Personal Log #001 - Long Overdue
07 Feb 2021Cycordeth
StarDate: 2.6.3307 04:55Ship: Krait Phantom
Location: Shinrarta Dezhra | Jameson Memorial
Saturday
First entry in... how many years?... The lifestyle hasn't lended itself to keeping record, ya know? Yet the drive to put thought to screen overcomes years of training and decades of discipline.
It was almost a year ago. I was keeping a low profile, I had plenty of credits, a brand new I.D., I'd had just gotten through perfecting the false bio-metric readouts on my DBX - the works - and somehow out of no where that bastard Vhan is on my holo display with that fucking half-cocked grin. I must of dropped the first bread crumb back on [redacted], when I was getting that burner Alliance I.D. from that good for nothing, Hok. Last time he sees a single credit from me, the greasy bastard.
Vhan starts off with his usual line, "Don't disconnect, I only need a seco--". I don't even let him finish. After the last year, after what I went through to get them the names on that list?... No, I wasn't going back, I had enough credits to retire, I wanted for nothing, and I was... bored.
After the third time he hacked into my coms, I finally gave in and let him speak his mind. Of course when 04:00 rolls around and I let the bottle of Synthehol slip out of my fingers and the sound of the drone vacuuming up glass for the second time that night startles me awake; I know I let those damn rose-tinted goggles get in the way again. Thinking back on it, I vaguely remember we were both sloshed, reminiscing times we both knew better than to venture back into. He finally brought up the question... when was I getting back into the service?
The bottle flew through the air and into the coms console with surprising accuracy for being drunk, I must say so myself. I only know because I watched the recording, making double sure I hadn't let something carelessly slip. But even then, I could see the moment it happened - the seed was planted.
Within a month I had tracked Vhan down through his usual contacts. He's nothing but consistent, I'll give him that. How it hasn't ended up with him in chains on some no-name Federation prison planet, I'll never know. But through him I got a lead back to [redacted], who got me the location of our flagship. It felt good to walk those halls again. Quickly I fell right back into old routines and even reestablished some of my more rather lucrative I.D.'s. However, before getting the opportunity to get too comfortable, I received orders to try and reach out to an old teammate.
I finally got in touch with Salma out in [redacted], but the moment I finished my spiel, she laughed in my face and disconnected the call. Good. She's gonna grow old and die happy in that squad, I can tell. Some people deserve whatever modicum of happiness they can eek out of the black. Funny thing, this empty black void all around us; the harder you try and find the light, the closer you get to that light, the harder you push, the brighter it gets... until it consumes you. Tiana Fortune reminds me of her, it's always a little sad when I pass through Achenar, knowing I'll probably never see Salma again.
But, soon after, I had new orders. Suddenly there wasn't time to return the lost sheep to the fold, and again for the first time in a few years I woke up with a purpose again and... it felt good. I was to acquire some new blueprints on some tech that had come out since I'd stepped away from the organization.
Without much choice, I had to reach back out to Vhan, who was able to get me back on the good side of [redacted]. [redacted] got me back in touch with Tod - The fool still insists on calling himself 'The Blaster' - who was able to get me a lead on Selene Jean. She was easy enough to track down with the last half decent Miner's I.D. that Hok was able to scrounge up for me, and even easier to bribe. Thankfully she left me alone in her office for a few minutes and I was able to intercept the location of Didi Vatermann from one of their communications.
Didi was an interesting gal - hard, but fair. What she's going to do with that much brandy, I'll never want to know. Can you imagine, drinking that foul fermented juice? Stick to the Synthehol. But I wasn't in LEESTI for very long, Elvira Martuuk finally got back to a comm I had sent a few weeks back. She had information on Zacariah Nemo, and I needed it.
I didn't realize the bastard had set himself up pretty with the Party of Yuro. Hok was able to scrounge up an older I.D. though, and after greasing the wheels a bit, I had a diplomatic permit. Zacariah wasn't too happy when I knocked on his door, but I'll be damned if the man doesn't know when he's beat.
I got a lead while getting some work done by Zacariah - apparently some new guardian tech is slipping further into the commercial market and I got my hands on most of a data cache in a game of cards. As expected, I woke up to that damn blinking red light that very night. The orders were simple enough, I was to go to [redacted] and pick up a parcel. But it all had to be above board, so I had to spend a few days leaving a paper trail before acquisition.
At least that's how it started; I didn't know I'd be down on that barren rock in those blasted ruins for two weeks. In the parcel was most of a data cache, though pretty damaged, and some coordinates for a planet out in Synuefe NL-N C23-4. It was worth taking the risk on those coordinates, some old ruins where I scrapped together enough data to recreate the missing parts of the data cache.
All that's left now is to wait overnight here at Jameson Memorial while [redacted] works on decrypting and working the the data in the cache. Hopefully with these new blueprints I will be able to push the Trade I.D. further through the ranks. My eye is set on earning enough credits to re-outfit my fleet, there's been some impressive new tech coming out and it isn't cheap.