Actually, bob's post was originally under Zoras's account name :P

Then I came back this morning and it wasn't.

So no, I'm not confusing anyone for anyone else.

Still OT... but... How could that have happened?

Entry Five
January 16, 4434
The Makchuga, Corvus Hold, Odia M-14

Lots of stuff has happened in the past month... some of which I'll talk about here.

On the twelfth of November (a little over two months ago), Jan and I had been relaxing on the sofa by the large viewport that always had Kraz and its rings centered. I'd been a little sick—a cold, nothing more—so Jan had been trying various measures to help me feel better. The Deneb Run was that evening, so we were sticking around for the usual post-race party.

We were tired, both of us, and I'm not sure how straight we were thinking; but I'm glad that what came up in our "conversation" did come up, because it made that night one of the happiest in my life. The rest of the evening after Jan proposed was a bit of a blur, but that moment is clearer in my mind than it must have been when it actually happened.

Impressively enough, Erik proposed to Joyce a few days later (by impressively I mean his timing was perfect). After a bit of discussion, we decided on holding a double ceremony for both couples. We eventually decided on the thirtieth of December as the date of the wedding, and spent a large amount of time trying to prepare. (Ironically enough, despite the amount of planning we put into the event, our invitations didn't get out until a week before the ceremony. To those of you who couldn't make it due to the short timespan that we gave you to make a decision and reschedule other events, I personally apologize.)

Lots of stuff went perfectly at the wedding. The rings were there on time (we'd had a friend of ours make them for us), and the flowers were beautiful. The dresses were beautiful, and aside neither of the best men not being able to make it, all of the expected participants in the ceremony were on time. Jan substituted Leber, a frequent patron of the Makchuga, and Erik substituted Tokkan-To Tudane for them (I'm not entirely sure about Erik's choice; I was spending most of my time staring at Jan).

A few things didn't go so perfectly. We had one party crasher (who shall remain unnamed... for now), but they were dealt with promptly. Several of the guests we hoped would be there we couldn't reach, and some, annoyingly, had to sleep. Not too bad, I guess, considering the turnout for a public TGFT mining event held that night at the same time—it was below five people for them.

The reception party got a little out of hand later on, as one of our local AI programmers (who I only know as FiReMaGe) showed us some of his creations: fireworks, even snakes made of Totally Tubular segments. Another local AI person (my maid of honor, RelayeR, in fact) did some nice automated cargo displays. After some of the excitement was gone, Jan and I slipped out the back and flew to the capital city of the Itani, Armand, where we were having our honeymoon.

There's not a lot that I can say about the two weeks we spent there that's fit for a public forum, but we did have a nice dinner with Erik and Joyce (who were also staying in Armand) at a dance hall on New Year's. The food was excellent, and I was pleasantly surprised by Jan's dancing skill—I'd been half-expecting that he wouldn't know how—he must have had lessons at some point in the past.

I'm back at the Makchuga now, Jan's asleep in our apartment only a few minutes' walk away. I'm sorry that we couldn't have spent MORE time in Armand—we never got to go see the Ark—but we're going to go back sometime soon; probably back to visit nee-san. It's too bad, really, that she wasn't able to make it to the wedding, but she has an intense dislike for space travel, and I respect that. So the four of us will just have to go and visit. I know she'd like that.

Anyway, I think there's a few more customers to serve; Erik's out there with them now, as should be Joyce (I can hear her cheerful voice from the back room). I'll probably stick around here for a few more hours, and then go up to Jan.

Ah, you may be an irritable player, but you are an exellent writer.

Entry Six
January 29, 4434
Recovery Ward, Pacifica Provincial Hospital, Eo

I don't remember arriving here. I don't remember leaving home. In fact, the last thing I remember was talking to Joyce over a vidcomm unit Friday afternoon. Maharu says I had been injured when I had accidentally smacked my face on my desk. According to the doctor who's in charge, I broke my nose, and lost a lot of blood, so they kept me here for the weekend.

Seems I'll be allowed out of here tomorrow, depending on if I've "recovered" enough. They just took the bandages off of my face a few minutes ago. Aside from the fact that my face is the color of skin that's been under what used to be called a "band-aid" for far too long and that my nose is still healing, I guess I'm okay—the bruises are gone.

Erik and Joyce have both been to visit me here over the past few days. I haven't seen Jan, but I guess he's off on some job for Xang Xi again—week before last they had had him chasing after some drone all over Serco space. Some new AI, I think—Jan didn't say much about it. I'm a little concerned that I haven't heard from him in almost a week, but he's probably under orders to maintain radio silence for some reason. I guess he'll call or write when he gets a chance.

