to generate more if we managed to get rid of a small battle group here and there.

If the point of the sim was to try and break us out of the habit of wanting to destroy all enemy craft – to clear the board, as it were – it failed. It would have been more useful to have a sim with a “get in, achieve specific objective, get out” order. But I suppose that was what we had just done in Erebus, so it would have been a bit repetitive.

I suppose, when it comes down to it, Caltrons are a pain, Computer. At least sim Caltrons don’t give me headaches.

[end log]

Personal Log, supplemental:

Cdt. Xansta took his exam and was promoted to Acting Ensign, among cheers. Now, if we could have a reliable number of bridge officers assigned to us, we might have a ship for Cmdr. Aramond to command…

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