Logbook entry

THE QUEST FOR 1,000,000LY - LOG #5

30 Oct 2020Stellas Incola
I reluctantly left the Explorer's Bar & Grill at Arm's End (their Witchhaul Kobe Beef steaks are VERY good), and headed back along the Outer Arm towards where the charts suggested there would be dense enough stars to jump across the Perseus Fade to the Perseus Arm.
Manually plotting FSD injected jumps is a little laborious, but necessary this far out and I knew I'd have to do it again once I reached a passage across the Fade. My pace picked up somewhat when the ship's computer could take over the routing for me and I was soon in a position I thought would be favourable to make the crossing. I estimated it would be around 1500ly worth of jumponium to get me across with my standard 70ly range boosted up to 140ly or thereabouts for some bigger gaps.
I made it to the Perseus Arm with plenty of Jumponium to spare, but I knew I'd have to stop to top up again at the next opportunity as I made my way up through Achilles' Altar and Lyra's Song into Tenebrae. There would be another crossing to get to the Sagittarius-Carina Arm after my next stop. The main elements I was low on were Vanadium, Arsenic and Cadmium. I resolved to stop at some promising Geological Signals to prospect for them.
One such place was a system with thus far rare biological signals on one of the bodies. They turned out to be Crystalline Structures which yielded Polonium from the shards I managed to dislodge. I was soon full to the brim of the stuff and moved on to a couple of geological sites to gather the other materials I needed. After a productive hour or so, my jumponium levels were looking quite healthy again and I ventured on.
A few thousand light years later, around halfway through Achilles' Altar, I spotted an interesting icy body not too far from the parent star with what looked like some promising topography. As I closed in I noticed some large mountains, with almost sheer cliff faces spearing up from the surface. They appeared to be a beautiful, almost translucent greenish-blue compared to the white of the rest of the planet. I deployed the SLF for a closer look, leaving the Anaconda to lumber around behind me. One particular peak with a very sharp summit was around 20km high, with the sides of the cliff plummeting almost vertically away beneath me. I flew around for a few minutes longer, enjoying the agility of the SLF after spending so long in the big bird, before making my way back and docking. Once back on the bridge, I noticed a puff of smoke and a spark from the nose of the ship which definitely wasn't there before. My stomach dropped when I looked at the hull integrity. 57%!!!!! What in Randomius had happened? The stupid ship must have crashed itself into one of the mountains whilst following me in the SLF... I swore at it, but after getting no response, just a stony silence I synthesised some limpets and set about repairing the substantial damage. Around 20m of the left hand side of the hull from the front was torn open, twisted and bent, with many panels barely hanging on. Smoke was coming from a few places along the side with many sparks from the severed cables dangling freely from the conduits that were now torn apart. 16 limpets later, she was repaired and back up to full strength, leaving a sizeable hole in my iron & nickel reserves. The worst was still to come though...
After settling the Anaconda down on a relatively flat mountain top in order to carry out some photography, I deployed the SRV and carefully drove to the edge of a precipice to take in the view. Then something strange happened. My connection to the ship's servers suddenly failed and I thought I'd better get back on board. I made it back and then everything went black. When I rebooted, I was still in the SRV, but far below my ship down the mountainside with no idea how I got there and no way of getting back up due to the steep, icy slopes in my way. Had the ship dropped me back on the surface? Had  I blacked out and let the SRV slide down the mountain? I was feeling confused, angry and concerned all at the same time. How could I get back to the ship? I decided to try and get down the mountain to allow me to call the ship and get back on board on the flatter ground many kilometres below. It started well, with a bit of boosting and sliding until disaster struck and I found myself in a deep bowl with sides too steep to climb, too high to boost over and very uneven terrain around the base preventing me from recalling the ship. I was doomed. After an hour of failed attempts at self rescue there was no alternative but to self destruct the SRV, my only one, and hope my Remlok suit would do it's job and keep me alive until I got back to the ship.
This planet had almost claimed my ship and, not satisfied with that, took my SRV instead. After making it back on board, I looked back down on the surface ruefully from the bridge of the Anaconda, vowing never to return here again.

Time and date of journey start: 13:10 UTC, September 27th 3306.
Hyperspace distance travelled at journey start: ~749,000ly
Total Hyperspace distance travelled to date: 828,400ly
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