The body of the alien ship floats listlessly before me, the gaping tears on its hull a testament to the effectiveness my Guardian gauss guns had against it. It was a Basilisk-class Thargoid, stronger and faster than the regular Cyclops; it’s the third one I’ve downed by myself, bringing my total Interceptor solo kill count to seventeen. That doesn’t include the countless Scouts I’ve destroyed, or the higher class Medusae and Hydras that were brought low by the combined efforts of several pilots in a wing, myself included.

And yet... I don’t feel any better. If anything, I feel... sad.

As I had expected, the unlocking of Guardian tech and the engineering of my ships has been a resounding success, especially for my anti-Xeno crafts. That allowed me a generous amount of survivability as I rode the learning curve associated with combating the Thargoids. My first Interceptor kill was done as part of a wing; I made so many mistakes I was sure the group wouldn’t want me back. Surprisingly, they did, which was good; that first notch on my belt had felt exhilarating.

What I hadn’t expected was how short that sense of triumph would last. On my first solo takedown you would have thought I would have thrown a party, but the dead, empty shell of the Cyclops seemed to reflect the hollowness of my victory, and each subsequent kill after that felt increasingly unfulfilling. Where was all this death leading to? Were we destined to fight each other until one side wiped the other out? If that was the case, then that makes us no better than INRA. It makes me no better.

My wife gets it. She accompanied me on one of my runs, something she didn’t enjoy at all. There were plenty of pucker moments and Oh shit! yells for her, and at the end of it all... I found her crying at the sight of my beaten foe. That’s when I knew the fire had gone out from her too.

We’ve already made plans to return to Ohm City, where we can take a break from all the war action and rebuild our semi-depleted finances. She’s already looking forward to going back to work at the local hospital and seeing her friends again. She’s not giving up on her volunteer work either; she plans to recruit a bunch of her nursing buddies for month-long tours at the rescue ships.

As for me, I’ll probably bounce around between my transport enterprises at Robigio and Medb. When my wife heads out to do her volunteering, I’ll be flying them out to where they need to go, and then I’ll stick around and support Operation IDA through search-and-rescue jobs. The AXI wing that I flew with will also be there; I’ll lend them a hand if they ask. I certainly won’t be looking for any more solo kills to add to my blood tally.

And when the new exploration package gets released, along with the new Krait Phantom, I plan to purchase one, soup it up, and then take my wife out on a long exploration vacation. It’ll be a nice getaway from this seemingly endless, mindless war.

War. That word just triggered a memory in my head, a debate that I saw between a militaristic captain of a Federal corvette, and his more philosophical second-in-command. That captain had stated that war was just another political tool for factions and powers to further their ambitions and destroy their enemies. The lieutenant countered that the true enemy could not be destroyed, to which the captain bid him to reveal who the true enemy was.

He answered, “In this age, with the capacity that we currently have to kill and destroy, the true enemy is war itself.”

Wow. It hasn’t been too long since I last recorded an entry into my logbook. A lot has happened... and is about to happen.

Let me start by the most recent news that has the pilot community buzzing with excitement. The Pilot's Federation, in conjunction with a number of ship manufacturers, are releasing a new development in the coming weeks: full spectrum scanning and analysis. This will prove to be a boon for celestial exploration, and it should surely lead to more exciting discoveries.

As if that’s not enough, a conglomerate of mining corporations have refined and plan to roll out a series of advanced mining techniques, along with the necessary technology to carry them out. This will certainly be lucrative for the dedicated miners.

Add to that the rumors of new ships to be introduced to the public, and it certainly is an exciting time to be a pilot.

It all hardly moves me.

I remain focused on my mission to take the fight to the Thargoids. And I’m happy to say that most of the planned modifications to my ships have been completed, especially for my anti-xeno crafts. Their defensive capabilities should allow them to survive any serious encounters with the aliens. What’s needed now are guns. Exotic guns, the kind that will bring hurt to the Thargoids.

In other words: Guardian tech.

I’ve already done my research, and I’m confident I can puzzle out the various Guardian sites so I can gather what I need to unlock their technology. It will take me out to far-flung destinations and away from my family... but for once, I have the full support of my wife in this.

Surprisingly, she feels as strongly as I do in doing our part against the aliens. And she knows full well that the better I’m equipped, the better my chances on coming out alive from an encounter with those Thargoid bastards. She has opted to stay behind in the safety of the rescue ships, where she can lend her much needed medical skills.

She only asked two things of me in my journeys: stay alive, and bring her back a Guardian souvenir. I certainly plan on coming through in the former... and I’ll see what I can do about the latter.

Sometimes the best laid plans come with unexpected... surprises.

