Personal Logs - Calendar - Comms Board
Personal Log - Jerdehl Nishka
Jerdehl Nishka Stepping Stone I
Personal log
I just got picked up by the Pioneer. It looks like a laboratory ship.
I was afraid I'd be stuck at Fist forever.
I'd had such a good job on board that Jump-2 liner, the Abundant Light. They picked me up at Strend, after I'd spent six months there. When I set out from Emape, I wanted to get as far away from trouble as I could get. I love my folks, but I couldn't help but disappoint them after all, like my brother Enos.
I miss him. Saint Astley, look after him.
{Space here for more personal log entries}
Date: 1104-216
Personal log
Got caught practicing escrima in the cargo bay.
Supplemental
The food on board this lab ship is rubbish. I really need to get to a decent supplier and lay in rations which have some sort of flavour to them. My Dad's Marine rations tasted better than this.
Hells, my Mum's cooking tasted better, even though Dad could never stand her people's cooking. Me, I took after Mum, including her dietary tolerances.
Personal log
Anyway, I'm here at this planet called Marduk, heading for the surface in a shuttle with Sir Lieutenant Sultana. He doesn't want anyone calling him Gopal - that's for his family and bedmates. Much though I like him, I am not going to be one of the latter.
I hope this log is secure. They mustn't know. It was bad enough when they put me off the ship at Strend when they found out. I don't want Marduk to be my last port of call.
Personal log
My Dad Maris once told me that his job was to anticipate his Officer's needs, often before the Officer realised he had them.
I miss both my folks, but Dad was the one who took me out on those little hunting trips. I was useless with a shotgun, but good with a blade. Skinning and gutting animals was never a problem for me, because I knew what needed to be done to turn something living and breathing into food.
I had that dream again, of walking along beside a shoreline, scrubby grass, no moons, gentle wind. I could feel the rain on my face, and I got a sense I was stalking someone just up ahead. Or were they stalking me?
Supplemental
I'm back on board the Pioneer. I've used Sir Sultana's one-time security code to board his ship's boat, and taken what I need from it. I worked with the crew to put the gear into a furniture pack marked "sample." I resealed it, marked it "damaged in transit," and added my own kali sticks and two hunting knives from the ship's locker into the box. Nice, long, sharp hunting knives, given to me by my Dad.
There are two boxes of samples. If I'm asked to open one, I'll open the box which just holds furniture. Just in case.
Now heading back to the shuttle to stow the cargo.
Supplemental
Oh, my, word, there's a thought pattern I never thought I'd experience round these parts. A Vargr, young, male, disciplined, energetic, really dedicated. I stopped short of a full scan. It'd be indecorous of me to reach into an ordinary mind, so I don't know anything else about the young man.
Except he's so incredibly young, to be so far from the Extents. Maybe his folks came out here and tied the knot in the Trojans.
Supplemental
I really should have asked for Karine's comm, rather than looking over her shoulder. I liked what she was wearing. I liked her thoughts. I wanted to see her out of her clothes.
Supplemental
Oh, Sir Sultana just asked me how I know so much. How can I tell him it's what and who I am? I mean, in a restaurant, whom do you never notice, never speak to, and if you were asked to describe them your mind would just slip over their faces and come away blank? And in an office, whom do you never even notice, when they're in a sanitation worker's uniform, pushing a bucket and mop or a trolley of loo rolls?
No powers here. Just me, doing what I have been doing since my Dad taught me to hunt.
Supplemental
That was wild. We just got shot down. Somebody said it was some creeps from the next system along, and that they keep raiding all their nearby systems.
Noting down my dream here. I was on board some sort of alien ship. Big damn thing, had to be a hundred and fifty kilometres stem to stern, pitch black hull. What got me was that it was peering down at the Galaxy, from something like forty five thousand parsecs above. And that it had only just jumped there from somewhere in the Trojan Reach, six hours before.
I was inside some sort of dome. There were these huge winglike structures rising astern, more pitch black, blotting out the sky. They looked like flower petals, or maybe an umbrella canopy.
And that was when I saw my Mum. She had her full regalia on - silk turban, regimental uniform, cloak, like a Colonel equivalent in the Zhodani Navy. She welcomed me, and told me she was waiting for me.
