Personal Log | Lt Commander Travis Andrea | Federal Navy
12 Aug 2022Travis Andrea
[Stardate: 12 August 3308]I decided to start keeping a log today. Being part of the Federal Navy’s operations in HIP 22460 made the threat of being killed in an attack by the Thargoids feel all too real and this serves as a way to potentially share information and to prove that I existed in the event of my untimely death.
I was stationed on the Bright Sentinel in the beginning of the battle of HIP 22460, as part of a small contingent of Federal Naval pilots tasked with providing security while the Proteus Wave was being completed. It was a boring deployment from what I could remember, my unit’s job was to engage any Thargoid vessels that jumped into the region but the entire time I was there, it remained quiet.
Most of my contingent were still green, some were fresh out of the academy. They were all so eager to fight Thargoids and get some real-world combat experience. I had to remind one or two of them that we were Federal Navy personnel and that we needed to behave accordingly while on a deployment but other than that, they were a well put together bunch. I kept them running training simulations while they weren't patrolling because it kept them out of trouble, kept them sharp and I knew the danger that we were all in if a Thargoid vessel actually did breach our perimeter, so they would need to be prepared.
A few days into the deployment, I was suddenly called back to Federal space to aide in operations to destroy the Red Family crime syndicate. I was glad to be getting out of what was quickly becoming an entire deployment of routine patrols, administrative work and keeping my unit from getting bored and making bad decisions.
Then came 9 August 3308. I was back at my home station, Ito Orbital when the Proteus Wave fired. The firing of the weapon and our “final victory” was being broadcast live to every public monitor on station. I remember the cheers as the weapon fired and I remember the wave of shock and complete silence from what followed.
The Federal Navy cancelled leave for all officers and enlisted personnel in the system and ordered put us on combat alert. They immediately sent out a search and rescue mission and I volunteered, as I needed to get to the Bright Sentinel and rescue my soldiers who were still stationed there.
We jumped into the system after what felt like an eternity, and we were immediately hit with system failures and power fluctuations. It appeared as if the secondary pulse that fired from the Proteus Wave was still affecting the entire system. Even our Farragut-Class Battlecruiser couldn’t escape the effects of the weapon.
We arrived at what was left of the Bright Sentinel, and it was worse than I could have imagined. The megaship had been completely destroyed, along with what appeared to have been pilots attempting to escape. There was debris everywhere and the bodies of those unfortunate souls who were ejected into space during the megaship’s destruction.
Suddenly our scanners picked up life forms. There weren’t many but we collected every escape pod on the scanners. As we were bringing the survivors on board, the Thargoids warped into the area. I’ve never seen so many Thargoids in my life, nonetheless in one location. Our Admiral ordered an immediate withdrawal and we managed to jump into hyperspace just as we begun to take fire from the faster Thargoid vessels.
After reaching Federal space, I learned that my entire unit was gone. They’d all either been killed or taken by Thargoids. “Taken”, that word haunts me. What horrors do the Thargoids have planned for those they take? The Federal Navy hasn’t ruled out the possibility of the Thargoids turning captured humans into biological weapons to launch land invasions in the coming weeks, so now I’m stationed at Alvarado Defense Base in Rhea. If the Thargoids have turned my guys into some abomination, I owe it to them to set them free and to keep the Thargoids from stealing anyone else and turning them into a bioweapon.