Log Mundy, 151016-2237

[Adele Mundy]

Personal Log, Lt.Sr. Mundy, TSN Lancer, 2nd Flt. 4th Lt. Div., 151016-2237

Dammit, look at the time, and I haven’t done my log for the last shift yet! Partly because we’ve been even busier than normal on the station while in between missions. Matsiyan and I worked with a team on reprogramming the comms arrays for a number of sensor buoys to be deployed in Sector 12, where radiation inside the nebula is making sensor activity difficult.

Meanwhile, ribbons were awarded to Lt. Greybeard for keeping his ship running and everyone supplied with power while they destroyed multiple ships; and to Lt. Cmdr. Aposine, for taking command of Lancer while Capt. Jemel was busy with the station refit, while manning a bridge station and mentoring new crew members.

Announcements included a new bulletin, and a warning about graffiti in the station hallways. Somehow, that took me back to university days. Whenever people wanted to look important, they’d start a new publication, or send out a bulletin… they even printed the stuff out, there were always first year students standing on the steps of the Library handing out leaflets. As for the graffiti, well, it was a university campus, so there was a Darwinian contest between the maintenance staff, who came up with more graffiti-resistant coatings and better cleaners, and the students (aided and abetted by some people in the Applied Chemistry Department), who came up with more durable paints. Oh the great days, in the distance enchanted… as the song goes.

What can I say about our first sim? It was a boundary war, with a number of enemy bases and ships I hope we never have to face in real life. We were horribly outnumbered, and only a systems failure saved us from utter annihilation.

The mission, by contrast, was straightforward, as we took the sensor and comms buoys we had worked on to be deployed. Raven carried the comms modules, Horizon the sensor modules, and the rest of us scouted the sector and fended off attacks. Phoenix also launched probes into Sector 12; we shall see if the sensor modifications we came up with are any use.

The main thing that makes the sim that followed memorable was the malfunction that locked our pilot out of the Helm console, while keeping it unavailable for anyone else. Poor Lancer flew off by herself, past enemy fleets who were only too happy to follow, and with no way to change course we were about to be in serious trouble. But the fleet gallantly came to our rescue in a wonderful display of ésprit de corps.

And just as a final touch, a few Caltrons appeared on our screens as the sim was about to conclude. I wonder if it was a hint for whoever had been painting “Caltron scum” on the station corridor walls.

The final sim set our sensors at a lower level than normal – which, given the difficulties we have been experiencing getting data back from Sector 12, could be a sign of things to come – but I was on Tactical for a change (though I confess to keeping a Science display open on my secondary screen).

And, on the subject of Sector 12, we’re getting unusual radiation that is interfering with the data readings, so Matsiyan and I went back to working with Mr. Turnez to analise the incoming telemetry.

Computer, you’ve been unusually well-behaved tonight… end log.

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