How I found myself at New Growth, an asteroid base beside the Pencil Nebula
20 Aug 2018Thunktone
3304 August 20, Monday19:24
I made a silly mistake just now. I had requested my new fighter be delivered out to Hera Tani to get its power plant upgraded. It's a fast eagle design but I had to disable the class two weapon or everything would shut down when I extended my hardpoints.
Rather than sit there twiddling my thumbs, I decided to nip out in my Diamondback to get some guardian weapon blueprints. I want to try plasma chargers on my Challenger so I can keep fighting after my canopy shatters, make that A rated life support pay for itself.
I was halfway out to the C star when I detected some degraded emissions. No cargo bay I thought, no point. Then I checked and I had room for 16 tonnes. My first reaction was to swing around and check out the site. It's always explorers out here of course, so there was bound to be a data pod. This was one small potatoes though, not worth much.
It was then that I wondered why I had a class four cargo bay fitted. This ship doesn't have one since I installed an FSD booster and I was pretty sure I hadn't left that behind. I must have been ferrying bribes to an engineer. That's it, Fujin Tea for old Broo. So I must have left the scarabs in Fujin, or somewhere near there.
Fortunately a quick look at the map revealed an inhabited system just two jumps away. New Growth, near the Pencil Nebula. Nice little place, nice people. They're planning terraforming projects in the area and gave me a good price for the data I salvaged. They assured me that all their ships carry A rated escape pods like mine, so if it was one of their guys then they will have made it home safe.
I really do like it here. I'm going to stop for the night, fetch my blueprints tomorrow. If I ever decide to go mining again, maybe I'll base my operation here. They're offering millions for the minerals they need.