Traveller's notes. Part 6. DW2: Monde de la Mort
25 Jul 2019Shnyrik
By "something more sturdy" in my previous note I meant imperial cutter, of course. Fortunately we have some of those toys in the family hangar. At first my anger advised me to take a military variant. However even the thought of spoiling perfectly tuned weapon by stripping down it's shields and armor made me feel uncomfortable. So I turned to passenger and cargo ones. And finally found what seemed a good base: tuned for long range passenger yacht with luxury wooden interiors, made of natural cherry, and strange name HMS Chizhik.
That is, by the way, the mentioned yacht HMS Chizhik in orbit around a large accretion disc in system Skaude AA-A h294, also known among the explorers as "Collection of wonders".
Spending time in luxury interiors seemed very nice contrast to my previous expedition to the south, when I had to spend two months sitting in my spacesuit with my back propping thick lead plate, that was supposed to give some protection from the leaking reactor of my DBX.
For the cabins I should thank my great-grandfather, the former Governor-General of one of the well-known systems (sorry, can't write his name, for not all of my numerous relatives would be happy to read it here -- you see, there still are some strange prejudices about what activities are worth of a nobleman, and what are not, for instance service in general, and military service in particular is considered honorable, however service in the Royal Trade Fleet by some strange exception is considered not to be worth associating with). So those cabins were made for his Imperial Trader. And made from the wood, smuggled from Terra, -- I can't even imagine how much all that costed, but, fortunately, the money came not from our family treasury, but from the planet's budget
When the ship was decommissioned the cabins were stored and later transferred to the cutter.For the name HMS Chizhik (which by the way means small bird Carduelis spinus in one of the languages of the Old Terra) I should thank the former owner of the cutter -- my uncle, who is, as you might have already guessed, very fond of Old Terra's antiquities. This name should be, as he says, a deep cultural reference to some ancient humorous song about drunken students, or even a deeper reference to a thousand-year-old musical cartoon about a small cutter.
The cutter, which name is supposed to be a reference to the cutter -- that's the way we live here in the Empire, you see
By some efforts I managed to squeeze 48Ly range out the cutter's FSD while still keeping the 8D shield strong enough to melt through a moon (not proper full-size moon like our terraformed New World, but a smaller one, of course, something the size of the Quantum world).
By the way, looking a bit ahead, I have to say, that those efforts were kind of useless: while the mentioned "griefers" (the stupid name the mentioned bored aristocratic youths made up for themselves) had enough money to buy really good warships, they still lacked one resource we explorers have in plenty -- the persistence. After a few massacres in the initial stage of the expedition the majority of them got bored and turned back towards the Bubble, looking for more trouble.
I personally was interdicted only five times: four times near the Caravanserai station in Gandharvi system (taking this opportunity, I should say, it is actually a very nice and convenient shipyard far in the black), and one time near the Sagittarius A. The poor guy in a light-weighted but still heavily armed Anaconda didn't even manage to understand that someting has gone really wrong before I hit boost and smashed him with my cutter's hull
Except for those interdictions in Gandharvi my trip to Colonia was mostly uneventful. I payed visits to well-known glowing gas giants:
The Blua Hypa Glowing Green Giant in Blua Hypa HT-F d12-1226
and Abeona's Blessing in Dryooe Prou FF-Z d696
and a newly discovered one in Boelts XH-C c29-854. Had to make several rounds before I finally spotted the glowing dot
I've also visited Roseum Somnium and Causality of Lotus gas giants, but, unfortunately, only to see that rumors of mass extinction of pink-glowing bacterial spices were true.
I couldn't help going sightseeing and visited a few more well-known systems on the way:
The famous jet cross at the Crux system (Nuekuae AA-A h52).
Black hole in The Jade Ghost Stellar Remnant (Byoi Ain WE-R e4-913 system).
The Gardens of Shangri-La (Dryoea Flyi II-S e4-6870 system), here I'm in orbit of a local volcanic world.
Black hole in Eoch Pri AA-A h479 system, also known as Life On The Edge...
... and a binary moon of a brown dwarf, which itself is one of the "moons" of the same black hole.
A very hot Jupiter, washed by a white dwarf's jet in Dryau Ausms KG-Y e3390 system, known as The Dryau Awesomes. If you want to see it, you'd better hurry: despite my knowledge about evolution of gas giants is far from being full, it tells me this particular one can't last long
In Colonia I stayed in a very nice and, let's say, Empire-friendly neo-feudal society in Kinesi system.
By the way, they have an ancient-looking Obris station in the stunningly beautiful rings of the local earth-like world. But don't be fooled: it is only a tribute to fashion for retro, the station itself is new, just as all the rest stations in the region.
While staying, I made a few short trips and visited two relatively nearby systems with the word "death" in their names.
The system Wepae AA-A h22 is known as the Mors et Vitae because of the earthlike planet on orbit around a pair of black holes. However the system has one more interesting sight: body ABC 1 there -- M-class red dwarf.
It has an extraordinarily large barely visible ring and orbits of all three planets lie actually inside that ring.
The second system was Spoihaae XE-X d2-9 also known as Monde de la Mort or The World of Death. It has a small landable metal-rich world in extremely close orbit of a white dwarf. Every hour it dives in the jet of it's parent star.
No wonder that the planet has become a place for a very specific extreme leisure: people set up mobile shelters or fix their SRVs and try to survive the dive.
And here I was attacked by a powerful enemy, enemy far more terrifying than bored imperial aristocrats -- by my own courage and stupidity
Naturally, I decided to stay on the surface and watch the jet . Moreover, I thought that mobile shelter or SRV was, actually, a bit too easy. Why not to stay in a parked ship? After all, I've made so many neutron FSD-boosts -- what can possibly go wrong?
"One moment before"
Naturally the weight of the ship was not enough to keep it attached to the surface. The jet washed us away easily, the reinforced plastic of the canopy broke and we fell out into the corrosive stream. Fortunately, the jet rolled us and the remains of the ship over a hill and staying in it's shadow we (not all of us, unfortunately) managed to survive.
Later the remains of the cutter were picked up by hull seals and delivered to the Jaques Station.
It was time to calculate losses.
I've lost my friend and co-pilot Brielle Galloway, a young but very determined explorer from noble though not very rich family. One of the crew members, talented engineer and very promising astronavigator -- bastard of one of the well-known aristocratic families -- died from radiation sickness before we were extracted. Rest in peace, fellow adventurers!
My precious hutton mug was also lost, probably fell through the broken windshield. Some of the engineered modules were damaged far beyond any repairs and had to be replaced. The precious wooden interiors of passenger cabins, by the way, turned out to be almost intact, despite that all servants, who took shelter there, died due to depressurization.
I myself got my hands burned and had to go through a series of operations in Galcop Colonial Defence Comission Hospital in Azura, where they replaced my burned skin with fashionable bionic one. Again I should admit, they have pretty good plastic surgery in Colonia, not at all as good as in Royal Hospital in Achenar, of course, but still.
While the ship was under maintenance I spent two weeks in the Tranquility's pansion in Shrogea MH-V e2-1763 system, better known as Black in Green. You probably know, that they are very picky about their clients and usually don't even allow explorers to dock, however if you know the right names, they can make an exception.
Very calm and meditative place there. You can sit calmly under the trees with a nice view on the local black hole.