CMDR's Log--Supplemental--What do we say to the god of death?
26 Aug 2018Raumfahrer Spiff
--CMDR Raumfahrer Spiff—Aug, 3304—Libeskind Terminal, Sakarabru--Millions in various unclaimed bounties, my trusted SLF pilot and right-hand man of one year, and 20 million credits of rebuy on the line.
I was returning to Sakarabru from doing some faction errands in the neighboring sector, on my way back to continue pirate clearing in the local mining fields. I was jumping along like usual on an ordinary four-hop route back to my sector. I didn't even think twice as I dropped into LHS 1442, only 17ly from the destination system. You see, my jump range is 25.2ly. I certainly didn't need to scoop that pulsar jet cone.
But there's just nothing about those utterly immense swirling turbulent tendrils of glowing star stuff that doesn't fill me with bewilderment and veneration. The way they endlessly twirl and twirl in distant silence, hypnotizing you, luring you in.
I know how dangerous they can be. When the new jet-cone injection tech was first developed, I took a ship straight out to the first white dwarf I could find to test it. I promptly lost control in the breakneck stellar winds and slammed right into the exclusion zone--dropping me right into the center of the vortex where I tumbled helplessly--an insignificant speck buffeted by unfathomable masses of super heated particles and exotic radiation screaming past. I could only watch as my ship failed, system by system, and my hull was warped and ripped away around my escape pod. Since then, I've lost maybe two other ships in the midst of these awe-inspiring stellar spectacles. As well as hearing tell of so many other pilots with similar accounts, I am very well acquainted with the danger. Dropping to normal space inside a jet-cone is damn near a death sentence.
And yet, as I sat in that station, rescued from that first dance with the white devil, it quickly congealed into an unquenchable fool's crusade for me to extract an inconsequential pound of flesh from each and every pulsar jet I come across. I joke with my wing mates that pulsars are the windmills to my Quixote.
With that foolhardy spirit in tow, I dove straight for the nearest stubby wisp of a jet at LHS 1442, blithe to the utter needlessness of the task. Like so many hundreds of times before, I lined myself up to quickly skim the far edge of the cone. But the smaller and slower they are, the more disorienting they are, the more dangerous. In my haze of confidence, and somewhat recent onionhead-use, I'd misjudged the jet's angle as pointing away from me. The relatively short arms of those jets made it hard to judge the perspective at first. In fact I was actually flying straight into the heart of the cone, barreling toward the exclusion zone. Before I could even react, I was E-dropped from supercruise into a very sobering and dour situation.
The rebuy screen flashed through my mind as I clenched my eyes to the details flashing on my HUD of my quickly failing systems. The alarms blared, with strobes of warning lights flashing over me while I considered the consequences of my simple yet extreme mistake. This would mean saying a last good bye to my seasoned fighter pilot, Hendricks. It would mean such a stupid, senseless waste of a not-insignificant amount of credits and hours of work shoring up the security of EIC space in Sakarabru. It would be yet another failure against these beautiful stellar beasts. I just thought to myself, “I know I've lost anyway but I'm still gonna go out swinging.”
When you are caught in this turbulence, there is very little you can do. Your systems short out and malfunction at random and most thrusters can't hope to compete against the massive stellar jet engine fueled by the energy of a Sol sized star squeezed down into the size of a small planet. All I could do was keep slamming the key to engage my FSD and hope for a long enough break between power shorts. Meanwhile, I did my best to keep trying to vector toward the jump-target. It was like the interdiction evasion from your worst nightmare--trying to stay on target while being slung back and forth as your ship is wailing out in agony--tossed around like a ping pong ball in a hurricane.
Somehow, against all hope and a couple false starts, my FSD starts spooling up in earnest. Though by then I'd lost control of the vector again and was beginning to about face from the destination. The ship began to overheat as the intense gravity and radiation wrecked havoc on the overwhelmed drives. Quickly my cabin heat screamed past the 100% threshold, much more quickly than I was able to nudge my nose on target. My FSD was charged and yelling at me to align with the target. I was yelling back: “No shit!” In a performance worthy of the interdiction evasion hall-of-fame, I force her nose as near on target as possible as the thrusters slowly, achingly managed to nudge me back on course against the endless torrent of roaring radioactive winds.
As I heard the jump countdown begin and the jump engaged, my fists flew up into the air in victory, staying there for the duration of the witchspace transit until right before I almost crashed my still-sizzling ship into the exclusion zone at Sakarabru A.
I decided to take a little break at Libeskind Terminal before going back on patrol. There were some repairs and.. uh.. clean up to deal with first.
Hendricks is buying the round of drinks this time dammit.
--CMDR Spiff out--