The tradition of choosing every new captain to lead our hideout continues! That's right, it is in fact a tradition, and no matter how freely we may interpret it, the fact is, that the most important tenet of picking a new person to have ABSOLUTE POWER over everyone's lives in this hideout has been followed to a fault. Does anything else matter? Well, we are all alive and mostly happy, so...guess not?
And now is my time to assume power. Now, I kinda did not expect everyone else to take this so seriously, and honestly I'm pretty lazy, so...uh...I kinda forgot to write any logs. I'll just try to recount the events as I remember them, okay? It's been pretty stressful for me too!
On the start of November, Madam Dioxine had relinquished her control of the hideout, leaving me in charge. Honestly, the state of our base had shocked me. The most basic facilities were not constructed, my favorite equipment not only wasn't anywhere to be found but no one had ever heard of anything like it before, and the worst part - there isn't any proper clothing about! Now, I know that tailoring "proper" cloth had been considered too much effort, but during my Academy-sponsored trip to the beach back in captivity I had learned much about it's use in some conditions. Of course no one actually signed up for that trip but me, and it mostly consisted of several Osiron men trying to hold my head underwater to see how long I can last without breathing, but that's another story! What's more important is, I've learned about existence of swimsuits, and I really wish I had one back then. They are handy for every occasion. And so, my first order as the acting captain was to quickly devise a swimsuit blueprint and have them mass produced!
However, before my order was completed, I had received a report of an enemy vessel. Being the acting captain, it would be my responsibility to decide if we are going to attack it or not. Some people adviced me to actually avoid it, because the ship had red and blue lights on it, which was a bad omen, but I was young and wanted to prove my leadership skills. So off we go! We can beat that threat with our bare hands!
Upon closer inspection, the ship turned out to be an Ordinator, filled with government people. Naturally, once again I was adviced by crew to leave them alone, as though they were actually squishy and weak, they were also one of the kinds of people in the world it would be really unadvisable to attack. But I know better! Forbidden fruit is the sweetest, and also the most expensive one. So we would capture as many of these fruits alive and unharmed as possible!
Sadly, that turned out to have been not as easy as it sounded. The government forces were very upset about our decision, and did not hesitate to open fire from all hands. I was shocked! Usually they aren't that intent. And then it turned that our gals armor was indeed filmsy despite looking threatening, what with their disdain from proper clothing, and the enemy weapons actually hurt them. The resistance was in fact so severe that the initial plan of trying to capture as many of them alive as possible had to be scrapped before it resulted on casualties on our side. Half government personnel were killed, and the battle reflected badly on us. I would say, the money gain of almost 2$M from selling that ship and it's surviving occupants was worth it though!
More of our gals than I'd thought had ended up injured in that battle, leaving our force weakened. I had noted the lack of medical facilities and even proper accomodations for support auxiliary troops. That was not something I expected. Because of this, we would had to stick with adding some peasants to our army for some time.
Emboldened by the previous success (It was a success, right? Nobody died on our side and we got a fat stack of cash!) I had departed on a Shrine Ship raid, expecting it to be just as easy. That turned out to be a fatal mistake.
You see, they had Celatids on that ship. Most of our crew jokingly call them fartbags, which I think doesn't do them justice with the amount of threat they represent. And indeed, the first gal who walked out the ship thinking it would go down easy, was greeted with a Celatid spit in the face, and melted into a disgusting puddle faster than she could say "Oops". Her name used to be Sizzling Striker, too. How fitting.
The remaining troops weren't in such a good afterwards, and even though we eliminated 2 Celatids they were constantly in fear. The peasants we had brought aboard to replace injured troops dropped quickly. As the still living gals had sustained grievous injuries, I suddenly had realized we had to retreat. However, one of them dropped a primed incendiary at her feet and ran out of the ship, screaming. What a pathetic coward, I thought. Panicking at such an important moment, when a random chryssalid could say hello at any minute. Well, if she wants it that badly, we can just leave her to them, people with a brain can fly away from this nightmare. And so they have.
After that, there was literally no healthy gals left, so in order not to slow too much pace too much, and adapt to the fact that things will likely only get more difficult, I had decreed recruitment of new troops, and an expansion of Barracks. I even managed to discover where Magic Skeleton was hiding and press her back into service, haha! No one hides from me, especially not veterans in times of need. From then on, she would lead our peasants into battle, which were the only capable fighting force we had left, and perhaps make them capable of doing something other than dying.