Other than that there's not much to talk about, though there is some good news: Lecter was captured by operatives from Skygge Vakter. I'll choose not to harp on the bad news that goes with it—that's more Erik's job than mine...

LordofBlades » Um... thanks... I think...

Entry Seven
May 19, 4434
Corvus Hold, Odia M-14

Well, lots of things have happened in the past three months, some bad, some good, and some horrible. I actually had an entry written a while back (from late March) that I'd never gotten around to posting, so I'll start with that:

The previously-mentioned "bad news" was that the Neural Spike hadn't actually been destroyed as advertised in the Itani newsnets. The issue was taken care of, however—after a long weekend of market exploitation, we paid the person who was in possession of the device one hundred million credits, each of us using what we'd raised that weekend and then some out of our own pockets. I stored the device in Odia—not in M-14, though—and the next day we took it to Helios and dropped it into the red giant. Joyce seems to be okay now; the Voices that she frequently complained of seemed to be distressing her immensely during the fifteen minutes that it took to for the tidal forces to destroy the crate and the Spike inside it.

A few weeks later, the Voices started to come back, at first quietly, then more insistent. After a few failed attempts at controlling her, she and Erik decided she needed to go through a high-level cloning procedure that would remove the parts of her mind that the Void used to influence her while leaving the rest intact.

We raised the money for the procedure, precisely how I'm not at liberty to say—but she went through the procedure a few weekends ago, and it went flawlessly.

The good stuff is that Jan's been around much more recently; sometimes he even takes a week off of work at Oan. This week he has to proctor final exams, but after that I get him all to myself for the rest of the summer. I've jokingly considered suing Oan for theft of property; while I think Jan would be amused by the idea, I don't think it would get very far in court...

And the horrible. On April 6th, Lecter was supposed to be transferred from Bractus to a more permanent detention area in Deneb. Instead of even being part of the convoy, he had been given to ST6 before the whole transfer was supposed to take place! Mogul Velaio, the then-commander of the Coalition of Itan (he was subsequently expelled from office and banned from Itani space for a month) handed Lecter's cell over to ST6 not even an hour before the transfer was supposed to happen. Long story short, Lecter is on the loose again. I'm not going to rant any further on this particular subject; I think those of you who check these logs know my position on the matter.

In other news... I've been hearing a lot of odd stuff from a friend of mine. Thesaadri, a friend of mine from the Syndicate, has given me some really odd news. Before I joined Sigma Shipping (that's another story in itself; I'll do that one later) I had been scheduled to join Private Military Company, a guild under the command of someone named Khalitz. I hadn't seen Khalitz for a few months, but I ran into Thesaadri in Serco space.

We got to talking, just general stuff, then some of the things he told me about Khalitz (whom he was trading for, rather unenthusiastically) seemed a little strange. What he was saying made it sound like Khalitz was Yukinari, something I didn't think could be true—I'd seen his dead body with my own eyes—but the more I thought about it, the more plausible it seemed. He did say in his last letter to me that he was "as hard as a cockroach to kill." Could he have had some backup plan in place that I never knew about because I had been chasing Drift around trying to get him to remember me? Maybe I didn't need to have been doing that. Maybe Yukinari was lurking in the background and I never knew he was there, waiting for something.

This isn't to say I'm going to leave Jan. Not at all. It's been over between me and Yukinari for a year now. I just have a lot of unanswered questions for him, and if there's a chance I'll get to ask them, I'd like to take it.

(1) Dr. Lecter, the VO character, has never had a first name.
(2) While you may continue to call Lecter's demand for performance of your voluntarily assumed contractual obligations whatever you like... "serial"?

First rule of contract law (as applies to this situation): Contracts are only legal if the two (or more) persons signing/agreeing to it are of sound mind/mental stability and health. Miharu didn't qualify for the first at the time the "contract" was "agreed to" due to large amounts of stress, partially caused by Lecter himself, and Lecter, by any normal person's standards, never is, was or will be mentally stable.

Fixed the name thing.

Actually, the test is one of capacity, not whether you were upset. The vital thing is that Lecter wasn't using anything illegal to create the "stress"/duress ye be under; law of salvage gave legal rights to the pod & contents. Ergo, Lecter could form a binding contract with Miharu based on an exchange of pod & contents.

[EDIT] I'll drop it when I'm good and ready, which may well be after I point out that Jex, not Lecter, kidnapped JS. Once she was in the stasis pod, her ass was salvageable cargo, subject to the claim of whomever scooped it up.

Kidnapping isn't illegal?

Find that somewhere.

Regardless, this is pointless OOC banter about a character's opinions. Drop it.

