A Return to Origins (pt 2)
03 Dec 2019Rex-Cramer
============= Ships Log (3305-12-01) Skaudai CH-B d14-34 =======We have taken about 90 jumps from Kojeara to reach Sacaqawea Space Port. Before we left the region we decided on what we would filter to stop for as far as exploration time. We would only do the discovery pulse on most neutron star systems and only scan for gas giants or the big three types. We would fully scan systems we had to stop in for fueling. This worked well to keep the pace of jumping up. We used up 3 AFMU repairing the FSD from the neutron jumps. Our path largely ran along the lower neutron layer until we were within 600LY of the port and we then plotted a path up to the nebula.
Edwin and Kayley were both glued to the nose observation windows in the fueling systems. Neither of them has been on a long trip back with any comfort. Kayley's last cruise home was on a Megaship and she rarely got to see anything other than occasionally the system star so she enjoyed the chance to ride the neutron cones and visit so many star systems and a fair number of interesting new worlds that we were all the first to have seen. Edwin has not been outside Colonia in years. Karoline seemed happy to hang out in the engineering area going over some systems looking for places we might tweak to get a few more percent here or there.
Even with pretty tight filters on our exploration efforts we found a number of interesting worlds, two biological sites, several water worlds and one Earth-like. That Earth-like was damned impressive too. It's like our Earth's twin sister in space. At 0.8 earth masses it's roughly identical in size and diameter. It has a moon, a single rocky moon, at 1/4 mass and at 1.2LS from the planet. We lingered there a while. What a profound moment to see another Earth 10,000LY from the our own. That actually brought Karoline to the bridge as we took a couple of orbits to take it all in.
Soon the nebula for Sacaqawea Space Port was looming large ahead of us and in an hour or so of the Earth-like we finally jumped into the system and saw human traffic. I set a course for the space port, but the sensors pulled up a priority message. Looked like a convoy in trouble maybe. "Out here"!?! I muttered. The call was urgent, so I got on the 1MC and called for action stations. Kayley was in place to fly the fighter and Edwin and Karoline both made it to engineering. In seconds we dropped into the signal source. Two Pythons were taking up positions to attack a convoy. I put Kayley on the weaker one and I took on the tougher opponent. We might loose a couple of fighters but it would keep the second guy occupied. Having a full weapons compliment on the Anaconda is glorious. The Python's driver was an Elite pilot and he was at that. Hard to pin down and very good at timing his chaff, but Narada's beams, pulse and burst eventually stripped the shields and it was over despite his use of SCB's. He turned and fled. The fighter was about toast on the other master level Python but holding on by a thread. Once I turned and engaged his shield fell in seconds and his hull melted away almost as fast under the premium ammo pouring out of 3 class 3 chain-guns. His ship disappeared in an orange flash. The transports were grateful for the assistance and mentioned that mining crews in the rings were suffering pretty hard right now. Hmmm, Kayley is very close to her master level designation. Maybe we could take some time to get that done for her.
After that scuffle, we landed at the port and spent some time looking around the port and eatting. We might see about dropping into an extraction site tomorrow to bring a little 'tight-beam sunlight' to the party.
Mapping Teraformables
Earth's Twin Sister
Just 20 More Jumps
Landed at Sacaqawea
CMDR R. Cramer
Narada
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