Horsehead Nebula Expedition Day 11/12
29 Aug 2020FiveStringJeff
20 jumps home to Cupinook. I'm getting nervous about potentially losing my data. That would be tragic.Even though I'm on the return trip, I'm still jumping into systems I haven't yet discovered. I figure my last 4-5 jumps will be in the bubble, so I've still got some exploring left to do. The first system I jump into (SU-I B28-0) has at least a dozen moons I could do some raw material harvesting on, but at this point I don't have any urgent needs, so I keep jumping. Some of my jumps take me to systems with HMCs and a couple with terraformables. More money when I get home. I'm guessing this trip will net me 60-80 million credits - nice work, but not nearly the ~280 million I need to make Elite.
About 9 systems away from home - maybe 200 ly from the edge of the bubble - I start picking up salvage signals. Then I stumble upon an S&R contact - the first pilot I've seen for weeks. A couple more jumps and I'm suddenly in a populated system again - back in the Bubble. I'm both happy to be back and sad that this journey is ending.
2 jumps away and I reach Kalai, a well-populated system. I feel out of place, mapping HMCs the way I was out in deep space, but with a few million people around. Still, credits are credits, and an efficiently mapped HMC is ~70K, so this system will net me another 450K or so.
Finally: Cupinook! My data is worth 56 million. I was the first to map 30 different bodies. Even though I'm nowhere near Elite, I've got the explorer bug. This won't be my last journey.