Rescue Aftermath
29 Dec 2023Jana Razeki
OOC - the events referenced take place in a four part series posted by Meowers. See here -
Stars in the Storm : Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
Log entry: Jana Razeki, 25 November 3309
Location: Rescue Ship Cavell
Okay, so... things all worked out. Ish. Recording this the day after, still on the rescue ship, and... damn, that was a mess. Where do I even start?
Maybe... the Titan. Shit, that thing was massive. I mean, yeah, most of us have probably seen the holos and read the various news about them, but seeing one for yourself... hell, whole different experience. You probably know the saying "Everything looks bigger up close". A bit cliché nowadays, I imagine, but... well, couldn't find anything truer to describe that moment.
Wasn't there to admire the view, of course, much as it was one. And didn't get much of a moment to, as the Thargoids rather quickly caught on to... well, just about forty ships sitting next to one of their Titans and pulling out lots of pods from it. If those basic anti-xeno weapons weren't as ineffective against it as they are, they'd have taken that amount of ships as an even more serious threat.
I say more seriously, because things got pretty chaotic quite quickly, even with someone yelling orders at... just about every moment that needed it, while ships were getting lit up left, right and center... top and bottom too, I guess. Between the Glaives, Interceptors and the Titan's turrets, I'd have lost track way faster without someone holding it all together. Not to mention those Scythes getting thrown out by the Titan to... well, stop us from taking pods. And I'm not really military, so my instincts without that figurative 'glue' would have been to break off and get out of there real fast.
But, of course, I didn't, even after that... whatever to call the disrupting pulse from the Titan. Drifted right out of it when it reached full power, so didn't really take any damage, and - after some fixing of the ship - went back in. Some part of my brain switched into instinctive mode at that point, because I don't remember too much of what happened other than a lot more death, way more on the other side than ours, something about getting as many pods out of the Titan as possible for the transports, and getting chased by a Medusa as we were making our way back out and I had some thruster problems. It's like it was trying to go after me on purpose - do they pick on less capable pilots on purpose? - but it got distracted by... I think it was one of the AXDF pilots. Maybe that... Ina, I don't remember. Kind of sounded like her voice, but, too much going on at the time.
And as if the Thargoids chasing us all the way out of the cloud for their prize wasn't bad enough, those absolute idiots from Azimuth tried to get in the way right at the edge. Or I think I heard someone throw their name out over open comms, not actually sure if it was them or "just" some opportunists (without morals) looking to make a score. In any case, hope Aegis says something about that too.
Why was I near a Titan in the first place, when I've been keeping my distance because I found them a bit scary? Well, that's... a bit of a weird story I wrote down in a private log of mine. Suffice it to say I met that supposedly 'bad and untrustworthy Thargoid hybrid' Kira (or Kasumi, still not quite sure) Goto, and found her to be... actually quite nice, in that virtual space where I ran into her (and Muir), while we did some kinda indecent stuff for the fun of it. Indecent in the "Would earn you a hell of a lot of weird looks" kind of way, if you told anyone.
Anyway, so she was on the Titan after trying to free herself of the Thargoids in... some way that hasn't been said yet, if Aegis will even say. Suppose they're probably gonna announce that Kira/Kasumi was recovered to reassure people she is no longer a threat, or in danger herself. But considering what she is - even though she's quite nice when herself, and not used as a tool for the Thargoids to vent their frustrations with us - I have a feeling it'll be more of the former than the latter.
That whole thing also got me thinking... I have been fighting back against the Thargoids here and there, when the 'Fixing my life' thing allowed - no details about it here - but usually just by taking out my Krait (MKII) with a couple of AX multicannons and either a beam laser or one of those funny flak launchers to dispose of the swarm, since those things(the multicannons) get pretty useless against anything besides a Cyclops. But I feel like I should try to do more than always cover a support role, even if that is right up my alley and piloting skills.
That of course means getting my hands on those Guardian weapons. Something I never did before... well, at all, really. Never saw myself in any need to do so, any time soon, nor did I have any interest in confronting Thargoids(plus, I only got my pilot's license last year in August).
What changed, you might ask? Simply put - a Titan put itself down right on my home. Yeah, I don't blame the Thargoids, looking at that whole deal with the Proteus Wave, but I'm not exactly happy about it either. Lot of people that didn't deserve to be drawn into this madness suddenly got pulled into it, and I swore to myself I'd do what I could to defend them... maybe also get my home back, even if most of those people are probably gone by now. Lhou Mans around Titan Oya, by the way. The front where I've been most active(but not the only one).
