Old Wounds, Fresh Hell
16 Dec 2024SenorMits
Personal Log, 16/12/3310What a week to awaken from cryostasis. Before I went under, Aden Tanner had been routed from T Tauri after a failed attack on Taurus Mining Ventures, and the superpowers were rallying behind the enigmatic "Salvation." Now? Aden's been vindicated in his attack, Salvation is dead, and the superweapon he was creating died with him. But not before using it angered the Thargoids in a way I don't think we'd ever seen before.
And that's all before the final known Thargoid Titan invaded Sol.
First thing I decided to do was to investigate what a Thargoid "Titan" even was. Turns out they're some sort of mothership for the damn things, if my rummaging through various data archives was anything to go by, and that there was 8 of the things in human space. We don't know where they came from, only that they arrived after Salvation's activated his "Proteus Wave" thing, they are nearly impervious to Guardian tech without specialised protections for said tech, and we've only managed to start destroying them in earnest this March. Well, that, and that we've used their remains to reverse engineer upgraded versions of the FSD drives, which makes my inner explorer happy.
After realising we could actually fight back against these things, I took my Corvette, the Gunmetal Soul, and refitted it to be more suitable for AX combat zones, since at the time, the bugs still had control of Alpha Centauri, and I'd be damned if I wasn't going to give them a little bit of Hell myself before they were driven out. Sure, it was already fitted for AX combat as I was doing some interceptor hunting prior to stasis, but if I'm going to be hunting numerous interceptors and a frankly ridiculous number of scouts with support from local system forces, then the least I could do is get my hands on the new (to me) upgraded xeno scanner and gimballed AX enhanced multicannons, make it just that little bit easier. And easier it was, as we shredded ship after ship and slowly but surely reclaimed the systems the Thargoids were using to protect Cocijo... Or whatever it was that they held them for.
Then, of course, came the assault of Cocijo itself. Even without the promise of the pre-engineered FSD drives and whatnot, I knew I had to do my part, and after refitting my old salvage vessel Krait MK II into a Titan menace, I renamed it Bugs or Bust, and decided the only way to learn how to handle Titan conflict was to throw caution to the wind and myself to the maelstrom. My first run ended poorly, as I had somehow not realised which way was up, only managing to find the heat vents right before I had to eject. After my pod was recovered by a rescue ship that happened to be present in the maelstrom before the Thargoids got me, I at least now had a plan of attack for my second run. Nearly 50 million credits' worth of damage to the Titan's core later, I've ran out of synthesis materials for additional heatsinks, so unless I restock them, it's going to significantly effect my time on target with having to do a single run, leave the maelstrom to rearm at the miraculously still functioning Mars High, then return, all the while running the risk of Thargoid interdictions with nearly every step, so now I'll be restocking the synthesis materials before preparing for what will likely be my last few bombing runs of Cocijo given how quickly my fellow Commanders have rallied to the defense of Earth, and by extension, Sol.
To be honest, I'm concerned what the Thargoids intend to do with the Titan. Is it a desperate last stand against us, or is it intended to be used in a final "Hail Mary" by the Thargoids, turning their final mothership in human space into a giant, ticking time bomb, whose fuse is as long as it takes for us to destroy it? After all, I've seen footage of the other Titan's final moments. I dread to imagine what havoc that might cause to Earth's atmosphere, and that's assuming the Thargoids aren't going to amp it up deliberately or anything. Still, such doubt will avail me nought if it means I don't do anything out of fear of a hypothetical. Even if the Thargoids plan to use the Titan's presence or demise as part of some sort of final attack on us, humanity will survive. We always have.
Of course, if Salvation's Proteus Wave hadn't used so much Guardian tech inside of a Thargoid surface site, we might not have drawn such concentrated ire from the damn things in the first place. Or maybe we would, and that this war was inevitable. At least this way we have the tools of the Guardians at hand to exploit the Thargoid's old wounds, modified for use with human tech and protected from Thargoid interference to rain down fresh hell on them. It's a shame though, that all out conflict and possible annihilation was the only way for this conflict of species has to end. At least we aren't going the way of the Guardians from eons past.