LOG #108 - Commander A. Adair - TITAN Contractors
23 Aug 2023Aurora Levine-Adair (Radiumio)
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LOG: #108
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.
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Well... it's been a whole year since I've done one of these. A lot has happened since then and... quite honestly, I don't really know how to start this off.
This'll probably not make any sense for anyone who doesn't know me or my squadron. But... I did want to record this... and this'll probably the last log I'll do. Just y'know... for records sake, and in case anyone was actually reading the ones I published before, or... knows about what happened to TITAN. In my last log, I was talking about reaching Colonia and planning to marry the most lovely woman I know. Then I just... dropped off the face of the galaxy... sort of.
A lot has changed with my life and... some of it for the better, I guess. Other things, I'm still working through. I honestly had to go back and read some of what I've said before to make sure this can make some kind of sense. This is probably going to be mostly a rant but... I want to just put an end onto everything that happened. And to let the galaxy know that I'm not dead after all. Yay.
Uhh... so... I guess I'll start off with the fact that the squadron I got put in charge of - TITAN - suffered the worst situation I've seen in person before and... it's... somewhat my fault.
I'm kind of past dancing around what it really is... or looking for sympathy. I've been thinking about it a lot for months. Isabella will most definitely disagree with me but... I lied a lot about who I was, just to try start a new life. But sometimes your past just kinda returns anyway and bites you in the ass, and... there's not much you can do about it in the end. Which is what happened to me.
Our wedding in Colonia didn't work out... not because of anything between us but... because of my past. Because all those groups that attacked the squadron... from Hivemind to Paladin... they were all just shells for a much bigger group. One that my father was trying to take down called 'EMBER'... or rather the EMBER Syndicate. That's why all of this happened. That's why I was... made Squadron Commander.
I was supposed to be a contingency plan... to take control of a squadron that could feasibly take down this group if my father failed. But... I didn't see what was really happening then. I guess I was blinded by wanting to leave my past behind and start a new life with someone I love. Enough that I tried to forget who I was, and what I did.
The truth is, after Obi and working there as a security guard... I didn't have a gap in work and then simply join the squadron. I... had a lot of difficulties coming to terms with what happened to me. I hated myself for... letting my family down by [#@$!]ing up Obi... by doing that against their wishes. And there wasn't really a healthy outlet for all the things I felt.
So... that gap in work was when I joined the Federal Navy under pressure from my father. He wanted me to follow in my family's footsteps... serve a greater purpose... serve a superpower that really couldn't give a [#@$!] about its people... all that crap. And I did all of it... because I wanted to be appreciated. Valued. To not feel like a failure.
I'm sure people will judge me for that or... wonder why I didn't use my brain. And... I ask myself that same question some days, honestly. Why didn't I see it sooner? And... I don't know. I wish I did see it sooner... always. I could've maybe stopped people getting hurt or... hurting them myself. Because military service is unsurprisingly far from being as glamorous and prestigious as some make it out to be.
I saw a lot of... [#@$!]ed up things. A lot of [#@$!]ed things I did myself. And... I'm not going to go into it but... I regret everything about that part of my life. I wanted to leave it behind so badly. Some things we were tricked into doing... others we just did because that's how we were trained. That was what we were told was the 'greater purpose'.
I was a Red Hunter... who were better known as the Crimson Venators. The ex-black ops group that defected from the Federation to try 'correct corruption'... and ended up just becoming mercenaries that were tricked by EMBER into doing their bidding. I left after they defected and tried to get away from it. That's when I... joined the squadron, which was just another trick by my father. He duped the old Squadron Commander, Quinton, into faking his death just so I could step up in his place via his will.
Quinton's own family had suffered at the hands of EMBER too... though I guess he never knew the full story back then. That's actually why he even started the TITAN Contractors squadron. But... the loss of his whole family and having a chance to finally strike back at EMBER apparently made him willing to give everything away to me, just so he could... I don't know. Go and try avenge them, I guess. I never saw him again after I met him that one time... after my father died. I don't even know if he really knew who I was. He never came back to help us. Never... did anything, really. Just gave me some motivational 'you can do it!' speech that meant nothing in the end.
Anyway... every time I mentioned the name of the Venators in a log before... I admittedly knew what I was saying. I knew who they were. I just... wanted to hide it. I was never scared of anything more in my life. I kept wondering why they returned, why they were targeting us again, when they were supposed to have forgotten me.
Mainly because I... didn't want it to hit the squadron. It really is my home. I've met a lot of great people here and... y'know... met the love of my life. I didn't want to drag the squadron into it... I didn't want to drag Isabella into it. I didn't want to drag all my friends down with me again, and end up like another failure. I was scared that people finding out who I was would destroy my life again, so I tried to hide it.
