The Maelstrom
20 Dec 2022Serza
War diary, CMDR Sarah FisherDecember 20th, 3308
It's been... too long since my last entry. Truth is, there wasn't much to write, just sustained combat. Going out, killing Goids, going back home...
Resting, all too briefly... And repeating the whole cycle.
So far, the Initiative's successes are measured in single systems along the Taranis frontline. A lot of the time, I'm just trying to not think about the other seven - that is Cocijo, Hadad, Oya, Thor, Raijin, Leigong and Indra. I don't know who came up with the names, and I don't know where they come from. Not my job. I shoot Goids for a living now.
At least, I try to live. Dying ain't much of a living, as my old man once said, and there's... there's a lot of dying around here.
Matthews has been declared as "Missing, presumed dead" two days ago. I had no idea I could miss anyone so badly. Not after...
Doesn't matter. I'm here now. We won 23716. We'll be conducting a counter offensive in the next few days.
...so naturally, I took a look at Taranis. Flew right in, despite the interdictions and tried to make it through the bastion to the Titan within. I got thrown back, like everyone else before, but it felt right after all the grief this thing caused. All the nightmares, all the sleepless nights rolling around in the sleeping bag behind the pilot seat.
There's one, coming back, night after night. We're running escorts for evacuation out of Wakata with a few folks fresh off the Neutron highway. There's a big whale, leaving the station. It gets swarmed by Scouts and a Basilisk. Too slow to run away, Shutdown field hits. I drift right towards it in the Raider, but the switches don't respond, and I get a front row seat to the destruction of a transport with hundreds of people on board. It's... something that happened to us, right to that point. My ship never comes back on, and I drift right into the debris field, with bodies scattered all around. Men, women... children... All dead. Frozen in vacuum.
As I'm about to get out of the debris field, I hear... bangs on the hull. A moment later, a huge insectoid with six legs comes climbing onto the front of the hull, smashes the canopy, yanks me out of the pilot seat, and starts to choke me through my suit. There's no eyes, there's no face, there's just... a six-legged bug, holding me by the neck.
That's usually when I wake up.
As nightmares go, it's definitely the worst. I wish it were at least the only one, but there's others.
Corridor, full of people asking me why I couldn't save them.
Shutdown drifting over a barren world, about to impact.
Caustics burning through the canopy.
I wish I couldn't go on like this, but I can.
I'll raise a glass to Matthews before bed.
Please. Put in a good word for me in Heaven, old friend...