The Lonestar - MK-05 -
02 Mar 2021Monkey Knuts
It should never been this way. In fact it should not have happened at all...Yet here we are...
The other day I lost the first Lonestar - the MK-05 -. It was a needless, pointless death and one that still burns hotly inside. She and I had travelled the stars in search of the fabled Engineers. Not an easy feat but one tempered by the stock FSD of an Asp Explorer and its reasonably delightful range.
Earlier in the day we had travelled to the middle of nowhere and sat in the crater of a distant planet for a while. I wanted to find some arsenic and perhaps she just wanted to have a crack at a surface landing. In either case though we arrived and set up shop on the surface. Jokingly I had fired some shots across her shields just to check that she hadn't fallen asleep whilst I was zooming around in our SRV. It wasn't appreciated and I was abruptly informed that she "was under attack" and evidently not in the mood for my shenanigans. Perhaps she had feeling that there was an ill wind in the air.
We wrapped things up and began our jumps home, charting various systems and poking our noses into a few signal sources as we went.
Finally, we powered down on our final approach into Flammarion, a delightful station home to the Imperial Corsairs; and drifted down onto our pad. It had been a good day and we had gathered about fifteen million credits or so worth of charts ready to turn in. As I gathered the newly minted data together I cast a cursory eye over the mission board to see what everyone was up to. You never know, but there might be a courier mission or something else rather delightful that we nip and do before powering down for the night.
Sipping my tea, careful not to spill it on the dashboard again (honestly it got everywhere; I'll invest in a flask when the opportunity arises), I spotted a quick little mission to deliver some Palladium to a nearby station. One jump and one million credits. I didn't even need to take a cargo ship for this one. I gave the armrest a light reassuring pat and opened the galaxy map to see how close the station was from the jump point. A round trip, I estimated roughly, of ten minutes at most.
I hovered over the mission and noticed that it would also give the opportunity to gain a little bit of influence locally. My charts would pay for the day so perhaps it couldn't hurt to press the flesh for ten minutes. "Go on then my dear, what do you think?" I asked the Lonestar. Another light pat of the arm rest and we quickly loaded up. "It'll only be ten minutes" I had said more to reassure myself than anything else. I really wanted to go to bed. The stack of charts momentarily put to one side was forgotten.
I hopped onto the flight control and cleared our departure with the powers that be before powering back up our idling engines and launching once more in to the black.
Two jumps stood between us and bed. We pulled away from the dock, pausing briefly to scan a pair of High Wake Signatures before charging the FSD and starting our jump.
Falling into the Kuo Ti system, we did a cheeky little fuel scoop before setting a course for the nearby Feoktistov Station. It wasn't supposed to be far and I could see it creeping closer as we flew; as we had flown many times before. Now, one can sometimes forget that there are others out in the black, waiting... watching. It's easy to do and frankly this is where life finds a way to tip you on your head.
Our first warning should have been the squeal of another engine in low wake, perhaps a blip on our radar announcing the presence of another pilot and though we didn't know it yet; the Lonestar was already dead. I sipped my tea again as I played with the cargo manifest, glancing over at the pack of star charts that I'd just forgotten to turn in back at Flammarion. It didn't matter though as I'd be home again in about five minutes. Looking up I could see the station coming into view, it was less than 800 light seconds away now. We would arrive in less than twenty seconds.
I put the tea down and secured the charts for arrival again. "Nearly there girl" I had said before opening my communications panel ready to request permission to dock. My hands went back to controls, ready to drop us back into real space when suddenly the silent penny in the air had crashed down mercilessly behind us. The claxons had roared and the Lonestar bless her had fought to regain control but it had been a wasted effort. We were pulled back into real space almost 40 light seconds short of our destination and alone in the black. We never even saw it coming. Panels sparked, charts flew everywhere and I just couldn't get the helm to respond to my touch. I tried to jump us clear, willed the FSD to charge but it was wasted, the entire module had already been reduced to scrap falling away behind us. I tried to charge our weapons but they had never before been fired in anger and I'm not convinced that they had the chance to respond in kind.
The Lonestar was dead, my faithful companion, my friend and counterpart, destroyed over twelve units of Palladium. An utter waste of life. Our charts, our memories, our friendship burned that day and for what?!
You couldn't sell those charts, you weren't interested in our journey so far; no, you wanted the Palladium. Less than 900k in total all told.
Some would say that I was lucky and the Lonestar was just a ship. That it's inconvenient but its not the end of the world. I pity them. Perhaps their ships are just that to them. A burden that is valued only through its re-buy price. We all have insurance after all. The Lonestar though was different. She didn't need to die, she hadn't done anything wrong, she was just trying to help me do a favour for our local government to help them get by.
Countless hours gone in a moment and for nothing. Some uppity thug in a spaceship out to ruin someone's day. I would have given the pirate a hundred times what they took just to get one more jump with her.
Goodbye my Lonestar, you'll be missed.