The Guardians
19 Jun 2020Firemanbif
Finally made it back to relative civilization. I'm tired from the jumps. I was sitting in Hopkins Enterprise when an old fella struck up a conversation with me. After light year upon light year of listening to Vega and Orion complain about one thing or another, I was desperate for some human company.Turns out he is a landing assist officer at Hopkins. He had to take this position when he lost an arm battling invaders a few years back. Before that, he was an explorer. He tried, and failed, to make the journey to Beagle. I will definitely say, that is one mission I am not up for yet. Maybe someday....
We were talking about the Dauntless, and how she is a Dolphin class. Maybe not the best for long distance exploration, but right now, the best ship is the ship I'm in. He suggested a way to increase my jump range. That is when he told me of the Guardians.
He explained that, if I were to visit the ancient ruins, I could get technology that an engineer could turn into a booster of some sort to increase my FSD range. "It's not a bad trip, and getting the materials is pretty easy!" Ha ha. Pretty easy.
After losing some money betting and drinking far too much, I decided to make the journey. The journey from Hopkins turned out to be a little more than I was looking for. Over 1,000 Light Years!! That equaled about 40 jumps for old Dauntless. Upon arriving in the system, HD 63154, I traveled to the appropriate planet. The planet has a rather low gravity, but Dauntless got me there safely. He gave me some instructions. Drive by this column, shoot this column, get this artifact and eject it into the machine. Easy peasy. He even gave me some advice I thought curious at the time, but later found out it probably saved my life. "Equip point defense on your ship lad, and set her down really close to the ruins." Odd I thought. But then, he failed to tell me about the Sentinels.
They pop out of the ground and start firing. The Scarab was able to handle their energy pulses, but then they shot the missiles. I thought I was done for. Then, lo and behold, Dauntless fired her defenses, and knocked all the missiles out!! I would be buying Orion a few rounds for that, if he wasn't an egotistical AI!! After that, it was pretty easy work. Now, I have most of the materials I need for this booster, but I still need a few more. Focus Crystals. I haven't flown a fighter since the Academy, and now I have to salvage these crystals that are "easiest" to get after blowing up another ship. Wonder how many my ship will give up when I explode...
Another 1000ly and 40 jumps, and I'm back at Hopkins. I was going to find that landing assist officer, and thank him for the advice about the point defense, then punch him in the nose for not telling me about those Sentinels. Someone beat me to it though. Turns out he cheated at cards and had his throat slit. Huh, civilization indeed.
So now, it's into Invictus. She's my Vulture, and the paint is brand new. Off to find some bounties to collect and get these darn crystals. I sure hope Earth is worth it!!
