Rebuilding, Out and In (Part 1 of 2)
29 Jun 2016Brenner Soriah
Stardate 2906-3302, 0715Commander Brenner Soriah speaking, once more logging my thoughts, my activities, and my heart. I've taken a small change of scenery right now to record this audio log. Typically I've laid myself out in my bunk or sit pondering the silence of empty space from my command chair when I am speaking out my mind. A breeze is swaying over the grass behind me and it's a tender temperature of maybe 22* Celsius. Optimal weather, but that's the mechanical word, isn't it? Optimal. Optimal, for the architectured wind blowing over my hair and the closely monitored temperature, the controlled light of the sun through the panels. It's as close to Earth as us pilots get these days, not that many of us knew that life. I sure didn't. But I can appreciate the open freshness of the plants growing around me as I sit inside the agricultural Roentgen Hub. Maybe the last time I will see these flowers of Roentgen. At least for some time.
Enough rambling and down to the business of my life. For the last few logs, all I've really spoken about is pain. I'm sure it's probably old to whomever has tracked down and followed these logs. One does not simply remove something like that. However, it can be buried, with time and effort. A sour veil still shrouds over my spirit, but my time to mourn these things is over. The Dangerous Games are around the corner, and I can ill afford to allow myself to stay seated in the throes of depression. Like a passing breath, with the help of friends and comrades who still held faith in me, I exhumed the shackles of despair that had held me back for the last months and am finally beginning to look forward to the light of the future again. I have these final things to say before I accept that the path behind me is gone. Gone, but never forgotten. I am, and will forever be faithful to the end. No matter what it takes, that truth will remain. If you're hearing this, I will never give up.
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*exhale*
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For weeks now, there was something missing, and just days ago, I felt an ember smoldering amidst the ash. I was quietly scrolling amidst the boards where commands from all over the Pilots Federation shared information. It was for no particular reason. I glanced a fresh report stating there was a spotting of an Unknown Probe. It was maybe some twelve hours old, and had not yet received much attention. Something about it set me jumping up for my flightsuit, sealing it up tight around me as I sprinted to my cockpit like I had not done since January. I didn't know why at the time, but I felt a surge of determination and launched the Scarlet Current from her docks. She was still painted over with the shiny gold I had put in place so long ago. I doubt that will ever change. My destination was a normally quiet two-star refinery stop being exploited by President Hudson for its resources. Data showed minimal population, two outposts and a surface operation all run by a corporation. A system that would easily allow a high-importance military convoy to go unnoticed by lack of eyes. According to the reports, a single ship was carrying the unknown probe with a large escort; it wasn't much to go by, but it narrowed my searches in by a whole lot. The way I saw it, something of that importance would be heavily guarded, so all I set my scanners to acknowledge were dispersion patterns of the highest danger (Convoy Dispersion Pattern (Threat 4)). To my annoyance, I found that there were a number of other commanders in system already looking for what I had hoped to find by myself. With some hailing, I found that the majority of said commanders were scientist representatives of Canonn, with their asps and their cobras. A single anaconda to their fleet. Not very much muscle to them, really. I offered them my services, mentally acknowledging that I probably couldn't do this alone. I joined up with the anaconda and a cobra and set to tracking along the shipping lanes. I was used to a lengthy search like this, considering my previous attempt at the Galactic Billionaire's Treasure Hunt. The best way to pass the hours I knew it'd cost was to converse with commanders, make contacts, and seek out information.
Plugging in a course along the shipping lane out to Ross 47's Volynov Hub and dropping my throttle to near minimal, I settled in for the watch. Amidst the hails passing between commanders, I scrolled through the local news feeds to see if I could spot anything that the few locals might have seen. Something caught my eye, though looking back, it was dumb luck and coincidence. A particular bulletin was informing the inhabitants of Gidzenko Prospect that they were going under a security lock-down due to an increase in unmarked ships. It seemed to stand out at the time, as it was asking "Have you seen something strange in the skies above?", but I later realized it was a typical tabloid statement. Still, I pointed it out to my wing and we split up, two to each star. I took the Scarlet Current out with the INV Harbinger (The Anaconda) and parked ourselves within a 200 Ls distance of planet. I wasn't wholly focused on the scanners as I was also making final communications with leaders inside GalCop. I'll touch on that in a moment.
