Kiera has been pushing me to update this journal. I guess she has a point, because my last entry was a long way from getting up to date, and even in the short time since then, so many things have happened. After the coronation we visited one of the regular ship shows in Beta somewhere (sorry somethings are a little hazy). There were several new ships from the major manufacturers which we got to see and even test fly some of them. I was most impressed by Gutamaya's new Imperial Cutter. It handles surprisingly well for such a large ship. Sadly it's currently beyond my finances and Imperial rank, but something to aim for. I also enjoyed the Viper Mk IV which I found to be a thoroughly capable 'small' ship. It's up there with the Cobra Mk III though I think the Cobra just edges it. Somehow I ended up with a free one, though I'm not sure why. It may have been a raffle prize or I might have got it for endorsing it. I guess having a Founder say nice things about your product is good advertising.
Seeing the Scarab SRVs at the show has inspired me to upgrade my pilot licence to add planetary landing rating. So far I've only got the part A certification which allows me to land on planets without atmosphere or volcanism. The B and C certificates require learning an awful lot of theory about things like meteorology and exo-biological hazards. I think that's going to take quite a while.
After the show I dropped Kiera back at Jameson Memorial and was drawn into the next big project. People wanted to build a station in a nebula. In practice the station was built in an Alliance system and was 'jumped 'to it's destination. I spent several weeks hauling materials and even doing some mining. Using collector limpets makes it so much easier.
During that time I also took a few bounty hunting jobs on the side. They all seemed to be 'take out x number of pirates in system y'. I was lucky enough to find several in the same system so a single kill would count for several different jobs. I did unfortunately have to make an insurance claim after my greed for the bounty over rode my tactical instincts.
I took some time to practice planetary landing and using an SRV. It takes a bit of getting used to. I had a couple of serious accidents. One time I had the throttle jam on an SRV, it didn't stop until it broke. And then there was the incident where I lost my Clipper while trying to make adelivery to a surface station. I'd slightly misjudged my approach and hit a Goliath skimmer. This set off the station defences and I was shot down, Because of those incidents I have a healthy appreciation of the rescue services and help them out whenever I can.
The newly built station was named Obsidian Orbital after one of the major sponsors and deployed to Maia. I had hoped to spend the so called 'holiday season 'with Kiera but apparently things were so busy a Jameson Memorial thatshe couldn't get any time off. Being left at a loose end I noticed an appeal for pilots to bring in supplies of a specific rare good. I don't always take much notice of these things but this one was different. Clauss Incorporated wanted Special Gifts. It was a nice rare goods run which is just what I needed. I even got to meet the CEO Nicholas St Clauss. He seemed a lot friendlier than most of the business types I've met.
Shortly after that appeal ended there was another on to bring Anduliga fireworks to Cherets. Seeing as I was still in my Asp it seemed worthwhile to helpout. It was around then that I got the word that Bucky was back and he had a new Buckyball race. This was to be across the bubble and out to the new station. In an extra twist it wouldn't just be against the clock, there would be a couple of live races. I took my Asp the 'Void Insurance' out to the first live race. She wasn't really in racing trim, so I knew I wasn't going to do that well, but sometimes it's the taking part that counts. It was quite the spectacle to see 20 ships race out of a station. It was quite pleasing to see Obsidian Orbital in all it's glory , but I couldn't hang around for long as the firework thing was still ongoing. As I didn't want the whole journey to be a waste I looked to see if there were any jobs. I was approached by a representative of the Anthill Mob. He was a short, stocky tough looking guy. Looked like he was from some high G world. He said that his boss, Miss Pittstop , needed a courier to carry some data and make a few deliveries back to the bubble. It seemed like a good deal. As I was heading back to my ship I was stopped by a thin weasely looking man. He said he was a journalist and that he had uncovered a big story. He needed someone to take it back to his editor. I agreed to help him.
I thought that the journey back would be uneventful but hadn't reckoned on the pirates.I figured that they must either be rivals of the Anthill Mob or they wanted to prevent the story getting out. I didn't really care as I managed to evade them.