My dedication to taking the Thargoid battle in earnest continues unabated: I continue to engage the Thargoid scouts wherever I find them . And I'm still in the processing of engineering my fleet, especially the anti-xeno builds. It’s these two complimenting endeavors which led me to the logical but unanticipated ownership of a new ship.

Three new ships, in fact.

The first of these new additions is a second Python dubbed the Black Orchid Express. It’s a cool-running, shieldless stealth transport dedicated to running VIP tours to Sirius Atmospherics and permanently based out of Robigio. That frees up my original Python, the Blue Orchid VI, for community goal-based missions, should I choose to participate. Even better, those tour jobs are quite lucrative, both in credits and in engineering materials.

The second purchase is for a Type-9, named the Midnight Ficus, to be used as a dedicated miner in place of my Corvette Navy Primrose. In this role it really surpasses its predecessor: it has almost double the cargo capacity, and its full complaint of mining lasers make short work of asteroids. It’s not without its down sides: it’s the slowest, least agile ship in my fleet, and it has zero offensive capabilities. Still, as a miner it performs admirably.

It also allows me to repurpose my Corvette for what it was truly meant for: heavy combat. Outfitted with heavy armor, massive shields, and enough weaponry to take on an armada single-handedly. This allows me to visit highly dangerous hazardous resource sites and fearlessly wade into the fray. The pirates and criminals that roam those spaces have learned to fear the sight of this blue beast, and the engineering materials recovered from the salvage of their broken ships has been invaluable.

And then there's my Beluga Liner Sapphire Dahlia II, probably the most important new ship added to my fleet. It replaces the original Sapphire Dahlia in its role as my large, long-cruise VIP transport. Just as defenseless as my Type-9, the Beluga’s surprising nimbleness and speed (for a ship of its size) more than makes up for that. And then there’s the opulent luxury unmatched by any ship not coming out of Saud Kruger.

So what’s the big deal of a fancy, oversized liner? The big deal is not the ship itself, but what it allows me to do.

The Anaconda that used to serve the same role has now be rebranded the Ultramarine Sundew. Not only does it have a new name, it has a new purpose: to be my ultimate Thargoid combatant. The flimsy shields and lightweight hull have been replaced with reinforced bi-weaves and deep plated military armor. That baby can take quite the beating, especially the kind those alien bastards are capable of delivering.

All it needs is some anti-alien teeth, and that’s where I find myself short... for now. That will be rectified soon enough, but for now I have to finish my custom modifications.

Soon, my Sundew. Soon.

God DAMN! That felt good. That felt real good.

So I just came back in from my first excursion taking on the Thargoids. I took the advice from some experienced hunters and stuck to engaging the small Scouts for now. I immediately discovered two things: these aliens aren’t all that invincible to begin with, and my Chieftan, a pure pleasure to fly, can sure take a pounding.

There’s actually a third thing that I discovered, and it’s that I need a serious weapons upgrade. Sure, with the heavy engineering and numerous reinforcements to my ship, I could easily withstand the assaults from the scouts. Downing them, though, proved problematic, and the veteran pilots tell me it only gets worse when I start to tangle with Interceptors.

There is a solution: Guardian weaponry.

I’m no stranger to the Guardians; before the whole Gnosis fiasco I had gone to a Guardian site and successfully gathered what I needed to unlock the FSD Booster from my local tech broker. This time around the task is a bit more daunting: I have several weapons and modules to unlock if I want to level the playing field against these Thargoid bastards. At least the grizzled vets have outlined the process for me to take the guesswork out of it, but it will mean some time away from my wife.

Speaking of which: for once, she’s one hundred percent supportive of my endeavors. As a nurse in the field unit, she’s been seeing first hand what the Thargoids are capable of. If half the things she described are true... Christ, we really need to win this war. Not erase them completely like the INRA originally planned, but cow them into realizing that we as a race are not to be trifled with. They can stay in their corner of space and leave us well enough alone.

Until then, the Thargoids can expect a fierce response from us “lowly” humans. And I’ll be right in the thick of things doing my part... just as soon as I get those bigger guns, that is.

Okay... I think... uhm... God, it’s still hard to...

...yeah, yeah babe. That’s a good idea. I’ll do that.

Okay, so I guess I’ll pick up from my last entry... oh, well, not that one. I forgot about that entry... if you can call it that. I was still... trying to wrap my mind around... well... I’ll get there eventually.

So, from my last real entry: I stayed true to my word, sticking to more low profile missions that kept me closer to home. The wifey and my family really appreciated it, and we even took the time to go on a bit of sightseeing together.

One of those stops was the Jameson crash site. Wow, talk about such a solemn place. He was our true predecessor, the originally legendary pilot that all other pilots aspire to become, myself included. Rest In peace, CMDR Jameson. And may those INRA bastards rot in hell for what they did to you.

