Falling out of Love & Colonial Whaling
20 Aug 2018LongDistanceClara
Honestly don't know what was going on in this one - I jumped back in the t10 that I used to love, but the guardian thingy threw a bit of a spanner in the works - took up a slot, had to change pp output and somehow it made everything "faffy" (patent pending). I'm sure I'll duck back in the defender again in the future, but all that mindless nonsense about luxury in my previous log had me going a different route, so thought I'd try something else for a change
When I said "you never know what'll pop up next as a pilot" in one of my previous logs...
The plan to scoot back to the bubble by way of the various nebulae peppered all along the Perseus Transit was going well; we'd made good time down the Arm and were approaching Barnard's Loop when I started getting itchy feet. Or hands. Whatever, I wanted back in my T10!
I have all the self-restraint of a kid in a toystore when it comes to that hulking beastie and I caved pretty quickly! We swung the Clair's bows around to the north-west and before long we poked our nose through the mail-slot in Jameson.As we walked off the pad and headed to the shipyards proper, Coral was scanning the latest from the interstellar mailbag and found a quick note from a fellow explorey-type who had written to say he was scooting along to the Eta Carina nebula - spectacular timing, we must've missed him by a day or two at most! On the other hand, it gave us a good excuse to fire up the Defender and chase him down to say 'hi'. SO then! A request at the dockmaster here, a quick scuttle down to a hangar there - and there was my dear old Kara
And things started going wrong almost immediately >.<
She hadn't been touched in months and yet everything came to life perfectly, no problems - aside from the moment I tried to tweak her and bring her "up-to-date". I'd spent ages tinkering with her months ago to get her "just so" (well, the boffin engineers around the bubble and those awesome mechanics at Jameson had done the tinkering, I'd just pointed at a big list of toys and said "I want that one!"). She had been perfectly calibrated down to a fraction of a megawatt and the moment I tried to slap the new shinies in her, everything went haywire.
Cue yet ANOTHER scuffle over to Elvira ("Hiya! Remember me [from two days ago, and before that, and before that...]") to fiddle with her drives, another round of spanner-banging in the docks and she was all set to go. But something wasn't right - it didn't feel like that hulking brute I'd fallen in love with all those months ago. You can point to all the numbers in the world, system tests and the like but I'm just saying - that "magic" had gone. "Maybe we just need to stretch her legs, get back in the groove" - and so we scooted out of the dock, laid in course for Eta Carina again and off we jumped.
As the bubble fell behind though, it just - yep, it's gone. I don't know what it is; I don't even know if other pilots get this feeling, although I'm sure they do? Sometimes you fiddle with something, or tech changes, systems get updated - and whatever gave you that little fizz of excitement every time you sat down behind the console and brought the ship to life just vanishes. It'll perform great, it'll do it's job, but that's the problem - it becomes an "it", not a "she", just a big block of metal and circuits. So I was feeling a bit "hmmph!" as we neared the nebula - fortunately our explorer friend was in the neighbourhood to cheer us up and, after some chatter, we arranged to meet at a nearby landmark. Half an hour or so later, and there's the "ping" on the scanner showing a ship dropping out of FTL nearby
Quite the backdrop! It was a fairly brief meeting, but thanks for the company Cmdr Reliquae and all the very best with your onward journey into the nebula! After we'd parted ways, there was a huge honking elephant in the room that we had to discuss. I told Coral that I really just wasn't feeling it - and bless her, she already knew (I guess I must've been kinda mopey on the way out!). So the question was - what now?
At which point, fate decided to stick its nose in the conversation, by way of a communiqué from the bubble. Long story short - it was some legal firm representing 'Trustfund McSilverspoon' (aka the spoilt brat to whom we'd been chartered to deliver that luxury FdL to in Colonia). There was a whole bunch of legal-ese but basically they were saying that the ship had been given to us in error, that we would have to return it and do so within the next two days. There was no point even trying to fight this one - the firm was representing the father, not the brat - and there's just no fighting that kind of corporate bigwig!
Oh well - easy come and all that. It settled the question of what to do next though; feeling even more "humphh!" than ever, I brought the Kara round and headed back for the bubble. I'd said in my prior log that every now and then, something awesome comes along? This was the flipside of the coin I guess and I don't mind admitting, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself as we slunk back into dock that evening. A terrible night's sleep later and I staggered down to hop in that lovely Fer-de-Lance. We'd decided that we'd just hop a shuttle back from wherever we were dropping the ship off - until I read where the legal firm wanted to meet.
"Please arrange delivery of the asset to Marconi Works..."
Great. Wonderful. Sure, why not! I had a teeny bit of history with Marconi and seriously - of all the spaceports in all the galaxy, you choose this one?! Well ok, if that's the way it's going to be, I'm going in prepared. "So, change of plan Coral - I'll take the Ferdie, you'll be flying the Charybdis" - which may have freaked her out a little. Coral is a great pilot and has come on SO much in the last year, but her first solo outing in a Fed 'Vette with a full load of kaboom strapped all over it had her pretty spooked! So it wasn't exactly the most at-ease little wing that shakily departed Shinrarta and headed out towards the rendez-vous!
