Easy Money.
14 Oct 2020Xanter
Been a long time between entries, I know. To say it's complicated doesn't do my situation justice . There's a good chance that if you are listening to this then it's all gone wrong and your running. If that's so, then I'm sorry to have put you in this position Kaia. You deserve to know how it went down. Don't believe everything you hear on Galnet. There's a storm coming and I'm trying my best to stop it from spreading.I've had many more exploration requests from my weird little friend. He calls himself Rolind Carth.
A Geologist of some renown in the Empire. All he asked were mid range, exploration scans that only went out as far as Hillary Depot. Again, good money for jobs that were neither inherently unsafe, nor arduous. It wasn't long before I had enough to add an Anaconda to my fleet and upgrade my quarters at Culpeper Terminal. The new ship (named her Magellan) made the runs even easier and The Magellan could dip out of trouble quick, without the mass lock games. Even so, I couldn't shake the feeling I was missing something. I couldn't figure out why Ander had sent me my mousy, little benefactor. That was, until Blanco Sector.
It was a simple enough run. Set a direct route to Hillary Depot, take a day or so to stretch my legs and then scan my way back through Synuefe using the assigned waypoints. I was running through the Blanco Sector waypoints when the Frame-shift Drive failed in targeting the next waypoint and instead, suggested a system that wasn't on the charts. I didn't verify the calcs, (you know how much I love that) but I was pretty certain I wasn't about to vaporize myself, so, I made the shift. I exited shift in Blanco 1 Sector UY-H b10-0. I scanned the system and detected both a water world and an earth-like world. With Carth so interested in water world's, I figured doing a full scan might bring some extra credits.
As I approached the earth-like world two unknown contacts appeared on screen. One was resolved as an Imperial Cutter, the other.... remained unknown. The system tried repeatedly to identify the signature without success. They were stationed together about 2 LS off world. Obviously, I hadn't been invited to the party so I immediately went to silent running. I should have been far enough out to avoid detection. The ships had been setting off and flying formation away from me when I shut down..
After a few minutes I powered back up to check the scanner. Thankfully I did because both had reversed course and were moving at attack speed towards my position. As usual I'd stopped broadcasting my identifiers when I left the bubble. The Cutter however, was unhappy with that decision and was hailing me, repeatedly, demanding that I identify myself. I was not about to hang around to discuss how I ended up on the radar of an Imperial Cutter, doing who knows what, in a system nobody knows exists. Those kinds of arguments end badly...I immediately Frame-shifted out and then bounced to several random locations before setting course for Marizi.
At first I was dumbfounded at my discovery. I thought about telling Ander and my new "friend". Then it hit me.... I hadn't made a discovery at all. Well, I did but it wasn't the system. Ander knew or suspected that system existed and knew I'd use the recommended calc rather than doing my own. That's why this benevolent weasel was sent to me. It wasn't family ties at all! It was a test. Would I take the cash and could I make these runs and keep any finds off the Cartography Lines? That bastard didn't trust me. I suppose there's merit to that sentiment but still, my own brother... He..
Damn... Contacts... I'll log the rest later.