Almost, But Not Quite...
31 Dec 2020Scubadog
I tried...I really tried. I was a little less than half way back to the Benzaiten system in Colonia when I finally had to park The Ceti Susi, get some rest, do some repairs the AFMS couldn't quite handle...and just get a little gravity in my life. I didn't even set an alarm to wake me up. I got the ship fired up and lifted off for what I'd hoped was going to be my final push. For a day and a half I've been jumping, scanning systems of opportunity, dropping into normal space to crank up the AFMS to fix my FSD -- neutron stars play some righteous havoc with the FSD -- calculate to the next neutron star and jump again. Over and over. Then I got into an extended conversation with one of my fellow Silverbacks who happened to be on this side of the galaxy. While it was great conversation and all, it slowed my progress...and I was getting more tired by the minute. Finally, with only about 20 jumps to go, I couldn't go any farther. I was making stupid, nearly catastrophic mistakes. Nodding off while fuel scooping, for example, is about as stupid as it gets. Even worse when you're doing this at a neutron star. Multiple times I was jolted awake by the automated FSD shut down, alarms screaming throughout the command deck and smoke choking my nostrils...driving me to hastily punch a heatsink to cool the ship down. This, of course, required me to fire up the AFMS once I got away from the star just to fix all the internal systems that the excessive heat had damaged.
Enough. I searched for a decent moon with about .5g and set the ship down. I shut most systems down and fell asleep right there in the command chair. What happened next was the weirdest damned thing. I woke up and started the pre-launch checks that I always do...and saw something that stopped me cold. The hull showed it was down to nearly 50%. What fresh hell is this? I routinely shut down all non-essential systems after landing, including shields. I'm out in the deep black, no pirates, no Thargoids, no need for shields. I looked out of the command deck windows and realized there was a lot of surface damage that went way beyond normal wear and tear from jumping so many neutron stars. Then I noticed something that was not obvious during a night time landing. There was a dense fog that completely enveloped the area I had landed. Seriously dense. The best that the sensors could determine was that it had some sort of corrosive property that was strong enough to eat away at an unshielded hull. When I bought the Challenger I went light on virtually everything except the FSD, fuel scoop and, of course, the Prismatic Shield Generator I was transporting home. I kept the stock hull with zero enhancements. And I was a sitting duck for whatever this crap was chewing up my hull.
I made sure nothing else was severely damaged and launched as quickly as I could. Once I got away from this damned moon I dropped into normal space again. I synthesized some repair limpets and fired them off to fix my hull. After one more pass at the ships' systems, I'm now working my final jumps to get home.
I'm going to be so glad to pull into Bisley Landing.