Well... it all came out. That's why our wedding fell apart in Colonia... because my past came out. Isabella knew long before anyone else... and she accepted it and tried to protect me. But, as fate would have it, someone exposed it, the Federation pulled the thumb out of their ass and came all the way out to Colonia to try arrest me, and then the squadron turned against me. So, I ran and... Isabella came with me. That's why I didn't make any logs for over a year... there was barely any time, and nothing to say that... anyone would care about, I thought.
It took a while to figure out what to do with... pretty much everything you knew and cared about bearing down on you, but... ultimately we decided to try figure out what my father was trying to do before he was... killed by the Venators... or rather EMBER. I suppose they thought killing him would remove the last witness who truly held information about them or something. But we went back to Sol, and... uncovered a whole databank left behind as a contingency. All the information my father had kept as a backup... with four keys hidden around places relevant to me.
All that time was spent trying to unlock it... and eventually reconnecting with the squadron. By then... the attacks were getting more persistent and more violent. Right as we were able to reveal that the 'Syn Group' and all those other shells I mentioned before, all connected to a syndicate called EMBER. Which was the same group that first attacked the squadron with those 11 people... all that time ago... but that was ages ago now.
Turns out they were a lot bigger than just 11 people... and... this was the group my father was trying to shut down. He wanted me to join the Navy so I could get the skills and knowledge to help him, but... EMBER knew. They always knew about him, about me, about the Red Hunters. All those things we did, all the operations we did against Federal settlements that supposedly 'abandoned' the Federation... they were all just operations to keep covering up EMBER. And to cover up a weapon they were developing.
So... I inadvertently helped keep our enemy hidden. Every attack from Hivemind, from Paladin, from the Venators... it was all EMBER. A clever game of smoke and mirrors. I don't know exactly why my father didn't tell me earlier and... why I had to find out through logs left behind... and why he thought using TITAN was a good way to take down EMBER. But... I'll... never get to ask him, so...
People keep saying I was the uncontrolled variable that EMBER didn't expect, but... I'm... I'm not a [#@$!]ing hero. And I don't think I did that much in the end. I can't take all the credit. I... owe everything to this squadron. For their help... when they should've never been dragged into this. I owe my life to Isabella. I couldn't have survived the year without her. And it was all just to stop some crazed Admirals that thought developing an alien superweapon was a good idea.
That was the whole thing behind this to begin with. EMBER started out as a research group in the Federation, trying to... exploit Thargoid technology for weapon applications... but all the moral and ethical concerns dissauded the project from being officially developed and funded. But... when it got shut down, the group continued in secret and figured out how to channel the infrasonic effects into an electromagnetic weapon... so it could feasibly target both humans and craft. They mounted it to a carrier, [#@$!]ed off from the Federation and disappeared into obscurity for a few years, before they resurfaced and all this started.
And... the squadron got to experience the first prototype first-hand. Thousands of p-people died because of it...
...
So, yeah. An entire year spent trying to... not die. Trying to shut down an organization hunting me down for something I didn't want anything to do with. Watching the squadron I was apart of fall apart because of all of this. Trying to unlock that databank and get some semblance of help, only to find out the Federation didn't want to help us even when we had the information right in front of them.
But, we won. Guess that much is obvious if I'm talking about it. The squadron managed to rebuild... and we managed to take down EMBER. I guess that would usually be a 'hurray', but... even though it's been a few months, I... I don't know. Some nights I still have nightmares and... remember what happened when we led the final strike against EMBER's carrier... the Black Edge, and managed to destroy the prototype weapon... or... well... the enemy sabotaged it themselves in a last stand.
Sounds like a [#@$!]ing movie but... it happened... and then... faded into obscurity. The only records we have are all the ones the squadron kept. And all I have to remember it is being paralyzed. When the weapon detonated after they sabotaged it... a piece of shrapnel hit me in the back... so I can't walk without assistance anymore. I honestly thought that was it for me. Still... remember seeing Isabella's face. That expression of... pain and upset still haunts me even... even though she's still around.
Oh... and... we... we did get married. Isabella and I. Imagine my shock... when she still wanted to be with me after everything... haha...
Yeah... she's amazing. Still going stronger than ever. It'll be... almost two years soon. Still... madly in love with her. We got married on a beach and... had a lovely day together on the 3rd of May this year. She was in this amazing purple dress... rocking it as with everything she wears. She's got our purple engagement ring and this gorgeous wedding ring that some crew on the Solaris helped me fabricate. That'll forever be the greatest day I've had in my life... and it's all because of her.
