DECEMBER 21, 2109

Is this thing recording? Yeah, the light's flashing.

Ahem.

Well, I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to say. The shrink seems to think that keeping a daily journal will help self-actualize my personality, or whatever that psychobabble crap was. I'd normally think this is a waste of my time, but why the hell not? Not like I have anything better to do with my evenings.

Let's see… I guess I could start with what I've had to eat today. After all, they always say that an army marches on its stomach.

Breakfast: Toast, with blueberry jam. One hardboiled egg. Coffee.

Lunch: Clam chowder. Club sandwich. Diet BnL Soda.

Dinner: Pizza. Slice of plain vanilla cake. Water.

Can't think of anything else. Just another day sitting around in the situation room, staring at D-TIC. Trying to stay sharp in case terrorists randomly materialize out of nowhere to attack Deep 13.


DECEMBER 22, 2109

Breakfast: Bacon and eggs. Hash browns. Coffee.

Lunch: Hamburger and fries. Diet BnL soda.

Dinner: Meatloaf, with mashed potatoes and green beans. Banana pudding. Water.

Performed a surprise inspection, found Corporal Shephard napping on duty at one of the surveillance rooms. Under my recommendation, Sergeant Williams assigned him latrine duty, thus making both him and the rest of his squad pretty unhappy. Humans are never as good at cleaning the bathrooms as the 'bots are.

Other than that, the rest of my command is surprisingly ship-shape. For a garrison company.


DECEMBER 23, 2109

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with toast. Banana. Coffee.

Lunch: Chili. Diet BnL soda.

Dinner: Some kind of tuna and rice casserole. Not that bad. Cake again. Water.

Got together with Dr. Betruger for a game of chess, like we do every Tuesday. Nicest egghead I've ever known, though I think he lets me beat him on purpose.

He's been pretty withdrawn lately. With the five-year deadline approaching, I'd be too if I were in charge of Operation Cleanup. And everyone's heard about how PO'd the President's been getting about his progress. Unfairly, in my opinion.


DECEMBER 24, 2109

Breakfast: The worst French toast I've had in my entire life. Dear god, I still have that taste in my mouth. Oh, and coffee.

Lunch: Again, the chefbot seemed to be malfunctioning. I got served eight orders of haggis, despite asking for lasagna. Ate some trail mix from a vending machine, with a diet BnL soda.

Dinner: Ordered Chinese take-out rather than risk the mess hall. God bless you, General Tso. Treated myself to a margarita, since it's Christmas Eve.

Some of my men are moping around the base, along with most of the civvies. I have to admit, I know how they feel. Lot's of people's families are off in space, including my daughter Patricia. It'll be a lonely Christmas.


DECEMBER 25, 2109

Breakfast: Oatmeal. Tasted fine, they must have fixed whatever the problem was. Coffee.

Lunch: Got the lasagna I was having a hankering for. Diet BnL soda.

Dinner: Finished my Chinese leftovers.

Wouldn't you know it, the brass are still investing in military spending. Thought they'd totally given up on the whole defense thing as a waste of money, after the Consolidation War ended. Heck, that's why I ended up as a garrison commander, there just wasn't much demand left for Sky Angels anymore. If it weren't for my medals, I'd probably have been booted out of the army.

Anyway, the eggheads have been working on a new prototype military-grade troop transport, and they actually asked me to take it on a test drive! They said something about how they wanted a soldier's opinion on how it handled.

For about twenty minutes, I got to tootle around an obstacle course they had built down there in the labs. Even got to fire its gun a few times. Really smooth ride. Best Christmas present ever.

But right when test was almost finished, the administrator walked in. Found out later that GRAD-E had told him an unscheduled laboratory trial was occurring, so he decided to check it out. When he saw me driving the car, Breen's face turned all red, and he started ranting about not letting a slack-jawed grunts interfere with experimental protocol. In response, I pointed out that I wasn't a 'grunt'; I was Deep 13's garrison commander. As such, I was free to examine any and all areas of the facility for security purposes. He wasn't amused.

Even threatened to fire me. What a prick.


DECEMBER 26, 2109

Breakfast: Pancakes. Coffee.

Lunch: Tomato soup. Grilled cheese sandwich. Decided to switch things up, had lemonade to drink.

Dinner: Fish sticks, Mac and cheese. Pecan pie. Water.

Why me?

Dr. Clayton Forrester, that creep, tried to pick me up again. Yammered about how he liked women in uniform. When I pointed out that I was twenty fucking years older than him, he said that just meant I had a lot of 'experience.'

Then I informed him that if he kept stalking me, I'd kick him in the balls so hard he'd be wearing them as a bowtie.

