Log Mundy, 7718-2237

[Adele Mundy]

Personal Log, Lt. Cmdr. Adele Mundy, TSN Sabre, 2nd Flt. 4th Lt. Div.
Stardate: 7718-2237

It’s amusing to hear the discussions about promotions for junior officers, while we are all still under investigation for desertion and possibly treason. No, Computer, I won’t say which officers we were discussing. It might all be beside the point, if the Hands of Blue don’t come up with a positive conclusion to present to the Investigation Board. And they are taking their sweet time about it, so that even while running simulations we only had enough Bridge officers for two ships.

We ran Lancer, (Capt. Jemel in Command, Lt. Donovan on Science, Lt. Jr. Draeco on Helm, Lt. Jr. Ironclad in Engineering, with Shuttle operations ready to run, Ens. Xansta on Weapons; I took Comms), and Viper (Cmdr. Matsiyan in Command, Lt. Cmdr. Hall as his XO and, I suppose, Comms Officer, given that Lt. Jr. Yooey was on Helm, Ens. Ben in Engineering, Ens. Maxwell on Weapons, and Cdt. Perpetual on Science). It was a pretty standard training sim, starting in Sierra 8 by the Volantis Gate, heading Corewards towards the Erebus Gate, and dealing with cloaked Skaraans and large Kralien fleets.

Somebody has done something to the AI (I use the term loosely, Computer, as you well know), because the friendly ships I was supposed to be directing to assist us behaved erratically: sometimes responding to orders, sometimes sending comms messages that they were obeying orders but actually ignoring them, sometimes stating categorically they were not accepting orders. Not the sort of thing that is likely to leave a Comms officer any time to monitor channels other than the allied orders. So, when a ship went down and launched life pods, one was not retrieved. Neither Perpetual nor I (dammit) were aware of its transmissions, and a Kralien ship took it as a prize. I also missed the message from the Torgoth commander to the Kralien that was fleeing with the life pod; and the message from the Kralien boasting about its capture.

So, I’ll have to hand in my resignation from Comms now. Dammit.

Oh, I don’t know, Computer… I’m being dramatic and annoyed at myself. I’m not sure you are allowed to resign if you’re about to be facing a court martial, anyway.

So we all got a talking to from the Fleet Captain in CIC, and were told that we’d have to recover the lifepod from the Erebus System in the next sim.

Meanwhile, an officer who shall remain nameless left Lancer’s bridge without permission from Capt. Jemel when the sim was over, causing the Captain to mutter “So, he leaves the ship whenever he feels like now…” So I’m not the only one who isn’t at her best. I think we’re all still affected by the universe shift. Is there such a thing as a Mirror Universe hangover?

I actually went to MedBay again, of my own free will, though not for a hangover cure. And according to all the tests, there’s no physical reason why I should be exhibiting any symptoms of Hjocaine withdrawal at all. It stands to reason, since this body never got any Hjocaine; but it doesn’t explain why I feel…

Talking of which, Hjocoa. Time for a glass of Hjocoa, dammit. Pause, Computer.

[pause]

Computer, resume.

So, I was saying… I had no traces of Hjocaine in my system, in fact, no traces of Hjocoa until we returned to Command and I was able to order a drink at the bar. Adelaide spurns Hjocoa, as she made abundantly clear in her logs, and she hasn’t touched a drop of the stuff ever since the universe switch happened, so even if Hjocoa were addictive in this mild, unrefined form, I should have been completely free of any symptoms. Ergo, it’s all in my head… Unless, and I really would like this to be wrong, I am somehow feeling the symptoms from Adelaide. Poor Adelaide, a life of stern, abstemious restraint, and all of a sudden, there she is, in a body that’s craving the refined stuff. Is this schadenfreude? Yes, it is, Computer. And yet, for all its negative effects, Hjocaine did have some positive ones: it made the Science console almost unnecessary… [sigh] The sight of those Caltron formations, even before we crossed into that sector, well, that’s something I’ll never forget.

I could consider it the Universe’s revenge on her. She threw out all of my things, dammit. There weren’t that many, but none of them can be replaced. It’s not as if I can go back to Paragon and walk around the grounds in Chatsworth to pick up a twig and a few pebbles to remind me of home, dammit. And she has abominable taste in uniforms, so I had to replace those as soon as we were back in TSN space. It’s good to wear blue and grey again.

Back to the sim: we ran Viper (Lt. Cmdr. Matsyan in Command and Fleet Command, Lt. Donovan on Helm, Ens. Maxwell in Engineering, Ens. Xansta on Weapons, Cdt. Perpetual on Science; I took Comms) and Horizon (Lt. Cmdr. Hall in Command, Lt. Cmdr. Morlock on Weapons, Lt. Jr. Yooey on Helm, Lt. Jr. Draecon in Engineering, Ens. Ben on SciComms. Our mission was to go from Sierra System into Erebus Sector 10, and from there, retrieve the prisoners from that life pod the Kraliens had absconded with.

We met some Skaraans right by the Gate; we evaded the fleet launched by the Kralien station by going to silent running, and transitioned into Sector 11, where we scanned the stations, established that some of the prisoners were on Station A17, and recovered them. They told us that others had been taken further into Kralien space so we continued into Sector 12, found them, avoided Kralien fleets, destroyed a couple of Skaraans who got in the way, and returned to Erebus Sector 11. There we found a large Kralien fleet waiting for us, including a Command ship; dealt with that. As we made for the Gate in Sector 10, more Skaraans tried to stop us, but we simply avoided them.

If I don’t sound excited, Computer, it’s because nobody really was. We were working dutifully, but there was no spark. I think real action is as addictive as Hjocaine.

Matsiyan took a turn in CIC at this point, and we ran Lancer (Lt. Cmdr. Morlock in Command, as Capt. Jemel had to attend yet another investigation meeting), and Horizon (and the Fleet Captain was called to the same meeting. Dammit.)

On Horizon, we were down to five Bridge Officers, ostensibly, but for the first part of the sim we were actually only four, as Lt. Cmdr. Hall was not his usual cheerful self. Yes, Computer, I am being sarcastic. Well done. He seemed either preoccupied, or unwell, or both. Either way, he was reluctant to speak, so I assigned Lt. Jr. Yooey to Weapons, Lt. Draeco to Engineering, Ens. Xansta to Helm, and I took Science and Comms. For the beginning of the sim I took command, too, as Lt. Cmdr. Hall was having console trouble.

We started in Promethean System, going from Sector 7 towards Sector 9, defending mining stations from Kralien raids. Lt. Cmdr. Hall, when he was able to join us, made it clear he expected to have trouble “sorting things out”; it turned out he wanted to carry out the attacks I had set up already: and Omega 3 to begin with, followed by a mine run. Which I very carefully did not point out. The whole thing was saved by the fact that Draeco, Yooey and Xansta work smoothly together, with no wasted chatter or energy; so we did foil the Kralien raid on the mining stations. The fact that there have been significant changes in the software used by CIC, and Matsiyan was figuring that out as he ran the simulation also meant that the Kralien fleets didn’t coordinate as well as they normally would.

So there we are. On the plus side, I spent time on three different ships, which is an interesting change; apart from that, a rather pedestrian shift, if the term is appropriate when one is flying starships. I suppose we can’t have the fate of a couple of universes in the balance every shift, I mean, who’d believe that was possible? And while our personal fate is still undecided, rumour has it that the investigations should end soon. That would be a relief, either way.

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