Part of me will... probably always think I'll never deserve someone like her... even after all the reassurances she gives me. So... I try do my best. I try make her happy and... look after us. Even though there's this... whole Thargoid War... with the aliens being unhappy that humanity tried to wipe them out a second time... which isn't surprising. Just humans doing... human things again, as per usual.
The squadron itself is... recovering. I don't think we'll... ever stop feeling the blow of all the thousands of people that we lost in the conflict with EMBER. But we... try keep going. We've grown a lot over the last few months and... will probably keep on going. With my injury I've been taking time off... healing and... preparing for a spinal surgery that I'm really anxious about... since it's a bit dangerous. But... I probably won't update how it goes... if I do go through with it. Not through a log, at least. I struggle to keep up with everything as it is and... I... just want to spend time with Isabella. Just wanna carry on with my life now.
I did... want to share one last thing, though. About the databank and... my father. The reason I became a Commander so easily and stepped into the squadron's leadership role was because he was a Triple Elite Commander and pulled all those strings, as I discovered. But... with him... passing away and... leaving the databank behind... there was a section addressed to me after all the information that helped us bring down the enemy. I... guess I'll link it here if anyone's interested in seeing the databank. Though... you'd probably need a lot more context to make sense of it.
Anyway, turns out he... left behind a lot more for me. I found out when I tried to reconcile with my family recently. That was... really personal so I'm not going into how that went but... my mother did reveal that she kept a digital key that my father gave her during the last week he was... alive. It was for the databank, and when used, it unlocked the section addressed to me and... contained instructions and all sorts of legal crap that would facilitate transferring my father's accolades to me.
So... when this goes through I'll... be a Triple Elite Commander too... with his auxiliary Federal and Imperial ranks, and all the stuff I inherited from the squadron. And he... left behind a whole bunch of his own personal stuff. Armour, weapons, other souvenirs from his time in the military. Some stuff we got on our own little journeys when I was younger. Just some more things to add to my... imposter syndrome... ha...
The squadron is helping me sort this out and... there's some Pilots' Federation representatives too. I'm not sure if I really want it. I'm still conflicted over my father. I hate how I... didn't get to spend more time with him... and I hate what he 'tricked' me into doing. I'll never get to say how I feel to him... but... he also did leave behind an audio log that sort of went through it all from his side. So... I feel like the least I could is accept this. And the operations crew approves of it... even if I don't feel like I deserve it.
So... that's... my mess of a life, I guess. That's all that happened over a year... and I did try and simplify it for this log, so... I might've missed something or... maybe it didn't make any sense at all. But I just wanted to have this out there... because it's done. It's over with and... I'm going to move on with my life. Going to move on with having a future with Isabella and... leave my past behind for good.
I just want to thank everyone again... everyone who was involved or tried to help me. I really appreciate it. I really do. I haven't always been at my best... the squadron hasn't always been at its best and... so many people were affected and touched by all of it, whether they were there since it started or accidentally got stuck in the middle. There's nothing I can really say to take the sting out of it or... take back what happened. But... I'm sorry anyway. I see the operations crew really wanting to make things right again, and to keep on helping people. They do a fantastic job at it and... I hope that can continue for everyone.
Yeah. That's it, I guess.
Ah... I dunno. I didn't want to divulge a ton of detail... I've already had to experience what happened over an entire year so replaying it in my head isn't the greatest thing. But... the squadron does keep a record of the articles... that should cover most of what happened. So... if you're interested, have a look at the public bit of our network here. Guess the best bit to start at from when I went dark is... the 26th of April, 3308.
So, yeah. Like I said... I... think this'll be my last log. Had enough excitement for one lifetime, haha. Now... I... want to spend the rest with the love of my life. Still going to be apart of the squadron though. Trying to lead it as best as I can... probably continuing to explore with Isabella and doing stuff as a couple. Hopefully I... survive my upcoming surgery and can get back to doing... whatever we want, once I learn how to... walk again, ha.
Hopefully, it'll be more relaxing stuff... as relaxing as can be in this line of work... and with the Thargoids being absolutely pissed at us. Can't really blame them, but... so it goes. The squadron's in good hands with the operations crew, and they've been a huge help with managing things while I've been out of action. So... I hope that can keep going. And that this senseless war can... eventually come to an end. Only time will tell.
As for me... well... I'm married, happier than I used to be... and utterly enthralled with my special someone. After everything that happened, well... things are pretty damn good after all.
Anyway... this is Aurora. Signing off... for now.
Fly safe.
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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.