He suddenly remembered that he had an urgent appointment, and ran off. Good riddance.


DECEMBER 27, 2109

Breakfast: Bagel, with cream cheese. Apple. Coffee.

Lunch: Mess hall had something new, real salmon. Had that with rice pilaf and a diet cola.

Dinner: Nothing, except for water.

Discovered I was violently allergic to salmon. Spent most of the day in the Medical Ward. Recording this from a hospital bed.


DECEMBER 28, 2109

Breakfast: Didn't feel like having anything except for a banana.

Lunch: Ham and cheese sandwich. Due to doctor's orders, no soda. Had a glass of milk instead, which made me feel like I was five years old.

Dinner: Chicken noodle soup. Chocolate chip cookie. Water.

Released from Medical Ward. I tried to go back to work, but Sergeant Williams didn't let me. According to him, I still needed to rest up. I told him the problem had been a food allergy, nothing major. He didn't listen.

I gave in eventually; realizing that D-TIC can do a fine job on its own for a day. I got to catch up on my reading instead.


DECEMBER 29, 2109

Breakfast: Oatmeal. Coffee.

Lunch: Chef's salad. Diet BnL soda.

Dinner: Spaghetti with meatballs. Cheesecake. Water.

Brought in my suit for its yearly tune-up. As always, First Technician Anderson gave me his lecture about how an up-armored T-8 flight suit is not suitable for garrison commander, and was dangerous to boot. He asked me for the thousandth time to switch to a T-5. I told him to go pound sand.


DECEMBER 30, 2109

Breakfast: Toast with peanut butter and jelly. Coffee.

Lunch: Beef tacos. Diet BnL soda.

Dinner: Hate to admit it, but tacos again. They're only here once in a blue moon, so I make sure to get plenty of them. Felt so full I didn't have dessert. Water.

Dr. Betruger didn't show up for chess. I've heard he had a bad meeting with Dr. Breen, so I don't blame him.


DECEMBER 31, 2109

Breakfast: Bacon and eggs with hash browns. Coffee.

Lunch: BLT. Potato chips. Diet BnL soda.

Dinner: Seafood gumbo. Carrot cake. Water.

Haven't seen Betruger anywhere around the base. Then again, Deep 13's big, so that isn't too unusual.

Meanwhile, the mess hall rumor mongers are saying that Operation Cleanup's been canceled.

I don't believe them at all, of course. While he was behind schedule, Malcolm was certain that the Earth wasn't unsalvageable. If he just got a five year extension, he said they had a pretty good shot at getting things back to normal, according to GRAD-E's calculations.

But then again, what do I know? I'm just a dumb grunt.


January 1, 2110

I'll be damned.

We're abandoning ship. Forthright's just given a speech that Operation Cleanup has failed. According to him, the rising levels of toxic heavy metals and other pollutants simply make it impossible to sustain life anymore.

Of course, we all know what he really means. It'd just be too unprofitable to clean all that crap up. Nothing's really impossible anymore; we got to space, didn't we?

After Breen told him that we were essentially leaving Earth to die, Dr. Betruger went and hanged himself.

My men have been asking me how I feel about it all, but I still don't know. On the one hand, I'm relieved, as I can see Patty again. But on the other-

Is that lasfire?


January 3, 2110

Breakfast: Suitfood.

Lunch: Suitfood.

Dinner: Suitfood.

I've gotten a bit behind about updating this, but I'm sure that my therapist will forgive me. What with him being dead and all.

D-TIC's gone completely insane. Someone, somewhere activated his counter-infiltration defense protocols, and then set them to regard ALL human base personnel as enemy infiltrators. Since the security 'bots are almost everywhere, we were caught with our pants down.

Luckily, my men and I have managed to fortify the barracks, and've already repelled several of D-TIC's assaults. We can hold out for a while. I hope.

We've been trying to contact anyone outside of the base using GRAD-E, but I think he's been hacked too. None of our commlinks are working, except for our short-range suit radios. But I'm pretty sure that they'll figure out something's gone wrong without us telling them.


January 4, 2110

Breakfast: Suitfood.

Lunch: More goddamned suitfood.

Dinner: What do you think?

We've managed to find and rescue some civvies, one of them turning out to be a scientist. According to him, GRAD-E hasn't been compromised. It did the compromising.

He said Dr. Breen had gone into the supercomputer's room to shut it off to prepare for our departure, when the defense systems activated. And, since he worked in one of its subsidiary control rooms, he could confirm that the signal to D-TIC had been sent from GRAD-E. After it went psycho, he was barely able to flee to the upper floors, where we found him.

If it's true, the situation's gotten worse in a hurry.


