Log Mundy, 17617-2237

Terran Stellar Navy Forums Personal Logs Log Mundy, 17617-2237

Viewing 4 posts - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #25095
    Adele Mundy
    Participant

    Personal Log, Lt. Sr. Adele Mundy, TSN Raven, 2nd Flt., 4th Lt. Div.
    Stardate: 17617-2237

    Dammit.
    [sound of pacing up and down.]
    Dammit.
    Why in the Void’s name did I say I could take Weapons if needed? Dammit.
    [more pacing]
    Does the Void have a name anyway, being the utter negation of being?
    [sound of something hitting the bulkhead]
    Shut up, Computer, that wasn’t a real question, that was me trying to distract myself from things I don’t want to know.

    And anyway, what difference does it make if I was firing the beams or if I was merely telling tactical what frequency to use on those beams? Human beings died just the same.

    And what were those Void-damned Unuk ships doing there anyway?
    [something else clangs against the bulkhead]

    I don’t want to write this log. I don’t want to write this log. I don’t want to write this log. Dammit. A Strict Regard For Truth doesn’t mean I have to say everything that goes through my brain… Dammit.

    Come on, where’s Mundy the Officer hiding?

    I must have known… no, rubbish. Utter rot and rubbish. There is no prescience, there are no prophecies, there is only the self-deception of human beings who like to think they might have changed things. Present company not excepted. I was late to the briefing room for no other reason that I was distracted by Matsiyan and the senior officers discussing the sims and the mission; not because I had any inkling of how things would go.

    Yes, Computer, I was getting bits of the Senior Officer briefing. So court martial me. The way things are going, it might be a relief.

    The sim was straightforward, the Fleet Captain in command (he’s back! Not that he’s saying anything about why he wasn’t around the past couple of shifts), Aramond as XO and Science Officer, Quinn on Helm, Vaj in Engineering, Trueman on Tactical, and I took Comms. Capt. Xavier claimed to be a bit rusty – no, Computer, I don’t think that was supposed to be funny – and pointed out to Vaj that Engineering could have been a little faster on the presets. But really, we did pretty well.

    Mission: collect denobite crystals, because we’ve been experiencing shortages, and the deterioration of the crystals we do have seems to have been responsible for the recent spate of malfunctions. Now I’m trying to remember who took over in Engineering, because Vaj was in CiC for the mission. Possibly Aramond, as I took Science and Comms. My mind isn’t really on this, dammit.

    So, our route was supposed to be from Promethean to Cerberus to Atlantis systems, to a refinery in Atlantis 9 which had a supply of crystals we could collect. When we were told that we weren’t expecting trouble, naturally we all expected trouble. After all, we interfered with a pirate supply run last shift, why wouldn’t they return the favour, if they possibly could? Nevertheless, we did fly in beautiful formation, following Xavier’s orders, to Cerberus Gate.

    Lo and behold, an attack. And afterwards, through the gate, our warp drive started experiencing problems because of the denobite crystals deteriorating. One of the other ships was having trouble with its maneuvering thrusters. With some creative repair work by our engineering crews we proceeded from the gate (in Cerberus 4) towards the Atlantis Gate (Cerberus 2) – but before we reached it, in sector 3, we encountered an attack by massed fleets on the DS stations and Cerberus Command.

    We were hard pressed to defend the stations against so many enemies – not just Kraliens, there were some heavy Torgoth ships in the mix, and a couple of Hegemony command ships that I saw. There may have been more, but I was busy scanning the fleet Raven was dealing with, in defence of DS90. We took heavy damage, and how the Engineering crew managed to cobble our shields back together again and again I do not know. Viper came to help out a couple of times, and we returned the favour. Lancer swooped in to take out some of our enemies with her beams, and we dragged clouds of drones away from ships and stations. And oh yes, I did threaten and demand, and had the satisfaction of seeing ship after ship surrender. The one I’m proudest of was a Hegemony Command ship that turned tail and retreated while its front shields were still at 2973, and its aft shields at 3059. I don’t think our own shields were at more than 50% at the time…

    We defended Cerberus system, but Cerberus Command must have been seriously damaged, because we lost comms contact. The way my sensors read it, it looked like the base was destroyed… I haven’t heard full reports yet, and there were a lot of ships exploding between us and it, and enough heavy ordnance flying around to disrupt all kinds of sensors, and bring gloom and depression to our supplies officers. Perhaps all the systems went down, which means everyone on board, if they weren’t immediate casualties, would have had a limited time to evacuate.

