Back to the Bubble
21 Jan 2023Carbucketty
Chanced across the USS Enceladus in the Cat's Paw Nebula, and took the opportunity to get the Mercy tuned up before the voyage back to the Bubble. Spent a little while basking in the triple sun of Cat's Paw Sector PD-S B4-6 ABC 1A, then set course for home.The first sign of civilisation was a wrecked ship in AUCOKS sector. No sign of any crew, but I got to salvage a couple of canisters of platinum for my trouble. The very next planet I scanned had a distress beacon, surrounded by escape capsules. Not enough cargo space for them all, even after jettisoning the platinum, but I could at least give some of them a ride home and pass the location on to a SAR contact when I finally reached a station.
After that, every planet I scanned had multiple distress beacons. Do people just ram planets for fun around these parts?
Encountered some Notable Stellar Phenomena in AUCOKS HX-W B20-3: three colours of Metallic Crystals, glinting cold in the dull red light of a pair of L dwarfs.
Made it safely to Robert Terminal in Vasho, offloaded the capsules, and sold off some data. Apparently the Pilots Federation screwed around with the exobiology ranks while I was gone, so this whole trip back from the galactic core hardly even moves my progress towards Elite. Mind you, a five billion credit payout goes a long way towards making up for that.
This Thargoid situation is looking nasty, with whole clusters of systems at war or already overrun. I've avoided trouble so far, but I guess my next job is to engineer up a decently-protected ship or two just in case trouble comes to find me.
It seems incredible that with the Thargoids so close, everyone is carrying on as if it were just like any other day. The roar of freighter engines, the rumble of loading cranes in the dockyards. It still feels almost safe, almost tranquil.