I woke up back in Skvortsov Dock. The party was over. Ventilation ducts blew wayward decorations around the hanger while limp helium balloons tried halfheartedly to figure out which way was up in the artificial gravity. The cops had scooped up my escape pod and brought it back here. For the reward, of course. Hope they choked on the lousy 400 credits they got for blowing up my ship.

Something they never tell you in pilot training is that the inside of an escape pod smells bad. Really bad. A mixture of burnt skin, burnt plastic, sweat, and puke. Still, it beat the hell out of staying in the ship. I climbed out, cleaned myself up as best I could and went off to find some coffee.

As I sat in the pilot's lounge nursing a five alarm hangover and waiting for my insurance payment to come through, who should walk in but the queen of the bowl cut herself, Envoy Roselyn Rowe. She had a much younger looking person of indeterminate gender with green hair and an ugly face tattoo draped on her left arm. Envoy Rowe looked imperious as ever. Green hair looked haughty in the way that only a clueless youth can.

"I heard you attacked one of our ships last night. A shame. I had to demote you from cordial to neutral. So disappointing, we had high hopes for you." "Thanks for checking on me, sweet cheeks! I could really use one of your famous back rubs right about now." I growled low and sexy while raising my eyebrows suggestively. I saw green hair's nostrils flair. Roselyn's lips twitched from disgust to a dismissive half smile. "Alas, I don't have the time." she boasted. "The reception last night was a smashing success and I have many promising leads to follow up on. Both the Kuanes Partners and the Alkuyuma Independents expressed keen interest in strengthening our relationships so there is much work to do."

Even if I wanted to, I don't think I could have stopped my eyes from glazing over as she prattled on with her political yammerings. Didn't mean squat to me. I guess it didn't matter to her that I had killed a few dozen or so of her faction's enemies but been outdone by a stray shot that did no real damage to the target but ended up costing me over 8 million credits. Some people just don't get it.

Grendel, you better go home. Your mama's calling and Goldilocks is mad as hell.

Friends, it was glorious. I'll never understand how so many mediocre pilots can get handed the keys to an anaconda and then get sent out to do somebody else's dirty work. Even more amazing is how a pilot so lame can have 150k credits worth of bounties on their head! They must be doing something wrong right, right? This damn galaxy is full of mysteries. In no time at all I had racked up over 3 million in bounty vouchers. I let the cops start the fights and I swooped in for the kill. Those fat 'condas would just roll and spin while I stayed out of the way of the big gun, killed their power plant, and made them go boom. I wonder what the insides of those big fancy ships look like when they aren't blown apart.

Turned out, the 10 tonnes of whisky in my hold didn't hurt. They'd scan me then say "Sorry, I thought you were someone else." Yeah, right. Only slightly less lame than "My children will go hungry tonight.". Well, it was after one of these "mistaken identity" scans that I spun around and started shooting at an Asp Scout before confirming the "wanted" status. Ooops! You'd think I'd shaved my back and called myself a Thargoid. Every damn ship in the place turned red and lit my ass up like a supernova.

I fumbled around like a space-sick cadet trying to jump. Mass locked! Shit! Power to Shields! Boost! Click. Shit! Power to engines! Jump! Cannot comply. Shit! Retract weapons! The whole time my hull was dropping, dropping, dropping, dropping. The last thing I remember was hearing the voice of one of the same damn cops who stole my bounty saying "lining up the shot.." as red lights flashed and my ship's computer calmly droned "Eject. Eject. Eject." (To be continues....)

After getting the cold shoulder from boss lady, I'm off to the low RES for some easy target shooting. Pirate bait: check - ten tonnes of whisky. Yes, I know, I'm looking for very desperate lame ass pirates, I admit it. So sue me. I get to the low RES and its just me, about 50 trigger-happy cops, and some pimple-faced kid in a sidewinder that just got a parking ticket and a 200 credit bounty. My vision of swarms of fat, easy kills poots away like a beer fart in an afterburner. Sheesh! What else ya got?

Back to supercruise. Next planet, same shit: Haz or low, take your pick. I do a background search on "Grendel" while I'm cruising and I learn that Grendel was some sort of a legendary lame-ass Earth monster who had to have his mom bail him out of a fight. Seem's sort of oddly apropos. I think maybe I should change my name to another legendary hero, Goldilocks, as I search for a RES that's not too hot and not too cold.

