Second Thargoid Contact: Ship Survived!
07 May 2019SkyaLykos
I was recommended publishing a logbook of my travels by a liaison at Roed as a part pf staving off any form of mental trauma the attack may have caused. I'm not crazy about taking advice from the Empire, being a Federation man myself, but the guys at Brestla Silver Vision have always been good to me, as well as sharing my hatred for Dictatorships, and it seems none of us take too kindly to the Inquisition holding the reigns to the system my brother and I call home.I was making runs for Silver Vision, a couple Sourcing runs. Power grids and some other components. They offered a good price for the job, not that the money interested me terribly any more than watching the Inquisition slowly lose their grip on Brestla. My T-7 is fitted well with equipment suitable for longer journeys, as I have come to find out after a friend of mine, running stock cores, took a few dozen jumps to port in. I made my long run last. Kartenes, thankfully being a short 3ly jump away, held two of the components for the jobs I took on, and dirt cheap.
The last was a ways out, and I don't really care to try to remember the system I got them from, knowing there's 'Goids hovering around out there. 4 jumps got me in, and the station was orbitting the secondary of a tri-star system, around 200k Ls out. I started the jaunt out after gathering the fuel I used up in the last jump out. The station itself was plenty easy to locate. I dropped in, dropped my goods brought in from Kartenes, picked up the Energy Grid Assemblies I was sent after, and gather the rest of my hold's worth, seeing the price difference. I lifted off, angled towards my target system, and launched.
All was well in witchspace for the first few lightyears. Same howl of space passing by, same clouds of dust and gas weaving past. And then My CoVAs warned me off an anomaly. The siren sounded and I tuned the rest out. A couple profanities surely escaped my lips as my guts wrenched and reeled in the pull into impulse. I think I might have passed out. I came to to hear a loud pulsing noise, and watched as my HUD blacked out, and heard the alien ship roar its displeasure at my trespass. My ship slowly woke from its electronic slumber.
As soon as I had control over the T7, I set course for home. I watched as Brestla became a nice wide icon to aim at. I waited another couple seconds before aligning and winding up my Drive. I was honestly hoping they'd spent the last charge of their EMP. Before the Drive reached 80%, I aligned with the system, maxed the throttle, and mashed the boosters as hard as I could, as if it would make a difference. I could hear the roar of the bugs' outrage as my ship entered the wake. The countdown had never sounded so beautiful to me, and suddenly witchspace opened ahead of me again.
Seeing a star loom so close to my canopy was never so comforting as the moment I dropped into Brestla again. The heat washing over my face, so welcoming and comforting, telling me I escaped with life, limb, and even ship intact. I'll never appreciate a star's radiation so much as escaping those woesome bugs.
I offer this as a warning to those leaving the safety of the bubble:
Never take the burning of a star for granted, as it may very well be your last, and never leave you canopy unmanned in witchspace, no matter how far or safe you assume it to be.