LOG #105 - Commander A. Adair - TITAN Contractors
11 Apr 2022Aurora Adair (Radiumio)
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LOG: #105
RECORDING TYPE: Personal Log LOG PUBLICISED
What does Log Publicised mean?
In our squadron lore, these logbooks are not supposed to be publicly viewable by Commanders. However, in some circumstances, a log may be compromised OR publicised, allowing it to be considered publicly viewable - in this case, the information within can be used for story or discussion purposes in-character. Compromised implies the logbook has been leaked, whereas publicised means the logbook has been willingly released for story purposes.
RECORDING LOCATION: T.O.C. Solaris (Victory-class Carrier, Q4V-40N)
Heya.
So, the journey to Colonia is still going really smoothly. It's... actually kinda nice to not be covering squadron operations or whatever all the time. Just me, my beautiful fiancée and the deep black. And there's plenty of sights along the route we're taking, and we've seen some absolutely amazing stuff. It... honestly, it totally blows my mind. Just the scale and... wonder of it all.
But this trip has also been a great way to just... break away from everything... and as I've said numerous times, it's been an absolute blast spending it with Isa. This feels like a proper, proper vacation. I know I sound like I go on vacations or holidays or whatever all the time, but... even when we went to that starport hotel or that Earth-like world resort, it didn't quite feel like this.
This is kinda like we... we get to bring our home with, along with the people we care about. Well... mostly. Unfortunately, Sharales couldn't come with. I knew this before already because we spoke about it, I just... I dunno. We're out here having the time of our lives and Sharales is back there in the bubble, breaking his back over Federation work.
It's been on my mind and... I guess what I'm trying to say is it doesn't feel right to leave a friend behind. Sooo... I didn't. I decided I'd send him a daily picture or two of the trip. Just snippets to share with him so it's not like we're leaving him out entirely. He's helped us a lot, and he's helped around the squadron, more than I can ever explain... The others have too, obviously, it's just... yeah. I feel bad for him, what with all that's happening in the Federation, and I just appreciate how he's gone out of his way for the squadron.
Anyway. Sorry, rambling... haha~... uhm...
... Right, where was I? Sooo, since my last log, we've seen five new points of interest. After that asteroid base, 'Attenborough's Watch', we visited a POI called 'Black Treasure'. It's this super amazing deep blue nebula with a black hole right in the centre. I'm... not entirely sure where the name comes from, I guess, but it looked awesome either way. It was certainly treasure to some extent.
Isa and I spent the next day checking it out, as well as the surrounding area... but then she told me that she had something really interesting to share with me. Now, she's explored before obviously... and has been out this way before, but she doesn't speak too much about the things she's seen. But, this time around, she told me there was a cool system just under 300ly away from 'Black Treasure' when we were there at the time.
That alone was exciting, and so she sent me the system name and we took the Templar and went. She didn't tell me where we were going or what it was, but... it was well worth the detour. I'll have to copy the name in later... because I can never pronounce these names... but she took me to [:=Blae Drye TZ-O e6-32=:], a system she completely discovered - by herself.
A whole system, with her name on it and... wow, it was beautiful. It was... so special to see something that nobody else might've ever seen before. Her own little star system. So... I was in total awe. She was showing me around, sharing the system map and... she got to talking about how she only scanned the system but didn't map most of it.
Long story short, we decided to spend the rest of our day in that system, just mapping the planets together and exploring. She showed me the planets she landed on, the little sights she saw and... yeah, it felt really special that she was showing me all this. It had these cool light atmospheric planets, a water world, a ringed helium world and... yeah, it was amazing. Truly.
Couldn't have asked for a better surprise. We set foot on this amazing ringed world, walked around these incredible volcanic sites, and all around we had an amazing day. Makes me wish we could just establish our own little base there. Our own little spot. We were talking and she seemed so excited to share something like this with me, and... long story short, we got to talking about what we might name it if we could, and we ended up with a mishmash of our names together and... dubbed it 'Aurabella's Retreat'...
I think it sounds pretty cool, but for me, it... wasn't really about the name. It was about seeing her face light up with this beautiful smile when we settled on the name. Seeing how excited she was to show me around the system and point out all the spots she liked. That was truly... truly special. That was what it was all about. So, I bookmarked it with the name we gave it in my ship's nav computer. It's far from Sol, a little over 5,000ly if I remember correctly, but... who knows? Maybe we can visit it again some day. Get a sustainable ship and have our own little vacation out there. Just the two of us.
I already kinda started letting ideas float around in my head, but... secrets. Honestly, I don't even know if the operations crew would let me do what I had planned in my head, but... it's alright. Anyway, when we returned back to the Solaris, and uploaded the cartographic data, Isa also marked me down with her name on several of the planets, which was a really sweet gesture. Now, the system has both of our names on it, and... yeah. She's totally amazing, I love her to bits. She didn't have to do that, but... she did.
After that, we visited a POI called... I'll have to copy it again... [:=Al-Qūhī Oasis in the Nyeajeau XF-T c5-9 system=:].
This system was really cool, though for seasoned explorers it was probably nothing spectacular. It had three Earth-like worlds in-system, locked into a trinary orbit with all three just barely meeting the requirements for habitability. They were close enough that, just with your eyes, you could see all three at the right angle. It was beautiful, and they had an awesome tourist beacon describing what the view would be like from the surface. I'll copy it in here...
[:=Not only does this system feature a rare triplet of earth like worlds, but the three planets orbit close enough to be mutually tidally locked, and all three skirt the lower limits of mass and temperature for Earth-like habitability. Inhabitants of the inner binary would see a blue-green marble appearing larger than Earth's moon hanging motionless in the sky. Meanwhile those living on the world that orbits those two would see two brilliant little blue beads juggling together in a never ending dance, their common centre likewise fixed in the sky. There would be plenty of time for stargazing too, since thanks to the tidal lock, all three planets have days and nights that last for weeks.=:]
Super cool.
