Captain’s Log #4 2330.09.07
07 Sep 2023Ixam
Haven’t had a moment to sit down for a couple cycles… putting in the grind and making the creds.I finally got to Moara in Neptune’s orbit. His ship had been taken over by Spacers and after shoving them out the airlock, I recovered the 4 piece of the Artifact. Sarah was very pleased and we seem to developing a report… We returned to The Lodge and added the artifact to the collection. They measured the same energy spike and stabilization as before.
The Board gave me a slew of new directions: going with Same Coe (and his daughter) to the Freestar Collective, visiting The Eye station in orbit above Jemison, and going back to find Barrett on Vectra. Since I’m flying his ship around, I opted to see what kind of trouble Barrett had gotten himself into. Sure enough, he had been kidnapped by Crimson Fleet. That man has a reputation… a little computer work allowed me to track the Crimson Fleet ship’s grav drive trajectory to some remote moon where, after gunning down more than a few pirates, I found Barrett discussing astrophysics with the pirate leader: Matsuro the Grim or some such. I’m not one to throw a wrench in the ion drive so I rolled with it and walked away with Barrett without firing another shot. That man also has a way with people…
Back in New Atlantis, Hadrian had set up a meeting with the ruling council of UC to present the case for accessing the Terramorph Xenowarefare research data in the Armistice Archives. As if to punctuate the urgency, an explosion ripped shook the MAST building, caused by a Terramorph attack at the New Atlantis star port! We we able to witness the creatures’ mind controlling abilities first had as we fought alongside UC Marines, finally flatlining the alien threat. The MAST council immediately approved our request but we now have to get the approval from both the Freestar leadership and Va’ruun ambassor. It will be a long road but these UC folks pay well, despite being corpos.
The Deimos shipyards brought me back to Mars and the plight of the miners in Cydonia. The mine foreman, Trevor, concocted an elaborate plot to get new equipment for the miners. I’m not cut out to fake my way through corporate bureaucracy but the blackmail of the planetary governor is very appealing. We got the equipment in the end though I did have to merc a disgruntled employee (Hank I think) who was trying to get the whole operation shut down. That’s what you get when you try and shoot me in the back.
I need a new set of wings… the Frontier has done fine but the cargo capabilities aren’t quite there, even after a little expansion. So off to Tau Ceti to makes some shine. A few bounties and a planetary survey later, I’ve got a nice chunk of change. Tau Ceti VIII-b, the verdant moon, provided no end to incredible sites: huge fungal blooms, floating gravitational anomalies and aggressive wildlife made setting up a small aluminium mining operation (my first foray into outpost development) a little more interesting.