Journey to Colonia - Day 4 - Attenborough's Watch to Observation Post Epsilon
31 Oct 2019Smertkopf
From Lagoon Sector NI-S b4-10 where Amundsen Terminal is located to Lagoon Sector FW-W d1-122, the home of Attenborough's Watch, was a single thirty light-year jump. The approach to the asteroid station didn't go exactly as planned.Firstly, I ended up approaching the station from the wrong side of the ring system of the gas giant that the station orbits, so I ended up dropping out of supercruise about 5 Mm from the ring plane. Soon thereafter, I was joined in normal space by a Commander named Desmond who scanned my ship and sent me a threatening message. My own scans determined that he was a wanted man, and as I am never above the odd spot of bounty hunting, I deployed hardpoints and collected 12,000 credits in under fifteen seconds.
I popped back into supercruise and swung around the side of the ring system on the rim closest to the planet, then looped up and around to catch Attenborough's Watch and come in for docking. While I was on station I claimed the bounty on Desmond and then passed the time with a trio of brothers hitchhiking back to the Bubble from Colonia, getting on whatever ship will take them closer to their final destination, which they say is a system in the neighborhood of Betelgeuse. Apparently they went out the way I'm headed intending to make a fortune doing regular supply runs between Colonia and the Bubble, but on their very first run they were intercepted by pirates, their trade goods plundered, and they themselves made into slaves in the pirates' drug manufacturing workshops.
When I asked them how they all managed to escape and find each other, they told me that there had been eight siblings in total to make the trek out to Colonia, five brothers and three sisters, and three of them died during their captivity. Their journey has not been easy...if what they say is true, they were five when they started on the road back home, and they have lost two more along the way to various misfortunes. I would have gladly taken them aboard, but I'm not going their way, so I settled for buying them a few rounds of drinks instead.
Bidding the lads farewell, I departed Attenborough's Watch and plotted in my next destination, Trifid Sector IR-W d1-52, just outside of the Trifid Nebula, which hangs in the distance like a black cat's-eye marble. Twenty jumps will take me there, and I get underway. Along my route wasn't much of interest, and every scan shows that others have been this way before, but that is to be expected. I've been thinking that when I reach the halfway point of this journey, which will be probably at Skaudai CH-B d14-34, I'll detour from the straight shot to Colonia I've been taking and do a few stabs out into the black in different directions from that central hub, the goal being to be the first discoverer of a few systems way out in the black between the two settled regions. Once that's done, I'll continue the journey.
Most notable thing I found on this leg of the trip was a ringed water world in Bleia Dryiae KZ-N b40-12. Decided to fly out and have a personal look and was glad I did:
The twenty jumps went by pretty quickly, and I came into dock at Observation Post Epsilon in Trifid Sector IR-W d1-52 amidst the splendid daylit rings of the station's host planet:
As I dock at the Observation Post, I give a silent thanks to those who came this way before me and set up these little outposts of life out here in the hostility of the black. Were it not for these way stations along the highway to Colonia, this trip would be a far more difficult undertaking than it already is, and that is saying something, as the trio of brothers from Attenborough's Watch might attest. Next stop on the journey is Omega Sector OD-S b4-0 and the Rock of Isolation, a Detention Center. I wonder what their policy is on visitors?
CMDR Smertkopf