Pegasus Run 3305 - Day 51
18 Nov 2019Flemish Jack
21:03:53 11-17-05After nearly 53 hours straight running nebulas outside of Colonia and parts in between, 6 hours on 6 off between Chief and I, we found our guy. I was about to say the hell with it and head towards the waypoint if we didn’t find him where we did, but we did so there you go.
So there we were….
I dropped us into Dryaea Flee ME-G c24-563 in the heart of the Clown Nebula. Like I said, even if we didn’t find him, assuming he exists at all, we’d at least get to see a few of the sights on our way out. Run the ubiquitous scan on entry, switch to FSS scanning and find several asteroid belts and some high metal content worlds. Refuel the cutter at the main star and head towards the nearest asteroid belt. Nothing there. So I move on to the next one. We drop from super cruise and start scanning. The drop from super cruise brings Todd onto the bridge. She set up at the sensor station and we begin running an abbreviated grid search pattern. After about 20 minutes we found a Lakon Spaceways Type 6. We conducted a direct scan of the vessel, transponder showed Alan Middleton; Type 6- Bug Dust, we hailed the ship and began our approach.
As we approached, the Type 6 killed its mining lasers and began maneuvering away. Todd double-timed it to the hangar bay and began prepping a Condor for flight ops as CMDR Middleton appeared to be choosing the run-away option. I informed Middleton over open channels that we were not here to cause harm, but were capable if needed, and that we only wished to talk. I had not heard a response from the Type 6 yet, but after a few minutes it cut thrust and we received the following clearly annoyed gravely response, “Imperial Cutter, this is Bug Dust actual. What do you want?” At this point Chief was in a Condor in the shadow of our starboard quarter on hot standby to pursue and disable his engines if he tried jumping out.
“Sir, we would like to ask you a few questions about an expedition your former employer sponsored several years ago. Are you willing to talk?”
“No,” and with that he re-engaged thrusters and I received a “charge detected” notification via COVAS. Chief went full throttle on the Condor and pursued. Weapons hot, targeting his thrusters, she made short work of his attempted escape.
“Cease fire! Cease fire! Stop shooting me. Fine, I’ll talk. What do you want to know?”
I maneuvered the Cutter close alongside and initiated a tight beam link with the Type 6. Ms. Todd maintained overwatch in the Condor tapped into our comms channel.
He didn’t provide much new information, but was able to confirm that we were chasing the right dragon. From his perspective at the time, they were ambushed by pirates . Many of the ships in the flotilla were destroyed outright. He and a few others were able to escape. He heard from a former colleague he occasionally runs in to at TolaGarf’s, that the destruction of the expedition was a massive smoke screen for many of the expedition management team to defect from Sirius. If we wanted to know anything more we should track down the person that told him all of this, Aanya Huber. As far as he knew she was running ag shipments out of Pilkington Orbital in Einheriar.
We thanked him for the information, and because we’re not complete assholes, pulled the small AFMS out of the Barcelo and temporarily transferred it to the Type 6, executed repairs to his thrusters and after a couple more hours retransferred the AFMS back to the Cutter.
So yeah…we’re headed back from the Clown Nebula to the near vicinity of Colonia. So much for “the rear view.”
See you in the black.
Flemish Jack - OUT