Cheep's Personal Log

(( DISCLAIMER: THIS WAS MADE BY Optimism, AND POSTED UNDER HIS WILL ))

>>Welcome to Starware Logger: Best electronics on the Fringe
>>Play stored Video/Audio Logs? Y/N
>>Y

>>Buffering…

>>Entry 1

“Is this on?” There was the sound of fumbling, and dull taps on the device recording audio, then the video feed changed from a pitch black view of nothing to the view of a pitch black feathered face and beak. A low, hollow hum that seemed to vibrate persisted.

The Avian moved away from the device so they were out of kissing range and at a more acceptable distance for a good shot. Relaxing on their haunches, they waved a lens cap about, pinched between two talons, like a trophy.

“Lens cap. Take it off next time, Cheep.” They said to no one in particular, ducking their head to hide a sheepish grin on their beak.

“Right, so…“ Cheep paused, looking rather uncomfortable suddenly. “I wanted to send this to you, mother and father. It’s been too long, I know, but I hope that after I’ve made some entries on this I can somehow send it to you both so you can see what I’ve been doing.”

Their discomfort began to focus on the white tank top they wore and a set of ragged, loose denim jeans, and they tugged at both lightly with their talons. “Sorry about the clothes, both of you. I probably should have dressed better before starting the entry, but I was just so eager to get started. I wanted to tell you all about what’s happening, let you know I care, and also make sure neither of you have to worry about me. I…”

They took a slow breath, and coughed, letting the silence deafen the audio for several seconds as they tried to think of something to say. Their hand beat a slow tapping rhythm on the floor of the dimly lit room they were in, illuminated by a white electric lantern propped up on a box next to a bedroll.

“I got the fixer-upper ship working, father.” Cheep finally broke in excitedly, bouncing back and forth on their talon feet. “It’s where I am right now, maybe you can hear the engines humming. I know you thought it was a bad plan to invest in it, but it’s been working well! I’m still not sure how to use the StarNet connection, or how many of the systems are damaged because of the structural loss, but I’m pretty sure it’s a Hylotl cruiser, or what’s left of one. They built them to last, even with a lot of damage.”

“It’s not been easy.” They intoned, biting the bottom of their beak and looking down at the floor. “I still don’t know as much about this grandfather of a vessel as I’d like to, and it’s maintenance is definitely meant for a bigger crew than just one little Avian female way in over her head. Hah, definitely.” Shaking her head, she recovered her good humor and began to toy with the short stub of plumage that stuck out behind her head, talons brushing it softly. “I don’t mean that. I’ll keep my plumage short father, just how you taught me to, and I’ll figure out this ship too. I’m not confident enough yet that the engines can take being pushed to FTL, so we’re just rumbling along, looking for a lot of things but not trouble.”

Cheep yawned, beady eyes blinking as their beak opened for several seconds, then shut. They picked themselves up, and grabbed the recording device, putting it next to their bedroll, which they laid down on, looking up at the ceiling. “I’m sorry if I’m not up to talking much right now.” She said, beak clicking and eyes staring. “I miss you both very much and I can’t wait to see you again once I’ve made my exploring worth its while, but I know what you said to me once, father. ‘Don’t leave the house with the bow if you’re not coming back with some meat’. I’ll be sure to make you proud, both of you. I know it’s too much to ask that you wait for me in our last home, since I know the plan was to move out soon, but I’ll find you both for once, instead of you always finding me out in the woods or up on some roof like when I was smaller. Little Cheep is taking some growing up steps, see?”

Beak curved open in a small smile, Cheep leaned over to touch something on top of the recording device and the humming sound abruptly stopped, as well as the video feed.

(( DISCLAIMER: THIS WAS MADE BY Optimism, AND POSTED UNDER HIS WILL ))

 

(( DISCLAIMER: THIS WAS MADE BY Optimism, AND POSTED UNDER HIS WILL ))

>>Buffering…

>>Entry 2

Static persisted at first for a few moments, but like the sun’s peering over the horizon as it slowly rose, the static gradually cleared, and displayed a recorded image of Cheep, who lay on her bedroll in her bare, darkly shaded feathers. She propped her head up with her hands, elbows on the ground and gave a light wave to the recording lens, shoulders bobbing back and forth. Her missing clothes were discarded in a small pile next to the bedroll.

“Hi again, mother and father. You’ll have to excuse the lack of coverage, it’s just been so unbearably hot in here, and by here I mean the whole ship.” The tiniest droop of her beak indicated her lack of energy, but she looked back up and continued speaking. “I found two more problems with the ship, and I’m not quite sure how to fix them, so I’ll be looking for a mechanic. Hopefully they’ll charge a fair price and maybe I can learn a thing or two from watching them work, because until I can figure out exactly what’s wrong with the engine coolant and why the ventilation systems aren’t functioning properly another jump into FTL will make everything in here feel like an oven or worse.”

