Kara Pt.3 and a bunch of other stuff! :)
19 Jan 2018LongDistanceClara
(Bit pic heavy this one, sorry, I'm obsessed with the T10! I actually ended up writing a fairly lengthy Thing about the Obsidian Orbital evacuation, but decided against posting it - I wanted it to be very "real", not Hollywood, but it just ended up being rather grim and upsetting, and that's not really in Clara's character, she'd end up with PTSD! 
So I rewrote it far more in keeping with her chirpiness
Anyway - stuff!)Been a while!
Well, not that long - but we've covered a lot of distance since my last log! We had a wonderfully relaxed trip back from Beagle Point. My arm was healing well under "Doc's" ministrations/nagging
The Kara felt like she'd really settled into the rhythm, drifting effortlessly through the Bleak Lands, across the Styx and into the Core. Coral was settling in too - she had no real experience with space travel before signing on with us and would quietly sit in the co-pilot's chair, gazing like a little kid out of that amazing canopy for hours on end without saying a word And as I may have mentioned previously (sorry!) - Kara has one heck of a canopy
We had some spectacular views - things I've seen countless times before, but seeing them from this balcony was a whole new experience! Even this fairly common binary looked amazing and put a serious dent in our schedule!
One thing that still takes me by surprise is how incredibly cool the Kara runs! It's almost disconcerting how she can start spooling the FSD pretty much wherever she wants in a star's corona-sphere! It's not just underway either - when we set down in the evening, I've stopped shutting all the modules off, the temperature just plummets on the bridge and it makes for a pretty chilly start otherwise!
As was always the case however, as soon as we were past the Core the homeward stretch to the Bubble just flew past; and before long, there was Barnard's Loop welcoming us home. Sometimes, on arriving back home I just feel mentally drained and physically exhausted; but this time I think the whole crew just felt relaxed and happy. It had been a breeze and a very enjoyable one at that! As we pulled into Shinrarta though, I checked Galnet and saw the news about the attacks in the Pleiades and that ships were needed to evacuate the stations as soon as possible.
Sorry Kara, you'll have to wait for your well-deserved rest! Quick refit and we were off down to Obsidian Orbital in Maia. At first glance it didn't look too bad, but as we got closer we could see the extent of the damage and it was pretty grim! Honking great gouts of flame shooting out from blown-out hull plates on the starport. Fire in zero gravity is really beautiful - at least it would be if it weren't under these circumstances!
We'd heard conditions inside the dock were pretty grim, so it was a quick burn in through the slot, ducking past the mangled guide-cage outside and blindly groping through the cloud of gas and steam filling the letterbox. The emergency lights didn't so much help as provide a horrendous strobing distraction - how we didn't pinball around inside the entrance I have no idea, more luck than judgement!
It wasn't a lot better inside - the heat was pretty terrible, alarms wailing all over the Kara while debris clattered off her hull. I fairly unceremoniously slammed her down on the nearest available pad and quickly took her down into the hanger below, where we were able to board a bunch of evacuees. I've never seen a station in a state like this, don't mind admitting I was pretty spooked by it all!
Once we were full, it was back up into the dock - by this time poor old Kara was fairly screaming at me, temperature alarms going crazy; I felt so bad after how well she had treated us on the trip to Beagle! It wasn't long before we were barging our way back out through the mailslot and out into the cool quiet black beyond, thank god. A short hop to a nearby rescue ship and we offloaded our cargo of rather battered but relieved evacuees.
We did a few more runs until things had calmed down a bit and it was time to head back to Jameson, this time for some well deserved rest! We set down and after all the stress of the rush down to Maia and the rescues, I think we were all asleep the instant our various heads hit the pillows!
The next day, Kara got the TLC she deserved! Full work up and repair - what a glorious ship! She'd done so well, I had to spring for a new outfit for her; so a little more time in the shipyard and she was good to go with a nice new look
I'd been thinking about what we'd do after returning home and there was no doubt I wanted to take her straight back out again - albeit with a tweak or two.We had to nip over to some of the old abandoned stations and scrounge up some materials for an engineering upgrade to a new power plant I wanted to drop in her; and good grief, she just looked magnificent as she dusted off, hulking over the remnants of the camp!
The only remaining issue to discuss was that I had decided to drop the SLF module and replace it with a second AFM. This meant, with the new power plant and the rest of the fit, the Kara would theoretically be capable of remaining in deep space indefinitely, no matter how many stars, planets or anything else I felt like crashing in to got in the way! This meant that Coral wouldn't technically be needed, but she had been such a star on our trip out to Beagle, I had to offer her a place on the crew regardless - which of course she snapped up
Great! Good to go
I had a random provisional plot up the Orion-Cygnus arm in mind, skirting the Fallows and heading up to Colonia, hopefully catching up with some friends on the way. My left arm was still twinging a fair bit, but as we left Jameson, I really didn't notice too much - was just too happy to be heading back out again
It was like we'd never come back to the bubble
We just picked up where we left off, Kara eating up the miles and quietly cruising along. Before long, we had the bubble a good distance behind us before we called it a night, finding a nice sheltered landing site on a planet in the Traikaae nebula. I took a quick scuttle around as per usual to check up on the hull and the local surroundings; the nebula peeking over the line of cliffs in the background just looked like a great red cresting wave, about to sweep down onto us. Pretty impressive stuff!
Time to power down for the night
Take care and don't fly safe, fly fun!