>>…………………………
>>/LOAD SHIPLOG
>>…………………………
>>Please Enter User Name And Password
>>User:  TEEGRO
>>Password:  *********
>>…………………………
>>Password confirmed
>>Welcome Back Teegro
>>/CREATE NEW ENTRY
>>……………………….…
>>New Entry Template Loaded

Well it’s about **bleep** time too! Time has been passing and I’ve been afraid that I wouldn’t be able to get access to these files again. See, we’ve had a bit of an accident.

As I’m writing this, I’m currently in dry dock taking stock of the damage to my ship. About this time last week when we had all the trouble with those sleepwalker things our luck ran out. Our signals were becoming much, much harder for Rapid to read. We weren’t the only ones. As far as I know all the captains I’ve spoken to had problems the other weekend thanks to the shear number of those sleepwalkers appearing and the power drain those lights were causing.

It was one hell of a weird feeling though I can tell ya being in there when all this was going on. It was almost like I could feel the power being drained from the world around me, I felt like I was moving through treacle even though my brain was going at the usual million miles an hour speed it goes when in tight combat situations. At sometimes it felt like the opposite, like I was moving between locations of  more than teen feet or so without actually moving a step! Very odd.

While this was going on in the matrix, Rapid became increasingly concerned about the stability of the connections we had and asked us (that’s myself and my first mate Silverfox13) to get to a hardline and recall back to the ship. I could tell he was tense but it didn’t seem right leaving everyone else in there to fight off these sleepers. I came out though.

Silver was waiting and pulled my jack out and Rapid was telling me about his plan to move higher and closer to the machine broadcast system for a better signal. He’d said that he’d been talking with the other operators aboard some of the other ships and that their captains had agreed to do the same as us. We shut down our connections and powered up the ship and headed for the surface.

This is where we hit our little snag. I don’t know how or why but there was a cave-in in one of the tunnels along our route to the surface. Maybe it was an earth tremor or what but it was enough to cause a large section of the roof to fall on the ship. Now the Cortosa may not look like much but she’s got it where it counts. She may not have the best guns but she was built to last and it was the strong infrastructure that saved us. Unfortunately we were down there for about three days before we got found though.

The cave in had trapped the rear of the ship and fortunately we were all in the front and so we also had all the stores and rations within easy reach. Starvation wasn’t a problem but a lack of radio was. Fortunately, and I never thought I would ever say this but it just goes to show how times have changed, a sentinel was passing by. Yes a sentinel! Three years ago it would have ripped us apart and left our entrails where they hung but now with the truce holding, albeit by a thread, it was able to contact the nearest ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Zion ship for us before floating away into the dark. The machines seem to be holding their end of the bargain, why are we so intent on trying to upset ours?

A barge was sent from Zion to collect us and the captain filled us in on the victory over the sleepers that had happened in our absence. How the lights were all switched off, how once they had the sleepers and the security guards who were guarding the lights had turned back into blue pills just like when an agent leaves a body, and how for a brief moment everyone was trying to work together. With the exception of the Cypherites who seemed to be behind the whole thing or at least a splinter group of the Cypherites. Heh, a splinter group of a splinter group. How ironic.

When we got home, Lock was not best pleased. As Captain I was brought up to his office and got an ear bashing over how to treat a ship, how I’d endangered the lives of my crew. I did explain the circumstances behind it in as much detail as I could and all he could reply to it was just a non-committal grunt and a dismissal. Personally I don’t think he was doing it for any other reason than he hadn’t torn someone a new one in a few hours and with a busted ship, I was a prime target. I’m not getting an official reprimand on my record, just a stern talking to so it looks like I won’t be brought in front of the council on this one.

So for the past few days we have been trying to fix the ship. All our power systems were damaged and for those three days when we were stuck we had no heat or electricity so our prime concern was getting the ships logs and records retrieved. While Silver, myself and a few of my group captains were working on the out side, Rapid has been inside fixing the computers. Finally about four hours ago he got everything working and we were able to transfer the bulk from the ships storage over to the main data store here at Zion. A number of the core systems on board have had to be scrapped due to damage on the storage media so a new one is going to have to be put in and all the software re-installed.

Despite that Rapid has been beaming! He loves it; he keeps going on about how we needed a new system and how he was meaning to reformat everything for a while now. All in all the ship will be out of commission for about another week at the outside. A good time frame is about three to four days if we get enough help.

Fortunately I got my group or faction captains on hand to help me. A few like-minded individuals and myself have started to club together to form a little faction. We’re calling ourselves “Sapere Aude” which according to our leader PhrogXiX is Latin for “Dare to be Wise”. I think it’s quite apt given people like the kid who keep popping up causing trouble without thinking of the consequences. At the moment there are four founding captains including PhrogXiX and myself. The other two are the very shiny Tilted Axis and the always-ready Mandlebrot. Even as I write this I’ve been told that other captains are interested in joining with us.

We’re going to stand for a united world. To write it down may seem a bit pious but we want to promote a sense of unity and balance not only throughout Zion but also with the machines and even with the exiles. In our current state we each exist like symbioses, without humans the machines have no power, as long as we keep the truce we stay safe and the matrix stays as a safe haven for the exiles. Quite what they give back though I have yet to work out but I won’t discount them.

After the ship gets back on its pads and now that the whole sleepwalker thing is dying down I have a good feeling about the near future. Yes, me with a good feeling, its rare but it happens. Alliances are being made, the matrix is becoming stronger and I can feel good things on the horizon. I hear that the concert venues that the sleepers left behind them are now going to be used for actual music. I personally can’t wait and I think it’ll be a good time to get some r & r and just relax in mega city for a change!

Captain Teegro
Zion HvCFT: The Cortosa (Docked)

>>/LOGEND
>>Save? Y/N: Y
>>Log Saved
>>/END PROGRAM
>>…………………