Aafzi, Star Bastard commander, signing in, 700 hours, stardate, 1155.99

My first journal entry for a while but I thought it important to fill this detail in. We've decided to follow Djex, despite her asking everyone not to! This smells too much like a dangerous trap or just some crazy risk she's taking, to just ignore it. Maybe that's why Djex asked to not be followed but we couldn't allow her to simply walk into something like that. She's too valuable and too highly thought of for that. We wouldn't allow anyone to suddenly up and off like that, in normal circumstances but we're not at full-scale war... not yet anyway.

I thought it best to ask her closest associates what they thought, and they decided to go after her. I'd have decided to do it already, but this time, I thought I'd ask their collective opinions on it. They're probably the best judges of that. Better than anyone else on this ship.

I didn't tell them what Djex told me in confidence. She insisted that I didn't. She did warn of possible random acts she might do sometime soon. She couldn't go into much detail but she did tell me it was vital work which would be useful to us as well as being personal to her, so with what she told me, it seemed prudent to allow it, this one time. We're open and fair as much as we can be while there's no outright war going on, though we can all sense one waiting to happen. Prosperity is bent on bombing and persecuting the few dissident worlds which refused to join, especially the old Sakaari ones! Many asked why they didn't destroy or invade them when the People's Sakaari Republic fell, but it became obvious why the more we all saw how difficult it is to attack those worlds, even without the network they once had! Also, it's best for Prosperity and The Peace and Providenz to play at being 'non-aggressive' and 'reasonable'. It's so much easier to do that and make those few 'rogue worlds' seem like the bad guys. They can milk that for a long time until they need a big war to recover the econony. They're already installing military governments and the various 'Nu-Yonatist' movements to outer colonies which they control in every way but name. We keep hearing more and more refugee ships heading toward the Free Zone of 'Prosperity's End'. Funny how they should name it that! The end of Prosperity's space and the place where they, most of all, want to see the end of Prosperity itself. A fitting name, so!
We're hoping that place doesn't get hit with a railgun strike or one of those super-plasma cannons they have on their big warships!! I pray that never happens!!

But anyway, I must not think of such things. I'm not superstitious but the old saying of not tempting fate or tempting the old gods of disaster feel real enough at times like these.
That was why I let Djex go when she asked. I knew she had something important going on in her head. She was awkward and stammering a little. She doesn't do that normally, so I demanded her to be straight with me. She mentioned a personal matter over old associates and a possibility of one having some information about some war criminals and some weapons being developed. She knows about stuff like that from her recorded childhood memories. She learned how to train herself to do that when she was in care after her family was destoryed. She was born with some augmentations which she didn't know about at first, but they became more active when she hit adolescence, and then there was the further cyber enhancements and augmentations she had done after being injured in that ship crash, all those years ago. She's been through a lot!

Also, I know her parents were involved in something but no-one seems to know what. Even Djex herself isn't clear. Maybe working for resistence groups? Maybe blowing the whistle on corruption? We don't want to think of them collaborating with the Prosperitan government, though some have specualted about that too. Accusations of being a snitch is another dirty tactic used by their Special Departments in planting paranoia and distrust among rebels or those they think likely to join them. I think it's safe to say that if they'd done that, they wouldn't have been attacked and killed or imprisoned. They'd have been more likely to have been killed by rebel groups, instead. I think Djex will find out soon, anyway.

Vandioch called a meeting with Azzogh, Zorgo and Vrigon. They're probably the closest to her. I was relieved to see that they decided on what I also thought was best. It's far too risky to leave her alone in such a dangerous and vulnerable position. We don't leave people behind... not if we can help it! She's been gone too long now so we can't ignore this, no matter what she said!
We head for the Danger Zone of Skjir's World tomorrow... Maybe I should call it Skjirdo'an, as some locals do.
Whatever I call it, that's where she'll probably be. I managed to get a vague track on her when she left and she was headed in that general direction. She's a clever girl and went in stealth mode but this ship can find her if anyone can. Sakaari technology is still difficult for Prosperity and its pals to hack into, even with all their efforts! But this is smart technology and can work with its own kind and they can usually track each other because they were designed and developed to do that in times of war. They have some very smart machines, which didn't wipe out their organic life, or even try to, unlike what 'common knowledge' says. That kind of thing only ever happened during the bad days of the old empire and before the revolution. All kinds of ugly things happened during those times, which was why the Sakaari Revolution happened! But, no, we never hear that or any real details in the accepted history. The amount of krefshit we hear about 'oppression of freedom' in the old Sakaari Republic is laughable! But, the Republic was ultimately defeated and the history we see now is written by the winners, as usual. Critical thinking is not encouraged in the three main governments of the 'Alliance Of Freedom' now. Much better to keep their people docile! Some rebellious people still question the obvious holes in the official histories, though. Some of us question all the time, which they allow us to do until people start to listen to us. After that? Well... that's when people disappear or have 'terrible accidents', and so on.

That's why we had to escape on these old Sakaari ships. They're more trustworthy and less likely to be tampered with, so they make for easier escapes if you're lucky enough to find one. We've been fortunate to find some old Devastator fighters too, and Djex was lucky to take advantage of us having one docked with us at this time. We hope we can get it and her back safe and sound. We need all the ships and hardware we can get for the bad times we see ahead. Things are getting bad, but we're preparing. We hope we're prepared enough, that's all I can say.
I hope this desicion to follow Djex isn't something we'll all regret! My instinctive feeling is that it's the right thing and the ship's intelligence or 'Psind' agreed with me on this.
We'll set out tomorrow, I think. That gives us some time to check and double check and then triple check everything and then we should be ready.
I'm nervous but I'm also hopeful. It's all we can be, at this time.
This is Aafzi, Star Bastard commander, signing out.