Thankfully, the moment the FdL hit the deck and I stepped out, I was ushered off into a shuttle and whisked away to one of the central spires of the starport - no chance of being seen on the streets at all. Without going into great detail, I had a meeting with one of the legal goons who took delivery of the ship - and I thought that was going to be it, "so long, no thanks and don't let the door hit your butt on the way out" - but no! Turns out that daddy 'Silverspoon' was actually a decent guy; he'd transferred the original agreed upon fee for delivery to my account, all square. Better yet - apparently he'd been impressed by the promptness of our first attempted delivery and had a job for us! To transport "someone" to Coeus, near Colonia, but very hush hush and under the radar, no documents and definitely no scans - sure why not? Apparently there would be no direct remuneration, but we'd get to keep the ship we would be given in order to transport said dignitary after the job was done - for real this time
You know, it'd be nice to be so ridiculously wealthy with credits coming out of your ears that you could just hand out ships like candy.
SO - in the interests of a) getting a ship for another jaunt to Colonia and b) it never hurting to have someone fabulously wealthy and powerful on your side for the future, I headed back to the dockyards, took the controls of the 'vette (much to Coral's relief, although she'd done a great job getting here!) and we headed off to Gorbachev station in Sol to board the ship Mr 'Silverspoon' was providing for the transport.
I filled Coral in on the details as we made the few jumps over to Sol and we began speculating on who our mystery passenger was and (more importantly) what we'd be given to fly. I assumed something small and subtle - for starters, we were being given the ship after the job and it was only a quick Colonia gig, so was hardly going to be something expensive; and we were supposed to be flying under the radar, so nothing too obvious. As far as who it was we were transporting, our gossipy guesses ran to everything from corporate espionage to a secret getaway for Aisling, getting her skirts messed up with another executive affair! So we were in a very stupid giggly mood as we arrived at Gorbachev
Following the details we'd been provided in Marconi, we locked the 'vette down tight and headed for the dock where we'd been directed to pick up the ship and passenger.So, um....not a sidey then.
Seriously, who just "gives away" a Beluga for a quick trip to Colonia!? These guys... Anyway, hell, I'm not complaining! I was even fine with being frogmarched onto the ship along with Coral by a bunch of muscular heavy types who took us up to the flight deck and informed us very clearly that we would have access to the cockpit, the attached crew quarters and nothing else during the flight. You got it, big man, yessir! After they'd gone, we both started yelling like it was christmas morning; the Beluga can at best be charitably called an ugly duckling. It's really not the prettiest thing you'll ever see, the bulbous head and ridiculous tail-fins - but my god - inside, she is GORGEOUS! The cockpit is just mwaah - so shiny and the view screen is (please don't hate me Lakon!) the most amazing, jaw dropping thing you'll see on any ship, anywhere.
It wasn't long before we were being rather curtly informed that our mystery guest was on board and we should take off immediately. Some fairly sizeable strings had been pulled evidently - as I eased the Beluga off the deck and headed for the mailslot, no-one screamed on the comms for clearance and there was suspiciously no activity in or around the docks - which suited me just fine! This thing is a beast and I know from personal experience there's not much room in the docking entrance when a Beluga is going through!
Away from Sol and off we headed to Colonia. She'd been kitted out pretty well and had a lovely jump range, but we did have a few induction issues, not least her temperature. She's very feisty in supercruise, jumps very well for a big girl but good lord, she gets hot under the collar if you try and spool the drive anywhere near a star! And her little scoop didn't really help matters too much - I mean a size six is pretty good, but it's nothing like the star-devouring size eight I had on Kara! Still, after a bit of tweaking I found a happy compromise and dialled in the throttle so that we would max our tanks on the scoop just as we reached enough separation from the star to jump without cooking. So all in all, nothing really to complain about; and my god, that cockpit...
Most of my passenger runs had been done back in the bad old days in the Clair, my retrofitted anaconda. The explorey types I'd transport to the core and surrounding regions weren't that fussed about luxury and so she'd been a very 'functional' workhorse, light on frills but got the job done. Saud-Kruger clearly have different ideas about travelling - and I couldn't wait to check out the rest of the ship once our guest had departed! If it was anything like the cockpit, I suspected I might finally fulfil a lifelong dream and find a ship complete with a swimming pool on board
The immense cockpit window really was stunning; and as we brought the first day to a close, sneaking in low and quiet to Sacaqawea Port just past the midway point to Colonia, it gave us a glorious view of the station. As odd as it was, this was the first time I'd ever visited one of the "Colonia Highway" stations and it never ceases to suprise me how industrious our little hands can be when not turned to blowing each other up
A quick announcement that we'd be overnighting here, a smooth and discreet landing, powered off the secondary systems and Coral and I spent the rest of the evening like a pair of kids at a sleepover, sprawled in the cockpit and talking excitedly about what to do after Colonia in this wonderful ship. And if I had to guess, after a little shopping and tinkering in Colonia, we may be heading north again - our favorite hunting ground for all things shiny wasn't too far away and the prospect of seeing some beautiful galactic attractions through that gargantuan window is just too much to pass up
A much, much happier Clara, signing off