Defending the Delta

[Sombs]

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These log entries are created in secret and aren't available to any other entity.

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Log - Ezrael Vertiga

The meeting with Admiral McIntire was quite satisfying. To my very surprise, he entered my ship, together with Commodore Kaze Dagon, a quite charming woman. She showed me her weaponry quite often. Note to future Ezrael: Her gun, not her tits. In the end, I got the impression she is more the strap-on type of woman. Maybe she is friends with Jessebelle Fillian. Anyway, the Admiral and her were on my ship for like ninety minutes. I do think I performed well, answering all the questions quite honestly, simply avoiding to mention a few things here and there. They were pretty well informed about certain things. Miss Dagon for example knew about the kill-switches the Core introduced during the time around my defection. I do need to be extremely careful with them about Nancy. Didn't write down her name in the crew dossiers. I doubt they forgot about her.

Additional to what I offered them about the Apahanta, I also reminded them to call me in case of them needing a tiny little bit of support. The Handsome Rover can't fight other snubs, but it at least can do what battleships can't - disrupting cruise engines and intercepting projectiles. It worked well in Leeds, however it didn't prevent the Bretonians from losing that one particular fight. I was glad to hear from the Sovereign's radio operator that they won another battle just a few hours after the meeting with McIntire.

Also, another something happened in the Omicrons. I was reestablishing contact with our good friend, James El Harady of the Canaan Project. Apparently, they didn't merge with the IRG. Whether that is good or bad, I don't really know. Finn is missing, Thallia is missing, and the other guys of the IRG seem to work rather, well, slowly. Feels a bit like the 500.000.000 Credits is paid for that cloak upgrade were a bad investment, given that there is still nothing to work with. In the worst case, I need to find a new cloaking device for the Apahanta. Let's hope that isn't necessary, as I am already rather pissed about what Valery did to the Hoffnungsschimmer. Ugh, back to the topic. I offered James to explore the new jump hole connections in Omicron Kappa with me and Nancy. We took our drones, El Harady took the Kauket. That guy is pretty badass when it comes to discovering new things. I also wonder how he doesn't get fat while mostly drinking milk only.

There is a new jump hole connection between Omicron Kappa and Omicron Theta, which is pretty good. Like, really. That way we can avoid Omicron Gamma better. However, the really interesting thing was the other jump hole we found. James told me PRIME was sending Harvesters into the area southern from Gammu, and we followed that trace. A jump hole to a new system, a pretty dangerous system. Maren joined us on-spot in her Prosecutor, a pretty dumb move but that is how Maren is. The sensors and scanners were pretty much compromised in that system. The radar range dropped to something below ten kay, and the equipment was suffering heavy damage due to the radiation. What we found was a giant Edge Nebula region containing a big, dark planet. We weren't able to get really anything from the sensors about it. There was weirdly strong pull from that planet, affecting the efficiency of the ships' engines, slowing the Kauket down from 350 to something around 250 em per ass, the drones were slowed down from 425 to 303 em per ass. Once IRG is done with the cloak, we definitely take a closer look at it, using the Apahanta's powerful sensor array.

We also stumbled across a giant mine field. Nomadic mines, those I do remember from the Core footages about Omicron Iota. And, well, from our own footages. Nancy's eagle eyes spotted weird yellow spots in the distance, barely noticeable with all the asteroids around. Those tiny light bulbs seem to be emitted from somewhere, as they stay in place without being attached to any physical body. Quite impressive, given the environment. However, we followed the line of lights, and boom, found it.

We then got the fruck out of there. That place seemed rather active, and while the drones are meant to scout dangerous places, and Maren probably wouldn't have had any problem with the nomads either, replacing a dead James El Harady with a living one is rather difficult. James however didn't want to leave the system right away, so he lead us around the mine field. Maren later noticed minor system failures on her ship, as the radiation was eating her equipment. Dumb girl didn't say anything until it was too late - she said she wouldn't be able to reach Omicron Kappa before the shields would cease functioning. I was about to panic about it and already gave order to heat up the engines of the Apahanta to get my fiance out of there, but miraculously, just in time, we stumbled across the Omicron Xi jump hole in Chi. Valery probably lead her there. In Xi, everything was okay again. The drones and the Prosecutor were heavily damaged, but still operable. So we head home to Kappa, brought James back to Gammu and then I had a little talk with Maren.

From then, everything got worse. I welcomed Maren at the Apahanta's airlock. After all, it was the first time after an entire year she was on my ship again, and that being the third time she is here. Like, right now, still. Of course, because of the intense radiation, I had to stuff her into a decon cell, and accompanied her there, thinking it was a nice opportunity to say hello to her in a more intimate way. So I lay down there, she sat up on me, both naked. Could have been nice, however it wasn't. She told me about what happened to the Hoffnungsschimmer, and while I first didn't want to believe, it seems to be a real problem now. I ordered the Apahanta to deactive the decon room's surveillance and internal sensors so we could talk about it. And then, to have me understand it better, she showed me the problem in a mindmeld.

It is horrible. The entire engine room of the Corvo is... assimilated. Valery assured me the crystalline formations weren't dangerous. Except the sharp edges. Those crystals ate the walls, the floor, even the equipment and were about to absorb the ship's energy core. And that all because of the damn nomad technology. Like, holy fruck.

Valery said she had no idea that would happen, simply because according to her, the Hoffnungsschimmer would be the first ship to have that kind of makeshift nomadic cloaking device. Cool, we're not mainstream here again. So what happened is that the nomadic material that she used for the Nomad Power Cell adapter spread. First the room with the cloak, then the entire engine room, with the more advanced technological equipment being absorbed obviously more carefully and slowly, from what I saw. I asked Valery how we could revert that. She said we can't. I asked her if we can get rid of it. She said we could need to cut all of it out, including the power core and the cloaking device. With other words: I could simply buy a new Corvo.

Now both Maren and Valery were lacking their empathy again, not understanding my anger about it. Not only is the ship infected, like, quite obviously. They acted like everything was okay. Holy fruck, it is not! I was really temped to yell at them, or slap them for some things they said. That ship was my home! I boned a three digit amount of women on it over the years. It was our sanctuary. And now I don't even know what it is. They said there was nothing to worry about, and that Maren would live on that ship still. Crystalline formations are eating the ship's power core! That thing could become unstable any second. But nooo, trust the nomad that has no referential values for that kind of situation. Surely nothing will go wrong. With an infected ship. What next? Does it become sentient like a nomad? I told her I'd evacuate that ship. The KSRs on it will remain, maintain it as long as possible, but all the equipment we can rescue and all that will be moved to the Apotheosis and the Little Blue. I guess Mittens will have to deal with a little bit less space to frolilc around, but I don't see how that could work out positively in any way. I don't want to wake up in the morning and find myself laying on a crystaline bed... I'll hide the Corvo, probably deep in the Flare Nebula in Cayman. Maybe we can find a solution for the problem that is less expensive. I can't spend one billion after another right now.

I'm really uncertain. I love Maren and like Valery, but I wonder if all that is still worth it, given how shi.tty Maren treats me recently. I'll probably wait a bit longer with the marriage proposal, just to see if she really values our relationship anymore or not. Right now, it feels like she wants everything without giving anything in return. And what did I get for that? The Lane Hackers wanting to kill me, Auxesia still suspecting crap and...

... my beloved home, the Hoffnungsschimmer, is lost.

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