EXPLORATION LOG 15 : First Contact! . . .In almost a month.
17 Apr 2022Creamy Goodness III
15 - 04 - 10:28
What, a, night! Alright, by my standards it was a very tame night in, but after a month out here with nothing but Ninette for company, It was fan-bloody-tastic. I was mapping another icy moon when Ninette told me there was an active ship already on the surface.
At once, I homed in on the signal and went to see what I had found. I read the name on the ship first, and it wasn’t Fairy Tale, so I didn’t get too excited, but it was a D-bex. The pilot's name didn’t help me know who I was dealing with; TP isn’t really a gender normalised name.
Naturally, the fat Ass couldn’t touch down on the uneven hills where TP was samplings some bio or other. After damn near jumping out of his skin when the shadow of my Ass eclipsed the light for him, TP greeted me over coms with some choice phrases. He suggested we head to a nearby system, where he had recently landed on a moon that was flat enough for a fat-asp to land. We jumped and touched down to say hello in person; again I was greeted by a chap very heavily armed for a simple greeting.
I can’t blame him honestly, very few people I run into within the bubble are not prepared to kill on sight. Looking back at the men and women I have spent time with over the last years or so, most of them had heavily armed ships and walked around in armour. After an awkward greeting, we got chatting about supplies. It turns out, Toffee Pudding flavoured Hob-Nobbs are an unparalleled icebreaker.
This fellow is a professional explorer leading an expedition to the eastern cardinal star. Apparently, a chap isn’t as alone out here as I imagined. TP says many guilds and independent explorers have stationed carriers all over the parish; especially in the nebular. I should have listened to Wiggy, I’m sure he said something about that before I left, but he had so much advice, I stopped listening.
Show is better than tell, and after I told TP about the Ass’s problems, he hooped aboard and started recalibrating sensors, launchers, and the Ass's landing parameters. Hopefully, he said, the tweaks to the landing sensors would make the Ass less finicky about where it can touch down.
While he was .. technicalising, I heated up a couple of the better prepared meals I had in stock, and popped a bottle of white. That welcome little repast started a trade-off. My chef made frozen meals are healthy, nutritious and filling, but TP’s cakes, beer, and whisky are cakes, beer, and whisky. TP hops between these explorers-carriers, trading unique commodities for supplies, and other things one could call supplies. Needless to say, I have a fair few items on Ninettes’ dietary red list in the galley now.
Once the Ass was recalibrated, we synthesised a couple of chairs, I set the Rajukru Multi-Stove to burn in the moons' thin oxygen-free atmosphere, and TP brought out a stack of Jaques Quinentian Stills so we could experiment with mixtures for our suits' reservoirs.
If we could have cooked something nice on the stove, it would have been just like camping under the stars. We talked as only the drunk can and, naturally, I told TP about my quest to find my lost uncle, and his search for Guardian or Thargoid life out here.
What TP told me would have made my uncle very happy, and I am pleased to know Creamy the Second was not a crack-pot as his friend seemed to think. Just a few thousand light years away; that’s pretty much on the door step glacially speaking, in the Huemeae region, TP found a non-human signal on an Ice Moon. When he went to investigate, he found a Thargoid Sensor. We drunkenly speculated about Thargoids not being so different from us, and maybe the sensor was left behind by a Thargoid explorer just like us dropping probes, before we inevitably delved in to theology and philosophy. Fortunately, I brought a football, that distracted us from our drunken deep thoughts.
I can tell you, playing a game of footie on a low-G world is either too easy, or too hard. After losing the seventh ball to low orbit, we both decided to call it a night. It must have been a good night because I had a traffic cone in my bed when I woke up, and Ninette swears she didn't synthesise it. While I was out on what could loosely be called 'a run', TP contacted me and asked where he could have possibly acquired an Omnipol police hat, and offered to help me refine my search parameters.
Later that morning, we located another moon with some Bio-returns, and TP helped me understand the DSS readings to increase my chances of finding subjects to sample. The coloured readings are part heat map, and part environmental measurements. As I said before, having someone show a chap whats’ what, makes much more sense than simply being told.
I took the lead finding all the Bios’ this moon had to offer, so TP could see if his lessons had sunk in. I have no idea why, but TPs’ preferred suit for science is also his choice for covert operations, and it has a skull on the faceplate. With that fashion choice at my side, I felt like I was trying to trick or treat galactic plant-life. The last of the four or five Bios’ this moon offered was the often seen Oll.. Oss.. .Big twisty mushroom looking thing, and once we had collected the last sample, TP was on his way.
We exchanged the last of the supplies we wanted to trade, and TP helped Ninette trim down the parameters for locating bodies like the Guardian sites back near the bubble. It’s good to know my uncle was not completely off the mark with his hunt for alien life out here. Bidding TP a safe journey, I decided to stay and enjoy the gravity for a little while.
I watched TPs D-bex head off galactic west and pondered my own direction. I have a bit of a hang over, and I’m still a tired after the late night last night. Today, I think I’ll simply take it easy.
Ta-tar for now log.
16 - 04 - 22:55
Looking at my boots resting on the console, tapping in time with the beat as I play guitar on a High Metal world over thirty thousand light-years away from the bubble, has helped me make up my mind. While I am happy with my own company, I thrive in a crowd.
Even when I was held hostage in a container, I still had the pleasure of knowing someone would come by to bring me food and take away my … waist container. They didn’t talk to me for a couple of weeks, but I knew there were people close by. I don’t feel that now. After running into a new friend and enjoying a night of drink aided frivolity, I realise how much I miss going out to enjoy the company of others.
I was lucky enough to find the camp left behind by uncle Creamys’ expedition, but my chances of finding a specific ship is next to impossible. According to TP, the chance of running into another explore as we did out here are minuscule, so I feel my luck is spent. I’ll just have to hope the data I retrieved from my uncle's base camp contains the information I require.
On my way back I am still stopping by any generous bio returns, and mapping bodies Wiggy said the IES wanted marked and surveyed, but my focus is getting back to civilisation. Today I did happen upon a nice little ice moon that offered this vista along with some interesting plants.
One's spirits are somewhat lifted knowing the Ass in pointed back at the bubble, and I am put in the mood to write a song or two about my experiences out here. For now
Goodnight Log.