Drafted-Exploring
Drafted 11 - Exploring
Exploring
The next morning you are rudely awakened by the Sergeant. Nothing changed about that and you are consequently forced to train some more and get your breakfast. At the breakfast table you hear that you are not the only one who has had success in their exploration of the station. As the scientists were mainly focused on the entrance to the hangar and later the observatory, they made some headway with the hangar services. Not only about the automated repair, but they also discovered the automated production facilities next to the hangar. Those facilities are not only used to create small stuff like tables and chairs, but everything from cups and saucers to battleships. Even more important, they found a huge stash of servers, all containing blueprints for everything. At least that is what you are told. When you question one of the scientists you find out that there is a huge lack in blueprints. There is no way they will produce any kind of weapon, at least not of the Yan Jung. There are no blueprints that cover that part. It makes you wonder, how come they cannot produce the weapons, but there are battleships and cruisers in the hangar, completely fitted including their guns. Your train of thought is derailed as the Sergeant nudges you.
“Let’s go ensign, we’re flying today.”
“Ok” you simply reply.
Thirty minutes later you emerge from the hangar. Not flying for a few weeks hasn’t diminished your skills in the least. With a small thought you plunge the ship into a barrel roll just as you exit the hangar until you come at a full stop next to Simmons. Ferrier also emerges from the hangar, followed by the Sergeant. An invite to fleet up chimes and you join your small but familiar squad.
“Listen up” the Sergeant says “we are going to fly around this wormhole space a bit. I don’t expect to encounter anything, but keep an eye out anyway. In the meantime Ferrier will start a scan to find an exit out of this place, so we can fly home for a sleep in our own beds. Not to mention have a real training in better circumstances, gravity wise.”
You can almost hear his smile trying to split his face in two, you think by yourself. “Ok Sergeant” Ferrier replies and releases eight probes one by one. A few seconds they just hover near his ship and suddenly seven of them warp off. One is flying a bit away from the ship and just waits.
You ask Aura to connect to the AI of Ferrier’s ship so you can see what he is doing. Aura shows you a rather blank map of the wormhole space. Then the probes begin to send out their signals, received by Ferrier’s ship. As the signals are processed the local map is slowly filled with the structures and dimensions of the wormhole space.
“Do you have to do this every time to create a map” you ask Ferrier.
“No, not at all, however this exercise hasn’t been done yet for this wormhole. After I have finished Aura will load all the details to all the nearby friendly vessels and to the station computers. “
“But shouldn’t there be detailed info in there already? I mean, we have been flying around here for quite a while now.”
“Well yes, but this gives you much more information. Besides the info from those flights have already been incorporated into your maps, but you can see how much effect that had. Look the scan has finished, take a look at your map. “ You take a good look at your map, you see the old locations of the structures in wormhole space. Then a flicker to indicate an update, and then there is information, on not only where the structures are, but also how big the wormhole space is. It is huge, more than 1500 Au across.
“Wow, this wormhole space is big” you say out loud.
“Yes it is bigger than normal wormholes” Ferrier replies with something of wonder in his voice.
“So we have to explore all this space?”
“Yes ensign” the Sergeant chips in. “Let us start with the first celestial object at, what is it, 20 Au from here? Yes that should do, then Ferrier can use his probes again for a more detailed scan.”
With that he starts his warp sequence and you enter in fleet warp along with him, Simmons and Ferrier. As soon as you exit warp you are greeted by an asteroid belt which is huge. Large asteroids float in space, seemingly not moving, but you see one or two crashing into each other and some smaller asteroids, with the size of a large house floating away as a result of a nudge from one of the bigger ones, the size of a flat. You get your orders from the Sergeant, ordering you and Simmons to start scanning those asteroids to find out what kind they are and if they can be mined. Also you are to be on the look-out for any signals and other interesting stuff.
“And what interesting stuff might that be Sergeant?”
“Anything that emits a signal or starts shooting at you counts as interesting.” Ferrier releases his probes, this time a different set.
“Hey Ferrier, why not use those other probes? The ones you had out before?”
“Ah, those are just for generic scanning. Just to get the lay of the land so to speak. These don’t have the range as the others but they are far more better equipped to receive more detailed signals.”
“Ok, I get it.” Without further delay you fly by the asteroids towards the end of the belt. Scanning the rocks for their content and keeping a look out for anything interesting, but nothing comes up. Just endless amounts of veldspar, jaspet, gneis, plagioclase, scordite and pyroxeres. Baptiste will be out of his mind of joy if he gets to mine these asteroids. However, for you it is not that interesting at all, and fortunately after ten more minutes you have scanned all the asteroids and are sending all the scan information to the station for the scientist and more probable the mining engineers to look over. Soon after that you are fleet warped to the next location on the map. Another asteroid belt you see as you are closing in on the destination. Without a word from the Sergeant, you start scanning again and see that Simmons is doing the same and Ferrier launches his probes again. Soon you are in a routine, scanning all the asteroid belts takes only about fifteen minutes at a time, but there are over thirty of those belts. Scanning them one by one will take you pretty much the rest of the day, but still you are glad to be in your spaceship again. Even doing some stunts while Aura takes care of the scanning. Barrel rolls, loop-di-loops, inverted cork screws, anything you can think off to make the scanning less dull. Finally you have finished the last belt and before you can even ask the Sergeant, he already replies.
“So that takes care of the asteroid belts. Tomorrow we will go and visit some of the other sites, but now we are going to have some dogfights. Small tournament, whoever wins will get to fight me.”