From there we went over to HIP 16613, to the so-called Bug Killer crash site that several fellow pilots have told me about. They had warned me about possible chance encounters with Thargoids over there, but I just didn’t really think... I mean, I wasn’t expecting... I...

...yeah babe, this is hard for me too...

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a Thargoid. When we fled from The Gnosis we caught sight of several of them, but they were far off and busy engaging security forces. The ones we saw at the crash site... Christ, I still get the chills just thinking about it. It was so enormous, so alien... none of my systems could make sense of any type of scanning that I did. Just their presence alone was causing havoc to the subsystems.

And then... they scanned us.

...Shit, I feel like throwing up. You couldn’t help but just get the unnerving sense that to them, we’re the bugs... little notes that they could care less for. We completely insignificant in their eyes. Metaphorically speaking; I couldn’t make out any eyes that I could see. That just made facing them even more unnerving.

I understand now the alien threat that we face. I know that my opinion of INRA and their actions is not very high; the things they did to win the war against the Thargoids amounted to the genocide of a whole species.

But that was before I came face-to-face with the threat. Given the choice, I truly believe they would wipe us out if they chose. We’re nothing to them; I felt that as they scanned the ship that held me and my wife. We less than dust to them.

That experience really left us shook, but it also gave us a clear direction to follow. We’ve been talking about this all the way back, and... it’s time we did our part. It’s time we get back into the game.

I’ve reached out to a few of my colleagues, and I’ve decided to join up with the OOC, and wing of like-minded independent pilots that support each other. A number of them are even Thargoid-hunting veterans; their experience and advice will come in handy. I’m also working on engineering and repurposing my Challenger for Thargoid hunting, after which I’ll sign up with the Anti-Xenia Initiative and begin helping out on combating this threat. My wife plans to follow me, bringing her nursing efforts to support Operation IDA away from the front lines.

I’ll be damned if I let those eyeless bastards run us over. This one’s for you, Jameson.

[BEGIN RECORDING] ...

...

... yeah, I can’t do this yet. I’m not ready.

Computer, end recording.

[END RECORDING]

Well... All I can say is that I’m sure happy to be back home.

The last few days included some of my hairiest, far-flung adventures that I’ve lived through. I visited a Guardian site and deciphered a few of its secrets while fighting off ancient sentinels. I traveled over two thousand light years via neutron boosting and Guardian technology. With my wife at my side I hitched a last minute ride on The Gnosis mega ship, only to have it be attacked, necessitating a wild evacuation back to the bubble.

Oh... and I finally came face-to-heart with the Thargoids. From a distance, that is, but that was plenty close enough for me. That I won’t forget anytime soon.

The Gnosis fiasco has left a bad taste in my mouth. Could this have been prevented? Who should be held responsible for the loss of life and property? Who will be held accountable for making the decision to move forward with the jump in the face of overwhelming support of Thargoids at the proposed destination? I doubt I’ll receive any answers to these and other questions, and it’s left me a bit bitter and wary of more risky adventure.

Which is why I’ve decided to take a small break from further wild escapades. I’m letting my Yong-Rui enlistment expire, after which I’ll make a clean, diplomatic break from the organization. Until that time, I’m going to stick to simple, safe courier and passenger missions. And that’s when I’m on the job; I really don’t have to work too much, not with the funds I managed to earn and save.

I need to spend more time with my family, and with my long-suffering wife. I’ll make a visit to my parents and sister on Founders World, and then I’ll take my wife to see one the many wonders in the Milky Way. Maybe Black Treasure, or Sagittarius*A. Hell, we just might make it all the way to Colonia... doesn’t matter where, as long as my wife is with me.

This might be the last log entry I make in a while. Until then, may fortune favor my travels.

[BEGIN RECORDING]

-no, no, the other leather jacket. It's in the first bag-oh, this shit is recording. Just... whatever, babe, get me whatever!

Okay, sorry, I'll have to remember to edit that out, but I'm in a bit of a rush. So... this whole trip into the Cone sector just went down into a shit storm in a hurry. My wife and I managed to-NO BABE, WE CANNOT TAKE ON MORE PEOPLE! Jesus!-sorry, okay, so yeah we finally managed to fall asleep before The Gnosis jump, only to be awoken by a general alert that the Thargoids were attacking the ship. It's complete pandemonium here: people running around screaming, ships launching and immediately getting attacking by the aliens, some are even taking advantage of the chaos for their own pirating ends. This is... I don't have words to-OKAY BABE, WE'RE LEAVING! LET ME JUST FINISH HERE!

