Marrch 9th, 2411
Dear Jrrnl,
Daddy says boys are not spose to have a Diary like Prrilla had so your name has to be Jrrnl. Diary was better because Prrilla used to write things to her that were for no one else and then if it was very secret after Diary read it Prilla would burn the pages in a fire! Prrilla is the best and she is sending me a present and it is a kind of bear money that is from her job! Also Prrilla is always taking care of me because even though she is far away she has lots of friends who get me ice cream and do nice things for me. They are tomcats near her age and I know she is the one who makes them nice to me because they are always asking about her and what she likes and where they can meet her. I don't know where she is but that's okay they still are nice to me. Writing to you is fun I will write more soon.
Love,
Jayrrin
June 14th, 2411
Dear Jrrnl,
I saw the news today with Daddy! Mama was at work in the lab like always. It was a big news story!
I asked Daddy what a epire is, and he said it's what aliens have and the news robot doesn't know about a long word I don't know how to spell that I think starts with in or id or something. But it means there are twelve whole worlds with Mrrshans on them now! And we all are friends because the Meklar want to kill all of us and none of us wants to all be killed so we help each other all the time.
I miss my sister a lot. She would have told me what was good about Bootis and Galos and why Bootis would be safe even though it is in the purple cloudy thing and very close to Meklon and why it's good to have cats at Galos in the very middle of the galaxy. Daddy doesn't tell me any of those things and Mama is always in the lab.
I also miss Prrilla because she's my sister and I love her and I love her and I love her! Daddy says to not write dear and love for my Jrrnl but I won't stop because it's true!
I'm going to go now because I want to listen to the funny soundfile Prrilla made for me again. She talks in funny voices and she even makes a sound like a Meklar and first it's scary and then she laughs and tells me not to worry it's just her and then she makes the Meklar sounds again except funny, and I close my eyes and pretend she's really there next to me and we're both here laughing about it and not just her voice and me.
Love,
Jayrrin
Marrch 22nd, 2415
Dear Jrrnl,
There is a wonderful, happy reason I didn't write to you yesterday: Prrilla was home! She was really home! She had to leave this morning but still! She just got back last night, and she went right to Mama's lab! It was really funny because Prrilla usually has perfect timing, but she really messed it up this time ... unless she did it on purpose just to make me laugh!
Just when Prrilla was showing off the plans for a top-secret Meklar thing they call ECM-2, Mama's big boss walked into the room with much more advanced plans the team had just finished to put automatic repair systems on our ships! I love the expression on Prrilla's face in the picture she gave me. You can tell how silly she feels but also how she's not really angry and secretly making the face as a joke to laugh at on the inside. She is the best! But afterward Mama told me it was a double joke, because even though the auto-repair thing is very advanced and might be useful someday if we build a defense ship that isn't a fighter, it's kind of pointless right now, and Prrilla's ECM is the most important thing ever! It stands for electronic counter-measures and it messes up the guidance systems on missiles and smart-bombs and death spore delivery modules so they burn up in the atmosphere and can't hurt anybody! If we had it two years ago when the Meklar attacked Reticuli, it might have saved all the soldiers at the missile base they destroyed before our fleet destroyed their bombers. Now that we do have it, if another Nemesis attacks, Prrilla's work could save millions of lives!
Prrilla says our research is still the most important though. It's good that fewer millions will die, but millions is still too many! She reminded me about how we researched fusion bombs ourselves a couple years ago just as an example. Nobody's been talking about them at all (except the ones the Meklar use on us) since then, but Prrilla whispered that there are Mrrshans thinking about them all the time: Lots and lots of Mrrshans secretly working overtime shifts in the ship yards, building the hulls for bombers to get rid of the attack base on Artemis and stop the Meklar from killing us once and for all.
I didn't even sleep last night. Seeing Prrilla again was just too important. And mostly we just talked and had fun together as a family! She even growled like a Bulrathi for me the way she did before she went on her very first mission. She's really, really good at it, and she can make it really funny.