After that sight, we kind of switched over to more... 'mundane' stuff, I guess. The next POI after the triplet Earth-like worlds was another Colonia Bridge megaship. I guess I didn't really talk about it much, but I followed the news and watched the initiative but... I never really had the drive... or time... to get involved. But, watching so many other Commanders band together to establish this huge bridge of megaships was absolutely amazing. And, it's cool to see where they're positioned along the route, and how we've been able to use it to create our own expedition trip.
This one was just called 'CB-21 Ragnar's Rest', and it orbited a gas giant, just like the last megaship we saw, Tamandua. I guess Brewer just really likes their gas giants or something...
Anywho, it wasn't all that exciting. Beautiful, but I guess not very notable. The next system was more or less the same, but... again, don't get me wrong, the trivia and history of how these places came to be is amazing to me, all of it is, but I guess most people are just interested in the sights. Which, there are certainly many... no matter where we go. Just the stars and the planets out here... it's amazing.
At least the next system was a name I could actually pronounce. 'Rohini'. It's the location of one of the original starports established along the 'Colonia Connection Highway', way back before the Colonia Bridge was created. The system itself is pretty beautiful and had a fair few number of planets, but it didn't quite match up to the next POI we visited.
They call it the 'Rusty Net'.
It was just like 'Black Treasure' that I mentioned at the start of this log. A planetary nebula caused by a stellar remnant, but while 'Black Treasure' was this deep-blue, the 'Rusty Net' was this deep-red. I could see why they gave it that name, because when inside the system, the nebula in the sky looks like a net is around the whole system... and since it's red, it's 'rusty'. Really cool to see, although it was just a little terrifying, because the stellar remnant of this system was a neutron star.
I've seen neutron stars before, but I've never actually been in control of my ship around one and... hearing all the stories of how dangerous they can be and... yeah. It was scary but, thankfully, Isa was with me. I let her take control for a bit, just so she could teach me and show me about, but... honestly, I was still a little too scared to fly myself, so she took over from there. It's just the noises and... how bright it is. It's beautiful but... disturbing somewhat. We did get to watch the Solaris jump in, though. It was really close to the neutron star, but the operations crew reassured me it was safe.
Still, it didn't detract much from how beautiful and awesome the system was. Just the sky and the stars... truly amazing. I didn't think things could get much better than this, but... well, I was totally wrong.
We're now at POI 10 today, and once again my mind is just... blown. They call the system the 'Collection of Wonders', and it's really not hard to understand why when you truly see it for yourself. The system itself has this rare combination of stellar bodies; two black-holes, a ringed M-class star, ringed neutron star, ringed white dwarf and a bunch of gas giants... which are mostly all ringed as well.
Though, it wouldn't be an expedition with me if there wasn't some kind of mishap apparently... because Isa and I were jumping ahead to the POI before the Solaris departed, and we ended up jumping into the system and just... immediately hit the black hole. The FSD just kind of... threw us out and suddenly the ship's hull groaned, the whole sky distorted and then... we dropped out and the ship came to a shuddering halt. It gave me a bit of a scare, and even surprised Isa, but... we're okay. I was just a little shaken, didn't really see it coming and... I know how hazardous space can be.
Thankfully, the FSD has all those safety measures in place to keep the ship intact. I don't think either of us really felt like falling into a black hole or being torn to pieces by gravitational forces forever, so... yeah.
But... I guess in some ways, it kinda was worth it to drop so close. The black hole was so beautiful close-up... just the sky and seeing the stars all... 'warp' and distort together. It was kind of trippy and a little disorienting when we started to move, but beautiful nonetheless. The rest of the system was just spectacular. Seeing the ringed stars, the planets... everything. Surprisingly, Isa said she'd never visited it before, so it was, again, super special seeing it for the first time with her. I love it... just hearing her talk about space and seeing how excited she gets about seeing all of this.
She's also been a huge help, teaching me how to properly explore, how to use my ship efficiently, how to avoid or survive certain hazards... and... yeah, it's been awesome. She's so cool... and... I love her a lot. This is way different than exploring just outside the bubble, but Isa made it super easy to integrate in all this new knowledge and... everything. It's been so much fun, and I'm so appreciative of all her help.
Anyway... Yeah. So, that's how the trip is going. Still got lots more to see and explore, but so far, it surpassed my expectations immensely. We're only about 10,000ly from Colonia now, so about halfway. Still feels a bit weird leaving the bubble behind, but... in some ways I'm kind of glad for it. My home is here on the Solaris and... we can avoid all the troubles in the bubble for now. It's... peaceful. Sometimes, I just like to lay in my room with Isa... open the window shutters and look out at the stars. Listen to the hum of the carrier... be with her...
... Hmm~... haha... yeah. Sorry. It's awesome... and I could gush about everything for ages and ages... but, I should get going. That's all the updates I had about the trip, and Isa wanted to train or go exploring today. Sooo, I'm gonna go find out which one it'll be, and do that with her.
So yeah. Thanks for listening, and I hope the updates are enjoyable, at least. Fingers crossed for many more cool sights.
Bye for now!
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Credit:
This story is only possible thanks to our squadron and community. Join TITAN Contractors, a diverse and talented squadron, and experience our custom lore and events. This logbook as well as associated images and story is property of TITAN Contractors, CMDR Radiumio. A special thank you to CMDRs Isabella Levine and SpectreKryik for allowing me to use their character in the story!
INARA page here.