She crept a bit closer to the lens, the feathers on her skinny, dark body rustling quietly, but the sound was overpowered by the humming that came from the engines, which seemed to have increased in intensity since the last recording.

“I’m sure this sector of the frontier won’t be unpopulated, and I’ll find a mechanic soon enough. Besides, the situation isn’t life-threateningly dire. Not being able to jump into FTL doesn’t mean I’m immobile, it just means travel will be much, much, much slower. This ship isn’t very fast, even with a section of the hull missing from the bow.”

Silence returned, accompanied only by the humming, and Cheep made a soft sound that sounded like ‘oh’. She started speaking again, rubbing a bare shoulder.

“About that, mother and father. I know you won’t be happy to hear, but the front of the ship, the area with the crew quarters and other areas I didn’t even know about, it’s all- well it’s gone. I’d been trying to get the hatch pried open for weeks but I lost that part of the hull before I could even access it.”

“At first I panicked and lost my head for a few minutes, but once I’d calmed myself I set the ship down and tried to see how bad it was. It was definitely not good, but far worse could have happened, and I should be grateful to know that the ship still moves! That’s cruiser toughness. Unfortunately though, most of the units for water infiltration and all the sinks with access to the running water are gone except for one which is in an area of exposed hull that’s inaccessible in space-flight. The water situation also got rather bad quite quickly without any filtration, or maybe it was already bad, because mother, I tried collecting some in a bucket to take a wash and it was green!”

Cheep shook her head violently, giving a brief croak of mirth. She propped herself back up into a cross-legged sitting position, not content to stay still for too long. The light from the lamp spread shadows over her face and torso, making her beady eyes look like glinting marbles.

“Thankfully I know how to improvise thanks to you father, and I gathered water from a stream with the filter. I also went hunting with the bow, but I wasn’t able to catch anything that day. I think the ship setting down scared most of the nearby animals away. I want to ask that you both pardon my carelessness. I’ll explain more about why I lost that section of the hull- it was a docking accident. I’ll tell you soon, and I miss you both!”

She leaned forward, extending a talon from her right palm to tap the top of the device, and everything shut off once again.

(( DISCLAIMER: THIS WAS MADE BY Optimism, AND POSTED UNDER HIS WILL ))

 

>>Buffering…

>> Entry 3

The video feed jumped back to life for a nice view of a Cheep selfie, though it would have been nicer if she had smiled. However, she realized the camera was recording and threw the smile back on seconds later.

“Hello again, mother and father. You’ll have to excuse me for a second, I just need to…”

Rustling was heard, and the viewpoint of the video stopped at a rough first-person viewpoint from Cheep’s perspective. Her chin was visible at the edge of the top of the feed and her hand entered from the side to give the device she’d secured to her upper chest a tap. “Good, good. I wanted to give you both a tour and show you a little bit of what I’ve been doing.”

Padding off on Cheep’s feet, the camera left the small, dim room she’d done the last two entries in, followed her out of a ventilation access hatch, and climbed down with her as she descended a service ladder into a hallway below through another open hatch.

“I know my living quarters isn’t the best I could choose, mother, being a vent and all.” Cheep commented, humor in her voice. “But life support pumps clean air directly into that area, and since the ventilation fans that diffuse the air into the ship aren’t working, it’s ideal. The rest of the ship can get very stuffy.”

She and the camera jumped off the ladder, landing on the ship’s deck with a thud. The recording feed strapped to her chest jerked up and down, then settled with a view into the dark hallway. “I try to keep the ship’s lights off unless I need them, since they drain power needed for the engines and make things even hotter.” She explained, and the flick of a switch was heard. Then hallway was bathed in a shining ray of light and Cheep padded onwards, using it to illuminate her path. “It’s a good thing I invested in this headlamp.” She added softly. “I don’t like working in the dark and it’s been stressful doing this for almost a week while the ship’s been lumbering along without any planets to set down on, but I still haven’t found a populated settlement, much less a ship mechanic.”

Cheep came up to a wall down the hallway and paused, darting out a talon to point out a spot where some paneling had come loose, exposing internal circuitry. “There’s spots like this all over the ship. I covered one with duct tape as a temporary fix, but I need a way to get this paneling back on. There are pipes behind some, wires behind others, and it’s both dangerous and ugly to have the ship’s guts poking out.”

The camera jerking up and down with each step, Cheep retreated back to the service ladder and descended further down into her vessel, the shining ray from her headlamp guiding her. She didn’t speak again until she’d keyed open a large metal door to a dining area and sat down at a square, white table dominating the center of the room. After some bumping sounds, she removed the recording device from her breast and set it down on the table along with the headlamp, so she was bathed in a bright light. Behind her a counter was illuminated, a fridge unit and portable stove visible behind it.