Love,
Jayrrin
Febrruarry 3rd, 2416
Dear Jrrnl,
They attacked Reticuli again. It's lucky our Curiosity scanner ship was there and it's lucky the Meklar did something dumb.
They let themselves get outmaneuvered and trapped behind an asteroid field, and with just slow Ajax cruisers, that was enough for us to win the battle without any casualties ... for once. That's obviously good news, but there's much worse news coming up. There's another Nemesis on its way to Artemis through the Bootis Nebula. It's twice as fast as an Ajax and dozens of times more deadly and there's no way to trap a ship that fast with or without an asteroid field even if they mess up again. Prrilla's ECM will help, but we're still going to lose millions of lives to their horrible bioweapons and bombs - it's just a countdown of four years, and we won't even know for three of those years which planet they're going to bomb - unless we can do something about it before they launch.
I heard a rumor that we're going to take them. I heard a rumor that Mrrshans as far away as Xudax and Fierias itself are saying enough is enough. I heard a rumor that there are combat transports on their way to Artemis even as I write this, going to take that forward base and hold it and prevent the Meklar war machine from ever attacking us from there again.
I hope, I hope the rumors are true. I know I'm just a kitten still, but even I want to go!
Love,
Jayrrin
Aprril 6th, 2417
Dear Jrrnl,
They're real. They're real! I saw them take the sky, standing on pillars of fire that carried them out among the stars, flying in formation and keeping pace with the Mrrnitcat 4s, the fastest ships in the entire galaxy.
Mama says they're rickety, with corners cut everywhere, relying on their pilots' senses just because battle computers are too expensive and we wanted as many bombers as we could get into space - but they're real! The Hairball fusion bombers are real - and with every Mrrnitcat we can muster - they'll even join up with a big fleet of older, slower Mrrnitcats that secretly left last year - they're going to Artemis.
If there's any magic in you, Jrrnl - if you can even just tell Diary so she can tell my sister so she'll know to send her hopes with them too - now is the time. This is our one hope to end the spore raids on the colonies, and it's our one chance to hit the Meklar hard enough that even they will see the need for peace.
Love,
Jayrrin
Januarry 29th, 2418
Dear Jrrnl,
The ships are gathered at Artemis, and we had important news right away: A huge relief. We caught the Nemesis in orbit, before it left for one of our worlds, and that meant we had a chance to destroy it out in space, where it couldn't use its horrifying death spores on our people. The battle was over quickly then, but not quickly enough.
A hundred and twenty-five of our pilots died - mostly aboard the hairballs. Still, they died knowing their sacrifice meant millions of Mrrshan lives saved here at Berel, at Reticuli, and at Maretta. The Meklar missile silos were all wrecked by fusion explosions. The Nemesis was destroyed along with its Ajax cruiser escort. Now we're down to the terrible waiting, while the combat transports from Xudax and Fierias close in. In a few days, we'll know the outcome for sure, but it's going to be a bloodbath. Artemis was their forward military base, and it's staffed by sixty battallions of combat mechs, programmed for relentless battle in their core circuitry. And somewhere inside all that metal is something alive - something that, freed of its implanted electronic control modules, might even be as horrified by this war, and as much a victim of TVC-15's cyberpsychosis, as we.
Remember them too, when you think of the Xudax and Fierias battallions flying out to secure the Artemis base and ensure it never falls into Meklar hands again. Remember the Meklar people, wherever they may be, because in a few more days, they will be dying in greater numbers than they ever have before in their history.
Love,
Jayrrin
May 24th, 2418
Dear Jrrnl,
It's over. At long last, it's over. The fighting on the ground went on for more than a hundred days, but it's finally, finally over.
Surely even TVC-15 can see now that peace is the only way forward. We just conquered his forward base in spite of its technological edge and fully functioning planetary shield. Not only that, by taking the base largely intact, we'll be able to reverse-engineer a lot of stuff down there. Most likely, we'll have the technological edge by the end of the year.
