The voyage "home"

I think there's something in every human that draws them back to the place where it all began. Even if you've never visited Sol, or even considered it, I bet there's something comforting about seeing a small blue planet orbiting an M class star. Something you can't quite put your finger on. Something that says "this is home".

It was this very feeling that made me punch in a course to the Sol system, so far way. I needed to see where we all came from. There's a billion suns in the universe, but I want to see THE sun. The original. The one everyone looked at before they realised there were other worlds out there. I want to see the red spot of Jupiter, see if the stories about it being four times the size of the earth are true. And of course, Earth. There's something almost... spiritual about it. I want to see it for myself. Maybe that will give my life some sort of validation. Maybe it will just be a disappointment. I have to find out.

When I plotted the course, I was some 80 light years out from Sol. It was going to take me 22 or so jumps to get there. This was going to be a long journey, but I was going to make the most of it. Any uncharted systems can be scanned for their data. I reckon I could make about 30 grand in total from that if I'm lucky. Then of course there's the little side-trades I'm starting to get the hang of. And if I get bored... well there's always the odd bounty to collect too...

The first few legs of my journey were pretty uneventful, scanning system bodies and just flying between systems. I was half asleep by the time I reached Ncori, but a dice with death woke me up and no mistake.

I'd noticed a few signal sources around the nav beacon and decided to investigate. Every so often you find some decent salvage, or a criminal just asking to be shot down. I dropped out of supercruise to find one such pirate flying a sidewinder. Easy prey.

Without bothering to hail him I scanned to ensure he was wanted, and then opened up with my lasers, stripping his shields in moments. He started panicking and spinning up his FSD, so I knew I needed to nail him now or lose him (I still ahven't bought a wake scanner, I probably should). My bullets hammered into him, turning his armour to molten slag. He span round and tried to return fire before dropping his cargo to free up mass. I knew I had to nail him quickly, so I targeted his FSD directly and emptied everything I had into him. The poor pirate wannabe popped like an overripe grape.

The bounty wasn't particularly high, but every little helps, right? I started scooting about to see if there was anything worth salvaging, when siddenly two new contacts appeared on my radar. The bastard must have gotten off a distress call before I vaped him. This was a potentially bad situation. Two Viper MKIIIs, closing fast. I considered engaging, but before I could even pitch round to bring my guns to bear, my shields were gone and I was taking damage.

Alsot on autopilot, I retracted my hardpoints and warmed up the FSD. This was problematic. The mass of the ships nearby was slowing down the FSD charge, and on top of that, my cabin temperature was rising. Between losing my shields, diverting all my power to the engine and the HUGE NUCLEAR FIREBALL HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF KILOMETERS WIDE in close proximity, I was at 150% overall heat in a matter of seconds. This was bad. This was very bad. My hull integrity was at 35%, and the heat was creeping up to 180% - and the FSD was STILL only 80% charged. I was certain this was the end.

Suddenly, a beam laser sliced out of nowhere, past my ship, into one of the pursuers. The Feds had arrived, thank the stars. With one of the vipers distracted, I was taking less damage. With my hull at 25% and cabin temperature at 192% my FSD finally came online and I hit supercruise. I decided to try and make the rest of the journey a little less... exciting.

I ended up in the fomorians system and docked ASAP. My cargo hold was full of food cartridges I had picked up about 4 hops back, and I made a tidy 2 grand profit selling these. Unfortunately, the stationw as unable to offer any repairs, so I just took a deep breath and left for LP 754-50.

Once I reached the system I realised I'd completely forgotten to stock up on fuel. Fortunately, the system has an M class star, so I activated the fuel scoop and skimmed its atmosphere. Now, some of you might be doubting the wisdom of flying close to a star when you only have 25% hull integrity left and have never tried scooping fuel before in your life. And to those people I say "Oh ye of little faith!" Sure I almost overheated at one point, but I filled my fuel reserve (saving myself a little bit of money), and headed to Weyn port to dock.

Weyn port lay on the far side of a great gas giant. It was an impressive sight, and I was fumbling around with my camera trying to get a photo when my ship started violently shaking from side to side and warning lights started flashing with the words "escape vector" on my HUD; I was being interdicted.

I dropped my camera and wrestled with the controls, but I ended up getting pulled out of supercruise to face... A single pirate, in his sidewinder. I tore him to pieces. Remembering what happened last time, and the sad state my ship was in, I didn't wait around. I span up the FSD, hit supercruise and moments later I was docked at Weyn Station.

 After repairing and restocking I started analysing traide routes. There was still a long way to go before I reached Sol, but I would try and get a few hops closer before sleep forced me to stop. I sold a buinch of cartography data for a few grand, stocked up on water purifiers and headed out. The next few hops were pretty uneventful, except for the very respectable 6 grand profit I made hauling uraninite to Wolf 896, and the 8 grand I made selling the Tantalum I picked up there at 5G Capricorni.

So here I am. 7 jumps out of Sol. I've got 150 grand in the bank. Im Mostly HArmless, Mostly Penniless and Mostly Aimless. And I STILL don't know how I'm going to get a permit to enter the Sol system.

But I will.