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

Okay. So, many things have been happening in the recent weeks. Matter of factly, I'm an idiot for not documenting what all was happening. Once again it is rather difficult to sort out my thoughts, but if not now, when else.

First of all, I still didn't get to pop the question. I have the small etui always in my jacket, the one with the engagement ring. I really wanted to do some romantic evenings with Maren, but it never came the way I wanted it to happen. Like, there were now two scenarios I had in mind. One either being on Canaria or on Curacao, with a nice movie and after that a romantic dinner, so we could talk about the movie. So that she wouldn't expect it, and then, when I made her a bit drunk, I would walk down the streets with her. I mean, I know all too well she can't get drunk due to Valery... but in my scenario that would happen. She would be slightly drunk and take off her heels and I would give her my shoes so she doesn't need to walk all the way to the hotel or the hovercar on her bare feet. And I would remind her of what we did so far together. More than one year now. How often was I wondering whether I would survive the next week. But here we are, still alive. And then I would kiss her rather passionate to have her drop her heels, and then I would go on my knees to act as if I was going to pick them up, but instead I take the etui out of my jacket and show it to her.

Or! I would invite her to do the picknick I proposed her, on that tiny island cut off from the other islands, where it would be just her and me. Would prepare everything in the cargo box of the hoverbike and then move there with her again, have that picknick with her and after the dinner, I would take out the etui and show it to her. And then wild lovemaking. Credits roll.

But no. Didn't happen so far. I was close to have the latter scenario becoming true. I mean, right now, we're renting another bungalow on Curacao. A necessarity, as we can't base off the Hoffnungsschimmer anymore. We all moved to Curacao the day after we explored the Omicron Chi system with James El Harady. The idea was to test the prototypes of the hoverbikes my technical staff build with the calculated blueprints created by the Apahanta. So we stuffed the four prototypes into the Apotheosis and moved to Curacao after a nice breakfast on Corinth. Maren and I had a little hassle before that, regarding the Omicron Chi exploration and the Hoffnungsschimmer, but we talked it out and had a few very romantic moments. And holy cow, I told her to watch for her table manners and now she actually eats like a human.

On Curacao, we went for a new bungalow and relaxed a bit. I showed them their new Hot Gear hoverbiking suits, and they are awesome. I think Maren especially appreciates the internal cooling system, as she is always fighting with the hot climate on Curacao. She even left it on when we had a little fun on the tiny island I mentioned earlier.

So, yeah... we had our fun on Curacao. Not only Maren and I. There were a few weird situations, and in the end, as Maren said she didn't mind my promiscuity anymore, I finally did it and slept with Nancy one day later, after I took her for a little ride on the hoverbike. And it was worth waiting one entire year for it. Although it made things weirder. One really can't make this sh.it up. Later that day, hours after I came home with Nancy, she moved up and later went on a date with Leon, and I stayed at home with Maren and napped with her on the couch in the living room. The heat makes her extremely sleepy, so there isn't much I was able to do with her. The idea was to postpone the picknick for the sunset, but before that was allowed to happen, I got messages from Admiral McIntire and Commodore Kaze Dagon. I was invited to the York, the battleship at the Newcastle gate in New London. Asap. So I stood up and prepared myself, wrote Maren a little notification and then headed for the Apahanta, to get my stuff from there, and then with Sherry to the York.

And then the meeting happened. Everything came different than expected, although I was sort of prepared for it, ending up with an audio recording of the conversation as Dagon didn't check my PDA for running apps. The recording is sort of muddled as the PDA was most of the time in my jacket, but it is well enough. Long story short: Bretonia always knew about Nancy, because Silver told them. Bretonia knows there is no proof of Maren being infected but rather there is counter-proof speaking clearly of the opposite. The one good thing about Auxesia - they shared that scan with me. So, at least that worked perfectly. So, although they saw the scans from the Eidolon Wraith, Dagon made clear she wouldn't give a fu.ck about it. It was her trump card. Either I play along her rules or Maren, me and my personnel would be banned from Bretonia. So, yeah. I have to work for her now. McIntire knew about all this. Once more I end up in as pawn in someone's game. And suddenly, the basic laws of humanity are ignored.

Damn it.

