graf of grafmanitou

This has been an eventful several days. 27 light years from Coratha I finally ran into some old codger at a ramshackle outpost who was willing to take the trade data. We shared some stories, and after some liquid persuasion he mentioned an art smuggler who owed him big that hadn’t been seen in weeks. Got the impression this guy kept house spinward, not too far from the outpost, away from Fed space. I stocked up, refueled and, making sure the sensor suites were baseline, I took a two day journey through seven systems I figured might hold some sign of this art smuggler.

I was into the fifth system before I found the wreck. Nine pieces of some inexplicable artwork floating amidst fibrecarbon and shattered hull. No sign of a body. By this time I had accumulated data on seven stars, twenty two planets and a half dozen asteroid belts. I figured it was time to head back to the outpost, which I did. On the way I ran into a Python that pulled me out of supercruise, but he didn’t have my speed and I didn’t stick around to have a chat.

Back at the outpost the codger forked over 26,000 creds for the pretentious crap I picked up, not without some badgering from me, mind you. That and another 17,000 for the cartographic data made me a nice little cushion. I’ve decided I will hang about here: the folks are friendly enough and not too anal about paperwork or where stuff comes from. The place is right at the edge of settled space. Upspin from here is all unmapped and with my rig I can probably make a go of it. In fact, as I record this I’m floating above a metal rich rock orbiting a supernova at 300ls, which is pretty damn close! Quite a sight that star filling the horizon. I’m hitting the napcabin now, but when I wake it’ll be deeper into the dark.

I’ve gone through Traveler’s manual, sold the obsolete celestial scan unit, and made my first foray into deep space beyond my home system.

The intermediate discovery scanner works like a charm. I visited five nearby systems: one with only a stellar body, three with plenty of low value frozen or rocky planets, but one with four mineral rich planets and an Earth-like world!

But not without cost. There are plenty of vagabonds out here, and while I managed to elude several interdiction attempts, one bastard in another Cobra yanked me from supercruise and proceeded to take down my shields! He messed with the wrong pilot. It’s not for nothing I operated split-miners in Coratha system, dodging and chasing down fast-moving ore-rich ‘roids in erratic and chaotic orbits. I opened his cockpit to the cold of space before he could do the same to me, and I left him and his wreck to drift in emptiness forever. A cold satisfaction, there. And five thousand creds for the pleasure, too. Bugger was wanted.

I also found abandoned trade data near a wreck I discovered in the system with the Earth-like world. Scooped it up, then hauled ass to the nearest port of call, a high-tech manufacturing system that promptly identified the stuff as stolen and slapped me with a 17 thousand cred fine! All my arguments and yelling came to nothing. I don’t think they like me much there anymore – I didn’t pay the fine, kept the load and I’ll sell the stuff where it’ll be appreciated.

Meantime, I visited Universal Cartographics (UC) there and left their office 40K richer. Now that I could, had the hangar chief bolt a point defence system to Traveler. That Cobra I met used missiles, and I don’t want to experience those again at close range!

I’ll crash here for a while, and then see if I can offload my hot cargo…

The Premium Beta for the game Elite: Dangerous will begin May 30. Perhaps I will log my experiences here as a pilot in an emergent, and virtual, 400 billion star galaxy. IC, of course: Graf Stefan, Cobra pilot and explorer, hedonist and conceited pseudo-philosopher.

Galaxy, here I come.