    A whole damn station, evacuating… I know the drill, I’ve gone through it, both as a civilian temporary resident, travelling for the Library, and later as part of the basic training for an Academy cadet. And it’s one thing to go through it when the station is functioning, but quite another when it may be ripping apart around you.

    After that, with a brief stop at one of the surviving stations to repair, refuel and resupply (which was an achievement in itself, given the state of the place), we set out for Cerberus 2, heading for the Atlantis Gate. Transit through the Atlantis sectors to the refinery was routine by comparison. We collected those crystals, and our engineers were clearly relieved.

    Our second mission started in Atlantis Command. Trueman was assigned elsewhere, Beaumont joined us on Raven’s bridge. And because of his expertise and mine, he took over SciComms, while I moved to the Weapons console. What in the Void possessed me… Dammit.

    Things were quiet at first, as we travelled through several sectors in Atlantis System until we reached Sector 16 and the Waypoint 60 Gate. We patrolled for a while, to establish how the gates have drifted recently and update stellar cartography – I had that open on a secondary, and it was an exercise in frustration, as nothing corresponded to what was appearing on the Science screen. Yes, Computer, of course I had a Science screen open too.

    We were scouting by the Krisenda Gate when the Unukalhai ships appeared. And I was on Weapons. I couldn’t even tell them to surrender, dammit.

    [sound of pacing]

    “I was only following orders” never was a valid excuse…

    Damn traitors. What were they doing by the Krisenda gate anyway? What are they planning now? Did they hear about the talks with the renegade Kralien faction? That’s the kind of thing that would drive them into a frenzy. I can just hear him now: “You’re siding with the enemies of human kind!” “They’re waiting for the opportunity to destroy us all!” “The galaxy will never be safe while those creatures still exist!”

    [pacing]

    [mutters]
    Where are you, Void-dammit?

    How many ships did we destroy? It should be on the Tactical log, I just can’t bear to look it up. How many people did we kill? How many did I kill? They would have destroyed us if they’d had the chance. Why wouldn’t they just surrender, dammit! Am I even fit to be a TSN officer at all, asking these questions? Perhaps I should resign my commission and find a big library to hide in. Except that Mundys don’t hide…

    And dammit, there’s still no Hjocoa on this station. How can I be expected to resolve deep existential crises without Hjocoa?

    [deep sigh]

    The Void with it all. I’m going to the shooting range. Yes Computer, I am taking the entirely counterintuitive step of going and shooting at things, to take my mind off shooting at people, possibly including The Little Horror. So there. And if this were an old-fashioned door, I would slam it on the way out.

    [end log]

    #25100
    Nhaima
    Participant

    // it’s because you are too skilled on comms and Raven was too awesome.

    #25102
    Matsiyan
    Participant

    // Read – and enjoyed

    #25174
    Adele Mundy
    Participant

    Personal Log, Supplemental.

    We resume our normal service… Or something skilfully pretending to be normal, anyway. Shooting requires a deliberate effort to lower the heart rate and steady the breathing rate, which does wonders for fooling the brain into believing that normality has been restored. It’s a bit like lying to yourself, I suppose. But if you know you’re lying to yourself, you know the truth anyway, so it doesn’t count as lying.

    Back to last shift’s events: after completing our repairs, we proceeded to the Danae Gate, only to find it was malfunctioning. An exchange with CiC led to an N’tani ship coming to our rescue to activate the gate from the other side, and we were able to witness the Zolmari Dreadnought come through. Viper approached her and effected the personnel transfer we needed. Two groups of Piranhas and a Biomech Stage 3 livened up the proceedings somewhat, especially when the N’tani ship decided to go and investigate the Biomech at close quarters, but we avoided the Piranhas, dealt with the Biomech, and returned home with no further incident.

    We concluded the shift with sims aimed to improve our performance in working as a group. The idea was to defend our bases against large enemy fleets, paying particular attention to tactics that would taunt enemies away from bases. I suppose we didn’t do too badly, as our bases weren’t destroyed. Personally, I made so many mistakes on Weapons… I loaded the wrong weapon type, so had to unload quickly and reload the correct one; I was slow switching frequencies; I was slow switching from auto to manual beams. I suppose that’s what sims are for. But dammit…

    [Sound of something slapping desk]
    No buts. Either you’re a TSN officer or you’re not.

Viewing 4 posts - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.