Dark Wheels & Surprise Visits
02 Jul 2023Taneth
Day 51 | 39,737LY from Sol | Errant Marches | Rhiefa SectorIt's been awhile, as is becoming fairly typical for my log entries, so there's quite a good bit to report I suppose. After having just visited Star One in my last entry, I headed spinward along the rim towards the waypoint I had intended to bank towards Colonia from. Along the way I stumbled across some pretty impressive sites on a frozen moon orbiting a nearby ringed gas giant. I submitted the find to the Galactic Exploration Catalog, but it may not quite meet with their high standards. Still... it was noteworthy to me for the sheer number of geysers erupting along the entire surface. I've never seen a body quite that active before. I caught some nice views while there.
Also noteworthy were the biologicals I couldn't find. The majority of the surface is made up of deep crevasse and ravines, so I eventually headed on my way without finding everything. Haven't done that in awhile.
Something began happening to me after Star One, though. Maybe I've been too long in the black, or boredom started seeping in, or I actually am developing some kind of delirium. I started pouring through the Codex reading about The Dark Wheel and Raxxla. ME.... reading up on that stupid legend. At first I couldn't believe I was doing it, but then I started digging into other, less-reliable sources, and I found it began to pervade my thoughts as I jumped from system to system. One haunting thing I read about was the so-called "whisperer in witchspace." Now, I'm not usually one to give much credence to such stories... but even I must admit to hearing some strange sounds in witchspace from time to time.
I'm not saying I'm putting my stock in the rumors of the legendary world or the dark society involved with it, but I've definitely been interested in learning more. That may not be a good thing.
Another odd thing came to my notice while I was heading spinward. My ship's comm system was getting the usual pings from registered squad mates, but I happened to notice when glancing through the list one day that one signal in particular was unusually strong, which meant that it was unusually close. Most of my squad mates were either over 40,000LY away in the bubble or scattered across the galaxy, but my estimates put this signal somewhere in the 18,000LY range. It belonged to CMDR WileEJeff, a friendly sort with an amiable sense of humor. I checked again the following day and the signal had gotten even stronger, meaning closer. Was he coming out to check on me? Was something wrong? Did I offend someone back in civilization that had sent him out to exact their toll?
I decided to hop on comms and ping his ship with a text alert for whenever he was manning his helm. It was simple and direct.
"Do I have a stalker?"
It didn't take too terribly long for my ship to register his reply. "Thought I'd surprise you with a visit and maybe a special delivery."
I'm not going to lie to you, my dear log... for a brief period panic set in. I'd been out here so long with only brief visits to carriers to restock my supplies and sell my data, so I was getting very, very accustomed to my solitude. Even those brief carrier stops had been short, planned, and slowly built up to over hundreds of jumps. Now a member of my squad was zeroing in on my position and would be here very soon.
I decided to buy the time I needed to process and mentally prepare to engage with another human being (my gosh I am losing my head), so once I reached my originally intended turning point I instead turned rimward into the sparse section of Aquila's Halo that corners the Outer Arm region. I fired up my injectors and began the slow, methodical process of plotting a single jump at a time until I made it to the very edge. I then turned back spinward again until I found a system just slightly in from the edge that was my FSS reported as teeming with life. CMDR WileEJeff was getting close, so I picked a nice moon about 30,000Ls from entry and flew out, made my landing, scanned the few biologicals on the surface, then waited. I was now over 43kLY from Sol, and a little over 30kLs from the system entry point.
In short, I was making him work for his visit. What a fool I was.
I watched as his massive Beluga came in for a landing beside my relatively tiny Dolphin. I had honestly started to think of my little ship as quite spacious and roomy, but his reminded me how wrong that thought was. When he deployed his SRV and drove up to my ship, he immediately jettisoned two cargo containers which I would later learn were filled with coffee.
"Brought you something to fill those Hutton Mugs with," he said with the wide, friendly smile I've learned he gives freely. "Afraid it's gotten a bit cold since I set out, though."
When I tell you I almost died laughing, well... you'll just have to take my word for it. I think I almost hyperventilated from all the extra oxygen I was sucking in. I needn't have been stressed about his unannounced visit. Turns out a friendly face was just what I had been needing most.
As one may expect with most explorers, we're a bit crazy. We almost immediately began getting up to hijinks and at one point I even parked my little ship on top of his. It looked like the Beluga was carrying its child, just like an ancient earth whale would swim with a calf.
We took some obligatory photographs together, checked out the local flora, did some crazy flips in our SRVs, challenged each other to jump them up on top of his Beluga. Eventually he got me to help him with some light maintenance on his point defense system.
After running around like idiots for awhile, we ended up just sitting on top of his ship and chatting over the quiet hiss of our oxygen systems while watching the alien green atmosphere dim with the sunset. My soul felt recharged by the time we said our goodbyes, and it was only after several jumps that I realize I had completely forgotten about the coffee he'd ejected on the surface for me. I guess I'm still stuck with Lavian Brandy, for now. I really am an idiot sometimes.
His visit did me a lot of good, though, even if he is completely mental for making the insanely long trip out here just to visit and have a bit of fun. I suppose I can't really talk, though, considering I just flew 487,465Ls to check out the eighth moon orbiting an unnamed gas giant. Stupid Dark Wheel nonsense. There was nothing there, of course.
We really are all just a little touched in the head. I think it might be a prerequisite of being an explorer.