As the fireworks thing finished, I thought I'd have another crack at the race so I made some adjustments to my ship to make it more competitive. I managed to set a much more respectable time though I was still nowhere near the fastest. During my trips to and from Obsidian Orbital I noticed several convoys of ships in uninhabited systems. I don't know what they were doing but they reminded my of the rumours about secret convoys associated with the unknown artifacts.
Back in civilisation itseemed that both the Imperial and Federal navies had been aware of some of my activities and were offering promotions so in the space of a couple of days I had become a Viscount and a Lieutenant. The funny thing is that a lot of the work I was doing for them was causing unrest in their own factions.
Working for the Imperials cost me another insurance claim. They had heard rumours that a small planetary outpost was being used by terrorists. They asked me to investigate. The rumours proved to be correct but the terrorists spotted me and we got into a firefight. I should have run but I didn't want to risk them slipping away. They shot me down quite easily as my ship wasn't really configured for combat. I was relieved to be rescued by Imperial Special Forces.
Kiera came to visit me as I recuperated. She was angry with me for being so stupidly reckless. I had to admit that she had a point. In some ways it only deepened our relationship. She was only angry because she cared. To make things up to her, I agreed to take her for a trip. She was keen to visit a nebula as she wanted to see one up close and hadn't ever left the bubble before.
We ruled out the Pleiades. It's the closest nebula but lots of weird stuff has started happening around there with the discovery of the so called 'barnacles' and more unknown artifacts. There were also rumours of a bunch of eco-terrorists attacking anyone in the area. As we discussed the options an ancient song called 'Hotel California' was playing on the station radio. It was both strange and somehow beautiful. We both looked at each other and the galaxy map and in unison said California Nebula.
I watched her closely as we left the bubble. Some people get freaked out if they get more than a few light years from civilisation. The enormity of the galaxyand their own insignificance hits them hard. Fortunately Kiera's not one of them. In one system we saw ringed ice planet and landed therejust because it looked nice. The California Nebula didn't disappoint, but it was kind of a touristy spot. Ask any serious explorer and they'll say it's just on the doorstep. Kiera was eager to go further out. The strange blue colour of the Veil Nebula West seemed to be an obvious destination to investigate. I can't say I was expecting to find much, as most of the journey would be within a 1000 light yearsof Sol. I guess we must have been on a route less taken because wefound dozens of uncharted systems on the way.
There's still a kind of a buzz from being the first person to visit a system although we found evidence that this wasn't always the case. We picked up several occupied escape pods from some crash sites. One thing I learned from the rescue services is that you never try to open them, that's something best left to a hospital. The trip had taken longer than we had expected because of all the extra survey work. Kiera had to get back so we headed back to the bubble. I decided to stop at 17 Draconis as a safe place to sell the data and offload everything we had salvaged. It was there that I met a rep from the FNA. Just a couple of little jobs they said. Yeah right, smuggling landmines and narcotics to a couple of stations in the bubble, nice pay out if it all went to plan but nothing if I got scanned. I discussed it with Kiera.
We've had our arguments about my smuggling. Kiera tends to see things more black and white than I do. I guess it comes with her working for security. I was surprised when she agreed to let me try on condition we had a wager on the result. If I failed I would have to take her to dinner at the smartest restaurant on Founders World, if I succeeded we would have dinner at her place . I guess it wasn't her jurisdiction and perhaps she wanted to learn some of my techniques, or maybe she just didn't believe I could pull it off as my ship wasn't ideally set up for smuggling. The authorities were on to us from the first jump and so were some pirates. I managed to lose them by skimming close to the star causing my pursuers to drop out of supercruise. The next few jumps were fine but then they started to catch up. Halfway home and the law interdicted me, just as things started to look bad, a pirate dropped from supercruise to try and rob me. In the confusion the cops and pirates started fighting and I slipped away to safety. At last I was at the destination with only the station patrols to beat. I was lined up with the slot when I got the 'scan detected' warning. I hit boost and was lucky. Kiera swore as I collected my 4 million credit payment, but I could see from her smile that a cosy night in would be much more fun than dinner at some stuffy restaurant.
