10/3307
28 Oct 2021Rixses
Again, it's been a while. Things have been pretty crazy the last several weeks. What should have been a two week expedition turned into six weeks of gremlins and trudging through sludge. Sometimes literally. I left on my expedition as planned. That's about the only thing that went according to plan. I setup three way points along the planned route in order to meet up with other members along the way so we could check in and reset before continuing.
Got hit with FSD problems almost as soon as I got out of the bubble.
Repair.
A few systems later COVAS went down.
Flying in low orbit without any sensor readout, working panels, or a working HUD is something I NEVER want to do again.
Set down for repairs. Luckly all of the other systems were working. My COVAS unit had a glitch of some sort. Couldn't track down the cause. Was thinking I might head back since I'm still close to home. But it couldn't be that big of a problem, right?
Random ups and downs like that persisted these past several weeks. It wasn't until I got near my first checkpoint that things finally started smoothing out. Found some interesting geological and biological specimens too. Took lots of samples. Mapped lots and systems and planets. Things finally started going well. I was near my last stop before hopping to our pre-arranged meeting place when I screwed up. I had just finished sampling the last geological signal on the planet and was taking readings from an automated mining platform someone had setup when the quake hit... Scans reported some minor seismic activity but all I had found up until then had been minor vibrations. Nothing seemed to indicate anything more was coming.
When the quake hit I dropped my data pad. Damned thing bounced into one of the automated drilling lasers and vaporized. Then the laser platform collapsed and shot the laser right past me. Almost fried me but just missed enough I was able to activate my emergency support system before the suit decompressed. I just barley made it to my ship. Lost the scan data, all of my codex entries, and my SRV.
I left deciding to just go meet up with everyone at the checkpoint. Hopefully I could get everything repaired and pickup a replacement SRV. So I hopped over to the next system and no one was there. No one. At all. I tried to raise any of them on comms and couldn't get a response. Dead space. I know I'm late but I should at least be able to open comms. Nothing. That's when I decided to return home as fast as I could. I reconfigured my FSD for max jump range, plotted a direct course home, and didn't stop jumping until I saw my brothers home star. Closest safe point to where I was at the time.