Stark White Light...
07 May 2020El_Guapo_Gaucho
Star Date: 08.05.3306Ship: “Night Cat” Custom Touring DBX
Location: SLEGI YH-H D11-2
Prompt: Stark white light…
Born, borne into bleak existence, the rush of blood, anticipation and light spiking past me, the tunnels, the mirage of planets, stars, shapes zooming past me, moving through them, literally through them, so fast they are no longer real, I am no longer real….
It all ends fast, too fast, what was an eternity in that void of hyperspace - Faster than light travel is safe they say - tell that to my bloodshot eyes, frayed nerves and shallow breath. Every jump feels like the first and they all have the same risk of becoming my last.
I have seen something off in the distance, a bright halo of stars around a Nebula of some sort. At first I thought I was imaging it but as I have move closer to Heart and Soul, it appears in more detail. I will plot a course to it after I have had my fill at Heart and Soul. Who knows, maybe it is the third of some sort of spiritual trinity, something for the mind! The cluster of stars look like Super Giant Class As. I am finding plenty of Class A stars out here and finding myself more and more enraptured by their appearance.
When I drop into the arrival point of a Class A star system, I am always astounded by their immense beauty, all that white, sometimes blue. The stark white light of a Class A star dazzles, staring into its depths, wondering, facing down those eddies of hydrogen becoming helium spiralling, burning and reigniting, without fail - I find I am holding my breath till it bursts out my lungs and reminds me - breathe and pull-up!
In some of the archaic religions of Old Earth I have been reading about, they describe the concepts of Angels, sometimes like giant white light globes. I have yet to see a Supergiant Class A up close, but I keep checking, I think they would truly be amazing, so I have plotted my course with only Class A stars, diversions for Neutron and white stars to help my jump power. Those Class A stars though, each one is still a vision worth viewing. Plotting a course through Class A stars has more than one reason though.
Reading over the manuals for my FSD drive, its possible to Supercharge it a number of ways and extend my jump range, if only for one jump. One way discusses something very risky with white dwarfs and neutron stars - if I come across one I will try it, but they appear very rarely it seems. The other is with materials recoverable from planet surfaces, this sounds a lot more feasible. I rummaged through the Galnet and found a guide by a CMDR Nico of Remlock Industries which covers in great detail how to do this simply and proficiently.
The Class A stars are a key component to discovering high metal planets & rich metal planets. I keep finding more as they are the best environment for scavenging Manganese, Germanium, Polonium. I spent some time in an OOCHOS system when I found a planet with 8.8% Manganese, Silicate Magma Volcanism and 3 Geological points of interest... This is where i’ll find my “Jumponium” materials... and the planet right next to it has similar conditions with Germanium, so the interstellar travel was halted while I did a bit of surface scavenging.
Its something else being down on the planet surface, the low gravity conditions, making a game of shooting minerals into the sk, zooming after them and catching them with my cargo scoop on the SRV. I found myself giggling, then laughing - a refreshing change to the bleakness of constant jumps between star systems on this long distance tour. It reminded me of flatties I have seen with some of those Elite Sports humanity had on Old Earth before WW3 and the Federation - Like Old American Football or even that sport which looked like it was only for the toughest of the tough - Australian Rules Football. I was having too much fun to keep track of an accurate tally, but my hand written notes for one session at a geographical signal are as follows;
9 carbon
9 sulphur
15 tin
18 manganese
15 Chromium
18 Germanium
9 Mercury
12 Technetium
7 Speckys
The last one is a joke - A specky was a colloquialism for a personal launch into the air hand ball catch of spectacular accomplishment in the elite sport of full contact Australian Rules Football. There is not much in the CAA records about this sport, but it looked very severe on the body! When I watch it its as if I can feel my bones crunch. It really is a tragedy Australia was extinguished with the majority of the old earth during WW3 - they certainly looked like strong and resilient people. Australia also looks like the birthplace of the MonteNegros, at least the place their criminal empire was established…
Having all this time in deep space has let me extend my careful research into the MonteNegros. I assume there is some detail as to who I am in their history. It seems they, we, start as ancient lineage on Old Earth. We then made the transition to space pirates during World War 3 . During the decades when “chaos reigned” prior to Old Earths' capacity for space flight and humankind expansion into the Sol star system, many clandestine and criminal operations thrived. The MonteNegros appeared to formalise their efforts in this time, their name and people noted in many Federation records as targets of strike teams and destinations for payloads. My Rear Admiral rank in the Federation is helping me get access to these limited files, I am surprised no-one has tried to stop me yet, but as I said, I am being careful and starting with very old records which I hope no-one is checking access logs. And realistically, who can stop somone who is 3000 LY away from the bubble? There is no-one out here for light years in any direction.
As the corporations took control of Humankind and our future (well our past which became our current time), the MonteNegros also capitalised on the chaos of WW3, and paid their way into the stars. The last informaiton I found is a vague reference to the colonies that made for a system called Achenar under the name of a Marlin Duval. I will research that further soon, however I was interrupted by yet another Class A Star jump drop which turned out to be…. Undiscovered!
SLEGI YH-H D11-2 will forever be known as the first star discovered by El_Guapo_Gaucho. I have shut down systems to spend my scheduled rest break gazing into the blue white frenzy of combustion. I am certain the pay on this one will be decent, potentially I can start working on an Annaconda when I return. Realistically, I have a few more important matters to attend to, but while I am out here in the darkness, hidden from prying eyes and growing this wealth of credits to give me the upper hand, I am finding out more about myself and hopefully - my enemy. I wont let what happened on Robigo happen to me again. I will be ready, and if they come at me again, I will kill them, every last one.