I remember looking up to my hails and saw the flash of CMDR Avave calling to me for help. I had no idea why, but it wasn't my code to let an SOS go unanswered. Locking my navigation systems to his beacon, I dropped near immediately from supercruise to less than 500 meters from his ship. What I saw was the INV Harbinger being stared down by a convoy of no less than three anacondas, a python, and four vultures all transmitting as members of the Federal Navy. Targeting the Python, whom was at the center of the formation, my cargo scanner charged a burst of radiation and told to me the secrets of its cargo hold. 8 tons of meta-alloys, secured from the barnacles out in Merope. 9 tons of reactive armor plating. And like a shining little beacon, the prize we were after came up on the list too; an unknown probe. I immediately hailed the rest of my wing, who passed back to Canonn Research that we had located the convoy. Ships were already fast en route to us, and all we had to do was follow the con- twin bolts of lasers arced between the convoy and my ally. I'm not sure whose guns they were, but it snapped all tensions. Shots were being traded between Avave and the convoy. There was no chance he would last long to a force so superior. I don't care how much skill a pilot has, there is no way in any of the nine rings of hell that they could survive that alone. I cursed at the early engagement and threw myself into the fight, multicannons spinning up and a blast of plasma burning away the Python's shields. If that is what they wanted to protect, then that was the best way to get their attention on me and off the bigger target of the two of us. I fired one, two hatch-breakers to clamp onto the python and then burned my thrusters away, the anacondas and two vultures hot on my tail while Ave took the other three ships on a chase of his own.
Both of us lost shields to the large incoming fire, and the Scarlet was taking a lot of breaches into the hull while I put a safe enough distance between myself and the defenders. I've worked enough with the Federation to know that they were to complete erase what we had seen by killing us. The five ships tailing me weren't going to give up on me, and it was exactly what I wanted. My friend now had a much greater chance of survival, and the target of our search was so far less defended. They'd gone so far off in another direction that my ship's scanners no longer picked them up for my HUD; only a faint engine trail in the distance. The other two ships in my wing, the CODE Cutter and the Canonn Cobra, gave a shout out that they were dropping in. My FSD charge was nearly done. Flicking my flight assist off and letting my momentum carry me through space, I flipped my ship around to face the Federation ships. Normally, I'm one to follow my faction, but this was just one instance where I had the extreme pleasure of showing them the bird as I burned my boost and ripped back into supercruise through the middle of the group. Nigh immediately, my ships computers locked me back in on CMDR Avave's signal and dropped me back in some 30 to 40 kilometers away from where I'd jumped, and the tables were suddenly turned. Though both myself and Ave were reading below 20% hull integrity, our numbers were 4 to 3 now. For the sake of ensuring at least the securement of proof of the probe's existence. I cashed all in on this bet and put my ship to its full limits, putting everything I had into dropping the pythons shields and launching every limpet I had to break open its cargo hatch. My computers rang clear in my ears "Hatch breaker engaged" as the ejection warnings began to sound. I closed my eyes for a silent moment as small detonations flickered across the Scarlet. I had done my part.
I pulled the ejection handle and listened as the battle continued. It was an odd feeling that I was very unused to, drifting in that escape pod. No control. No real sounds. Nothing to stabilize me. Just the life support and the emergency beacon. I heard a collective rise in the already panicked comms of my comrades. Had my ship detonated only 18 seconds ago? My hatch-breaker was still tearing through the Python's hull, spilling out its cargo into the empty space while the battle raged. Even though I was out of the fight, my adrenaline spiked in empathy to those still in it. The probe was now up for grabs, and closer in reach than ever. I heard Julias McCoy call out the ball with his cobra, and glanced up to see his cargo hatch open wide to scoop up the orange glowing... thing. CMDR Stoffel and Avave continued to throw beams of fiery death to try to cover him as he slowed his cobra for a safe catch. My breath ceased in the anticipation of what we had fought for. My eyes were stabbed by a flash of concentrated light, focused in on the probe and burning it to nothing. In its final moments of existence, it let out an ungodly wail over my communications systems. The Federation, seeing they were about to lose the probe, denied it to us and destroyed it just as it was within our palms. Plausible deniability. The Federation can't have had a probe if it was never there to begin with. I felt the breath I was holding get knocked away from me, both from the loss, and from the Vulture that clipped my pod and sent me tumbling through space. He, along with the rest of the convoy, jumped into another system and left our wing behind. Stoffel picked me up and gave me a ride back to the station in the style of his cutter. While we had lost this probe, we had picture evidence of the federation toying with the unknown. As I waited for insurance to carry through, I simply smiled at the datachip I held with both my broken ship's inflight video recording and picture evidence. Canonn would be very happy, and I'd have at least done my part in this galactic mystery. Only one thought crossed my mind.
I'm back.