“What if we attack you with the three of us?” Simmons asks.
“That’s up to you, but you cannot destroy each other’s ships, so only go until you hit structure, then the fight is over.” You get a new convo invite. Simmons and Ferrier calling, as you mute the fleet channel you accept the invite and soon you are discussing the strategy for taking out the Sergeant.
“I only got some drones, so you guys will have to do the heavy work” Ferrier states, “the benefit is that I can do that from about 40 kilometers of.
“Ok, so we start squaring up to each other and then hit the Sergeant, with Ferrier using his drones and flying off, ok?” Simmons recapitulates.
“Yes” both you and Ferrier reply.
“Ready Sergeant” you say in the fleet channel.
“Well get it started then.”
You and Simmons take your positions, starting up your hardeners and then suddenly let loose on the Sergeant. Simmons takes the high route, you cross his path and swerve downwards trying to keep your transversal speed for the Sergeant as high as you get it. For a moment the Vexor cruiser of the Sergeant just sits there as its shields are rapidly diminishing.
“So three against one eh?” the Sergeant says in the fleet channel. “We’ll see about that.” Then his Vexor starts moving, first it seems to be following you, but as it picks up speed it swerves into a low arc and goes after Simmons. You adjust your course and keep pounding the Sergeant with your 75mm guns. The drones of Ferrier are buzzing the Sergeant, taking out even more of his shields and soon he goes into . Then you see there is something wrong. The Sergeant hasn’t released his drones yet, he is just chasing Simmons around. Then you see the gun mounts of the Vexor swiffle into action. He hasn’t even fired his guns yet, you think and you try hard to figure out what the Sergeant is going to do. As the guns start firing you are surprised that neither Simmons or you have taken any damage. He isn’t shooting at us, but at Ferrier. But he should be out of range, shouldn’t he? Before you can ask Ferrier, the Sergeant’s voice breaks the silence.
“You are out Ferrier, withdraw your drones.” You take a look at your squad indicators and see that with a few volleys Ferrier’s ship is in structure. Then you see the drones peeling away from the Vexor and back to Ferrier.
“Sorry guys” Ferrier says on the channel.
“No worries, we can still take him” Simmons replies.
Now it’s back to just you and Simmons and you fight for all that you are worth, but the Sergeant sends out his drones, Hobgoblin 2’s. The drones are attacking Simmons while the guns are swiveling around to you and start firing medium antimatter rounds at your ship. Soon your shields are gone and you take a few hits on the . As you fire up the repairer, the firing suddenly stops, but then you are surrounded by the drones. He switched fire and then also the firing stops.
“Well that was that then. Shall we return your burning ships to the station for repairs?” The Sergeant asks.
“Wait, what?” you look surprised, then take a look at the results. The Sergeant is in low , but the three of you are in structure.
“Bugger” you hear Simmons saying. “We almost had you, if only Ferrier had some guns on his ship, we would have owned this fight.
“You should have thought of that before you started to fight. Always be aware of your surroundings and the tools you have available, that includes your squad mates in a fleet fight. Should I mention that I haven’t even started up my repairer?” The Sergeant replies with a smile.
“No, don’t tell me that, just let me keep my hopes for defeating you one day.”
“Ok, I will preserve your fragile ego this once. However, what I have said does count for all times. Even when you have fully trained all your skills equal or surpass that of mine, you will still need to keep thinking on how you will attack a superior target. Those Serpentis flying around in their cruisers are easy targets for a capsuleer, a capsuleer flying a cruiser is a whole different game. One you will have to play if we get out of this wormhole and back into the fight with the Caldari. Besides, what do you think needs more improvement?” the Sergeant asks as he fleetwarps you back to the station.
“Well, perhaps I should have been closer to you so your guns wouldn’t be able to track me. I could have focused on your drones as well, taking out the majority of your dps” Simmons replies.
“No, I think you had the range picked out perfectly, and shooting my drones wouldn’t have been helpful as well, this is a Vexor, so I got ample drones on board. No, give it another try.”
“I…. I just don’t know Sergeant. I thought we had you pegged, until you shot down Ferrier.”
“That’s it, isn’t it” Ferrier intercedes.
“What is Ferrier?”
“I was stationary and at a too great a distance from you, still in your gun range, not far enough out. “
“Yes Ferrier, I was able to hit you quite easily because you were not moving at all. If you had presented a moving target I wouldn’t be able to hit you at all. Even better, if you had given the drones an order to attack and moved out of their reach, they would have kept attacking. Also you could have given the control of the drones to one of the others and cloaked. I would have known as we are in the same fleet, but it would have presented me with additional difficulties. Now I didn’t even needed to be crafty as I thought I was needed to be.”
“Well Sergeant, there is always next time” Ferrier replies as you exit warp next to the station.
Without further delay the four of you are entering the station hangar. Your pod is extracted and ten minutes later you are standing in your coveralls outside the showers. You walk up to the hangar computer terminal to make sure that your ship is repaired before it is stored. Satisfied that the repairs already started you turn to you squad mates.
“So Sergeant, what are we to do now? Another training exercise, or combat training with the marines?” you ask.
“Nothing like that, you can explore this station further. Apparently there are still some undiscovered sectors in here, and the scientists are still occupied with all the stuff you already found. Cataloging, examining and preserving and such.”
“Ok, we will find out what parts are still unidentified, but first I would like some coffee, how about you guys?” you ask, turning to Ferrier and Simmons.
“As long as I don’t have to do a hundred push-ups to get it, that sounds like a good idea to start with, perhaps some lunch as well” Simmons replies.