Log Nhaima, 20118-2237

[Nhaima]

Personal Log: Intendant Alia Nhaima, Chief Navigational Officer, ISN Relentless, 2nd Space Flotilla, 4th Hunter Group
Stardate: 20118-2237

The kommandant paged my terminal during our refit and said he had a thought. They say you should be worried when your commanding officer has a bright idea they want to try out, but damn does it feel good to be out in the black with nothing but a few centimeters of armor between you and hard vacuum. Rather than take my customary post, I was instructed to surrender the helm to Subkommandant Hall while routing a comms circuit down to the pilot’s ready room. Well, that’s what I called it but it was really just the little flight control room near the launch bay. But that’s unimportant. I was to fly our corvette and provide fire support since the kommandant noted my service jacket said I was qualified on several types of escort vessel. That was the theory, in any case. The simulation software registered that the corvette had been converted into a shuttle of military specifications. Not what was intended, but it worked. It felt like I was contributing less to ship operations than normal, but I suppose that’s only natural. Still managed to run down a Skaraan and a pirate, provide some additional point defense, and steal a Hegemony carrier group from under the nose of three cruisers.

The second simulation involved delivering marine teams to enemy stations in a first strike scenario where the fleet ambushed an enemy complex via a dense asteroid belt. This was fairly textbook as well… point defense and combat air patrols around Relentless transitioned into long range marine deployments while making strafing runs to support other elements of the Hunter Group – destroying drones, causing distractions which Oblivion could seize upon, and the like…..

Here’s a thought. When I’m serving on the bridge, it’s very much a communal effort. Regardless of which station I’m on, we accomplished something, we succeeded. Sometimes we even fail, though more often than not if it’s something I can identify that I’ve done personally to cause the fail then it’s very easy to blame myself….. but in a fighter then I’m a solitary entity. Working in conjunction with others, of course, but without remote piloting while manning a different station then its very insular? Isolated? Usually feels less isolated in a full wing, but that’s not likely to happen any time soon. It’s not even that I mind it. It’s just odd. I don’t get many opportunities to feel alone like that. Not since I joined the Navy anyway.

Subkommandant Hall was needed for fleet coordination in CIC for our final sortie, so I was reeled back in and put in the pilot’s chair once more. As a result of political negotiation from some non-humans who didn’t immediately react with violence towards us, we agreed to help extract personnel from their stations. Cue a dozen or so Hegemony battlegroups, but that’s in large part a known problem. Agoom, Starry, Yooey, and I all did our jobs to grab hold of as much attention as we could manage while the Kommandant coordinated our efforts, and when the evacuation orders came then Yooey took my slot in the shuttle and made multiple drops and rendezvous, carefully finding us regardless of our position or level of engagement. Once the first station was successfully cleared, then we were tasked with clearing the second station. This one was less well defended, so we were able to make quicker work of it. Right about this time was when Invictus ran into trouble. By the time we arrived on site they were swamped by fighters and we made a slow pass to draw fighter attention. Initially it looked like we were successful, but in reviewing flight recorders the fighters seemed to be reacting to a general recall and we missed that coincidence in our haste. A Skaraan Defiler executed a short jump after we moved off thinking we had the fighter’s attention and delivered the disabling blow…

Yooey picked up the lifepods, quick as ever, and the Skaraan was pretty quickly melted from existence, but that didn’t change the fact Invictus had been pretty badly singed. To retaliate, we cleared the rest of the area – including a base in the local sector despite the fact it wasn’t located close enough to affect the tactical scope of engagement.

And despite all that’s happened, the looming worry regarding abundance of information we lack has meant I’ve been far less willing to simply melt what I view as a threat. Curious, and curiouser for the proper Alia. The real Intendant, whose quantum signatures match the rest of this universe. Or this reality, or where ever we are and where we shouldn’t be.

[Matsiyan]

// Very enjoyable

[Author]

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