[ROLEPLAY] The Josie Rosa
19 Jun 2024CrazyGolm
A Python MK1 swept past a binary pair of black holes, towards the dark side of a gas giant. A helmeted figure with an opaque visor sat at its helm.The galaxy is a marvellous place, a beautiful place. But it is also a place of mysteries, human and alien. In some places, clandestine organizations have cached secrets that they would not want to be found.
The secrets weren't exactly going to dig themselves up, so it looked like it fell to Commander CrazyGolm to do the job.
Commander CrazyGolm, despite his young age, was a veteran of much action. Over six years of experience in the Pilot's Federation, he had been in many adventures, misadventures and battles alike. For CrazyGolm, it had not been an easy year, but things were looking up. The Second Thargoid War had hit a turning point. Four of the Titans had been destroyed; Golm had been there for three of them. And there was a new generation of ships on the horizon: the Python Mk2 was open for exclusive pre-orders, and Lakon Spaceways had announced the Type-8, a cargo vessel of surprising magnificence. He had spent the past while tuning his ships, bounty hunting, helping in the war effort, and running support work for the Agency.
Golm was not sure what the post-war future held in store, but he felt a calm sense of optimism. However, another part of him acknowledged that not much had changed. The Thargoids wouldn't be beaten this easily, surely they would come back? And the Club was still out there, just out of reach behind the scenes, manipulating civilization. They would use the war to further their interests, at the cost of everyone else.
Unravelling their schemes was why Golm was out here.
The HIP 63835 system was a miasma of stars and singularities. The three black holes, and a tourist beacon discussing them, were the main points of interest in the system. Yet, in orbit of the outer pair of black holes, there could be found something intriguing: an installation by the name of Josie Rosa, orbiting a ringed gas giant with the same name. Shrouded in shadow, the dark side of the gas giant was nearly pitch black.
He had previously scouted ahead in his Asp Explorer, a well-worn but cherished ship with some paint left on it, while his fleet carrier followed suit from the Bubble. Dropping to the Josie Rosa, Golm had found a surprising amount of traffic. A number of vessels appeared to be on patrol around the installation; notably, they were aligned to no faction.
This time, Golm was returning in a ship fitted for special operations. The Huguenot, formerly a mining Python, had been overhauled into a deceptively-non-combatant-looking combat vessel capable of reconnaissance, blockade running, hostage recovery and hatch-breaking. Armed to the teeth with plasma accelerators, it was not a cargo ship that you would be wise to shoot at. His mission was simple: to obtain any more information on the Josie Rosa and why it was out here. Given that the system was, for all intents and purposes, unclaimed, whoever was running the installation had no system authority, and so his actions wouldn't be criminal. Nonetheless, he had to be careful: he'd brushed with the Club before, and they were notorious for making people disappear in the black.
The Huguenot obtained destination lock, dropping from supercruise around seven kilometres from the Josie Rosa. The comms installation in an unclaimed system, with no registered population. For all intents and purposes, it may as well not exist. Yet here it was.
Golm started to dig for information. Finding the comms array, Golm launched a recon limpet. This triggrered off the installation's alarms and alerting its defence turrets. The heist was on.
The comms array yielded data materials, but offered no uplink access. Similarly, the data transmitters were fruitless.
Golm weaved his way around the installation, searching for more hackable targets. Nearby turrets peppered his shields with cannon fire. Thankfully the Huguenot's shielding, repurposed from a now-shieldless Alliance Chieftain, soaked up the turrets' firepower with ease. However, the bulky old Python's one downside was agility, and the entire operation was turning out to be slower than anticipated. Surprisingly, and thankfully, the nearby ships did not come to the Josie Rosa's defence - they were not patrolling after all. Golm had expected it to be more intense than this.
Golm was able to unearth some information from the cargo hatches. The first cargo hatch yielded ores and some computer components, indicating construction work: perhaps this installation had been built in situ. The second cargo hatch told more of a story: it yielded microcontrollers, computer components and robotics. Whoever was running this operation had need of some high-tech components.
All that said, the heist had left him with more questions than answers.
What was the Josie Rosa doing out here, a hundred light-years from the Bubble's rim, in an unclaimed system with three black holes? Was it simply a deep space comms relay? Or was it something more? Who owned the Josie Rosa? And who were the pilots around it?
Golm sought to find out.