Log Mundy, 3218-2237

[Adele Mundy]

Personal Log, SubKommandant Adelaide Mundy, ISN Oblivion, 2nd Space Flotilla, 4th Hunter Group
Stardate: 3218-2237

You shoot as well as Great-Aunt Adelaide. And, it seems, so do I, when I let you. I had to let off steam somehow, while we were stuck on the end of the docking clamp, waiting for our self-imposed quarantine to run its course; so I ran the pistol target program. I’m out of practice, and I didn’t do particularly well at the beginning – worse than my average scores. And then something happened. I think it was tiredness, I just stopped thinking about the gun, the target, aiming, or anything at all; and your muscle memory just took over, I think. Dammit woman, you are good…

Now I want to find out what happens when I try out a sabre program: I know what I’m doing, but do you? I have the attacks and parries, the feints and fleches, in my head, will they reach my hands and feet fast enough? The minute I have time to breathe again, I’m going to find out.

We’ve been keeping a low profile between shifts, working on repairs (and searching for passwords), listening to station-to-ship comms, researching through whatever Imperial databases are accessible without arousing suspicion, so that we can act like the 4th Hunter Group, and not impact this universe more than we absolutely have to.

So we tried to look as if everything was going on as normal by running some sims, with our standard crew on Oblivion, plus Midshipman Thomas Avirson on Weapons. It would be helpful to have a regular Tactical Officer on the bridge, but I suppose that’s a minor inconvenience compared to being in the wrong universe. He forgot to raise the shields in a couple of the early engagements, but apart from that, attack patterns were executed smoothly, and we tried out Kappa formation, Theta manoeuvres, and some evasive patterns. There was some discussion between the Group Leader and Sblt. Starry about the best management of overheating engines.

In a pause before our mission briefing, the Group Leader announced that a Bronze Star was awarded to Int. Vaj and Int. Quinn for their work in setting up the Stormhold systems; and a Silver Star to SubInt. Ironclad for gallantry in the field.

And after we stopped to watch the news, we found out that Commodore McCollough was coming aboard to brief us on our mission, so we adjourned to the Mission Briefing Chamber, on our best Imperial behaviour. Which included calling “All hail the Emperor!” whenever the Commodore thought it was appropriate to say so. Really, Adelaide, talk about clichés.

Our mission was to take back Volantis Command. It seems the Kraliens have made their way there, probably by negotiating passage through the Hjorden System. They have already shut down one gate, and if they succeed in holding it they would be able to access Atlantis through both its gates, then cut off access to Krisenda System, and eventually to Promethean itself.

We took Oblivion, Invictus (Kmdt. Matsiyan), and Relentless (Kmdt. Aramond). On the way through Promethean System, we were attacked by a Kralien fleet by Volantis Gate, and then by a heavy formation of Arvonian and Torgoth ships. So those Kappa formations and Theta patterns we had been practicing turned out quite useful. Sometimes I wonder whether the Group Leader is prescient… What is the official Imperial line on psionics, Adelaide?

We destroyed several vessels after they had surrendered – not deliberately, the torpedoes had already been fired when they sent their signals. Even so, it was a waste of lives. Worse, though, in my eyes, we actually received messages of congratulations from CIC for the destruction of those fleets. Even worse, we were ordered to destroy all further hostile contacts, accepting no surrenders.

Recently, in the Bar (or what passes for one, given the state of our stocks), Donovan mentioned the boredom that sets in for an officer on the Weapons console in the course of a diplomatic mission. I now have metaphorical ammunition to fire back at him in reply, because, as the Comms Officer on Oblivion, I had precious little to do for the rest of that mission, other than keep the ship’s log up to date, and taunt a few ships, when I could hold the Science Officer’s attention long enough.

We made our way to Volantis Command, in sector 6, and found it, as we expected, occupied; not only that, but the Kraliens had removed part of the mine field and replaced it with defence platforms. And fighters and bombers were launching from them, turning the sensors red. Yes, of course I had a secondary Science console available. I want to see where we’re going, dammit. Even when all I can do is call the enemies names so that they’ll follow us, and leave some room for the rest of the Hunter Group to approach the platforms and deploy marines to take them back.

We started with DS71, sending multiple shuttles of marines until the station was taken, and could support us with supplies. However, large enemy fleets closed in on the base, preventing Invictus from docking to repair and resupply. Relentless tried to draw the enemies away, and in the ensuing fight, Invictus was hit by the beam arc of a weapons platform, as she was running from enemies, running out of energy, converting her last torpedoes. She blinked out of sensor awareness, but I knew Matsiyan was still there… it turned out that the damage was mostly to electronics, and the backup systems came online fast enough that the rest of us could draw a sigh of relief. More repairs to be done, now that we’re back.

And so we continued, for what felt like days, holding off one enemy force while the other ships were striking at weapons platforms one after the other, drawing off fleets, dodging them among asteroids, in and out of Fuel Collection so we wouldn’t run out of energy. Helm, Weapons and Engineering had plenty to do; and as Quinn said, “Gamma Two is an art form”.

We finally destroyed the remaining weapons platforms, and retook Volantis Command. We even collected some life pods from an enemy ship we destroyed, so we’ll have some prisoners to interrogate, in the hopes they can give us intelligence on the Kraliens’ next moves.

Once we docked at Volantis Command (and I won’t even begin to describe the amount of clean-up that will be needed, both to repair the damage of its taking and retaking, and to make sure all the systems are cleared of anything the Kraliens might have wanted to leave behind), we expected to make urgent repairs, and be sent out again to chase the remaining Kralien ships before they could regroup. But Command, in their wisdom, ordered us to remain at the station and consolidate the position.

So guess who’s going to be waiting here when the Kralien survivors come back with reinforcements after reporting the situation? Still, it will give us the chance to repair Invictus yet again.

We were going to relax with a sim, but I think all the systems had been overloaded. Or went on strike. Or decided to turn Kralien sympathisers. Whatever, we couldn’t get the simulators to run, and Engineering and DamCon teams told us in no uncertain terms that they had more important things to fix than sim suites.

So, I can’t even run the sabre program for now. I’ll just stick to the standard pre-bout exercises.

[end log]

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