I hope we have peace by then too. It's been a long, long war - longer than I've been alive. If you could only bring word to someone across the galaxy, here's what I'd ask you to tell the Meklar emperor for me: Please, please end this, TVC-15. We've shown we can defend ourselves. We've shown we can take the fight to you and win. Please, please end this, for your own people's sake.
Love,
Jayrrin
Octoberr 4th, 2418
Dear Jrrnl,
Well, Mama thinks we've reverse-engineered all we can from the Artemis base, and GNN had its report, right on cue.
The newsdroid still hasn't figured out that we're not what it calls an empire, but that's okay. It's right that there are eighteen Mrrshan stars, including a few risky outposts where tens of millions of colonists have settled just in hopes of preventing Hissa from taking over the galaxy. We've got a lot of fighters ready to protect them just in case, but that depends on what comes after them and when. At least we think we're ready. And the rich world of Imra - nebula and all - to say nothing of the incredible mineral wealth of Jinga beyond - should soon be able to take care of itself. We've got more colonies coming too: We've finally explored the far reaches of the galaxy.
I worry though. What will Hissa do if we manage to deny him a quorum indefinitely? How long can we go without Meson seeing the wrong color cars on the hoverlanes or Grunk declaring war at the flip of a coin? What if ... I dread even contemplating it now, but what if TVC-15 still won't see reason? How long can this fighting go on? There must be some way to end it ... someday....
I'll do my best to think of something, Jrrnl. You try too.
I miss my sister so much!
Love,
Jayrrin
Decemberr 15th, 2419
Dear Jrrnl,
We've tried. We've waited in vain. The call from TVC-15 never came. Our diplomats debated what terms we could offer if it needed to make a show of self-pride in making peace ... in vain. The Meklar will not take peace at any time, for any reason. And with Vulcan, the planet whose labs held the secrets to ECM, still within striking distance of Proxima, Reticuli, Berel, and the new Artemis colony just as Artemis was for Berel, Reticuli, and Maretta, Mrrshans all across the galaxy are saying we have no choice.
Dozens of battallions of Mrrshan soldiers are already boarding combat transports, and more will join them by the end of the year, I'm sure. The thought of the battle sickens me ... but what else can we do and hope to survive?
I think I'm done pretending that I'm writing these to somebody named Jrrnl. By the time I even knew that journal was a word, I had no interest in pretending that was what this was. This is to you, Prrilla, so you can steal it or accept it from me and hold all my thoughts in your paws. You're the best big sister anyone could ever have, and yes I still love our parents and yes I have good friends and yes I have a crush on Mrrsia so strong I can hardly breathe when she's nearby, but I only have one big sister - I only have one you - and I feel so, so alone when you're gone!
Love,
Jayrrin
Marrch 17th, 2421
Dear Prrilla,
I can't believe you got a transmission through from all the way out at Maalor! It's sad that if Mama had any less security clearance at the lab, I'd never have even seen it. She knows how much you mean to me though, and seeing you at work, seeing you successful, the quiet pride and confidence mixed with humility and pleasure on your face, is everything I could have hoped for ... at least when you have to be out on the far side of the galaxy.
I can see why you're so happy. The inertial stabilizer designs you just sent over will be critical for our pilots' survival and to the hope of our worlds. With them, we can build bombers that can actually outrun enemy missiles, and build fighters that can hit bombers and spore ships as they leave enemy worlds, even before they can reach hyperspace! Mama says our research teams didn't even know how to begin with them until you sent all the plans over the hyperwave, all wrapped up in a virtual bow. Put those together with the warp dissipators the Proxima Propulsion Lab developed two years ago, and we're going to be able to hold on for a long, long time even if the Meklar never grant us peace.
You're amazing, Prrilla, in everything you do. I just hope ... sometimes ... you can visit us here at Berel and go back to being an amazing sister to me.
Love,
Jayrrin
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NEXT: The Wake of War
