CMDR Yumasai's Captain's Log #28: The Mysterious Assignment [Pt. III]
11 Mar 2021Yumasai
March 11th, Year 3307Location: Abel Laboratory, Arque
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Returning to the NNV Causticus following my investigations, I contacted the Imperator. I informed him of the preliminary findings, as well as the progress I had made in regards to IP's request. He was pleased, and handed me the location of IP: Arque 4 E.
I closed communications, and prepared the ship for hyperspace travel. As I was exiting the system, a strange phenomenon occurred, and I found myself stranded in space shortly before all my systems were fried by what seemed to be some kind of electromagnetic pulse. I stood up from my chair, and walked to the edge of the cockpit and managed to get a glimpse of what had happened: I was hyperdicted by a Thargoid vessel.
I was rather nervous, since it began scanning me, whilst I did have Thargoid sensor fragments on board in the corrosive-resistant cargo bays. Yet, I collected myself thinking that if this was going to be my death, I would at least die whilst doing my duty to the Imperator. I was surprised to find out that the interceptor did not seem to bother with me carrying several fragments, and it jumped away. Soon after, my emergency reboot sequence activated and my systems were back online, ready to travel once more.
After several jumps, I arrived in the Arque system. I could not get a view on the details of every celestial body so I decided to deploy some probes. They hit home on some bodies, including my destination: Arque 4 E. I decided to head over and found a settlement glowing up in the dark, and checked in my navigation computer. "Ah, Abel Laboratory. Clearly, IP must be there". I entered its no-fire zone and established contact with flight control. When asked why I wanted to dock at the laboratory, I answered that I had specific research results from HIP 17403. For a moment, there was a silence, but I got a response back that was rather straightforward: "Alright Commander. Our team shall be ready. Please land on docking pad 09 and await ground crew to approach you.". Fine enough, I thought, and docked.
As I was docked, I saw a ground team approaching me, led by a man wearing a orange vest. He approached me and introduced himself as "IP", clarifying to me that his codeword were the initials of his actual name: Ishmael Palin. He explained to me that he could not ask for this favor publicly due to scientific reasons, but, that he was happy that the Imperator granted him the opportunity to get to study the fragments. He asked about the crash site, and I carefully explained my observations to him. He responded quite chilly: "Ah, so it is as I suspected. Alas, good work Commander, feel free to make usage of my laboratory at any time. Oh by the way, I have some recent advancements in thruster technology. I am sure you'd like to see the results of my research would you not?". I could not exactly resist, so I agreed to go with Mr. Palin and sure enough, there were schematics for improved thrusters ready for installation.
I looked at Mr. Palin and asked if he was making a joke. "Nope, this is yours, in exchange for your hard work. Once again, thank you Commander.". I thanked Mr. Palin and headed back to Paresa, ready for the next assignment.
Signing off,
Commander Yumasai
Praetor of the Nova Navy; Nova Imperium's Naval Arm