Plan and Conquer
13 Nov 2015Michael Darkmoor
5 June, 3301 The way I had her outfitted, the Cobra Mk III would take at least 9 jumps to get to Sol. That was the minimum… if I went there directly, had max jump range for each jump, and could find suitable systems along the way to refuel. In reality, it was probably more like 19 jumps and all to places I had never been before. Likely, into situations that, quite frankly, I could not even begin to imagine.
There was also the fact that trading had to be done on the way… In the words of the Sequester’s Commander Corrigan, “Deadheading is for deadbeats and careless millionaires, which if not corrected quickly enough, eventually makes for a poor dead trader”. There was no way I could afford to leave cargo space open even for a single leg of the journey. For a farm boy from LHS-3447 out on the fringe who had never strayed from his home system by more than about 20 light years… it was that little bit of overwhelming. The excitement of visiting the origin of humanity… and… the fear of never seeing home again.
I began to research the path from LHS-3447 to Sol. Checking all the systems in between to determine what their specialties were and what each needed most. Food to the extraction/refinery types, metals and minerals to the industrial and high tech stations, farm equipment and land/water improvement tech to the agricultural and terraform worlds… then do it all again. Wouldn’t it be great to just have them line up nicely all the way, straight to Sol? Ha! Not even close!
Reading every market report I could find on the many systems between the local cluster and those on a heading toward Sol, eventually made me think that I was about to go insane. Just trying to find the fastest, most efficient and most profitable route was truly frustrating. Some extraction/refinery stations along the way actually needed technology much more then they needed food… with the resultant changes in pricing. Some High Tech and Industrial worlds couldn’t even feed themselves! If that were not enough, it seemed that half the universe needed medical items of one type or another… What the hell was I getting myself into?
My “9 Jumps” quickly surpassed the expected “19 Jumps” I originally and so naively thought would be enough to get to Sol. At one point, I had over 110 jumps planned out… On my way, I was singlehandedly going to solve every planet’s individual supply problem with my little <and thus far, nameless> Cobra Mk III with her 36 cargo slots… and take in some serious credits doing it!
It was when I reached this Land Mark (110 Jumps and growing), that I thought to again look at the total distance. What had started out as a trip of only 135 light years, was now into the thousands. The next thought was simple. “How ridiculous!”
Here I was trying to get to a certain place while making a few credits… and it ends up turning into an all-out for-profit bid to save the universe! Ok… Can you tell I was excited?
Eventually, I came up with a path that, while it did little to solve the Universal Logistics Crisis, at least got me to Sol with more credits pocketed than when I started. At 14 jumps, it was much better than I had hoped and would still net enough to procure a few improvements for the ship along the way.