Right now, we're in the process of testing the new IRG cloak. They proposed the installation of an AI to control the cloaking sequence to prevent the ship from critical structural loss by wrong system start-ups. Holy cow. And here I thought roaming around with an Adapted Nomad Power Core by APM would already be risky. No, now we have two systems on the Apahanta that could blow up the ship if we don't watch out every damn second. It's ridiculous. That's how you notice mankind has reached the ultimum of technological understanding, when every new invention comes with the risk of giant explosions. Why are my home ships always like that? The Hoffnungsschimmer is still about to get eaten by the crystalline sh.it that comes from Valery's Hybrid Cloaking System and now that with the Apahanta. I won't get old, that's for sure.

I needed to think about the new situation, so I moved back to the Apahanta with Sherry right after the meeting at the York. Nobody on that ship I could talk about it. But at least some silence, because I knew exactly what the new situation would result in: I can't risk having Nancy on the Apahanta. Dagon explicitly mentioned it. Will need to talk to the crew about the situation. In the next morning, I moved back to Curacao, not having slept a single minute. Showed Maren and Nancy the recording, Nancy reacted exactly like I said, and since Leon and her have a little bit of a hassle after me having spent some time with her, he decided to take a break from the Apahanta and stay on the planet. So right now, everyone is on their own. Leon is staying on Curacao with his family, Maren said she wanted to look after the Hoffnungsschimmer and get Mittens to our bungalow on the planet, I have to do a lot of things now and Nancy left us to sell her gallic ships.

In the meantime, I partook in the Hot Gear race on Curacao, an AFC race in Omicron Delta that was crashed by the nomads, did some research on the current events regarding new jump holes and anomalies, Cultists and once more Narcrahtite, or how we now call it, Eliza's Eye. And of course I did stuff as one of my new aliases.

As Operative Red. Since Auxesia made pretty clear they wouldn't want me to snoop around in their turf, which would be Inverness and Kansas, maybe even Vespucci, I had to use someone else to do that. Information is power. So I got in touch with the Forlorn Hope. Met their Knight Captains, became friends with one. Elena Voigt, a girl from Rheinland who has many traits I know from both Maren and Nancy, weirdly. A lovely girl, pregnant, living in a long-distance relationship with some John who thinks he would serve his fatherland more by patroling space instead of being there for Elena and the little thing they made accidentally. She told me she was about to kick him. In fact, she was about to have sex with me. I told her to think twice about it, though, and in the end, we spent some time together, pretty close, but no sex. I don't want her to cheat on him as long as there is still hope for them.

So I sent the Forlorn Hope to map some systems for me, including some I didn't need to be mapped. Didn't want them to know right away against who they would work. The report is somewhat... well, it is okay and served the needs. It was obvious they aren't professional when it comes to cartography, though. Maybe that comes with time.

There seems to be some stuff going on in Liberty right now, apart from the new jump hole over Manhattan. There is a certain Battlegroup Harmony, which fights against Liberty as they suspect Liberty of being infiltrated by nomads. Like, on an governmental level. I'll look a bit more into this, maybe Maren can tell me a bit about it. It put me in a difficult position, actually, as I was working with the 5th Fleet in the Uncharted System we reached over Hudson. Fighting the Cultists, then jumping out to weird places. In the end, we took the Apahanta for a short ride. When we jumped to Magellan, they gave us permission to fly the Apahanta through Liberty and Rheinland, so for the first time we moved legally through those houses. I do think there is a good chance of us working together more often like that. It definitely was a good start.

In the meantime, I'm waiting for something official from McIntire regarding the permission to move through Bretonia legally. I got the inofficial go already, from Dagon. When I have something official, I can contact Crayter and Liberty and start negotiating about the Treaty of Curacao. I need their permissions to move the Apahanta to Cortez. At least Liberty and Bretonia, that is. However, Crayter could be handy as friend, too.

Uh. And I need to get a new ID for Nancy. Her timing couldn't be worse, I feel. Things are getting messy right now, and she just took away some of the little bit of sanctuary I have with them, really. Knowing she got into trouble not even one day after leaving Curacao, I stalked her a bit as Red. Liberty remembers her and told her to fu.ck off, and now she is hiding at Junker bases, thinking about working for them if I don't get her a new ID. Damn. Maybe Maren could help me here. After all, she was working for the MND. She should know some people.

I honestly feel tired. I need to go through the crew reports now. Told them to prepare the workshop for some things I wanted to try out. Like, we need a few surprises to have people realize the Apahanta is more than just a rogue battleship.

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