October 3rd, 2504
Dear Diary:
There’s a new…person…on the ship here. I went up to the bridge to try and get a glimpse of Captain Horner, and Mr. Raynor was talking to this guy all done up in full battle armor. I think his name was Tycho or Tychus something, but he gave me the willies! Every time I looked in his direction, he was just staring at me, the way my cat back home would stare at birds on the front lawn…and now that I think of it, Fuzzball liked to play with the birds he caught before eating them. I’ve got a strange desire to go write depressing poetry in my cabin now, but it’ll have to wait. Whoever this Tychus character is, he must be an old friend of Mr. Raynor, or else he’s offering Raynor a lot of money, cause they’re going to raid an excavation site not far from the ruined base – I heard something about an alien artifact that’s being dug up there.
We landed a short distance from the dig site, and the raiders started harvesting mineral crystals. It looked like dirty work, so I went and tried to strike up a conversation with one of the guys doing the mining, maybe do an interview segment. They were rude, though, and I got bored quick.
No one was paying me any attention – they were all loading their guns and double-checking their armor and stuff. Boooooring. So I went exploring, and ended up finding some big crates all loaded up with crystals and a couple big barrels of natural gas. Probably some locals who got scared away when the Raiders landed, but finders keepers! No one even thanked me for the find, just sent a couple of construction suits to haul the stuff in.
I’d make them have to thank me for helping out, so I kept looking around. A bit further north, I found a crystal mine, with more boxed-up supplies and a couple of Dominion guards lounging around. Now, any good reporter knows that every story has two sides, even if one of them is completely wrong. It’d be nice to hear what the local garrison thought of personally fighting the dread Raynor’s Raiders, so I headed over to ask them. I was just out of shouting range…and they started shooting at me! How mean….I knew I should have repainted my armor, I must look just like one of those icky Raiders from a distance.
Mr. Raynor and his men heard the noises, though, and came investigating. Serves those mean guards right, really, even if it is technically murdering Dominion troops. They shot at me, Diary, and I didn’t even do anything! I still didn’t get a thank-you for finding more minerals; instead, I got a lecture to not go wandering off where I might be shot at…thank you very much, Private Genius, I’ve figured that out already!
Right about then, that creeper Tychus broke in on the com channel, pointing out a camp of local militia that were under attack by the dig site’s defenders. He wanted to leave them there, but I guess guerillas and terrorists must stick together, because Raynor decided to go help them instead. They were mighty appreciative for the rescue, which makes sense.
For some reason, so were the civilians in the area. Raynor hadn’t even talked to them, and they were all anti-Dominion already. No wonder he’s such a wanted man, if he turns loyal citizens into propaganda-driven traitors just by being on the same planet. It must be my journalistic integrity that’s keeping me focused. That, and my razor-sharp wit.
As soon as the Raiders broke though the perimeter of the dig site, the camp commander sent a squad of armored buggies to attack, and they had flamethrowers on top! It’s a real good thing that the Korhal Conventions don’t apply to convicted terrorists, otherwise he’s be in real trouble for using napalm weaponry on infantry.
On the other hand, it’s hard to prosecute a corpse, and the Raiders seem to have skimmed over the “taking prisoners” page of their training guides. Even reinforced command bunkers don’t stand long against that many guns.
Defenseless bases don’t either, and the Raiders were gleefully committing gross property damage all over the place. All I could think of was how many tax dollars – some of which came out of my paycheck – were being wasted here.
I guess even arson gets monotonous, since they eventually fired up the mining crane and hauled up the artifact that the Dominion had found. It didn’t look like much, just a big lump of blue crystal, but standing too close made the hair on my arms stand up, and I still had my armor on. Tychus plans to sell it to someone – they’re welcome to it, and him too.
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