Personal Log #002 - Short Notice
08 Feb 2021Cycordeth
StarDate: 2.8.3307 09:52Ship: Type-9 Heavy
Location: Pikum | Rushworth Station
I didn't expect it to go smoothly - how often can things go right in one day? As it turns out, at least a few times.
The data cache produced exactly what I was looking for, and I must say the results speak for themselves. After a few anxiety ridden hours, [redacted] got word back through to me that the decryption was complete and we had our prize; why he felt like he needed to send a service drone with a sticky note on it, I wont ever know. He spewed something about not wanting to have the message intercepted.
Yeah, right, as if I hadn't already thought of that - we're literally under the thumb of the Dark Wheel. They don't intercept, you just use their channels. Hell, I would be surprised if they weren't reading this as I type it. Still, he might of popped a blood vessel when the only response I had was to just gesture broadly as if to imply, who knows, maybe the very walls could have ears. That's when my blood ran cold, if [redacted] worked for the Dark Wheel, who could he possibly be worried about seeing our comms? I thought better than to ask.
Still, there are some perks that come with being part of the organization. Friendly terms with the Dark Wheel, for one - well, as friendly as one can expect to be. They don't hassle me, I don't hassle them, and it was only and extra 5 Epsilon Obelisk Data Patterns to [redacted] to get the decryption done overnight. I barely had to bribe the port worker to make sure the proper ship manifest made it into their records. But, Hok deserves some extra credits, that I.D. he pulled for me in Houtman City a few years back came in handy. Sailed straight through security when I took Dora out for a test drive with the new tech, no issues - it passed the checks with codes 2 years out of date which means the greasy bastard isn't recycling his codes and I won't need to fear for my life every time I use an older one. But, judging by his slightly shocked expression on holo comms earlier today, I think he didn't expect to hear from me again after two weeks out of the bubble.
I've spent countless hours listening to the Hum of Dora's engines. She's so stripped down, you can feel the purr of the floorboards when you boost. To hear her power on and... well, she sounds different. Smoother. Quieter. Almost imperceptibly different, but knowing I have some Guardian tech in her really gives me some piece of mind. We may not know much about the Thargoids, but what I do know is they are brilliant. The stuff they operate on is light-years ahead of us, and whatever backwards engineering lead us to splicing it into our drives, our power plants & distributors... it wont be long until we're flying around in the ships themselves.
But all of that means shit if I can't use the tech in my fleet. Thankfully, the third and greatest challenge came and went without issue as well. Knowing Hok wasn't recycling the I.D.'s allowed me to commission quick transport of most of my fleet. It took some time tracking down separate channels for each vessel, but knowing who to talk to, and knowing when to cash in on a few favors, doesn't hurt. This left my pretty precarious though, as I don't want to draw too much attention to any individual vessel of mine. Sometimes you get to ride the wheel up as it turns - but, in the hopes I don't get crushed once its finished it's rotation, I got out of there as quick as I could in my only truly clean ship; with plans to return in a few days in hopes of being more inconspicuous.
He may be called Heavy, but Hev can really fly. I helped one of the engineers who was on the team developing modifications for the up and coming Type-10, got in early on the ground floor of the behemoth of a ship. She cost a pretty penny, but I was flush at the time from a few months in the black out mining. However, my Defender has been collecting dust back in WYRD for a year or two now - having never really flown either the 9 or 10 much, I have to admit I underestimated such a fine craft. The differences between the 9 and 10 are subtle, but flying the Heavy really showcases how much they stripped away only to shove more guns and plating than I thought possible into the Defender.
Running Abraham, the best damn Beluga this side of the Crab Nebula, from Yenici to [redacted] back when I did wetworks for the organization really gave me a bad taste for the large ships. Sure Abe could house a small army AND a king, and sometimes did, but I hadn't progressed very far in the organization in some time and I admit, I was impetus. I shirked the finer quarters provided on such a luxury vessel and worked myself to the bone. It paid off though, as I quickly was able to cherry pick missions, doing what others couldn't or wouldn't, and it let me climb fast and far. Now... well, my right eye isn't what it used to be and either am I.
I sit here now in the Heavy, in what could honestly be the biggest room I've been able to call my own in well over a decade. With the vastness of space, the one thing they always don't have enough room for on most ships is... room... but the halls seem to stretch on for so long I can run laps in the morning instead of the treadmill, and I think I almost took the wrong corridor coming here to write and rest. Abe might have a few less sharp corners, but I'll be damned if cargo isn't quieter than those bastard that used to yell for detours all over the galaxy. I look forward to the next few days; trading commodities between Pikum and [redacted]. Quite time out in the black always clears a mans head.