“So…” She scratched the strap of her white tank top, temporarily lost. “I’ve made sure to ration out what I have, and even though the food supplies are very finite I’m sure the ship will come out over a settlement or even a wild planet where I can forage before things get desperate. I really do miss you both, but what I’ve been working on is a confession.”

Cheep rubbed her temples then set her palms flat down on the table, looking right at the camera. “I know you won’t be happy to see this father, but well-“ She withdrew a folded piece of yellowed paper or maybe parchment from a pocket of her denim trousers and began to unfold it, then held it up for display. The image of a celestial-looking Avian head staring down from the heavens was depicted and underneath the words believe had been scrawled out. It had all been done in red ink, but the image was vibrant, and the head seemed to thrum with life, though that was likely just an effect of the art quality. After a few moments Cheep lowered the parchment sheet again.

“I came out here to find the Flightless.” She said, and then abruptly began speaking more quickly, like a flow had been let loose. “I know mother will be glad and I know you won’t but I just want you to understand that I’m in no danger, and I’m not going to do anything stupid. I’m not a fledgling anymore, father, and I know you hated when mother spoke to me about them, but I want to know where we come from. Where I come from. I need to know why I grew up with almost no Avians my age and why our home was full of so many other alien species and why we kept moving all the time.”

Cheep leaned back, hands relaxing and kept speaking. “I’m not ungrateful for what I had father, and I still promise to come back with something to make my exploration worth its while, that hasn’t changed. I just need to go and see other Avians, to learn about what this art means, and who Kluex is to us.” Her voice took on a brief tremor and she held a hand out to the camera. “I’ll stay safe, papa, and I remember what you said about family being all that we have. I just need to know.”

She composed herself and drew her hand back. “Right now the bigger worry is just staying occupied and keeping loneliness off my mind. My nerves are wearing thin after floating in this ship alone for almost three weeks nonstop, and one full week with no planets to set down on. If nothing comes up soon I’ll risk another FTL jump. I love you both, and I’ll talk to you again soon.”

The dark Avian reached out to shut the device down, and moments later, audio and video were cut once more.

 

>>Buffering…

>>Entry 4

The video feed cut back in to reveal a new Cheep, wearing a purple set of robes, with a utility vest strapped around her chest. She was back in her vent home next to her bedroll and the box that served as a lamp stand. At the moment she was gratefully sucking down a long, hearty drink of water from a canteen and once she was done she wiped what she could off her beak, some drops dripping down onto her utility vest pouches.

“Hello, mother and father.” She said brightly. “I have good news! Since my last entry I was finally able to find a settlement to refill all my water canteens. I’d been flying with only one half a canteen left when I stopped the ship in orbit over this place called Fort Mattis, and it had a working beampad, so there was no need to land. The beampad made me a bit dizzy, but it saved time and let me get to running water and search for a mechanic right away.”

She leaned on the wall, continuing in her thoughts like she was in an optimistic daze.

“Speaking of mechanics, I had two give me opinions on the cost of repairs for the ship. One was a human named- I don’t know her name. She didn’t speak, but rather wrote on a notepad. She seemed to know what she was doing, and she gave an approximated price for the replacement of the water filtration system.”

Cheep groaned softly, and pressed her hands against her eyes. “Well, the good news leads into bad, again. The price is way higher than what I can afford. I’ve only got a few thousand pixels, and she was talking in the tens of thousands. I didn’t even bother to ask about the ventilation system and coolant issue after that, let alone the missing chunk of hull.”

Pulling her hands out of her eyes she faced the camera again, continuing. “The other mechanic was a bigger help. His name was Smokestack, I think. A pretty funny name for an Avian,” Cheep pointed to her left arm. “He had a strange arm, and I wondered if it was fake; I think it was. Anyways, he came up to my ship and repaired most of the wall paneling that had come loose with a welding torch and some spare materials. He was fair, and didn’t charge me too much for the job, which was nice of him. I also paid him to replace the coolant tanks that have been causing so much trouble.”

Cheep was happy enough to bob up and down with enthusiasm. “The air’s still stuffy since I decided to stomach the ventilation and water purification hiccups, but at least jumping into FTL won’t overheat the whole ship. I need to get a toolkit of my own and learn how to use it, because duct tape and basic patchwork knowledge won’t help me much here.”

“Oh, almost forgot!” Cheep said with a cawing laugh. “I asked Smokestack if he was Flightless and he said yes. I’m not sure if I believe him, and I don’t think I was in my most welcoming mood, since I was coming down from the almost month-long isolation in the ship, but I hope he can tell me more about the Flightless.”

“I miss you both mother and father, and I just want you to know that I’m staying safe and everything is under control again. I expect once I have some answers and earn some pixels I’ll come back to you very soon.”

Cheep tapped the recording device and let the world it showed disappear.