{"id":1486,"date":"2023-01-21T14:07:35","date_gmt":"2023-01-21T14:07:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1486"},"modified":"2023-01-21T14:07:39","modified_gmt":"2023-01-21T14:07:39","slug":"last-contact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/last-contact\/1486\/","title":{"rendered":"Last Contact"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Pilot Gamma-Tau 453 personal log: birth offset date 4067, relative time +220637.1.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Security code: <redacted><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Navy\u2019s always had a weird sense of humour, at least that\u2019s what I\u2019ve been told, even going back to the days of seafaring vessels in the Sol system. Lots of in-jokes lost to history, obtuse terminology, and language designed to exclude civilians and make us feel like part of a family, even as we sacrifice our personal humanity for the greater good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been doing research, trying to understand some of it before it\u2019s my turn to go into the hospital ship known colloquially as the Bee, or Barry Eugene<\/em>, official designation USS Odobenus, to do my part for the future of what\u2019s left of our species. They\u2019ve got a weird tradition of making sure that every commanding officer changes their name upon appointment to Whyte. The current Captain Whyte is not a personable individual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some genetic scientist figured out \u201cThe Process\u201d is better when it involves real human mothers rather than growing people in gene pool vats, and I expect I\u2019ll be called up in the next seven hundred days or so, but I\u2019d rather be running defence patterns, boring as they are, that protect The Orphan Fleet. Or better yet taking on real threats. They\u2019ve limited our live-fire exercises since the Epsilon Eridani b incident, and I can\u2019t say I blame them, but it\u2019s no fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, I\u2019m on patrol, my fighter describing lazy figure-of-eight patterns around the Bee <\/em>and the military training ship, the USS Limerence, nicknamed Christina<\/em>. That\u2019s apparently some sort of witticism as well, according to the psych docs. Either way, it\u2019s where they train us to \u201cBe infatuated with our duty\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I\u2019m honest, it\u2019s more like indoctrination, but I keep those opinions between me and this log. I don\u2019t know why they\u2019re included in the sweep pattern, they certainly don\u2019t need that much defence. Enormous railguns, and a hex-patterned laser defence grid powered by nuclear fuel rods, commonly known as Maggies <\/em>(another ancient pun I guess…) are just the start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The oath we all take is a bit odd. As soon as you can speak, you promise to serve The Fleet and believ… hold on. The comms panel is lighting up, priority Alpha hailed from Fleet Tactical Command.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attention all fighter pilots. Disengage current exercises and adopt defensive tactical plan Phi Seventeen, repeat Phi One Seven. Reinforcements inbound. This is not, repeat <\/em>NOT, a drill.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phi Seventeen? Damn, that means a species-ending, potential threat incoming. Maybe I wished too hard for some excitement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, I\u2019ve left my personal log running. No time to wipe it now, I\u2019ll do it after this is over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Powering up weapons arrays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Switching to long range scanners, triangulating with Fleet data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus<\/em>. Look at the size<\/em> of that thing… and it\u2019s coming in fast. Is that an escort party of alien interceptors launching?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Damn, an EMP blast. All systems down. We\u2019re sitting ducks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their weapons are glowing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mom, I\u2019m sorry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pilot Gamma-Tau 453 personal log: birth offset date 4067, relative time +220637.1. Security code: <redacted> The Navy\u2019s always had a weird sense of humour, at least that\u2019s what I\u2019ve been told, even going back to the days of seafaring vessels in the Sol system. Lots of in-jokes lost to history, obtuse terminology, and language designed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[695,697],"tags":[103,118,632],"class_list":["post-1486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-695","category-january-2023-infatuation","tag-our","tag-they","tag-ve"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-nY","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1486"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1488,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486\/revisions\/1488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}