Next planet has just conflict zones. Nah, not my battle. I'm always down with killing baddies who mess with miners. Maybe on account of my parents were miners who got roasted by pirates. Whatever. Anyway, The CZs always seem to be about a bunch of rich guys fighting for a bigger share of trillions of credits. Not about some poor honest slob who's just trying to send his kid to pilot school. The little guys die while the rich guys sip Eranin Pearl Whiskey safely back at their station. I keep cruising. Finally, the last planet has a regular RES and a high RES. In a spasm of overconfidence, I point my python at the high RES and drop down into whatever comes next. (To be continued...)

It turns out that the Bodhengue system is an easy jump away with an agricultural planet close to entry. Bodabing-Bodaboom-Bodhengue. I'm just here for beer but then I see a crazy low price on whisky. Candy is dandy and beer is dear but liquor IS quicker. So, 4 tonnes of beer, 188 tonnes of the local hooch, a bag of chips, and I'm sure nobody will notice if I just sample a couple of these little beauties as a quality assurance service. Heh! I do love this life! I wobble my way out of the station and punch it back to Grendel.

That's when the dangerous rated pirate in the Gun Ship popped me out of supercruise. FUCK! I'm just trying to bring some damn beer back for a party and you are going to 'dict with ME! Fuck you! Well, he has a bounty from the same group that's throwing the party so I figure I can kill him to get in even tighter with madame purple lips. Heh! You sly dog! Boost, boost, boost, weapons hot and combat pitch back around just as he hits me with the friggin' beam lasers. Shit. He got the first lick in but my shields still have 2 rings and now I'm really pissed. So we go back and forth a few times. I'm getting the best of him but taking some damage. I'm down to about 50% hull and he's at 15% when the cops show up. He makes one final desperate run at me. Both our shield chargers are clanging away trying to recharge. I give him all three large lasers and 2 smart missiles just to shut him up. Somehow, he boosts past me and into the waiting beam lasers of the newly arrived federales who promptly blow his ass half-way to Sagitarius A. I wait to see my reward pop up. And wait. Then I realize the fucking cops took my fucking bounty and there's nothing I can fucking do about it! Aaaah! Man I hate this life!

Well, I limp the beer back to ol' dark eyes (Envoy Roselyn Rowe, you vixen, you...) who sort of burps and giggles at the same time as she gives me her frosty smile and says thank you. She turns back to the other bigwigs at the soire' leaving me alone with my empty bottles and my spite. I sell most of the whisky but keep 10 tonnes for pirate bait. The profit almost pays for the repair and reload of my ship after the attack of the no-bounty cops - I mean - pirate. Still, I have a good chance of making it all back and more! - What could possibly go wrong? (To be continued....)

Next came the part of the plan that was... well, you'll see. In a flash of stupid brilliance I decide to buy whatever they've got at the station to use as bait in the low RES. Just to make things more inaresting, you understand. I'm picturing swarms of one-shot kills exploding all around me as the cops just sit and gaze in wonder. I'll kill a few baby pirates, then sell the bait for a profit at the next system. I think the words "What could possibly go wrong?" may have even coalesced ominously in my thoughts.

So I dock at the station as they are planning and decorating for some big political shindig. Not my circus, don't care about you or your damn space-monkeys. I just want to buy me some pirate bait and go kill some of your local bad-ass wanabes. That's when I learn the system has a Terra-forming economy. All they've got for sale is shit and hydrogen. Literally. Really fine pirate bait, that bio-waste. Argh-Argh-Argh.

About that time I spot the head honcho lady, Envoy Roselyn Rowe. Ah, those deep, dark eyes. That dark purple lipstick. That stylish bowl shaped haircut. She's trying to get a party started with NO BEER. Heh! Is she lucky to have ME stop by? Hell yes! Am I lucky I'm the guy who was here to help? Ummmm, we'll see.

My first thought is to charm her enough to pay me a modest fee to fetch some party materials (Goin' back to my roots, here, heh!). Well, this boss lady wasn't going to pay jack just so her people could have a good time. That should have been a big warning. How could anybody so cold look so hot? She ended up sweet talking ME, yes, me, of all people to donate 4 tonnes of beer in return for her faction's undying gratitude and cordial relationships, and blah, blah, blah, wink, blah, blah, blah, fine, lady, yes, I'll go get your damn beer. Of course, being the sly one, I figure if they have no beer for their party, SOMEBODY around here must want to buy some. So sure, I'll throw in 4 free ones and sell you 188 tonnes at a profit. Heh! Heh Heh! Heh? uh, heh? um, we'll see. (to be continued...)

