A9 Personal Log, SD 50210.13

[Guest]

::On the Bridge, pacing back and forth, wearing his fourth rut into the carpet.  Scowling, he turns and plops himself down in the Command Chair punching at the recording membrane on the arm of the chair::

 

Computer, open Personal Log, Commodore Atragon-9, Commanding Officer, USS Manticore, NCC-5852, password *********

 

 

Hmmm, I guess I'm the commanding officer...  I was arrested and jailed, but I don't know that anyone ever stripped me of command.  I guess that was Melville's specialty and since I killed... since he KILLED HIMSELF ON ME (gads) no one has picked up the slack!!

 

We have arrived at an unnamed planet, that in itself displays a certain amount of pull in the Federation, which seems to be the basecamp for all of Melville's evil doings over the years.  Elaine Jaffe contacted Sovak, provided him with the location and provided the ship with all of it's goodies back.  I can't blame her for that, but I wonder if there's more to all this than to simply help clear my name!!  I'm just one officer, she could have worked her tricks with the next commander and not saved me at considerable risk to herself.  She has always been kind, but efficient.  This smacks of a job that needed to be carried out by someone very desperate, well I guess she found her stoog... uhh, operative.

 

Not that it's been a cakewalk.  We had to defeat ground-based artillery and then a nasty orbital battle with a souped-up dreadnought.  If it hadn't been for the quick thinking of a lot of people and the willingness of Margaux Roget to lay down her life... well, we'd all have perished, or at least been captured.  Now we have a landing party trying to search the outpost and Roget, barely alive, in Sickbay after wrecking her fighter and Shuttle Bay 2 but miraculously surviving it all.

 

So, what if we find the evidence we seek what if I'm cleared, what else will we find?  Will it put us in greater risk?  Do we really want to get back to the job of righting the wrongs that no one knows about (and wouldn't agree with us on, if they did)??  Is that what's in store for us?  Can things just go back to the way they were, even if we wanted them to?  Who will be Consul General now?  It's not exactly a job for someone shy and retiring...  

 

Uggh, gotta focus.  First things first, how to get the landing party past those ground troops...  aerial stun grenades?  Sleeping agent?  A big, ole conk on the head!!??

 

::Unintelligible muttering::  Oh forget it...

 

Computer, EOM, EOT