Things are getting busy
08 Feb 2022Rixses
After we finished at the Imperial Array, we took refuge at a nearby installation to lay low for a while. This particular facility was a mineralogical processing site. Independently operated. This allowed us some cover from the Empire and time to deal with the recent developments. I made a contact there named Ralfy with the Gold Cartel who was able to set me up with an interstellar factors link. Cleared my fines and bounties to help take off some of the heat while we figure out our next move.I had called this a wild goose chase.
After Beebbs combed through the data we had our next goose. Coordinates on a planet in one of the COL 285 sectors. I had no clue what to expect but Beebbs seemed sure and picked up a few tools from the depot before we left. Packing the additional tools and two people into my little DBX was not a fun feat. I ended up unloading my cargo bay back when I picked up Beebbs to make room for them and now I've filled one of the SRVs with the tools. Things are getting cramped... Next stop, another frozen moon.
I've worked with my hands most of my life. Before becoming a pilot I worked as a tech in my home system and have been fixing ships and parts ever since. At least... That's what I was supposed to be doing. But it was still a surprise when Beebbs pulled out a pick and shovel and started digging. Not a lot of folk have the comeuppance to do what Beebbs does. After driving around for an hour looking for the coordinates we stopped on this little ice shelf off the side of an ice mountain. Nothing around anywhere. Just a dead and lifeless rock in a dead and lifeless system. And here is Beebbs, digging into the ice with a pick and shovel...
After a few hours of digging and taking turns in the SRV to rest and warm up Beebbs strikes, something... Switching to smaller tools Beebbs excavates a small metal bar with a few insulators and terminal points. We hookup a battery and wait. After a few more hours the ice around the thing had melted and we are able to hoist it out from its boiling ice water bath using the SRV. All of this work for a jimmy rigged box.
Someone had taken a reinforced spacecase and jimmy rigged some thermal coils around it in a way to turn it into a giant induction coil. Apply power and it turns into its own space heater. We hauled it back to the ship before I started working on dismantling it to get it open. It was an impressive hack job...
I started running with Beebbs again a few months ago. Things had gone to shit around me and were only getting worse. I knew Beebbs from an old life. One that was dead and gone. I killed it. Removed all traces of it. Except my family. Started over from scratch and never looked back. But Beebbs and my brother were tight. Nothing came between them. And after my brother went missing, I couldn't think of anyone else to reach out to. We've been on and off looking for him ever since. In all this time I've never seen Beebbs as pale as when we opened that spacecase.
Inside were two things. A standard data shard, and an old Elite Insignia patch. Specifically, my brothers patch.
I don't know what Beebbs had to do to get this information. This was extreme, even for some clandestine shit. My blood boiled. This could only mean one of two things. My brother's dead... Or something bad enough happened to cause him to go into hiding. I figure the former. My brother was hardheaded enough to get himself killed before he would think of hiding. The problem was, he was also skilled enough not to die. This was the first time I've ever wanted my old life back. I needed information. I needed resources. I needed to know what happened. Maybe it's time to wake the dead...
The shard was encrypted of course. Beebbs started working on that and I charged the FSD with jumponium to get back to where I wanted to be. After just a few jumps I dropped Beebbs off at our old haunt and left them to figure out the shard. I decided a dead man needed to drop in on some old chums.
Another jump and I was back in the thick of my old life. I was dead. No ID. No rank. Everyone thought I was gone. So when I walked into the concourse at Bell and said hello to Xcom he about shat himself. The little sprite had sure grown up some since last I saw him.
"Hello Xcom... We need to talk..."