DISTANT WORLDS 2 - DAY 12 - SPACE ODDITIES
25 Jan 2019Zak Starfall
Galactic stardate 24JAN3305Downwards was the main goal for today.
No particular destination, just start heading back towards Omega Sector to rejoin the fleet in a few days time.
Our first plot was 30 jumps, and we made good time, although we didn't pass anything of particular note en route.
Now we started to encounter pre-discovered systems again as we got back towards well-used Galactic Highways.
I had been perusing the Galactic Codex as we went, leaving Cathy in control of the FSD and scooping, and saw reports of more biological anomalies is systems not far from us.
As we were making such good time, a diversion seemed in order, so we re-plotted towards Byua Euq YK-X d1-30.
It seemed an unremarkable system, 2 stars, an A and a G, a couple of brown dwarfs and some rocky planets and nothing out of the ordinary on the FSS scan. Still, the Codex suggested there was more to this system than met the eye, so we did a full scan of every body. Aha! A couple of the planets were landable, and there was a gas giant with water-based life, and when we full scanned the gas giant, two stellar phenomena signals popped up. They must have been hidden by the stronger gas giant signal.
Right, landable planets first.
Mapping the planets revealed geological features but no biological life.
One had iron magma lava spouts erupting from high on the wall of a canyon, whilst the second had a particularly photogenic field of sulphur dioxide fumaroles.
Leaving the surface of the planet, we headed back into SC and towards the gas giant and stellar phenomena signals.
The gas giant was stunning as we approached from the starlit side, with a wonderful ring structure.
One phenomena signal was located in the ring of the gas giant, whilst the other was about 70ls away. We headed for the signal in deep space first.
Dropping in, it first appeared to be an empty signal, but then the composition scanner started to pick up the source of the signal. A Proto-Lagrange cloud, the first one we have encountered. Unlike the other clouds we have surveyed on this trip, there was no discernible colour to this cloud. In fact we would have completely passed it by were it not for the purpureum and rubeum metallic crystals structures it contained.
While we were checking these out and scanning them, I noticed some other signals on the very edge of our radar range. These weren't showing up in nightvision like the crystals did.
Sending more power to our shields we headed towards the new signals.
They were the strangest things. The composition scanner reported them as Albulum Gourd Molluscs, gourd-shaped organisms that fed off starlight converted into chemical energy, and they looked like they should be living in the depths of an ocean, not in deep space.
They also exhibited strange behaviour. If we approached them they moved away from us if we got too close, trailing a green cloud of particles, but then tried to return to their original position. If the ship was still in the way then they would continue to repeat this pattern, moving away and returning ad infinitum.
Out of curiosity (I could pretend it was scientific, but it wasn't really), I activated our mining laser and fired at one of the molluscs, and it gave out an odd moaning sound when it was hit by the laser. There seemed to be only two molluscs in this cloud, or at least those were the only two we could find, and both behaved the same way. Adding all this information to our data files, we headed to the other phenomena signal in the gas giant's ring.
The signal in the ring contained purpureum and flavum metallic crystals, and the crystals seemed to be repelling the asteroids and keeping an area of the ring clear and populated by crystal structures only.
As we had plenty of crystal data on file already, we did a cursory scan of a couple of structures and then headed up out of the ring and found a suitable camp spot for the night on one of the rocky planets.
Damn, the galaxy gets stranger by the day!
o7