Pegasus Run 3305 - Days 90-98
05 Jan 2020Flemish Jack
[HIGH PRIORITY] 00:24:18 12-28-05MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY. This is independent vessel Barcelo Imperial transponder MIKE-ALPHA-YANKEE-DELTA-ALPHA-YANKEE to all vessels in the vicinity of Eos Brai KR-W e1-4 3d. Coordinates: -30002.125 / 171.3125 / 30002.78125. We have lost all attitude controls and are going down. 3,000 meters and falling.
MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY. This is independent vessel Barcelo Imperial transponder MIKE-ALPHA-YANKEE-DELTA-ALPHA-YANKEE to all vessels. We are going down. REPEAT we are going down. Three souls onboard.
I say again, MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY. This is independent vessel Barcelo Imperial, transponder MIKE-ALPHA-YANKEE-DELTA-ALPHA-YANKEE to all vessels.
.....
-- [Pull up. Pull up. Pull up.] --
ALL HANDS BRACE FOR IMPACT!
[ENCRYPTED BURST TRAFFIC]
----- TRANSMISSION ENDS -------
12:54:23 01-05-06
Yeah, so that happened. Hell of a way to ring in the new year. For anyone interested there's a half-a-billion credits worth of salvage on the fourth moon of the third planet orbiting the Osprey Stellar Remnant. Luckily for all involved, thanks in no small part to Remlock Industries, we're all still breathing. It took five days for the lawyers (mine and Gutayama Shipbuilding) and Pilots Federation Safety Board investigators to determine that the destruction of my Cutter was not due to pilot error, rather a catastrophic defect with Gutayama's thruster module. Of course, not enough data for a full recall or for all '05 Cutters to be grounded until the defects can be resolved...blah...blah...blah. All that matters to me is I've been reimbursed for replacement costs and quick thinking on my part paid off and all of our scan data has been validated and re-tagged to the Barcelo.
So there we were....
On our way to Waypoint 8 we chose to take a little detour to Eos Brai KR-W e1-4 to check out the Osprey Stellar Remnant. Box checked, frankly it's not as cool as it sounds, just another neutron star with orbital bodies, but we can safely say we've been there and there's roughly 2,000 metric tons of very expensive wreckage to prove it. Winning!
After we scanned the system and prepped the frame shift drive for jet cone boost we elected to stretch our legs and restock our vanadium reserves for AFMU reloads. We found a low gravity moon that sensors suggested had large deposits of that very thing, so off we went. After dropping from glide at roughly 6km altitude we dove down to 3km to scout LZs and that's when all hell broke loose. At first we thought our sensors were glitchy as sensor data reported 0.08 gravities, yet we were coming in way too hot for such a low gravity moon. It didn't take long to realize we had zero attitude controls. Belly thrusters were offline, though showing green in our status panels.
It didn't take more than seconds to impact, but if you've ever experienced a shit show like this you know time has a tendency to slow in the heat of the moment. Thankfully all three of us were already strapped in. Standard operating procedure for landing. I saw the future so to speak and while attempting not to panic whilst reporting our predicament to all vessels in the vicinity, fired off a series of encrypted bursts to the Pilots Federation hoping that, should we survive, we'd still get paid for the last month-and-a-half of scans we'd conducted up to this point.
A few bruises and broken bones later we wake up in a med bay at Fort Mug. I've got several urgent notifications from the Pilots Federation, my insurance carrier, the military hospital at Fort Mug, and of all things Gutayama Shipbuilding. Naturally, the first is a thank you letter for the 24M credit payout for the insurance premium, the next of course is the bill for hospital services, then the PF basically telling me there's nothing they can do about the 150M in scans I lost better luck next time, and the last being a preemptive sternly worded form letter from Gutayama. Doesn't matter what it said, but it got me thinking. Why would they get all corporate on me? This is not the first time I've lost a ship, hell it's not the first time I've lost a ship on this expedition, but it is the first time I woke up to aggressive messaging from the shipbuilder. So, after checking myself out of the med bay I put a call in to my attorney.
Long story short - too late - turns out Gutayama is aware of an infrequent thruster module failure. Apparently not enough pilots have died of it so there's no recall and the PF hasn't grounded these vessels. Fine by me I guess, after 5 days of some fairly expensive legal wrangling via my corporate attorney Gutayama reimbursed me for the insurance payout with insincere apologies (after we agreed to sign a very intimidating Non-Disclosure Agreement - which I clearly could not give less of a shit about). This non-admission of culpability by the builder precipitated the PF retagging our scan data to the Barcelo. So I guess it all worked out in the end. We grabbed a case of mugs and some Lavian Brandy before we departed and hit Jacques to replace the Quinentian Still on our way out of the region.
As strange as this may sound, I'm glad the Cutter's thrusters gave out and we almost died. On way from Colonia to Waypoint 8, around 5.5k ly outside of the region, we discovered something very interesting. We dropped into a Neutron Star system (Agnairs EY-F d12 552) and got a sensor return for an, as yet, undiscovered ELW. At this point we didn't know whether we would get our lost data back and even with the restored data we're still significantly in the red, we elected to conduct a detailed surface scan of the planet. We fired off six probes and waited for the results. Here's where it gets interesting, we received a low intensity return for composite materials over a large area i.e., larger area than could be explained by a ship wreck. As we're not kitted out for atmospheric flight we were unable to get a closer look at the site, but after analyzing the data returns we think we found evidence of a settlement or a research station that had been destroyed. Completely, systematically destroyed. It's unlikely this was due to natural causes as only faint traces of composites remain. In our minds this could only be due to two causes. 1. Orbital bombardment or 2. Purposeful Emergency Control Procedures you generally only see from major corporations or military outfits. Anything else would have left more to find.
The Chief thinks this could be further evidence that might lead to her brother. Even if this was a previous hold out for these people I'm not sure if it's helpful or not. That said I will give her this, there was no record for this system catalogued by Universal Cartographics nor the independent Galactic Mapping Project. Suggests something shady. We've submitted it to GMP remotely and will submit it to UC next time we pull in.
ELW in Ragnar's Eye (that's the name I submitted to GMP - fingers crossed it's not already taken).
We are now 33k ly outside of Colonia passing waypoint #9 in the Outer Scutum-Centaurus Arm nearing the Abyssal Plain. Going to head out to the Alastor Planetary Nebula to see some Stolon Trees. Whatever the hell those are.
197,911.36 light years traveled since Enif. On our way out to waypoint #10. At this point we should be 85k ly into the 237k ly trip. Suspect we'll break half-a-million light before all is said and done.
See you in the black.
Flemish Jack - OUT