LOG #104 - Commander A. Adair - TITAN Contractors
06 Apr 2022Aurora Adair-Levine (Radiumio)
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LOG: #105
RECORDING TYPE: Personal Log LOG PUBLICISED
What does Log Publicised mean?
In our squadron lore, these logbooks are not supposed to be publicly viewable by Commanders. However, in some circumstances, a log may be compromised OR publicised, allowing it to be considered publicly viewable - in this case, the information within can be used for story or discussion purposes in-character. Compromised implies the logbook has been leaked, whereas publicised means the logbook has been willingly released for story purposes.
RECORDING LOCATION: T.O.C. Solaris (Victory-class Carrier, Q4V-40N)
Hey...
So, our journey to Colonia finally started on the 2nd of April and it's been super exciting. Can't remember how much I spoke about it, but when we went through the route and plan with the operations crew, we decided to not go for a straight-line route to Colonia, which would take about a day. Instead, we opted for a month-long journey through all these points of interest, sightseeing and whatnot, taking each sight one day at a time. So, it'll be a slow burn but well worth the journey, clearly. It's been great so far, seeing the stars with Isa... I mean, she's been to Colonia once already but together is... special.
... Really special.
Anyway, we're not all that far out right now, only about 4,500ly, but already the sights are amazing and each day, we close in on Colonia. Since it's only a sight per day, I decided to maybe try keep up with the logbooks where I can. Things are quite relaxed around here, and the Solaris is taking the journey perfectly, so when Isa and I finish exploring or hanging out for the day, I have some time to record logs or do whatever. Sooo... I guess whenever I have stuff to share, I'll make one.
And, there is definitely stuff to share. We've visited four systems so far, and each was beautiful in its own way. At the start of the journey, we first visited this system called Mammon, which was absolutely beautiful. It was contained in this really cool nebula and had an asteroid base... and... I've... never actually seen an asteroid base before, but it was impressive. Just this... massive, hollowed out asteroid with a whole starport built inside.
It was super industrial and a bit run down, but I guess that wasn't really a surprise. It also didn't really detract from how cool it was. Sometimes it's truly amazing seeing how far humanity has come. Just... based off all the old stories, before the Frame Shift Drive became a thing and... now... now we're here. Every star within our grasp.
... Anyway, it's... yeah. An eye-opener, I guess. How small everything is, how vast just our galaxy alone can be. And adventuring through it with my incredible fiancée is genuinely the most magical thing to me. It's surreal.
Sorry. I'm rambling, haha~...
Right. After Mammon, we visited this amazing system that I can't remember the name of... but it had a ringed neutron star, and... that was truly amazing. Massive too. The system map details were almost hard to believe, just the sheer size of the rings clocked out at about 3.5 million kilometres in radius. According to all the data the operations crew collected, the sight was publicly dubbed... 'Heaven's Lathe'. Kinda fitting, honestly...
After the neutron star, we went and visited one of the recently-established Colonia Bridge megaships. 'CB-8 Tamandua', they called it. The megaship itself wasn't anything spectacular or different, but the planet it orbited... well... that was a totally different story. The system had all these gas giants, and the megaship orbited this... uh... it was this milky gas giant with brown stripes, I guess.
And now, today... we visited another asteroid base called 'Attenborough's Watch'. It was much like the other one, filled with prefab structural supports, landing pads, but... it had its own vibe to it. It was cool. Not to mention it also orbited an incredible gas giant like the megaship did, so it was yet another really cool sight. Isa and I spent out time today just exploring the system, after we checked out the asteroid base.
Spent a good few hours together exploring this one atmospheric world, which had a few biological lifeforms on it. Still amazes me how life can survive out here, but... hey, it does. And it's beautiful. Life always finds a way, hm?
Anyway, all the exploring tired Isa out a bit and so we called it early, and she went to rest aboard the Solaris. Though, I still... I still had this itch to do something, I guess. I wanted to explore, but not without her... so... I... uh... I instead checked out that asteroid base again. One thing led to another and... I saw they had some simple jobs up. Two caught my eye, some simple package delivery and a small-scale retrieval operation for a stolen sample, nothing big.
... so I accepted both. It wasn't a big deal, the package delivery was just taking a schematic to someone, and it gave me a chance to get to know the local area a bit and get back into the groove of things, somewhat. The retrieval operation on the other hand... was also not really anything in the end. Turns out the local researchers were dealing with scavengers or something stealing their samples and hiding them in planetary caches. The job was to raid one of the known caches and try recover a particularly valuable sample. Simple enough, right?
So, I did the package delivery first. Not gonna lie, it felt... odd. Suiting up and going out alone. Carrying a rifle or whatever. Haven't had to do that in a while. Arm myself and... venture out into a settlement alone. There was no issue with it, though. Passed the security scans and nobody seemed to care about me being there, but I still felt nervous even after handing the package over. But, when I took the Templar out to that cache for the retrieval operation, landed on that planet and got out the ship... it... it felt weird holding a weapon again. Scary, actually. Got me thinking back to things and... I froze for a bit...
I guess maybe I've been getting so used to having a normal life, that heading out to carry out some 'raid' in a system where I knew nothing about local politics just felt wrong. At the very least, there was no one at the cache. It was just scattered and locked up, and breaking into the containers to find the samples was easy. But by the time I got back into my ship, I was... I was actually shaking... couldn't hold my hands steady. Took me a few minutes to calm down and... yeah. I don't know. I felt scared, and I don't know why.
I haven't told Isa yet... and she might find out in this log. So, honey... if you find out before I can figure out how to tell you... or whether I should bother telling you... I'm sorry. I just figure it was... was a bit of a scare at first but nothing happened so... no big deal. I'll be more careful in the future and... not do stuff like that. Sorry. I guess things have just been... so... 'normal' for once. Being with Isa and being able to actually take time off stuff. To enjoy being with her.
I just kinda wanted to do something, maybe help out a bit in the system just to keep myself busy, but... I didn't expect to feel like that. I returned to the Solaris immediately after confirming the completion of the contracts, and... well... now I'm sat in my ship, thinking and recording this. It's late and I should get to bed but... I figured I could handle something simple like this. Apparently not.
... Anyway. I'm okay. It's passed and I'm still really happy and so excited with the trip and everything we've seen so far, and I can't wait to see more with Isa... my beautiful other half. I'll... try talk to her about this. Just don't want to make her mad or anything... since... here's me going and doing other silly stuff again or... whatever... haha~...
Right... I'm tired. Time to go and call it a night. I'll try have some more updates on the trip as we carry on, but... for now... yeah. Thanks.
See ya around... bye!
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Credit:
This story is only possible thanks to our squadron and community. Join TITAN Contractors, a diverse and talented squadron, and experience our custom lore and events. This logbook as well as associated images and story is property of TITAN Contractors, CMDR Radiumio. A special thank you to CMDR Isabella Levine for allowing me to use their character in the story!
INARA page here.