Damaged Circuits and Souls

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Author: Arrow Quivershaft

Lt. Arrow Q. Vershaft's Audio Journal, September 28, GP407

*click*

"Ok...personal log, September 28th, GP407. Location: Low planetary orbit over Terra Alphyn Things are going acceptably. My initial assessment is correct, namely that the ship is a cobbled together mess of parts. On the upswing, much of the tech is so old that I saw it at AGATE in our practice exercises because it was cheap, so I have experience with it. Funny that...the loop keeps going. Old technology never truly dies, it just gets stuffed in a corner where most people don't see it.

Captain Enfield has told me we won't be using the hangar bays in the next mission; they're all empty anyways. I've converted over the fighter auto-repair and servicing systems to inspect and do basic maintenance on several parts from the ship. They can't do much in the ways of repair; welding a starship hull back together is not as fine of a job as patching or bypassing a blown circuit, but at the least it's helping me locate errors so I can fix things.

Or some things...I've got more systems that want parts than I have parts, so for the moment, a few systems have been cannibalized for parts to restore function to more important ones. I'm also installing parts that're more reliable in more important systems. So for the time being, the fur cleaner on the main deck is likely to be prone to failure, because its main motor was in pristine shape and one of the main computer cooling systems needs the same pump, which was far more worn, and I don't want the main computer going offline in a tight situation.

I got a nasty burn on my hand yesterday when someone turned on the long-range communication gear for the ship while I was working on the main conduit. I had half the lines detached for inspection and repairs, and the remaining lines couldn't handle the load and blew all six fuses on the interrupt circuit on the support bulkhead; the same bulkhead that I was using for grounding. A few scutes got badly damaged, but the damage is more cosmetic and painful than truly dangerous; should heal up fine in a week or so. Normally I'd use a dermal regenerator, but we're a bit short on them; I'll just use it if it takes a while or a scar starts forming.

I think I'm going to reflect back on my personal history a bit in these logs over the next while, to kind of chronicle the turns my life has taken. I'm definitely not where I expected to be at this point. So...I was hatched on Terra Buteo in GP 386. My childhood was...well, challenging in some ways. I was not an particularly competetive chick, and kinda preferred working together to needless fighting. But my species focuses very heavily on positional jockeying, even as nestlings...I got used by more than a few other people on thier own climbs, and got a reputation as being usable for others to succeed. I wasn't a poor competitor in my own right, doing fine on my own, but between being used by others to improve themselves, and willful sabotage on a few ocassions, I was falling behind in social status. And then to cap it off, the work started getting harder than I could expect to do on my own, but others wouldn't help me. I broke down the first time I failed on an assignment and had to go home.

Which leads to a second cornerstone of our society, which is that the children are expected to uphold the honor, status, and reputation of both parental lines...and both sides of my family were relatively well established with good histories, so I had a lot riding on me as the first chick. And between slipping social status and fights/bullying at school, I wasn't near living up to what I was expected to live up to. And things were getting progressively worse. My parents looked into stopping this continuing downward spiral, but consultations at home, toys and perks for doing well, and working with school personnel wasn't cutting it. Which led my parents to one of the most difficult decisions they've ever made..."

*BREEEEEEP BREEEEEP*

"...and something on the ship just flagged itself as a critical failure. I'll finish this later. Lt. Vershaft signing off."

Preceded by:
Arriving on The Cause
Lt. Vershaft Audio Entries Succeeded by:
On the Education of Hawks