Flying at the speed of reality
20 Nov 2017Tristan Pacheco
Hey, I'm still alive!But...
I'm getting tired of the tenseness that surrounds every order we receive from command. If the Thargoids are going to launch an invasion, why haven't they already? What are they waiting for? Certainly not for us to attack them, because we've been doing plenty of that as of late. They haven't let up in their attacks either, for that matter. They even seem to be throwing in their veterans, or...just...old people (not really sure what the Basilisks are at the moment). Among all the fear, the leaders of our great nations react to this crisis like Sunday brunch takes precedence. Three days ago Hudson and the Emperor both asked the whole of human civilization, more or less, to remain calm. "Don't worry, humanity, we're on the job, as long as the job isn't time-fucking-sensitive." A bit late for that address, eh? At this point, I'm running out of money to pay back to all the nutjobs with tinfoil hats I've been shooting down (figuratively) for years.
If there's anything that I can consider good news, superpower-superpower envoys have been making headwind, in secret. If we can make the Empire amiable to an alliance, (that's alliance with a lowercase a; we'd definitely have to call it something else) we might actually be able to deal with the Thargoids with some measure of efficiency. Aegis has been making progress with AX weaponry, but we fought the Thargoids long ago, and apparently, guns didn't work. According to recent reports, the whole virus rumor/myth/legend was indeed what wiped them off our slate the last time, but, as far as I've been told, the INRA doesn't exist anymore, and their virus recipe seems to have been lost to time.
Unlike the last 45-ish entries, I'm not in a hotel, or even on R & R, writing this. Instead, I'm floating in the cargo bay of my ship, fiddling with extra Velcro just to make a firm typing platform. I probably shouldn't say where we are or what we're doing, in case this journal falls into the wrong hands. I should probably encrypt this record like I did a year or so back.
But fuck it.
We're halfway between Achenar and Sol, escorting an Imperial ambassadorial convoy the second half of the way. Or, we will be, whenever they get here. They're taking their sweet, precious time and it's beginning to alarm me. For what is definitely the first time, I'm desperately hoping to hear an Imperial accent over my ship's comm computer. Ripley's manning the bridge while I secure a secret, but entirely unrelated cargo shipment. Anyway I should really finish doing that and get back to the bridge.
Until next time,
RADM Tristan Pacheco