Ships Log; Personal. 03:00 Hours. 6th February 3302.
29 Feb 2016Adept Geraden
Ships Log; Personal. Commander Adept Geraden. 03:00 Hours. 6th February 3302.After a very hectic week and a bit, I find myself parked up at my friend,
Jaques, station. I radio'ed ahead for the VIP suite, which, thankfully, was
available. I had a nice long soak in a warm bath, washed off 16 Kylies worth of
space grime, the local laundry cleaned up my flight suits, and Jaques served a
splendid meal, finished off with a touch of his personal stash of 300 year old
Lavian Brandy.
But, back to the week that was. It started out like an old Banjo Patterson poem:
There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around,
the T9 full of rares had gone done
The T9 in question being the flagship of the Distant Worlds Expedition.
Disaster. With a Capital "F".
Anyways, at the time, I was out doing some free-range trading in the Clipper,
just for a change of pace. I was tasked specifically with going to Founders
World, and collecting some Waters of Shintara. And yes, that is the correct
spelling. The system may be "Shinrarta Dezhra", but that ain't what the waters
is. Seeing as I was Elite and all, which you need to be to get into the system.
Since I was already most of the way there, and the plan was to hand off any
rares I collected to Red Barron for transporting out to Waypoint 5, I stayed in
the Clipper. They published a list of needed items, so I picked up a few more on
the way back to Eleu for the ill-fated meetup with Red. Making sure the one
slightly questionable, mostly illicit, item was the last thing I collected.
Things quickly went downhill from there. Red radios me that another collector,
one of the Fuel Rats, had been unable to meet up with him, and could I collect
his cargo. From the published list, I thought he only had a few items. When I
asked him to drop his cargo so I could collect it, he had a lot more than I
thought. Seems he had transferred cargo from other commanders. So stuff goes
everywhere, my collector limpets get confused in the mayhem, and manage to self
destruct. Taking several cannisters of the valuable cargo with them. Oh well, at
least I got most of it.
And, of course, I was also cursed with the same malaise of our Fuel Rat friend.
Unable to sync NavComp's with Red Barron. Can't transfer cargo. So, the decision
is made that Red and myself will both fly the 8 Kylies out to Waypoint 5 to meet
up with the Zombie Wasp. That's the name of the T9 full of rares that went
down.
Then I came up against the bureaucracy that is the Dock Workers Union. Now, I'm
an Elite explorer. I've got a fine Asp that's been all the way to Sag A, and
back again in one piece. The 8 Kylies to Waypoint 5 would be but a short jaunt
in that thing. But no. Dock Workers Union rules. No transferring cargo between
ships. Even if they are both your ships. They don't care. Rules is rules. And no
amount of begging, pleading, bribing, threats of physical violence, and uttering
of curses in every ancient tongue that I can still manage to annunciate, was
gonna change that. Seems to me, if they're immune to bribery, we must be paying
them too much.
Resigned to my fate, taking the Clipper to waypoint 5, I set about a re-fit for
deep space. 15 Ly jump range, and only 3 jumps because of a 16 ton fuel tank and
armed to the teeth, may be fine for a little trading around the bubble. But it
wasn't gonna pass muster where I was going. Downgrading everything except the
frame shift drive, ditching half the weapons, swapping cargo racks for extra
fuel tanks, got the jump range with the cargo I had out to 20 Ly, and jumps
without scooping out to possibly 8, or even 9. Badlands proof. "Rescued by Fuel
Rats" is not very high on my bucket list.
The trip out there was uneventful. Slow, but uneventful. Red got there way ahead
of me, of course. The meetup with the T9 went off without a hitch. Exchanged
pleasantries with Commander Olivia Vespera, took advantage of the photo
opportunity, and transferred cargo 4 canisters at a time in a very liesurely but
efficient manner.
Got a mention in the DWE newsletter. Might have to tear that page out and frame
it. Might be as close to "famous" as I ever get. And, I'm possibly the only
Commander not on the DWE that has a close-up, ships nose to nose, photo with the
Zombie Wasp. 8 Kylies out to boot. How precious is that ?
The return trip was also uneventful. Even slower, due to a fruitless search for
more earth-like worlds to add to my private portfolio. I was surprised to find
the limit of already explored systems has been pushed out beyond the 2 Kylies
from the bubble range. So the last 2000 Light years to Jaques Station was mostly
done Buckyball style, as fast as possible.
And that is how I came to be sitting here in Jaques Station, waiting for my
order of 18 Jaques Quintessential Stills to be fulfilled. When that is done,
I'll set off along my old rares trading loop, working my way back to Bao Orbital
in Eleu, where I'll sell all my exploration data, and a hold full of rares, to
the Eleu Energy Corp.