SD 04/26/03 "The Twink Goblin" - That blasted Brundle! What is possessing him?!
Security still hadn't found him when I woke up this morning, so there was the prospect of what would have been a simple meeting with M'Rander now having a cloud over it. A welcome distraction came when I heard we were getting a crewman the Orenmara had missed and was being delivered by shuttlecraft: Ivan Ethcuff Romanov, our new Engineer's Assistant. Engineer Romanov's Russian name brings to mind the symbol of that country, the bear, and this guy sure lives up to it with his six-foot-six frame. Just being an inch under Tara's height, I can't help but wonder what the Kzin will think after having to look down on almost everyone she's since since getting out of stasis.
Engineer Romanov and I were among the last to get to the meeting, Demian Tempres just ahead of us and bringing his kids! He said there was a "strange woman" in his room when he woke up, and didn't want to take a chance with the kids. Well ... he didn't seem hung over or anything, so there was no use thinking certain impure thoughts. Anyway, I read the orders that transfered command of the Freedom to M'Rander, and mentioned who gave the order saying it came from Starbase 13 and reminded everyone who was in charge there - Admiral Ironbottom. I didn't notice much surprise among the audience, then again most of our orders go through him. I then began reading the orders to our next destination - Planet Cid IV.
But while we were going over the details, we were interupted from a voice from the ship's comm: Brundle. In a delusional rant, he told us he was going to get M'Rander off the ship "for your own good" and to do that, he was going to get Ironbottom. He would not listen to any appeals to reason. Not even Engineer Tadtasi, whom rumor has it has developed a close friendship with Brundle, couldn't talk him out if it. As the transmissions were coming from a shielded area, a deck-by-deck search was started. Eventually, Dammers located him and those on foot closed in. Then the lights went out. Brundle had somehow sabotaged the Freedom's major systems. By the time we got them restarted less than a minute later, he had exited the ship and was in some purple suit with a monster mask, standing on some sledlike vehicle. He then warped away and we began going after him. He must've swiped a shuttle warp engine for that thing.
I can only conclude he's been working on this protected room and shipwide power failure setup for some time. This may be the result of the genetic mix-up the transporter accident he was in caused. Although his medical files stated he was slightly neurotic at most, we have had surprises before. Sadly, as of now, it looks like he's headed for M'Rander's old psych ward. Few of us have any love for that blasted Ironbottom, but his way of doing it is going to get a lot of people hurt, including himself, and Ironbottom gets to justfy his paranoia.
We're closing in on that craft of his. That guy may have been able to cram a deck's worth of aces up his sleeve, but it ends now.