Thread temporarily merges storyline with Operation Firestorm, One is Two if Three is Blue, and a few other threads involving Mogul Velaio, Borb Sarken, et al.

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Entry Eight
June 25th, 4434
Deneb Meditation, Deneb K-5

Jan's gone. Out of my life. Hopefully forever. Our marriage had been straining for months; he'd be home for a weekend, go up to Oan, forget to come home, and when he did remember to come home... he acted like he'd only been gone for a few minutes. Then came my birthday.

He'd been home earlier that week. I was already in a sullen mood—I don't exactly remember why—but he was there, and we discussed times he would be able to be present for a party. We settled on 2200 Galactic Mean Time on Friday the 9th. Joyce and Erik agreed to that time and date... and Jan went back to Oan on Tuesday evening, after promising he'd be at the party.

However...

On Friday, everything was fine... until the party.

22:00, the party started... no Jan.
22:15, I started getting anxious. Still no Jan.
22:30, STILL no Jan. Joyce told me to give it another half-hour.
23:00, Jan still hadn't shown up. I chalked it up to some issue back at Oan and resumed socializing with the rest of the people present as if nothing had happened.

Then after the party, I flew up to Eo to see my sister.

One day... two days... three... four... A week went by, and not a word from Jan. It was the last straw. I thanked myself for having done the "just-in-case" paperwork a week and a half before, and I had Aoikun (my AxiaTech hologuide/assistant) finish them for me remotely. I forwarded the paperwork to the station officials and sat there for a moment, pondering what I'd just done.

I summed it up to a family friend like this:

"It's been over a week since my birthday party. And he'd had a week's notice. And he didn't show up, nor did he write a letter."
"Ooooh... he's a dead man."
"Not only is he a dead man, he's a single one."

During that intervening week, between the time I'd gone up to Eo and submitted the divorce papers, I'd spent most of my time with someone I'd met over the weekend, went mining with for ore, etc. etc. We also rode several Tridents around Itani and Union space... spent a night in Arta, even... I didn't feel like being alone, so we rented a small place on Denia Watch for a night or two, then got a slightly nicer place in Deneb. As much as some people might find it to be wrong, I'm staying with this person, who I'll refrain from naming for now, and I think it'll be better for me than it has been with Jan. Lucky him, he'll get the hydrospanners I'd purchased as a gift for Jan. I suspect this young man could get a better use out of them than Jan would have, anyway.

And in other news, more current and widely known, I was on my way back to Deneb just a few nights ago after spending a few evenings working in the bar when an announcement comes up on the radio:

"My name is Mogul Velaio," it said. I recognized both the name and the voice. I'd just spent over an hour overheating my gravdrive the previous night getting the guy some food... but that's another story for another entry.

"Some might remember me as a true Itani loyalist. But many were recently convinced of the contrary."

I dropped my ship into an empty sector of space to listen to the rest of the announcement.

"The time has come for me to prove them wrong... the time has come for drastic measures."

"For too long, the Itani have fought the Serco, and the Serco the Itani. Borders cannot be trusted, for any individual can cross almost unhindered, fueling the war. Border skirmishes are daily routine. Destruction... mundane."

"Across the known galaxy, grey space offers little reticence, in supplying either nation with purified Xith, thus allowing both nations to thrive on their war efforts. Furthermore, the corridor offers an undefended and unmonitored path through which either nation can build up their fleet before attacking the other."

"How many lives were lost in Sedina along, no one will ever know."

"I intend on attempting to break one of these supply chains and cut off one of the bridges between the two nations."

I blinked. He wasn't going to attack a civilian target after all, unlike what the Itani and Serco newsnets were trying to force-feed the public. He was attacking greyspace.

"In order to minimize impact for the UIT, trade routes will still be possible, going though their space, therefore acting as a buffer zone between our two nations."

"My hope is to isolate the two nations and bring peace where conflict ravages. My hope is to crush the knees of the war-mongering bureaucrats that profit from this conflict."

"As a token of my good will, exact location, time and date of the bridge to fall will be announced. Time enough to pack your bags and chose your residency side and avoid being destroyed should you be too close from... sector zero."

"For those convinced that my intentions are not of peace, I would advise you to reconsider chasing me. I may not have a fleet at my disposal, but I am sure to be quite safe in my Propeller Group Constellation."

" I have christened it, Apus, after the constellation of the same name."

"Event details are forthcoming."

The message clicked out and the music started again. I sat there for a minute, stunned. I had been right all along, but I hadn't expected this kind of move. At all.

I raced as fast as I could the rest of the way. I couldn't do much of anything... yet...

... I still can't...

... but if I could, would I?