Increased Energy Readings Detected
05 Aug 2022Ember Lacson
Those were the words that woke me up a few hours ago. It took me a second to realize what was going on. Nicole was still in my lap; I remember her asking to have a seat for a few minutes while we watched for the Wave. I remember her falling asleep on my shoulder. I don't remember anything after that, so I must have fallen asleep quickly.I slapped Nicole on the shoulder to make sure she was awake, and I shifted my weight. It took her a few moments to get her bearings, but she got up and made for the ladder. I told her to wait until we figured out what was going on. She came back to stand next to my chair, and she bent down as I checked my radar and found nothing, then opened the FSS and did a fresh honk. I checked for non-human signal sources, and they hadn't diminished. Varian Scott still absolutely crawling with bugs. I searched for potential crashed Thargoid sites. Not a one. "Eden, what the hell is going on?" I asked.
"Increased energy readings coming from the Thargoid structure on 10b, CMDR," Eden replied. "It is likely charging for some purpose."
"The Wave," I said. It seems my tip-off was more or less correct; the Wave has been activated, but it hasn't fired. It should happen sometime in the next seven days. So, the question is, do we stay here and wait on the off chance the weapon is activated sometime today, or do we try and snag some more easy bonds before the Wave goes off? CMDR Buur and others have confirmed that the Thargon swarms are not supposed to be this docile, and that normally Interceptor combat is much more difficult. I did feel like it was a little too easy when I nailed my first Cyclops a few weeks ago, and the AXI isn't granting ranks for anything in HIP 22460. But still, the money is good. I've got over 300M in bonds as it stands.
That reminds me...I offered Nicole every last credit from our outing with the AXI as sort of a recompense. It would give her a ton of freedom to explore her career, and I certainly don't need it. But she refused. She said she admired my ambition, that she was almost jealous of it. She said while she was sitting there paralyzed with fear that the world would be too unforgiving and she would lose her life to unfortunate circumstances, I jumped in with both feet. I grinded. I slogged through the shit. I jumped through hoop after hoop to please the pettiest of engineers. I spent months flying around, picking through wrecked Anacondas and Clippers to find valuable salvage. I cracked and lasered hundreds of floating space rocks. And it got me to where I am now, to where she wants to be.
In some ways, she feels she'll never measure up. So I hooked her hair behind her ear and told her she would never have to while caressing that soft cheek of hers. I said the only person she needed to compare herself to was Nicole Wolff from the day before. And I told her that action does not follow motivation, but action begets motivation. I said I've spent more than half my time this year just lying around on the Morningstar doing nothing, not out of laziness but from depression. But I got that ping about the AXI doing their event back on July 15th, and I resolved to fly that day. It took one of my officers dynamiting me out of bed, but I got my ass in that seat and I made 300 million without hardly trying, plus a load of new friends to boot. And I've flown almost every day since. There's nothing wrong with not wanting to do something. But sometimes it's an obstacle we need to cross in order to reach our goals, or even to be happy for a few minutes.
That was the second time she kissed me. Not as much passion; the first time had been a moment of high emotion, and she felt under the influence of adrenaline. But this one felt much better with the tender sincerity behind it. Now, a few days later, we still haven't talked much about where this is going. She's more open with her affection, but I still don't know her intentions. Whatever they are, at least I know she will strive to bring me closure.
I'm going to stay right here unless she asks to head back to the carrier. If we don't get a Wave activation in the next 24 hours, I think we'll do a few AX combat runs. My source says something big might be happening on the 9th, so I'll probably hop in the Asp with her again that morning. I'm still leery, but I share Nicole's curiosity. Until next time, o7