Log Quinn 20216-2237

[Quinn]

Personal Log: Lt. Jr. Quinn of the TSN Hydra (CM-008), 2F 4LD
StarDate: 20216-2237

Aramond and I are 2-for-2 as duty officers for shifts with software updates, making us scramble once again to get everyone’s terminal cleared for duty. We also had numerous new cadets to train, making it even more hectic. It seems that the war machine is up and running and has started to turn out volunteers who want to defend the USFP.

I actually ended up being a bit late to the briefing, as I was still helping Millari set up her terminal. I snuck into the back of the briefing room only to hear Acting Fleet Captain Evans explain that a nanite bomb had detonated aboard the Hydra, rendering it inoperable. Just in time for bad news. Luckily no one was injured in the incident, but the ship’s systems were severely damaged and the station crew will have to go over the ship with a microscopically fine-toothed comb to rid her of any lingering nanites before even attempting repairs.

Matsiyan is away on assignment, but he’s in for one hell of a disappointment when he returns. He was so careful to check the ship for any sign of nanite infection after we picked up those life pods from the TSAF Bath, but apparently his search party missed something. Either that or we still have a saboteur aboard, making sure the nanites found their mark, which is an unsettling thought.

In the meantime, while the Hydra is laid up for inspection and repair, the majority of its crew was transferred to the TSN Excalibur, a battleship. Cdr. Verok seemed a bit excited to put the Excalibur through her paces, but also disappointed to be away from the Hydra, a sentiment I shared. As everyone settled into their station, I noticed Ensign Cessna having trouble with his chair at the comms station, being stuck at an awkward height. As much as we complain about her sometimes, I think we’ll all be grateful to be back home aboard the Hydra.

With Matsiyan away, Lt. Graybeard joined us in Engineering, which is operated differently than the Hydra. Whereas the Hydra’s bridge has a bank of consoles to control every engineering operation remotely, the Excalibur requires its engineering officer to be more hands on, deep in the bowels of the ship. Graybeard is an experienced engineer and adapted easily, but I can only imagine that running between consoles and viewscreens gets exhausting.

Cadet Blaze joined us again as our weapons officer and seemed to be observing everything going on with great attention, as if he was making a mental recording so he wouldn’t forget. I certainly understand that feeling, it’s why I began recording these logs in the first place.

On science we had Cadet Honidian with us, a new recruit who was fast-tracked to officer training due to his experience aboard civilian ships. He mostly kept quiet, trying to adjust to the TSN’s operating procedure, but his competency shone through his work nonetheless.

Our first simulation was somewhat of a blur, with all of us just trying to get used to the Excalibur’s quirks. She’s equipped with a small array of powerful but slow beams, and much less ordnance than we are used to aboard the Hydra. Though her engines are roughly equal, her turning is much better than the Hydra’s, which turned out to be a much-needed boon once we embarked on our mission.

We went on one more simulation before the mission and, as if the new ship wasn’t enough to get used to, the Acting Flt. Cpt. Evans ordered everyone to operate a different station than their usual. Cdr. Verok recused himself to the comms console while Lt. Graybeard took the captain’s chair. Cessna took weapons, Blaze was on the helm, and Honidian took the trip down to engineering. I found myself at the science station, straining to remember my academy training on science protocol.

It was a humbling experience for everyone involved, and perhaps the embarrassing details are best left unsaid. Needless to say, we all came away from the experience with greater appreciation of our colleagues’ skills and expertise.

While we were debriefing and reviewing lessons learned, we got a message from Command and Control relaying reports of Caltron activity in the Poseidon Rift. The last thing we need is a Caltron attack while we’re busy focused on the war with the Unukalhai, so we were ordered to investigate and nip any potential Caltron incursion in the bud.

Easier said than done, it turned out. The Poseidon Rift is listed as a Class Red Navigation Hazard, which apparently means, “prepare to fly on instinct and adrenaline.” Our sensors showed huge swathes of asteroid fields, interrupted by roving singularities, but didn’t show the most difficult obstacle, which was gravitational waves. I had learned about their existence at the academy, but theory and practice are two entirely different things.

I had my hands full just trying to tack and jibe through the waves and avoid being pushed into an asteroid or a black hole, but then Caltrons would drop out of their wormholes and really throw a wrench in the works. There were a few times when they appeared nearly on top of us and we had to react quickly if we wanted to live to complain about it. The Caltrons didn’t seem to be affected much by the waves, though. Perhaps the same technology that allows them to bend spacetime to form wormholes can be used to smooth out the chop. I couldn’t be more jealous.

We followed the Caltrons’ trail to a strange pair of spacial anomalies everyone kept calling the Dimensional Rift. Looking out the viewscreen at them, one looked like an almost spherical giant mass of purple darkness, and the other looked like a tangled mess of copper wire. I couldn’t begin to guess at the nature of the mysterious pair, and our sightseeing was cut short by some of the strongest Caltrons we’ve ever faced.

All ships in the fleet scrambled to defend from the Caltrons, but the waves must have made our attempts look like a clumsy dance. Our tactics were limited to landing a few beam strikes before having to avoid an asteroid or a friendly ship and regroup, so it was a slow process. The Hawk, unfortunately, got caught in the middle of some strong crossfire and took heavy damage. The rest of the fleet managed to draw fire away from them while they limped away, though. After some quick repairs, we left the Dimensional Rift behind and took a meandering route back to base, looking to clean up some more Caltrons on our way.

In the next sector over, I noticed a reading near the event horizon of a singularity, a black box of some unfortunate ship, and managed to scoop it up before it was lost forever. Now that I think about it, however, we haven’t had very good luck with picking up strange cargo. I can only hope that our transfer to the Excalibur helped us leave some of the bad juju behind on the Hydra.

Back at Atlantis Command we wound down with a border war simulation, which was almost relaxing compared to navigating the Poseidon Rift. The crews of the Raven and the Hawk combined to field a carrier, but the fighters had a hard time defending against large fleets of ships. Once we cleaned up the waves of attackers, we were sent out with the Lancer to tag-team enemy bases. Surprisingly, two ships focused primarily on beam weapons managed to take care of business very effectively.

In the end-of-shift debrief, Lt. Jr. Finley had the grim duty of arresting another of our fellow officers. Ensign Remmick was arrested for hacking into fleet intelligence and I overheard some of the intelligence officers talking about how it wasn’t likely he was only guilty of negligence like Lt. Cdr. Del Pino was. I don’t know Remmick very well, but it’s hard to swallow the idea that one of our officers could turn against his comrades. He’ll be shipped back to the core of USFP space for his court martial, and I sincerely hope that his departure means the end of our trouble with sabotage–I’m not sure we have any spare ships left.

Lieutenant, Junior Grade Quinn
Helms Officer
TSN Hydra (CM-008)
2nd Fleet, 4th Light Division

[Blaze Strife]

When the Flt Cpt told us of the explosion at Hydra, I immediately looked over to Cmdr Verok. I expected to see his face change colors, from furious red to sickly green and back again, but he was composed, only allowing a corner of his lips to twitch once.

It’s good that there were no casualties, that the damage was not major and that she’ll be up and running in no time.

[Adele Mundy]

//Is there an in-character way Mundy can find out that Remmick has been arrested? There must be some formal report, right? Because she wouldn’t be reading Quinn’s personal log, and she can’t read Quinn’s mind (yet… Mwuah ha ha ha ha!)

[John van Leigh]

//If you are in contact with someone over here, yes. If not, it’ll probably be publish somewhere that an infiltrator has been caught. If not, when you get back you’re bound to hear some rumors or read a report.

[Author]

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