So I'm heading out to visit this derelict station in the hermitage system. I'm a freelancer who got started in trading by making beer runs for my greasy-tech ship-mechanic buddies as a wee lad back home in Yakabugai. Nowadays I do a little bit of everything, whatever pays the credits to keep my python flying. I figure there might be some good salvage or data scan opportunities at the old station. You don't know if you don't go! I just had a quiet visit with Ms Farseer while she tuned up my FSD so I was ready to stretch my python's new legs. Felicity even did a nice little upgrade on my shield boosters for next to nothing. Charged me 1 phosphorous or some shit like that. Cheap at twice the price.

Anywho, I jump into this Grendel system. Grendel? WTF izzat? Some ancient Sol legend or some shit? I'm just about to punch into the next system when I notice a line of seven beautiful ringed gas giants with major reserves and an orbiting Coriolis station only a few clicks out from the entry star. Sweet! Pew Pew Pew, cash in, R&R, then back on my way.

Simple plan. But simple plans have a way of getting complicated, don't they? I'm nearing the first ringed planet when I see that there's only low and hazardous RES in the rings. Now, I'm pretty much mostly semi-ok in a dogfight. I worked my way up to a master combat rating and all but I do like it when the cops are around to bail my sorry ass out of a jam. Haz is just plain out of my league. The low? Well, it's a little low, isn't it? Any rational person would say "Nah, never mind." at this point. Me, I say "Aaaah fugit, I'm here!" so I keep on flying towards the station, Skvortsov Dock. Dumb, dumb, dumb. (To be continued...)

like a lot of Commanders, I had my first encounters with thargoid "ships" yesterday. All four encounters occured in Pleiades Sector IR-W d1-55. I was flying in a Python and carrying around 70 tons of Resonating separators en route to Obsidian Orbital in the Maia system as part of a community goal. In each case, an "unknown signal source appeared. In each case, as I approached the USS, a second USS appeared nearby. In the first three encounters, I ignored the second USS. on the 4th encounter, I changed course to encounter the new USS instance.

I came to a stop upon dropping from supercruise and scanned the thargoid vessel. I received an unknown vessel error message and some binary data on my left hand hologram display. The Thargoid vessel approached me and scanned me. their "scans" release a visible green tendril. 3 of the four encounters, the ship did not strike me as particularly aggressive. I did not deploy weapons & kept a fair distance (300 - 500 meters) away. In all four cases, the "attack drones" were deployed as I approached and rotated around the main ship but did not attack me. The third ship seemed more agitated. It "roared" more often, shook more violently and deployed it's "attack drones" immediately when I dropped in from supercruise. In three of the four instances, there was an occupied escape pod that the thargoid ship took in with a tendril-like tractor beam. In two cases I tried to get there first and rescue the pod with my cargo scoop. The thargoid did not attack me, just kind of ignored me. In all four cases there were heavily damaged empire ships in the vicinity - Cutters and Clippers. Possibly one was a courier. All showed some form of (corrosive?) glowing green damage with flames present. After examining the cargo and taking in the occupied pod if present (there was no occupied pod in my 4th encounter - just cargo) the thargoid entity turned, accelerated very rapidly and jumped to hyperspace. I successfully scanned the wake in the last three encounters.

After four relatively benign encounters, I would have to dispute those commanders that claim the Thargoids "attack on sight". Circumstantial evidence strongly suggests they attacked and destroyed the empire ships but I did not witness this. Some writers have claimed the Thargoids are eating the humans in the pods. I have no evidence of that. In all cases, they left other non-human cargo alone; reactive armor, black boxes (2), scientific research, tactical data, military communications, and a few other miscellaneous cargo items. I sold all salable cargo items at Obsidian orbital in Maia (one was a black market item) and turned in the black boxes and rescuable items at Reeds Rest in Merope.

Just reached 2k first discovered systems at Blaa Eork QE-P d6-8. This is a rather odd system with a strange looking High metal content world. Nothing odd in the valuable sense, just in the orbital configurations. If you want details, you'll have to go see it for yourself!

Gru Hypai VQ-T d4-116 arrival point is between 2 stars. minor heat damage but still flying.

Then! Gru Hypai UC-W c4-96 Same deal! 50,000 Light years with no incidents now 2 witin 300 LY of each other.

Whats the record for the closest gas giant to a star?

I just found a Class V Gas giant at 11.18 LS from a class F star. Seems a lot closer than usual...

Blua Phio BX-R d5-59