Log Mundy, 21718-2237

[Adele Mundy]

Personal Log, Lt.Cmdr. Adele Mundy, TSN Sabre, 2nd Flt., 4th Lt. Div.
Stardate: 21718-2237

Dammit. What else is there to say? Dammit. So damn close… And I let him get me angry. I should have kept him talking. I should have slowed him down, to let the ships catch up with that damn Griff. But he got away. Who knows if we’ll be sent out hunting for him. And whether I want to be involved. I could claim conflict of interest.

Hjocoa. That has to be good for soothing frazzled nerves, right? Computer, do not tell me that Hjocoa is a stimulant. Tea is a Void-damned stimulant, and there are whole nations in human space that swear a cup of tea is soothing to the nerves.

We started the shift dreading the thought of more sims. But since the Fleet Captain was being interviewed by Command, we had some hope we might be approaching the end of this hiatus soon. The rumours that TSN forces might be in the process of retaking Promethean helped. We gather that support for the USF is waning, and that now the Kralien Precursor mind control Artefact is gone, people might finally be coming back to their senses, and wondering why they supported the USF in the first place.

We took Lancer, Viper and Horizon for our first sims. Nothing much out of the ordinary, apart from an occurrence of cloaked ships appearing out of nowhere, with no warning on active scans. So the techs are looking at the simulation software again.

We celebrated the fact that Cdt. Rodger Wilcon has passed his Ensign exam with a Bronze pin, and is therefore now an Acting Ensign. And then, back to the simulation decks.

We opened up Sabre, and I took Command and SciComms, since we were short of bridge officers. Fortunately we had Nhaima on Helm and Xansta on Weapons, working well together through the session, which was a continuation of the Promethean patrol sim we started last shift. We dealt with a few pirates in Promethean Sector 2, and moved on to Sector 6, where Skaraans were hassling stations. However, the sector contains a large number of minefields near those stations, and with Nhaima at the helm it was easy to provoke the Skaarans into charging towards us, straight onto those mines.

There was some sort of problem with a comms buoy by the Gate, and there were encrypted messages to decypher, but I didn’t find that out until later. I confess that my attention was on the Captain’s Map screen, primarily, followed by the Science console, and my Comms console came in a poor third. Even then, I was mainly scanning the enemy ship frequencies to keep them chasing after us. So that whole decryption exercise passed me by completely.

And then everything faded into irrelevance, because we received the news that the decision had been made to reinstate us. Finally! Our case has been accepted, and all our access clearances, back pay, promotions and awards are in the process of being reinstated. And, best of all, we can finally get out of the sim bridges, and take our real ships back.

We started the celebrations with Ens. Xansta’s promotion to Lt. Jr., Lt. Jr. Ironclad’s promotion to Lt., and Lt. Sr. Graybeard receiving his well deserved and long-delayed award for Advanced Practical Proficiency in Engineering. I know there are some other awards in the pipeline, but the relevant officers weren’t on shift. I hope to toast them, too, in the near future.

We weren’t quite a rowdy bunch as we reported on board our ships, but there was a definite liveliness to the proceedings. I was temporarily assigned to Lancer, since Capt. Jemel had been called away, and as senior officer aboard, I was in Command, with an eye on Comms, too. Fortunately, we had a Science officer on the bridge, this time. Dividing my attention three ways is something I can do if I have to, but I would prefer not to, in a real mission, where real lives depend on my decisions. Cmdr. Aramond, on Horizon, had Fleet Command, and Cmdr. Matsiyan was on Viper. Our first live mission since our return, and no Captains on the ships, dammit.

We were instructed to proceed from Atlantis Command, via Cerberus System, to Promethean. We transited into the Cerberus System, and were expecting to transition towards the Promethean Gate, but we received a strange comms message, and in order to investigate it, we moved to Sector 1. There we noticed our sensors being affected by something that limited their range, and found Unukalhai ships hiding in the local nebulas. Some of them attacked the local stations, and though we acted as fast as we could to draw them away, one station was destroyed. Then it was a matter of racing the USF ships to pick up the station’s life pods before the could be destroyed, too. And, just like in the sim we had so recently finished, we made good use of the mine barriers to lure the Unukalhai ships into self-destruction.

CIC relayed an intel message reporting that an engagement was taking place in unexplored space Spinward of Cerberus 1, with hostiles coming in from the nebula there; the number of ships taking part in the engagement leads one to think that new information on that area is urgently needed.

And then we got a direct comms message. I got a direct comms message. Voice only. From the Void-damned Griff, that upgraded Griff we’d been chasing, that was heading Coreward towards the Sector border. It was Horatio, dammit, calling me sister, telling me to join him, calling me a traitor to humanity, telling me he thought I’d seen the light when we were fighting together. And I didn’t have the presence of mind to tell him, it wasn’t me. Would he have believed me anyway? I told him he was a deserter and a traitor. Because exchanging insults is always so constructive, right? Best way to start a negotiation. Dammit. I told him the Unukalhai weren’t humanity’s defenders, they were war criminals who had committed atrocities. It didn’t make any difference, of course. He said I had forgotten the destruction of Paragon, that he wanted vengeance against the aliens… as if I could forget, dammit. And I told him killing defenceless people would never bring Paragon back.

And the Griff reached the Sector border before we could even approach ordnance range. Dammit, she’s fast.

We were told by CIC that the remaining USF forces had surrendered or were escaping. I was grateful for the automated systems that came on when we were out of the engagement zone. I wasn’t really aware of much, on the way back to base.

Horatio, alive, and a fugitive on an upgraded Unukalhai Griff. Dammit.

Computer, that’s it. I need more Hjocoa.

[end log]

[Author]

Posts