There and Back Again (The Badlands)
06 Feb 2019Nato Jahran
*** BEGIN TEXT TO SPEECH TRANSFER ***I got back yesterday after putting 10,000+ LY on my old DBX. I'd been meaning to do some serious scanning for some time, and finally saw a relief in my duties with the Squadron that gave me a week to explore and wander a bit.
I set my course for the Jellyfish Sector, to the Beta Site. I had recently stripped and re-engineered the DBX and was getting a max of 51 LY out of it, along with some increased radius probes for surface scanning to help speed up and assist in the discovery process. I was going to strip out my extra fuel cell, but as the story has it, I'm glad I didn't. I decided to be brave (or stupid) this run and skip on any repair capacity or spare equipment.
I started off from home and felt the tingles of excitement shooting down my arms as I started jumping out into the unknown. I knew a lot of people had taken this route before, but I was hopeful that my custom build and jump range would give me some opportunities to find some previously undiscovered systems and objects --- there's a lot of universe, after all.
The trip out to Jellyfish was fairly routine - the scanners worked at high efficiency, engines were dialed in, and there were more stars to fuel up on out there than I ever thought there would be. It seemed like every jump was an M, K or F.
After a couple days of travel time I made it out to the Beta Site.
The views were fairly spectacular, but the resident population, well, it was a mixture of religious nut-jobs and misfit toys. Everyone had a story that was out there, though, that I could tell. Even though I was exhausted from getting out there, the ambiance was just not my cup of tea, so I stayed for a night, repaired, refueled, restocked, and decided to take a detour back to the bubble that would take me by the California Nebula, and the Alliance base out there.
I didn't anticipate the route being nearly as desolate and trying as it was. There's an area of space in that sector that is nothing but brown dwarf stars. Not a spec of fuel to be seen. You can use your navigational charts to find a couple K's, but they're off your route and you have be to be diligent about keeping your eyes on your routes, jumps, and maps. At one point, I made it 23 jumps without a refuel, averaging 48 LY per jump. I made it to the end of The Badlands with about 26 LY of fuel left, which still left me 17 jumps away from the California Nebula.
After a rest and a deep breath, I made it to Darwin Station.
The Alliance folk out there were surprisingly cordial. I even found a bottle and a card game while I was there. I plan on returning and using their facilities as a retreat of sorts when the bubble and politics get to be too much - an old spacehand like me needs a nice, quiet, scenic spot to burn off steam every now and then and catch some R&R.
For any explorers wanting to make it out to Beta, just remember to plan your route back carefully. I've managed without getting the Rats involved so far, not that it's a bad thing and they provide great service, but when it's just you and stretches of brown dwarfs, things gets claustrophobic real fast.
The experience was definitely something, and the exploration data I brought back for the Squadron was definitely welcome. I made a few little discoveries of my own and left my mark out there, too, so don't be surprised if you see a whole bunch of me out there in The Badlands.