So, my FSD may have malfunctioned and shot me across the galaxy...

["Red" the Pirate]

It was anything but a routine mission. Prof. Palin had made a breakthrough with scanning, and more importantly, following Thargoid wakes. I could hardly believe it when I got the notification. But he's not one to pull pranks. ...Right?

It was a plan that only Palin could come up with. Instead of modding the frame shift drive itself, he instead modded the Guardian FSD booster instead. The mods seemed fine on first, second, and third glance. I even ran some scans of my own. The math checked out. The logic checked out. Everything as good as it was going to get. He gave me the green light, so off to the Pleiades I went.

Palin had rigged a 'goid sensor to emit a certain signal in order to attract a 'goid to follow. Not sure why, I could've just hopped into a signal source to find one, like we have the past two or three years, but whatever. It didn't take to long to hook a medusa.

It scanned me first. Kinda suprisin', considering the weird signals that modded sensor was givin' off. Didn't seem to bother that 'goid none, though. Scooped it right up, and off it went, with me right behind it. In hindsight, I probably should've brought something other than my fully combat fit corvette. Made sense at the time, seeing that my T10 was much slower, but I still needed something fast and tough enough to keep up with 'em, so corvette it was.

I actually managed it. Wasn't pushed away, instead, it sort of... pulled me in. Like it was expecting me... Anyhow, I immediately noticed something was wrong. Don't know if it was because it was a human corvette with guardian tech shoved in it instead of the usual flower ships, or if they knew exactly what I was doing, but the result was the same.

Popped out a few kls away from a lone A-star. Thought I wound up somewhere in the bubble, judging by how the galaxy appeared. But then I noticed... it. Or rather, the lack of "it".
"Where's Barnard's Loop? Where's the Pleiades? Where's the Coalsack, and California nebulae?" It's when I told my computer to target Sol is when I found out why...

Yep. Acheron. Just beyond the veils. Thousands of light years away from any civilization.
My ship was heavily damaged, and waaaaaay too far from my [REDACTED], which can fix just about anything.
Shield generator and boosters, hangers, the automated repair systems... all damaged far beyond fixing with my current resources and two hands. The FSD booster's pretty much fried completely at this point, and now...

Ok, ok. Don't panic. What now? Heard some folks calling themselves the "DSSA", supposed to be flying out a bunch of them new fleet carriers out all over the galaxy. They're supposed to be permanent outposts, so they ain't offerin' rides anytime soon. But they do offer repair services, so.. it's a start? They don't have the resourses to build an entire new FSD booster from scratch, so I'm going to have to make a pit-stop at the core to get that fixed. Yay...

Spoiler

Totally didn't log out on a dssa carrier...

Spoiler

On purpose...

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Seriously though. Huge thanks to CMDR Azraphael and the DSSA Alvin's Rest for giving me something to do between now and Odyssey!

 

["Red" the Pirate]

Update: Waypoint 1, The Four Corners.

Welp. I've made it. To my first stop, anyway. Saved a copy of a map of all the locations of the DSSA carriers, deployed or otherwise. This one showed up as not deployed, but had set out by the time of my "accident". 900+ jumps, several undiscovered Earth-likes, a fuel-rats call, a nasty crash-landing, and a helluva gamble later, I've finally made it to the Four Corners Monument.

As predicted, I wasn't quite able to fix everything. I was able to fire up the shield generator, but the shield boosters, FSD booster, fighter hanger, and AFMs are still completely wrecked. I might be able to fix the AFMU by myself with some of the spare parts lying around, but everything else is gonna need to be addressed at the core.

And instead of bothering to fix the fighter hanger I've decided to sell it off entirely now, well... because...

My crewmate, Sidney Manning... he's.... gone. I couldn't figure it out in time. Must've been something with that thargoid witchspace conduit that messed him up real bad, but no amount of nano-treatments seemed to work. He didn't even show any symptoms until a few Klys away from where we popped out. I and my other crewmate, [REDACTED] didn't seem to be affected none. Probably due to my nanomachines and that [REDACTED]'s actually a [DATA EXPUNGED]. But Sid wasn't. He was pure, flesh and blood human. The only one I could actually stand being around.

His "condition" only worsened from there. At 600 jumps to go, I had to confine him to quarters, as he couldn't even stand anymore. At 400, he became unresponsive, and the panic began setting it. At just 200lys from the carrier, he finally succumbed to the sickness, and I had to finally pronounce him dead. It's not like anyone on this carrier could do anything for him anyway. If my nanomachines couldn't cure him, then I highly doubt anything will.

