Scouting mission day 54
19 Aug 2020Excess Fire
Destiny, she's a good old girl, strong as, capable of an maintaining a 75 lyr jump rate of 1 per minute easily provided there is at least 1 fuel star every 4 jumps. Yep, her tank is small, but perfect for what we do. Provided, that is, that I look after her which is what I'm doing now. 2 amfu's working hard can only be switched on when we are stopped, they are good fast units but use a hell of a lot of power, this is our vulnerable state so we have to be very careful about where we stop. Out here at this earth like world at the bottom of the galaxy 350 thousand light seconds from the jump in point seemed like a good opportunity as when some one jumps in, they cant get near us in time and there is plenty of time to powerup and get away, its worked like that for hundreds of years and worked well, until they produced Fleet Carriers that is, and i forgot... One just jumped in to this worlds orbit, and smashes right into us. Some days I just have to have the worst luck ever aye.All hell breaks loose, apart from lighting and primary internal systems, nothing was switched on, no thrusters, no shields, sensors, nothing but the amfu's, one of which got completely destroyed, the other is down to about half. Looking outside i can see we are in a wobbly spin heading towards the planets atmosphere, with no thrusters, no stabilizers, need to fix that first, the thrusters integrity is at 8 percent according to this, problem here, Destiny is not responding to commands at all, voice or otherwise, she controls the amfu's, frak, gotta manually put it to that task, I shoulda listened when I was told how. This ones intent on fixing the damn sensor array first, whoever programmed the amfu's priority commands needs to be shot.
Nope, cant figure it out, we just going to have to wait it out. Missy stompy comes up and hands me a pair of gravity boots, she was in the lower section of Destiny at the time of impact and has quite a few cuts on her but refuses to stay still for me to tend to them looks up at the ceiling behind me and starts laughing hysterically, and I do not blame her when I turn around. What missy hysterical is laughing at, and now me, is that damn cat, turned into a huge ball of fluff, again, but still in his bed, his talons clean through his bed into the ceiling panel, and us laughing at him has changed his look of confusion to a look of anger, yep, he's snarling now. This is why Destiny is not talking or hearing us, that ceiling panel just happens to be her communications panel, totally blocked off. What's worse, that frakin amfu is working on the life support system right now, which includes the gravity system, yea, we not laughing any more now aye.
Took a bit of coaxing and prying but we got Lilo down and calmed, missy smoochy really is good with him, kinda made me jealous, "you don't do that with me..." "uhuh, you don't cling to the ceiling" It was a belly massage ya dirty minded fraks... a frakin belly massage to relax him, ya don't want a 70 kg ball of teeth and claws angry and panicked do ya! geez
We still tumbling and rolling towards the planet atmosphere, I recon we got an hour before we hit but 15 minutes of air left but at least now we can talk to Destiny, Life supports just come on so the air supply is fixed, but Destiny advises we are leaking, so the hunt starts, meanwhile she directs the amfu to the thrusters. No communications are received from the carrier at all, the communications array is repaired, so I place a request for assistance call, the response I received was not surprising, It was immediate and simply a warning to keep away as the carrier is about to jump, nobody helps nobody out here aye, they probably figure we will burn up in the atmosphere and nobody will ever know. I got news for them, the amfu has just repaired the thruster assembly, no boost yet, not enough power, Ironically the power plant only lost 2 percent integrity, that was lucky, its a solid unit that really only suffers damage when in use which at the time of impact, it was barely running. Destiny stabilizes us from the roll and maneuvers us for an easy climb to altitude putting minimal stress on systems and the amfu switches to the minor systems repairs, Destiny knows how to deal with this while considering the life requirements on board, unlike most automated systems out in the marked. Missy commented on the carrier name, she's not seen that one before so i wasn't the one we saw the other day, of coarse, I um... knew that, honest, "why you grinning at me like that?" frakin woman, missy frakin mind reader just gotta know everything huh... I'm going... to the cargo bay, look for frakin fractures...
Missy calls out telling me the carriers jumped away, they must have seen we were getting things sorted with repairs, better keep in eye out, in case they want to make sure we don't tell our story of out here, cant trust these fraks nowadays. likely to send fighters to take us out.
By the time the fractures were sealed, all 32 of then, all systems that could be fixed were, we lost the docking computer, an amfu, supercruise system and power distributor, the hull is now at 38 percent and we don't have the equipment or materials to fix that, as frustrating as it is going to be, we are at least mobile with a limited jump range which really doesn't matter as we were operating this trip on minimum range jumps anyway. Downside is Destiny is limited to thruster controls without the supercruise as that's how she is linked in her AI and we will have to be hands on full time in supercruise, auto braking is gone as well, this gonna be fun. The power distributor will make landing and taking off from planets more work and if we are attacked at any time, well, yea, we in trouble, limited speed and jump range, it could get interesting. O hello, power distributer just came on, nope, its gone again, ah frak, it cant make up its mind, shutting it down, will drive me mad behaving like that, I'm sure its made by Microsoft.
No choice now, gotta plot a quiet economical trip back for repairs, was gonna anyways. "Are ya ready Missy?" "uhuh... I'm flying" "Nah missy, I need you to keep your senses tuned and eyes peeled, I don't trust those fraks aye" "what is peeled? why I take skin of my eyes?" "frak" she knew what I meant, good question though. Course plotted, and we're jumping... straight up.
The first few jumps would not normally have required jumponium but they did now, max un assisted jump range is 41 light years, only 4 jumponium's required, not to taxing on the old girl, now the jumps are around 25 lyr apart, nice and easy, and every one is proving profitable so far, mostly high metal terraformable's and a couple of water worlds, made 260 million on the way down, includes 2 earth like worlds, a dozen or so ammonias worlds, heaps of water worlds and high metal terraformable's, would be nice to match that on the way back. Next jump, a hm-tf, next jump, a water world, next, a neutron, 4 hm-tf's, not bad, next, another neutron, nothing here, on to this a-class, then a k-class, another a-class, and the next 19 jumps a hm-tf shows up, that was a decent dry spell, of coarse we had to look at all the pretty gas giants on the way, then after another 6 jump to a dbv white dwarf, codex ate that one up, wondered if was working, hadn't heard it for a while, the next jump is to a black hole, where I normally use the autobrake on Destiny, just easier really, dodged that with out any drama, no missy missiles or flying flying frizzy furball's this time, next is a neutron with nothing, next jump in to a stellar trap, jumped in between 2 f-class stars, 2 of 5 of them, 126 degrees, not hot really, minor damage taken, cant complain though, also had a hm-tf and an earth like world, gotta go the 350 thousand light seconds to get em is all, "wanna drive missy explorer?" heh heh, didn't think so, no supercruise left.
Gave up looking for possible trouble a while ago, we be well away from them now, I've heard of carriers landing on sips before, hell, even Destiny's jumped in to the rear of another ship on a couple of occasions, there are rules about stopping where you jump in, many don't listen and admirals are supposed to report these, they don't get into trouble for it, its pilots risk, but out here?, shite, I need to get a lottery ticket I'm thinkin. And,.. they are most certainly supposed to provide assistance when it happens, bet it's not reported, don't care really.
for a bad day, this one day turned out good.
"How about that massage missy masseur?"
"Uhuh"
Didn't see that coming