A sort of muddled log entry, with frequent misspellings, and run-on
sentences. The final passage clears a bit, and contains the
following...
The radiation has done its work, and these will be my final words.

I pray that this message is found by those of like mind with myself. I fear this may not be true, as the jumpgates are secured, and only the enemy can easily get through them, but in the event that what's to come goes well and our enemies are thrown down, I will attempt to record what has happened here as a last report from GuardStation Vircus.

It began slowly at first, just a few transfers of key officers off station, or orders to attend additional training classes at an academy here or there. I myself was officially transferred to PMI for some advanced techniques training in computer intrusion countermeasures, (someone's idea of irony I'm sure), but the Chief Medical Officer cancelled my transfer, as the dome leak during my last planetside duty dosed me with enough thinner that he didn't think the trip back was advisable until I'd fully recovered.

Then when the CMO was called back home on some family emergency leave, I guess the new one didn't get a chance to review my record and realize I hadn't shipped out yet.

It came as surprise to most of the crew when Commander Tucker was suddenly relieved of his command and taken to Ridena for some unspecified trial, but by that time enough of the senior officers were newcomers that he didn't have any support among them. I knew he hadn't done anything worthy of such treatment however, so I decided to do some poking around.

I just got at computer command when I discovered my 'replacement' working on the main planetside downlink. I demanded to know what he was doing, and he claimed just a diagnostic routine, but from the brief glimpse I got of the display, that wasn't it. I \underline{was} still the ranking computer officer on board however, so I ordered him to stand aside and let me examine the system. He did. What I found horrified me. He was systematically trashing the planetside data storage and transfer systems in every ship in the surface. He got them through our traffic control authority using a virus construct the like of which I'd only seen in my nightmares. I turned to hit the com and report to the commander, and then everything went black.

I woke in sickbay, with a massive headache and a lump the size of my fist on the back of my head. The doors were secured, and the system was locked down, but I guess they didn't know I'd spent the better part of the last month in sickbay recovering from the thinner myself. Being a bit of a work addict, I had hidden an executive level portaterm in the supply cabinet so I could get things done while the docs had me on bed rest.

They apparently didn't expect me to have that kind of access from sickbay, so my fool of a replacement hadn't gone through and disabled my command codes. I dove into the system to figure out what was going on.

I discovered that the remaining loyal officers and several from among the crew had been shipped planetside to wait it out among the miners. The poor fools probably didn't discover their ships were sabotaged until they got down and talked to the colonists. The traitors still on the station had sent a squad over to secure the mining orbital and ship those workers down as well. They then had a fighter fire upon each of the jump gates, which slammed them into secure mode stranding us all. Why the madman did that was beyond me, until I cracked his personal log.

It seemed they were here to just secure both stations, strand everyone on the surface, and cut off any possibility of support until it was all over. Once things cooled down, the new SkyGuard would re-open the gates and have a fully functional resource center under their control. Now that the traitors had finished their final preparations on Sparta, they'd come back and finish it in weeks.

The next few hours were hard. I crawled up into the ventilation with my portaterm and considered options. There weren't many. I tried to think of someway to get us help, but with the planetside ships trashed and the jumpgates sealed, I couldn't see it. So, I did what I could.

The radiation alarms all went off, but even that dunce they replaced me with eventually realized that they were false alarms, as were the hull breach warnings, and reactor overload alarms. I just needed them distracted for a while, as I picked through the computers over on the mining orbital. By the time they figured out what happened, the mass drivers on the orbital were ready to blast any ship that approached it with unprocessed ore barrages.

Their guy was working to fix it when the radiation alarms all went off again, but by this time they'd learned to ignore them. Their mistake. A few of them had dropped before they figured it out. They stocked themselves up with all the weapons they could carry and decided to try and hold the planet from down there.

I expect the colonists and first crew will have something to say about that.

I moved to command and set up a little surprise for them if they tried to come back. I finally finished and thought to make it to the hanger and get myself off, but my legs had given out while I sat here.

With the comms downside all shot, there is no way to how the battle for the planet is going, so I very well could be condeming some of our own, but I don't think believe there's another way. May the stars forgive us all.

Final Report
2448.202.12.31
HBX GuardStation Vircus
Lieutenant Oliver Cole

Long Live Vissarion Nomarcvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvg