Log active. Entry: #00010 Submitter: Taskmaster Harold Kane Date: 08/07/820
According to Florence, we could move the ship. Maybe. I don't want to take the chance of it breaking apart halfway to its destination. Actually, she said we could accelerate it. She never said we could decelerate it...
I tried getting a hold of the Rogues to see if they could spare a shipyard at Cassini, but no one seems to want to answer my calls. F*cking Spike must have cocked something up fierce with them if they won't even give me the time of day to say hi, or even respond to my query with a request for me to perform self-sodomy.
Speaking of that ratbastard, Spike left, skipped town, and destroyed all his sh*t. If he's not dead yet, I'll see to it that he is soon.
Log active. Entry: #00011 Submitter: Taskmaster Harold Kane Date: 09/07/820
Two more decks are powered. Most of the shell around them is patched up. I don't know how well they're held to the core sections of the ship though, and I'm not sure I want to ask. Status of the propulsion is still zero. Still no defenses at all either.
We're buttering up the TAZ. They're friendly people, they're in the neighbourhood, and they're the ones we're shipping relief supplies and pharmaceuticals to. At the very least, we might be able to get a few hands from them in rebuilding the Metropolis. If we're lucky, they'll have some more professional shipbuilding utilities for us. Maybe a drydock. That would be nice.
Tobiah's getting a bit disgruntled. I'm not sure what's up.
Now, I'm more or less the guy who commands the VCS Silent Man. It's a nice, reconverted Bretonian Liner that we do shipping with and maybe store the occasional armed and deployable Bayonet in for extra inconspicuous firepower.
I just had to pay the Zoners on Gran Canaria to fix the damn thing up because those Molly bastards shot it up with their f*cking Goldern Coin! We leaked multiple thousand units of promptly-vaporized relief supplies into an unstable jump stream because there was a hole the size of a Pelican in the side of the cargo hold!
I've told Kane, and he's on it like white on rice, but I'll be damned if someone doesn't end up forking over the cost of repairs to the Silent Man. Hell with the pharms, we're already drowning the civvies on the planet in 'em.
Log active. Entry: #00013 Submitter: Taskmaster Harold Kane Date: 15/07/820
With some of the heat taken off of the situation in Omega-49 by a TAZ warship, we've got more people here to work on rebuilding the Metropolis. We had another small power outage, caused by asteroid damage to the hull. We're going to need another place to put this ship. Kansas isn't that safe.
Since the Mollys aren't in favour of our passage into the Omegas via Dublin, we can count them out as a source of supplies. We'll just have to work closer with the Junkers, I guess. I'm not sure about talking with the corps just yet.
We might have to anyways. We're running out of good hull panels and power conduits. Salvaged parts could fail in combat, and if that happens, there won't be a Metropolis hull left to rebuild next time.
Log active. Entry: #00014 Submitter: Taskmaster Harold Kane Date: 17/07/820
Another f*cking power outage. This time it's not because of the conduits.
According to Florence, the primary fusion reactor has been down for so long we can't restart it cleanly. We need MOX, which is expensive and decays fairly rapidly. Usually we can run the reactor on a hybrid of MOX and H-Fuel, or just straight H-Fuel when the energy grid isn't under load, but this time we need straight MOX for a couple minutes to get the grid stabilized. Then we can switch over to the less expensive and more plentiful H-Fuel for a low-load output.
Deuterium isn't cutting it anymore, I guess. It'll run the backup generators, but it simply doesn't have the potential energy for a proper high-output fusion reaction. And, making it worse, we need a significant shot of energy to start the primary reactor, so every attempt we make at bringing the mains online kills everything but life support and emergency lighting for a couple minutes.
There's way too much science involved in this for me, I think.
Log active. Entry: #00015 Submitter: Taskmaster Harold Kane Date: 20/07/820
MOX worked. The primary fusion reactors are back online and, in theory, the engines are as well. However, the main hull structure isn't strong enough to move under full impulse power, let alone cruise and survive transfer through a jump stream.
So we're not moving the ship yet. Damn.
Our engineering team coordinated to draw up new plans for the internal structure of the Metropolis. In theory, we can have all the operations stuff at the core of the ship, lengthwise, and build a shell around it that's literally empty except for armour at every "deck" junction. Not only will this help protect the ship from incoming attacks, but it also means fewer casualties in the event the ship is attacked and the shields are penetrated. Since we don't have much of a crew to begin with at this point, we want to save as many people as we can.
This is, according to Florence, an unusual design for a warship interior. But, you know, we're the Vagrant Raiders. We're unusual folks. This is pretty much standard for us.
Log active. Entry: #00016 Submitter: Taskmaster Harold Kane Date: 22/07/820
We moved the ship a whole 4K today.
Amazingly, this is an accomplishment.
New docking bays are installed, which is nice. Construction has begun on these landing-strip things that don't really make sense because we're in space but look cool and add a bit of structural stability.
That's what Florence told me, but I personally think she just wants something that looks cool on the sides of the ship.
I've given up on the Junkers. The Natio has sent a communique to the Government of Liberty to talk about neutrality. Hopefully this pans out in our favour and we can start requisitioning materials from DSE and the like. The Junkers just can't make parts for ships that aren't put together with duct tape and rust. It's a sad fact of the quasi-lawful life.
Kane got some money from the Canaria folks in exchange for the medical supplies, so we're back on track for repairs.
He's also talking to the Libertonians about them not shooting at us, which is wicked because I want to get some materials from passing DSE ships without having to demand their cargo or their lives. That gets scary after a while. What if there's a cloaked gunship escorting the trader? What if the Navy is around the corner, waiting for an easy kill?
The best part is, the Libertonians are listening and responding pleasantly.
Kane just authorized a hundred million credit transfer to the Bretonian government.
I didn't even know we had a hundred million credits.
Whatever. His money.
Repairs are on track. The superstructure is almost completed. Next up is patching up the holes, then armouring the interior. All the internal decks are completed, poweed, and pressurized. That was the easy part. Building the armoured part of the superstructure will be a challenge, but we can make it work. Hopefully Kane will get us a mooring point or drydock of some kind to work with. We can't do this in open space.
Log active. Entry: #00019 Submitter: Taskmaster Harold Kane Date: 03/08/820
All Raiders vessels are now out of Liberty house space, along with a fair quantity of high-grade ship hull panels that have been delivered to Kansas to continue building the Metropolis superstructure.
We're missing a couple Bayonets. Which means we're out a few million credits.
Also we just got another shipment of panels in, courtesy of Erasmas. The problem is that we have no safe place to begin building a solid internal armour grid without the threat of an asteroid storm. Every tiny mark made on the armour inside creates a weak point. We can't have any weak points.
We can't continue major work on the structure until then, so I guess I get to tell the engineers to work on the grid and energy dispersal.