That's going to lead to my second point, but to finish the first one - fitting those fancy Guardian boomsticks(yeah, I know, none of them really do explosions - just roll with it) will require a lot more power. Or generate a lot more heat. Which means I'll have to look into those damn engineers more, because I'm not gonna use hybrid modules for internal slots with those Glaives around.
And yet... yeah, I'm not gonna bore you with the details of "Go fetch me this Painite, those landmines, that Bromellite, I delivered it to the engineer and now they're suddenly best buds with me"... but, well, see, I'm not a fan of the big corpos. You might even say I hate them, because of some things I saw in the Federation, yet I've got to go through Sirius if I want my ship's power plant engineered by someone... well, at least, qualified. Not some jury-rigged black market mods that cause the reactor to give out while I'm staring down a Hydra, or make power conduits blow in my face.
That is, unless I go out to Colonia on a fleet carrier or with a purpose-built long distance ship. Neither of which I really feel like doing. Not particularly made to be an explorer.
Then there's also the slight matter of those modified Guardian weapons of Azimuth's. Bet they're making a fortune shilling those to people, after basically engineering the need for them in the first place. Way to go about not even really hiding your war profiteering. I guess Alba Tesreau was right when she said that Torben guy's only good at profiting off the misery of other people, or that it is what he does [best]. Like every other major corporation in history, not that any of those scummy profit-seekers would ever admit to it.
Is it worth betraying my ideals even temporarily for the greater good? Hell, I can't answer that. Maybe I'll need to ask some people to better figure that out. Can certainly imagine where I could, providing they'll let me access their comms network. There are better impressions to make than hack into it... not that I could, if I wanted to. In the meantime, I can always try to not suck with those Gauss cannons, but I'd prefer them... well, let's say, I'd prefer the Krait's power plant to handle heat better than running at default.
Anyway, my second point - rescuing people. Maybe I really should do more of that, or keep an eye out for any more organized drives to cover evac transports, especially around a Titan. Whatever the Thargoids are doing to people, I don't think it'll be good, and there might be someone I personally know who got caught, rather than killed, on the Oya Titan. Hell, if there's even one person from Lhou Mans that I can recover from it, hopefully without any alterations made, it might have been worth it. Better yet if it's one of my friends, but... amidst nearly four billion people, most of whom are probably dead, those chances might as well be zero.
Still, part of me wants to have tried, at least. You - people - might say "But they could be dangerous and used as spies or saboteurs by the Thargoids". Yeah, maybe, but we can't just treat all of them like that forever, just because of the mere suspicion. We don't even know if they've been affected at all yet, or if all of them are. And like I said, some of the people that I knew could still be alive in there and recovered, possibly... hopefully without getting fucked with by those bastards. No one's come out of there - the Titan - yet, though, or just hasn't been identified. Going to try anyway, at some point.
But first, to do that, I'd actually need to get the rights to obtain those fancy Aegis gadgets - they were only lent to volunteers signing up for the rescue effort I mentioned above, then had to be returned on completion... if they returned. Not everyone did, but if it wasn't for this war, they wouldn't have been dead. Just more reasons to put an end to it sooner rather than later - though that likely won't be me. Either we just have to drive the Thargoids out by force, or those peace-oriented groups find some miracle solution to the problem. I might prefer the latter, but I'll take either at this point.
Until then, I'll keep fighting, to keep as many people as can be out of harm's way. The Thargoids definitely aren't done yet, even if we've started to isolate some of the Titans.
That still doesn't solve my power plant woes. And I'll be damned if I ever do anything for the Empire again. I'd rather impale myself on a Hydra's spike than do that, so Hera Tani's nowhere close to an option either.
I'll really have go to for that idiot Qwent, especially since he has referrals for some other three engineers as well. Even though I kind of really don't want to.
Urgh. At least I don't need to bother with any of the Feds to get what I need, and the other Alliance guys have the remaining useful things to fighting Thargoids. If it wasn't for that damn power plant, I wouldn't even need to bother with any of the others.
Okay, that's enough. Calling this log here(even though I'm sure I forgot something somewhere, I can't remember what that was).
Jana, signing off.