Finding Eden II - Heading for Liberty!
06 Nov 2017LongDistanceClara
My bunk is all of twenty feet away - and I'm too tired to get there >.<I'm currently curled up in the pilot's seat on the bridge of the Cass which is incredibly uncomfortable. In all fairness, it's normally great - I just don't think Gutamaya envisioned pilots riding the spaceways in the fetal position
But my bunk may as well be twenty miles away, I'm just exhausted; and sleeping with an armrest jammed against my bum is preferable to hauling myself upright and making the journey to bed. Being constantly tired seems to be my latest thing!A few days ago, after some heavy jumping to get us home from the core, we clattered through the letterbox at Jameson Memorial more asleep than awake. I honestly shouldn't be flying in that state - I'm fairly sure someone mentioned during flight training that it's considered "best practice" to keep your eyes open when flying; and that reaction times faster than a lightly stunned badger are generally desirable - who knew?!
That having been said - coffee's a wonderful thing, muscle memory can pick up the slack and at the end of the day, there's always your shields
Although had I been more awake, I'd have probably been fairly embarrassed by the 'CLANG' that echoed around the starport as the cutter's skids made friends with the deck a little too enthusiastically!
"Did you hear something?"
There was zero chance of sorting anything out that evening - literally the moment we were in the hanger, the crew was dead to the world >.< So it wasn't till next morning that all the cargo got offloaded and the UniCart data got sold. Peekay, my slf pilot, took her slice and went on her way - I think she wanted more combat action than she'd get hiking around the big black, but that worked out fine for me; my next expedition was going to be invite-only and pretty secretive
Hal had been learning the ropes along the way on our trip to the core, but wanted to log some solo flight time; so he'd ducked off to see a guy about a beat-up second-hand sidewinder and take it for a spin. I'd mentioned to him that some of the engineers in the bubble are pretty picky and want you to "prove" yourself, so his plan was to kill two birds with one stone and do a "quick" five k out-and-back trip! I've got to admit, I was kinda proud of him
I don't know how many new pilots hop in a stock sidey and knock out a ten k round trip in their first week as a rookie, but I don't imagine it's a lot - I'm not sure I'd be up for that!He'd be away for a few days at least and that gave me a bit of time to prep for my next expedition - to finish off my search for "Clara's Paradise"
I'd be taking the Cutter out again - it seemed only fitting that, since the Cassandra had been with me for the first expedition, I should take her out to finish the job:
Loading the provisions!
I'd be heading out to my usual spot for ELWs. Maybe it's just luck of the draw, but I've come to think of this area as my galactic pumpkin patch - I've never passed through the region without picking up a good handful of fresh earth-likes! Once the Cass was good to go, I took her out and headed to the Bunda system next-door - Hal would be returning there as he didn't have his Shinrarta permit yet - and waited at Faraday Ring. It's an agricultural starport and although it's all about crops, nutrients and all that good stuff, the slightly spooky green glow from the hydroponics arrays always gives me the creeps!
Not a lot of fun to be had there, but thankfully Hal had made short work of his crazy trip and rolled back into dock not long after I'd arrived. We went and got his first paycheck from UniCart - a very respectable forty mill! - and headed straight to the Cass. I'd already brought him up to speed on my plans for building my hidey-hole on the run back from Sag A*; he was pretty much the only other person I'd trust or want around, when out searching for somewhere this important to me. So a last minute check, all ship-shape on the Cassandra and we rolled out!
I did my usual thing of skewing off out of the bubble, although this time I made a rough heading towards NGC 3576 - better known as the "Statue of Liberty" nebula. It's a pretty little thing and wasn't too far out of the way. Nothing too special en route, although this one was kinda fun:
A huge Class V gas giant in tight orbit with a bunch of other stars. I felt a little sorry for it though, like it was the runt of the litter that hadn't quite got up the mass to graduate to full Star-hood. Poor "little" thing
Not long after, we arrived at the nebula; I'd gotten so used to hauling a cargo-hold full of junk around that now the Cassandra's belly wasn't full to bursting, it felt like we sped through the jumps! On arrival in system, we scooted over to a nearby gas body with a rocky ring;
This seemed like the perfect opportunity to give Hal a play in the SLFs. Up to now, he'd only flown the Sidewinder and taken the controls on the Cutter once or twice on the way to the core, so the GU-97 would be something else! It's a fairly fragile little thing but it can spin on a sixpence and can run with the best of them. Credit where it's due, he got the hang of it almost immediately (which if I'm being completely honest is kind of annoying
)
As much fun as it was playing cat-and-mouse, goofing around in the asteroids, it was getting "about that time". So we docked them back up and started jumping around the neighborhood, looking for a good place to lay up for the night; finally we found a nice little planet close to the primary, with a lovely dense ring system around it. After setting down, as tired as we were, it seemed wrong not to go for a quick scoot around in the SRVs - the backdrop was pretty stunning, made all the better by having some company to share it with
Tiredness and SRVs are definitely not a good mix however, so it wasn't long before we were back on board. Hal's locking down the hangers and I'm up here on the bridge having just finished shutting all the systems down for the night. This armrest is starting to get a bit personal, so I guess it's time to stagger off to bed after all
Goodnight, galaxy!