Third Entry
24 Aug 2020K0B4LT
Daggum damn dagnabbit I've not written in this thing for a loooong while. Where'd I leave off at...In general, I've been busy the last couple of months. So I never really went off to help Ram Tah. In fact, I retired my Jockey entirely, and bought an Anaconda to fill the void she left. The Long Walk, though the Fog. Actually I've had this Anaconda for a while, but she was a mining vessel back in the day, now outfitted to jump as far as possible.
Speaking of which, remember back in the day when I said I was never gonna go back to Colonia or The Galactic Center? Yeah that was a load o' bullshit; Took The Long Walk out to the Center, then to Colonia. Dunno why, trial by fire for my shiny new 70+ light year jump range, maybe. Dunno if it was even worth it, only thing I found in the center this time was a friggin' Wendy's in a Drake-class carrier. I thought they went out of business a few hundred years ago?
Took one look at Sagittarius, went 'neat,' then made a mad dash back to Jaques', who greeted me like he remembered me. I briefly explained what I was doing, and he laughed, saying something like 'people always come back' or something. I think he was lightly mocking me, the smug jackass.
Before I made my way back to the Bubble ,I noticed there was one of them Carrier ship-yards by Jaques', too. Said to myself 'What the hell' and bought one. Barely made it back to the Bubble before there was a sudden drought of Tritium, apparently it wasn't as abundant as first believed. Thank God Galactic Logistics came through and brought over my mining chonker of a Type 9, but there was another person that helped me out some. I don't remember their name, but they turned me onto a group called the 'Astrobiology Research Collective.' Yeah, them ARC guys from the last entry! He said a couple more of them would come out to help in a couple of hours. Sure enough they did. Got a look into one of their cockpits and noticed that they weren't entirely human. Not cyborg or Thargoid or Guardian or anything, but looked like Humanoid Animals, if that makes sense. Like one of them looked like a sheep, but with hands with thumbs and sentience and all that jazz. I asked about it, rather jarred, and they said that ARC does Genetic Modifications to help combat various diseases, and that the new appearance is an 'avoidable harmless side-effect that most choose not to avoid.'
The mining and refueling of my Carrier went on for a few more hours, but she was full enough to reach anywhere within the Bubble and a bit beyond. I decided to name her 'The Arctic Mage' because that's what popped into my head, and jumped her (and my rag-tag mining crew back) to Segon, the home system of ARC. These three helped me out, I figured I'd measly return the favor, and check out this collective in O'Leary Vision. Turns out they're the real friendly type, almost too much so; the profusion of gratitude I got for returning the miners from one of them, A humanoid cat or something, was a bit much. Hell, most anyone inside was a variation of a humanoid animal, apparently a thousand-some years ago there was this thing called' Furry' back on earth that was real popular, almost cult-like if the Galnet's to be believed. I bet they'd be rolling in their graves if they could see this. I digress; A couple of their doctors offered me a pair of vaccines; one that would give a signifigant boost to my own immune system for a few years, and one that would prevent the appearance altering side-effect. They assured me I could get the cosmetic part done to me whenever, so I went ahead and had both. No side-effects to date. Dunno if I'll take them up on the cosmetics, but for now I'll stay as a plain ol' human. I met up with a couple of the old Federation Retirees after, and they helped me get all friendly with the Federation, enough that I ended up with my own Federal Corvette. She is REAL fun to fly, can waltz real well given her plus-sized nature.
I'm rambling again. I decided to join up with the ARC's primary squadron, their Wardens' Offworld Operations. Nice enough folk, turns out those Miners were actually more a part of that than ARC in general. Wasn't a whole much to do while with the squadron, just chill out, mine some stuff, hunt some pirates, etc. Never really felt like I left being independent.
Couple days ago, there was a change. Apparently a subset of ARC, the Prometheus Astro-Logistics Corporation, went defunct a month back, and another organization, Delta Squadron, saw fit to try and take over what was left behind. Being a subset, ARC would have rights to PAL's assets. I'm not allowed to get into specifics, but I was told to bolster PAL's influence in their main system without getting it too high up. Basically a whole lot of Bureaucracy and Politics: Talks are in the works, but Delta's not been responsive, and the Alliance Council, or what I've heard, is generally split over the situation. Hoping the council will favor us, Delta has a Lot under their control, like 80-90 separate systems over ARC's now 2 systems. One would think that'd be enough to keep their plates full, especially since it came to light that they've tried to keep this in the dark, and it was only noticed by everyone else a few days ago. To me, smells like general greed. Squadron leader has a seat on the Council due to PAL and him owning what's left of it, but has a proponent of Lavingly's Legion of all people. I've spoken with their representative a few times, and he apparently took the ARC Side-effect, too; short-haired feline, dunno what kind, couldn't really tell though the remlok. Speaking of, his tail was sticking out of it. Is that part of the suit? If not, what would happen during depressurization? Would it fall off, explode? If so, what of the hole for it? Or does it get one of those insta-protection things like the helmets? More questions, dunno if Remlok actually helps in the modification for them, or if they even condone it.
What else, what else am I allowed to say...? There's another commander in this system that's apparently had bad history with ARC, though I've not pried into what happened in the past, and they've a carrier here, too. Their flight log is impossible to get into, but they've a public journal, just like me! Only three entries in it, though, with the latest being a year ago, though it's all titled 'S-Arc War' which makes me thing it's related. Something about 'respect was shown, time to return it' and a recovery of sorts. This whole situation plays like a movie, so I wonder if this is a character arc? Not to dismiss how personal this is to others, I mean I'm invested and I wanna see it through. I hope that commander don't find it disrespectful that I've read their public logs, but as far as I'm aware, they're not affiliated with our current enemy.
I gotta get back to work, money won't make itself these days.