Road to Riches, Road to Rescue, a Carrier for Me, and a Sun Bath for You
17 Oct 2021Nathaniel Burke
So after spending another hiatus in the Sirius system working odd jobs for the Corp, I decided to scratch my old explorer itch and go on one of those "Roads to Riches" all the fast money schemers talk about - take a few dozen jumps out of the Bubble and bring back planetary topographic data so Universal Cartographics can keep their records up to date. Always a nice bonus for people who find a system that's never been visited before, but you have to really go off the path to do that, these days. But there is one thing most people don't do - they don't hop out of their ship and put feet on the ground, and that pays out a nice little penny. So I saddle up my Anaconda, the Nomad, and dive out into HIP space, mostly scanning high-metal and water worlds that haven't been terraformed yet. But when I landed on one of the heavy metal planets to stretch my legs, I came across something pretty grim: a full on Orca wreck, with a ton of escape pods around it. Now, those things can either feed a person for days, or freeze them for weeks, but either way, I was not about to leave them there. Only about sixteen pods were still intact, but that's roughly the amount of cargo space the Nomad has, mostly to carry repair limpets. And I had to dump all of mine as Savanna hauled the pods up with our SRV. I don't have passenger cabins on this ship, but I keep extra bedding and food, a holdover from when I did rescue work, so I was able to convert my hold into a makeshift cabin while I thawed the poor sods out. No big names, just three wealthy families and a few single stragglers. I promised them a ride back to Shinrarta Dezra and continued on my route. But, you know how it is with rich people - they've always got someone on their ass wanting to take them for all they've got, even in the rare cases they don't deserve it. About a dozen pirates kept crawling out of Witchspace any time my route skirted the Bubble. Even saw a few clusters of Drake-class carriers out there, probably where some of them were coming from. But any explorer worth his salt knows how to shake a pirate at drop-in: ride that star's exclusion zone so tight your radar is just solid black on one side, and wait for the dumbass to kill himself trying to get behind you for a tether, either dipping too far into the EZ or outright swan diving into the plasma sauce. It's not as reliable as dipping into a planet's gravity well where interdiction is impossible while in orbit, but it is oh so freaking satisfying to watch them disappear into the black space on your radar as your COVAS tells you "1 contact has been lost", knowing you are never going to see that problem again. Sent seven of those sorry bastards on the short bus to hell with this trick, and the others I either just broke free of the tether or did a quick drop-and-dash to shake off pursuit. But eventually, I came back to Jameson, a pocket full of map data and a hold full of people. It's like the Search and Rescue people tell you all the time - you won't get paid well for the work, but you will be making a difference in someone's life. Seeing the kids smile and cling to their parents as Apex took the group off my hands was well worth the trouble. Plus I got paid. Win-win.So, given Alcor was offering discounts to help encourage the Colonia Bridge Project, and I've been sitting on a 3.5 billion nestegg, I decided it was time - I was getting a Fleet Carrier, specifically the long-range Nautilus-class. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with her just yet, but she has a name: the Starmancer. With that said, I know what my first job is now, and that's stripping a ring of its platinum to recoup my costs. With twenty-five thousand tons of cargo space until I install amenities, I have a lot of space to fill. And it's going to be one hell of a paycheck at the market. Savanna's probably gonna be happy as a clam she doesn't need to bunk in the station when we're docked anymore. Now we both get a sweet, sweet captain's suite. And I've made some friends for life I can always work for if I ever decide to settle down on one planet again.
All in all, been a great weekend. Wish Navka could've seen it.