Rackham's Peak
28 May 2022Tredwell
Rackham’s Peak Celebrations.I was contacted by Max, a CMDR with who I had done some haulage trips before and he asked if I could help him out for three days – but he didn’t explain the downside, that three days could stretch out to six days.
We would be heading out to a station called Rackham’s Peak, hauling some goods for their Bank Holiday celebrations.
Using Imperial Cutters, we spent some time loading up his FC, with 18,209 tons of wine and liquor. Managing to buy the wine at 26 Cr a ton and liquor at 74 Cr. There were quite a few variations in legal drug prices local to our home system, so it was a case of shopping for the best prices.
The idea was that we would head up to a system called HIP 58832, arriving at a type G (White-Yellow) star, sitting high above the galactic plane. Once there the only station is Rackham’s Peak, some 407Ls out. The station is a vast intricate facility for scientific groups to study the structure of the Milky Way. A little research showed that recently it has expanded to include a tourist facility for those who can afford to visit it.
I opened up the galaxy map on my ship and confirmed that Max’s FC, The Princess Star, would manage the trip in 18 jumps. But something looked rather odd. HIP 58832 lay 5,319 light-years above the galactic plane and as such is the most distant station in the galaxy from the galactic plane. After jump 5, there would be no halfway stops for ships. So, it meant that HIP 58832 could only be reached by traveling aboard a Drake-Class Carrier.
The discovery scanner information provided by Max suggested that at the time of print-out, two days before our departure, 174 FCs were already at Rackham’s Peak. However, one jump out, at HD 105341 (nicknamed N1), there were 16 FCs, and two jumps out at HD 104495 (nicknamed N2), there were over 50 FCs. System N1 was looking like a problem. FCs would have to depart Rackham’s Peak before any new carriers could access the system. I realized that we might be held at N2 for a while.
The plan was to deliver wine and liquor to the civilian sector of the station, where the Bank Holiday celebration would take place. Due to the difficulty of accessing the system, prices were expected to sky-rocket. However, there was no confirmed date for the Bank Holiday.
Full of enthusiasm, we headed out from the Bubble. Just as expected, we were held up for two days at N2, but once we gained access to N1 we passed on through to HIP 58832. I guessed that some FC CMDRs had given up the hope of the Bank Holiday ever happening, and just traded the wine at 33,000 Cr. A healthy profit in anyone’s eyes.
It was two more days before the comms lit up with the news that the Bank Holiday was on and Rackham’s Peak station was open for delivery of goods. When we loaded up the Carrier we used Imperial Cutters, designed to hold approximately 650 tons of cargo, however, at Rackham’s Peak the largest landing pad would only take medium-sized ships, so we both switched to Pythons, which had been modified to carry 288 tons of cargo.
From the command deck of my Python, I waited for Rackham’s Peak station to come into sight as it was hidden behind a nearby planet. Gradually the station was revealed in all its glory, stretching out in a long line of structures were the research station, a civilian installation, and a communication station.
I called up the Control Tower and spoke to the duty Sargent. His reply was not what I wanted to hear; I was the twelfth in the queue and I would have to hold in position for about 30 minutes. This delivery and delay routine went on for the rest of the day as we traveled to-and-fro from FC to the station, however, I was making 80 Million Cr each trip. Towards the end of the day, I looked at the cargo hold record and realized that if we were going to make any headway in emptying the hold, we were going to need some help. Max agreed. We placed a call for help out on the local network. We would cover our costs, but the local CMDRs would make big profits if they put the time in. Our hold was soon empty.
We had a decision to make. We could head out of the system, back home to the Bubble, or stay and run delivery missions for other FCs wanting to clear their cargo hold. The question on everyone’s mind was, when would the Public Holiday end? We decided that we would stay, and began answering calls from Carriers desperate to empty their holds. Between us, we managed 20 deliveries into Rackham’s Peak. Then exhausted, we felt that was enough.
It was the following morning when we learned that the request for cargo related to the Public Holiday had ended during the night. We locked the FC into autopilot and headed out of there back to the Bubble. At last, we had a chance to reflect on the profit we had made – my cut was small compared to Max as the owner of the FC, but having banked over 3 billion Cr I had no complaints.