Sleepy Hotdogs, Homeward Bound :)
09 Aug 2018LongDistanceClara
(Little bit of "art imitating life" in this one
I made the fatal mistake of getting a wireless keyboard, which meant I could sit on the couch while pottering around in E:D doing the longer range stuff. Genius plan, or so I thought - turns out a bit of discomfort potentially saves lives >.< Anyway - dopeyness ensued: )Krait meet Beagle!
A little over two days and we've made the turn and about to head home. I have to admit, this Krait is potentially a great little exploration ship! It's genuinely surprised me how well it handled the heat, has enough internals to carry all the usual toys with room for the kitchen sink and jacuzzi besides (I wish!). It's pretty nimble both in and out of FTL, it's just great all round - but I don't love it
It still surprises me, how some ships still have that elusive "yaaarp!" factor; it's like my Kara, that big old hulk of a T10. She's never been accused of being the prettiest girl at the rodeo, she handles like a crippled whale and I'll never understand why Lakon went and shoved that honking great spoiler on her - but I love her to bits and would fly her to hell and back
So it's probably just me being a sentimental idiot, anthropomorphizing a big tin can with thrusters; but for whatever reason, the Krait just doesn't do it for me. Great ship though, no doubt!To recap the last day or so anyway; we had a fairly uneventful night, laid up on that moon some few kly to the east of the Core. Next morning, as we took off and broke orbit, we had to clear the adjacent planet before leaving the system and I must admit, the "underslung" cockpit of the Krait gave us a beautiful view of the sunrise over the southern continents:
The rest of the day was fairly uneventful - just scooching along the beaten path heading north out of the galactic core. The Krait has some fairly long legs and despite the spare components I'd hurriedly crammed into her being "old-gen" engineered drives and the like, she could still reach out into the mid forties for jump range. Thankfully this meant not too much zig-zagging for the plots and I could let the nav computer do all the heavy lifting, although I still felt a little nostalgic for the old days of Roncevaux etc
The only point of note that afternoon was when one of the jumps dropped us in on a big, angry giant, a good hundred light seconds from core to photosphere. The corona was massive and felt almost like a fog as we hurriedly drifted by, topping off the tanks and quickly jumping out - utterly daft but it felt rather like sneaking quietly past a huge sleeping beastie ready to turn us into deep space hot dogs if we stuck around too long and woke it up
Which very nearly happened anyway that evening! I made the fatal mistake of thinking "hmm - maybe we could stretch it and reach Beagle today, that'd be pretty good going!"; so, when Coral suggested we start looking for somewhere to rest up for the night, I stupidly said "ah we can squeeze a few more jumps in?"; and inevitably, a few more became ten....then fifty....
This chair really is quite comfy...
The next thing I know, Coral is yelling at me; I blearily open my eyes and for a few seconds I have no idea what I'm looking at...
Oh...crap. CRAPCRAPCRAP! Of all the jumps to fall asleep at the wheel on... The emergency drop out of FTL had alarms screaming "J'accuse!" at me, I could see the sensors telling me the hull was FAR too toasty for comfort and I'm pretty sure Coral was looking for something to throw at me. After the initial panic of shutting off the scoop and quickly checking the Krait wasn't too banged up, I could see what had happened; the jump had dropped us squarely between the gravity wells of a MS star with a ridiculously close neutron companion. We had been very lucky - god only knows what would have happened if we'd been forced out of FTL inside the ejection cone!
"So, um Coral - I think it might be a good idea if we call it a night?"
A thrown boot to the back of my head indicated Coral was in full agreement; I sheepishly swung us around, scuttled away from the stars and set down on a nearby rock for the night.
Next morning and I'd been forgiven by my crew-mate
We fired up the FSD and the coffee maker and headed off on the last stretch - only a few hundred more jumps to go, which went by very fast! Very soon, we were only a few thousand light years away and despite being squarely on the tourist route, we found quite a few uncharted earth-likes. I always think the night time view from the surface, looking up at the galaxy laid out across the sky would just be breathtakingly beautiful - but on the other hand, the night view of the rim and the intergalactic void would probably scare the pants off me, so swings and roundabouts 
And before long - hello Beagle
Another ship that can tick the "Beagle Boogie"! A quick skim across the surface of Beagle 2 and before long, we were coming out of glide at our usual landing coordinates.
We didn't stick around for long though; it was a pretty swift turn around - just a quick check over of the ship and some hastily snapped piccies. It had only taken us a little over two days so we had plenty of time to get home and return the Krait, but I think both of us liked the idea of a slightly more leisurely return trip. So we're going to take it a bit easier and should be home sometime in the next few days.
The plot's in the navcomp and we're all buckled up - see you in a few!
