Federal Bureaucracy at its Best
07 Jan 2017Tristan Pacheco
We've been in Maia, coordinating with the local police forces, conversing with any pilots in the area, corroborating rumors, etc.. We do all of this in order to try to trap an alien vessel in subspace long enough to "Assess its combat capability". I'm beginning to regret not questioning precisely how the Navy wants me to accomplish that, although it's probably exceedingly obvious what they meant. The Navy was not maintaining a significant enough presence within the Pleiades to get to the pilot that made the first encounter in time. As such, the event is now public knowledge, and every tinfoil hat wearing lunatic this side of Alpha Centauri has arrived in system. Despite Obsidian Orbital's now completely overcrowded taverns overflowing with pilots and explorers alike, it has been nigh-impossible to single out any one that has actually encountered a vessel. Apparently there are multiple alien vessels working together, scanning vessels in much the same fashion. Even when we do find someone with legitimate proof of an encounter (IE, actual footage), they've tended to be surrounded by wannabe explorers, and, presumably, other agents such as ourselves. On the bright side, the crowds make staying undercover quite simple. That being said, why cover is still being mandated is beyond me. The public knows without a doubt at this point that "They're out there" (Ugh, I can't believe I just typed that), and anyone with half a brain knows that the Federation and the Empire alike should have a legitimate stake in acquiring further information to ensure the safety of their respective populaces. It would be far easier to come in with a Federal Naval Q-38-B warrant and set the station on lockdown, that way we could arrest (non-violently, hopefully) those with the necessary information. I mean, everyone is already panicking. This couldn't have gone worse. The only thing the Federation has done at this point is freeze the media...temporarily, and there is reportedly heavy flak coming from all sides to unfreeze GalNet to at least console the general public that "Thargoid motherships aren't coming to probe your anuses".
But I digress...
After finally singling out an Asp pilot with credible footage for a few brief minutes, we were told that his ship had an (illegal, but illicit cargo violations are far outside my jurisdiction) "Unknown Artifact" aboard his vessel. At first this information was noted as interesting, but likely coincidental, until, after several hours of...probing (goddamnit I've done it again)...the crowd, we came to discover that most of the pilots that had encountered these vessels had alien artifacts on board. That would explain why numerous jumps around the Aries Dark Region hadn't yielded an alien vessel to us. But, as previously stated, Unknown Artifacts are rare, and in many places, illegal to be carried without a special warrant. While we've been known to operate outside the law for matters of national security (this counts; this definitely counts), we have not been known to operate outside the laws of common sense. Getting our hands on a UA would be extremely difficult without Federal aid.
So we did what we thought we had to: contacted the Admiralty. Boy was that a mistake. After being handed from Lieutenant to Captain to First Sergeant to Major and etcetera, we finally talked to a Lieutenant Colonel whose name I forget. In the background I could hear a lot of frantic activity. We explained the situation, and why we needed an Unknown Artifact in order to achieve our goal. We were met with a resounding NO. He said we'd have to make due with what resources we had on hand (I had a bag full of imitation beef breakfast burritos...not much else) to catch an alien vessel. After thoroughly pondering the diplomatic capability of fast food, we decided to call again and hopefully get a hold of our own CO. Try after try, we failed. As we were running out of burritos, we decided to go with option B: Steal a UA.
Technically Fleet Admiral Yumi said by "whatever means necessary", and these means had become necessary. However, this would have to wait until tomorrow because at this point we had been scouring the station and hitting the connect to GNN server button all day.
That brings me to where we are now: Stuck, as usual, in a hotel room. Only this time our seemingly infinite funds have gotten us nothing, since we were far from the first ones here. No, instead we're in a discount hotel meant for non-pilot tourists. I'm sharing a two bed room with four people, mainly because there were only two two-bed rooms left. We got Mueller her own single just because.
Hopefully, tomorrow proves to be a better day.
Until next time, RADM Tristan Pacheco