After he died, I put him in one of the spare escape pods we had onboard, and carried him to the carrier for a proper "space burial". I couldn't find the strength to do it myself, so, I let the carrier crewmen do it instead. All that was left was to terminated the contract. I've never found it so hard to press a button this much in my whole pathetic excuse for a life. He's been with me since CMDRs were allowed to have crewmen in the first place. Never needed anyone else, and now he's gone forever.....

....

Being out in the black for so long has given me plenty of time to think this whole thing over. The more I think about it, the more that this entire situation seems to bear all the hallmarks of an assassination attempt. The modifications, the drive malfunctions, the fact that one of my crewmembers has already died from it, all of it. Maybe the Club's been trying to get rid of me? I've known Palin for too long, he sounded pretty certain of his findings. Even my own head-software said he wasn't lying. So either he was real good at hiding the fact he was lying, the Club held him at gunpoint, or if they fed him misinformation has yet to be determined. One thing's for damn certain though...

Someone's going to answer for this. One way, or another.

Welp, that's enough venting for now. Gonna hunker down here for the next few days, take my mind off things.

...

...

...

Aw, screw it. Did that cmdr put a gin bar anywhere on this thing?

Spoiler

Big thanks to cmdr Blastduke and the Four Corners Monument for providing me the privilege of docking at ya'lls carrier!

Spoiler

Oh, and another big thanks to cmdr Hilar0013 and the fuel rats for saving my ass from a string of brown dwarves!

Update 2: Home, and the horse that got me there.

So, I made it home. 54Klys, repairs at Explorer's Anchorage, a detour halfway to Colonia, and a carrier ride home, I've finally made it back. Yep, you read that right. Against my better judgement, I've entrusted another Commander with getting me home. Saw the drama unfold in the bubble around the Empire, and caved to hitching a ride on a carrier. But not without a stop at Sag A* though.

Had mostly everything repaired, including the FSD booster. Got lucky there. But probable didn't need to.... sort of.
Once the drama broke out, I started scouring the channels, looking for a reliable carrier owner for a quick ride back home. One of those carriers, the Mystic Explorer, just so happened to be on a rescue mission beyond Colonia. They didn't have the fuel to re-route to Sag A*, so I arranged to rendezvous at a black hole at the center of a small nebula. At least the repaired FSD booster was able to push my 'vette past 32lys in one jump.

The ride was rather relaxing. Gave me time to reflect on my journey, and more importantly, what I was going to do once I got back home. Particularly in regards to Palin. Now, Canonn itself has decided not to support the "Turning the Wheel" initiative, citing neutrality. And thus, I had no intentions of jumping aboard either, until "the club" decided to throw me across the entire galaxy. Now it's... personal. Dumped all my exploration data at one of the Dark Wheel stations, hoping it would at least help them in the slightest. I do plan on helping them out in the future too, but definitely not in the Corvette. The internal damage from the mis-jump and all the subsequent jumping is going to take months to fully repair. I would scrap it and use the parts to build another, but... this ship in particular is far to valuable to me to even consider such a thing.

...

And then there's Palin, and his data. I've already swapped ships, landed in Arque, questioned Palin, and observed his documentation. Palin maintains his innocence, and his documents seem to support that. Except where he made his breakthrough. I was right about him being fed misinformation. Apparently, the mathematics were near perfect, but still impossible. Just one piece of the data he gathered was fraudulent, but that was just enough to throw him off. And me across the galaxy.
The modded probe was a part of it, too. It seemed to not only attract a 'goid, but a medusa specifically. But most importantly, when picked up by said medusa, would emit a radiation that would interfere with a 'goid's witchspace conduit's ability to repel human ships, allowing them to pass through it. At least the garbage data wasn't entirely garbage after all....

...

But that's for later. As of now, I'm off to [REDACTED], to see the rest of my [REDACTED]. The vast majority of them don't miss me, obviously, since they're just robots and [REDACTED], but I sure as hell miss them.

Spoiler

Huge thanks to CMDR Easy Going and his fleet carrier the Mystic Explorer for the impromptu pick-me-up!

 

[GroG79]

So it was a carrier and you were sleeping behind the wheel?

Drop all the heavy stuff in a carrier with outfitting.. Might get you some extra LY range.. You will need it

O7

 

["Red" the Pirate]

Updated OP^^^^^^