January 5, 2110

Breakfast: I never knew cereal could taste so good. Water to drink.

Lunch: Baked beans. Delicious. And water.

Dinner: Another round of baked beans. Water.

Thank the lord that Private Ulrich managed to grab some nonperishable food from the mess hall during a lull in the attacks. If we had to rely on a suit's recyclers for one more day, I'm pretty sure that we would've gone stark raving mad.

Some good news: we've managed to contact HQ! Our communications wiz, Private Philips, managed to jury-rig a radio transmitter by hooking into the coal mine's commlink systems.

General Armquist said they were going to execute an assault tomorrow morning, and asked us to help coordinate an attack. I agreed, of course.

Then President Shithead had to butt in and tell us that he wished us the best, and was certain that we would have no problem in overcoming the problems we were facing. "After all," he said, "You lived through the Battle of Moscow!"

Yeah, right. Me and about forty percent of my battalion.


January 6, 2110

Breakfast: Was too jittery to eat.

Lunch: Busy fighting.

Dinner: Now too depressed to eat.

We failed.


January 7, 2110

Breakfast: Pop-tarts. Water.

Lunch: Instant spaghetti. Water.

Dinner: Canned beef stew. Water.

After yesterday's failed attack, I've lost eighty percent of my effective fighting forces. Of the rest, only half aren't walking wounded.

Deciding that we'd be fucked if I tried to hold the entire barracks, I've begun pulling back my troops to the center of our complex. I'm convinced D-TIC will take advantage of this opportunity. That computer isn't a total idiot, after all.


January 8, 2110

Breakfast: Granola bar. Water.

Lunch: Canned ravioli. Water.

Dinner: Spam sandwich. Water.

I was right. Now, including myself, there are only ten BnL Security Troopers left.


January 9, 2110

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs and lima beans. Eugh. Water.

Lunch: Mushy chicken nuggets and French fries. Water.

Dinner: Hamburger in a bag. Water.

Since we were running low on civvie food, I've broken out the MREs. And they're as bad as I remember.

We haven't gotten any more messages from HQ.


January 10, 2010

Breakfast: Lukewarm pancakes. Water.

Lunch: Turkey with stuffing. This one was actually good. Water.

Dinner: I have no idea why they thought pork sausages and sauerkraut was a good idea for an MRE. While I personally forced my meal down, Private Ulrich got to enjoy fourths.

Still no word from HQ.

Dammit, Forthright, have you left us here to die?


January 11, 2010

Breakfast: A pathetic attempt at French toast, but still better than the version I got on December 24th. Water.

Lunch: Spinach and macaroni casserole. Eh. And water, obviously.

Dinner: Despite proclaiming itself to be a burrito, I have other ideas as to its identity. Water.

Private Shephard found a maintenance 'bot crawling in a ventilation shaft today. No idea what the hell it was doing there, and we don't have a way of finding out either. He riddled the thing with lasbolts so thoroughly that even a dedicated techie couldn't have extracted any useful info from it.

I've been spending the past two hours here, in my bedroom, trying to figure out what GRAD-E was trying to do. It was GRAD-E, no doubt about it, as D-TIC has no authority over maintenance.

Unless…

Gas.


oh god it hurts it hurts it hurts

god damn you fucking reds you fucking borscht-swilling commies i'll kill you all last thing i do.

the pain


January 12, 2010

For what it's worth, I was right. He gassed us. According to my suit's sensors, it was some kind of noxious mix of nerve gas and radon. If the first didn't get you, the rads from the second eventually would.

I was lucky, to an extent. Turns out that Technician Anderson was totally wrong. With my suit's O2 tanks, a holdover from when I was a Sky Angel, it was able to switch to canned air. It then administered antidotes.

Not fast enough, though. I'm now blind as a bat. And I still have the radiation to consider.

I could go out in a blaze of glory, I suppose. Try to take down a couple security 'bots before they gun me down.

But funnily enough, I haven't been able to find my fucking keycard. So I'm stuck in here.

Radiation sickness is a bad way to go. I know, I saw what happened after that utter bastard Ilyin torched all of Europe, China, and Russia. In addition to the fact that my oxygen won't last forever.

I think my T-8 still has enough morphine left to stop my heart, after I enter the override code. But first…

I don't know if anyone is ever going to find this, but I have one final request. I think I've managed to get all my personal stuff out onto the desk. All my commendations and awards, things like that.

Please, if you can, take them to Patricia Conrad, my daughter. I know she'd want them.

Patty shouldn't be too hard to find, since she joined up with BnL Security right before leaving Earth. Like mother, like daughter. I think she's serving on the Saturn

That's all I ask.