...I'm actually a bit worried. I haven't been this scared since my first mission flying for the Federation navy as an enlisted pilot. I'm not going to lie: this is going to be hairy as fuck as we try to make a getaway and rush back to the bubble. We've got some people stowing away, looking scared shitless... I am too. I just hope we make it.

And if I somehow survive this fiasco, from the look on my wife's face, I'm going to have to buy her ten pairs of Blood Crystal earrings to get back into her good side. YES BABE, I KNOW YOU HEARD ME, YOU WERE MEANT TO-!

[END RECORDING]

Wow, what an incredible rush of events. Where do I begin?

Let's start with my original decision of returning to work for Li Yong-Rui: you are now looking at the latest high-ranking [i]billionaire[/i] pilot in his organization. That's right, billionaire with a B. My plan went off without a hitch: I sped my up through the ranks until I had access to that sweet exploration payoff bonus that his enterprise offers to their most esteemed members. From there I jetted around the galaxy, liberally selling off my data to any and all factions that I deemed worthy of networking, all the while saving the bulk of my data for systems controlled by Yong-Rui. Thanks to that, I now have valuable connections with factions in Federation, Alliance, and Imperial space, as well as numerous allies in my home system of LHS 20. On top of that, I've been given access to pretty much all permit-locked systems, which might come in handy in the future. And the final reward was a complete rebuild of my finances as well.

That's a good thing too; my plan wasn't without its downsides. There was danger and risk, but most importantly: my wife was a tad bit upset at me for my constant long-term flights. It's understandable; she's been holding down the fort all by herself. Thank God I had made a stop at Cherbones to pick up some precious Blood Crystal earrings for her; she was more than placated with those after that. Enough to actually join me on my latest hair-brained scheme: making a mad dash to The Gnosis.

That's right! We're joining that fearless collections of pilots boarding The Gnosis on its planned trip into the permit-locked Cone sector. It was so last-minute, but I was able to convince her to pack a couple of things and take a quick leave-of-absence from her nursing job. While she took care of that I made the impulsive decision to fly out to one of those mysterious Guardian ruins to see if I could gather enough to unlock the FSD booster from our local tech broker. That was a daunting task; the system where I was headed to was over a thousand light years away. It required neutron supercharging to shorten the trip, and I have never attempted such a thing. But... I learned, and I was able to pull that off.

As for the ruins... my God. They were so massive and... so mysteriously awesome. To think that such a technologically advanced race had existed before us, only to disappear... Would that be humanities fate? I didn't really have time to dwell on such philosophical thoughts, not with the task at hand and the ancient but still functioning Guardian sentinels that kept attacking me. Luckily, I was able to dispatch them with little trouble, and the hints and tips that other pilots who had experience with Guardian technology had given me helped me figure out how to power the pylons and operate the temple-like machinery. After that it was neutron-jumping back to LHS 20, unlocking the booster, and outfitting my Krait just as my wife finished handling her affairs. And then we high-tailed over to The Gnosis, another thousand-plus light year trip made shorter thanks to my newfound experience with neutron charging and our brand new FSD booster.

We just landed four hours prior to departure and are currently hunkering down and making ourselves at home while we wait for the massive jump. The excitement that's in the air is electric; this is unlike anything I've been a part of. We have a number of groups being represented here on the The Gnosis: the SDC, the Fuel Rats, Lave Radio, and so many others. I don't think I won't be able to sleep tonight... and neither will my wife, though she's more worried about the reports of Thargoids roaming around that sector.

I'm not too concerned, but just in case I took the liberty of having a number of AX weaponry delivered to The Gnosis, and a good amount of the pilots are veteran AX hunters, so I think we'll be fine. This is SO EXCITING!!!

Whew! What an excursion!

I’m back from an almost seven thousand light year trip. Actually, it was more like nine thousand, due to all the detours I took. You can thank a pathfinding program that a fellow pilot sent me which plotted the voyage through a series of high-value data systems; I even managed to stumble on a few undiscovered systems and bodies to boot. The seventeen million reward plus some rare engineering materials for taking along the scientist and his team are gravy to the four hundred million plus worth of exploration data I’m sitting on now.

Except... I can’t cash it in. At least not right away.

I re-enlisted with Li Yong-Rui’s organization, and now I find myself once again in a push to reach the upper echelons within his enterprise. At least this time will be easier than the last: I’m flush so I can easily afford to finance my rush, and my Cutter, the Royal Magnolia, means I can haul quite a bit of networking equipment in a single run.

As for what I’ll do once I reach my goal... To be honest, I won’t sell all my data just yet. I plan to first maximize my reputation with factions in systems where I have regular dealings. Next, I’ll curry the favor of factions who hold permits to locked systems. Only then will I sell off the rest of my exploration data at a premium.

Talk about opening up the doors to new opportunities...