I believe it is our nature to explore, to reach out into the unknown. The only true failure would be not to explore at all.
- Sir Ernest Shackleton
Huh. I actually forgot about this. Goes to show how eventful things have been.
It's been… seven months since arrival, give or take a couple of days. Or weeks. Four months of relative calm, then all of a sudden, a shitshow that had everyone scrambling, all thanks to the fuckin' Scourge. Oh yeah, the brains finally discovered what it was that the Nexus kept hitting - some kinda energy cloud that tears titanium to shreds and vapourises biological material. They named it "the Scourge" on account of it being an absolute arse to us all - no one's objected to the name, so it stuck.
Garson disappeared for a couple of weeks, with Matriarch Nuara leading in her place. Rumour has it that she'd kicked the bucket, with some saying she had cancer or some disease, but Garson unexpectedly reappeared during yesterday's Council meet. Not gonna lie, I was half-asleep for most of it, with Kandros poking me in the ribs to keep me awake.
I haven't been sleeping well, recently. Too many people to keep an eye on, too few Security bodies to do so, especially with the accidentals running around like tourists, with no assignation and no way to put them back into cryo. I've been pulling sentry duty alongside my people, but with double or even triple back-to-back shifts, it just... wasn't enough.
(sigh) Anyway.
Garson looked thinner, her cheekbones more prominent than I remembered; kinda reminded me of starving orphans in the Terminus Systems. Said she'd been unwell; I don't doubt her for a second. But damn, she's still sharp as ever, listening closely to updates and asking the hard questions. Don't get me wrong, Nuara's no slouch; some said she ran a tighter ship than Garson, but Garson probed deep, highlighting deficiencies and other things that people generally liked keeping hidden from the higher-ups; things that governments could get away with. Her methods ruffled a few feathers, definitely, but I for one welcome her approach.
As expected – thanks to Kandros giving me a heads-up – Tann grilled me about a spate of burglaries that led to credits being stolen; I simply showed him the overtime rosters, and how most of my people are dead on their feet. Garson promised that Ops will shunt some prospective accidentals my way to make up the numbers; I'll have Amari manage things on that end, Kandros is already doing enough as is.
Prickly little salarian. He's the kind of person we don't need right now, a fuckin' bureaucrat.
Things are bad, not gonna mince words. The Scourge is the source of many of our problems; Parker's still trying to make up for the lost crops, said we can't take another major loss like that; Kesh looked just as tired as I felt, having to deal with so much damage all over the Nexus, her people running ragged like mine; Medical was in dire straits for a time in the early days, the medical bays overflowing with casualties from Scourge collisions, but these days they've stabilised - in fact, they're launching the Nexus Central Hospital within the next couple of days, pooling all the medical bays' resources together along with the personnel. Good for them, good for us all.
That little bit of good news wasn't enough to dissipate the overall mood throughout the meeting, though, and I understand why. Week after week, month after month of constant bad news - with all the damage reports, casualty numbers, and deaths, it can be hard to see the good in all of this. The mood wasn't just limited to the Council too; in my rounds on the ground, I've met several colonists who questioned just where things were going, with some resigning themselves to a future of, and I quote, "scarfing down rations, fixing things, and waiting to see which one of us dies next." Hardly a glowing report.
Though, all of that was before Garson's surprise announcement at the tail end of the meeting, when everyone was preparing to leave. There was no warning that it was coming at all; I suspect Garson knew exactly what she was doing. She needed to lift spirits, boost morale, bring hope back in the midst of all this uncertainty. Honestly, what she said caught me off-guard, just like any of the other Council members; I had to ask Kandros to repeat what she said because I thought I heard her wrong.
As it turns out, I didn't.
She's sending an expedition to Habitat One.
AUDIO LOG 0087 (PERSONAL)
DESIGNATION: L-04-LAETOLI
ID: DIRECTOR KELLY, SLOANE J. (SECURITY)