Miskatonic University Galactic Expedition 3303 - Day 18
06 Sep 2017LCU No Fool Like One
Its been some time since I have written. 10 days ago I berthed in Merope for repairs following on from the attack at the Celaeno relay station. As soon as my repairs were done I sped as fast as my ship would carry me back to Celaeno. However those web-fingered inbreds at Merope it seems were incapable of performing a lasting repair and I was dogged by software issues. I was forced to return to Sothis for futher repairs where by good fortune I encountered a number of members of our party. Shrub Rocketeer junior and film maker Jan-Eric Pietralla. We resolved to search for the Great Library of Caelano together in the asteroid belts. We spent some time exploring and later went our seperate ways, Jan to Betelguese and myself to investigate the relay station. I enquired of Jan how his filming went and recieved this rather disturbing letter.
I have to say, this trip so far has been a breeze to film.
At Celaeno, most of the students - instead of investigating rumors of ancient skeletons floating in the rings around Celaeno I - goofed off and tried supercruising between the planet and the thin, far rings. Shooting these stunts from up close, I positioned myself near the inner edge of the rings. Supercruise is apparently very hard to film from a stationary point of view - upon reviewing the material, I found lots of artifacts in the footage. Black, swirly shadows - no doubt originally shadows of the rocks in the ring - are seen moving towards every student passing between planet and ring, like moths to a flame. It is quite creepy, as if the inhabitants of those rings don't want to be disturbed by our shenanigans and try to reach out an swat away the interlopers.
I mentioned this to the students after our shoot, and they told me they had in fact seen a lot of shadows amass right beneath my ship, trying to break out from the rings and move towards my cargo hatch (which I had open to force additional stabilization from the flight assist computer). I'm sure they're messing with me. But for the record, I will keep the cargo hatch closed from now on.
I resolved to return to the rings and investigate but in the meantime I had to infiltrate the Relay station and download the datalinks. There were 6 elite ships guarding the system. I was able to evade them by dropping out of supercruise 500km from the station. However I noticed as I approached the drive trails of an Anaconda circling the station. I approached slowly, trying to keep the Anaconda between myself and the station and managed to get to an opening in the vast structure. But disaster struck as a mistimed thruster got me jammed in the aperture.
The Anaconda circled ever closer as I tried desperately to free my ship. As it got to within a kilometer I managed to freemyself and dropped inside the relay station and found the datalink. But now the Anaconda alerted the other ships and i watched helplessly as they circled the station. Then one of them must have spotted me.
Looks like we've got someone snooping around. Lethal force authorised.
Black Flight to command, unauthorised ship detected, moving to engage.
Unauthorised ship detected in restricted zone. Moving to intercept.
I had to move fast. I flipped the ship and lined it up with the exit and put every ounce of thrust into the engines. The ship boosted away and I had seconds before the enemy ships would round the bulk of the station. Though it was only seconds while i waited for the mass lock to clear it felt like hours. I have never welcomed the words "Frameship Drive Charging" so much. As the first shots landed on my shields I jumped to freedom.