Haven’t written in this logbook for a while. I’ve been busy doing short excursions to explore systems on the edge of the Bubble. Did I mention I visited a black hole for the first time? This was a little while ago. I had noticed this bright B-type star in a system called p Puppis, and I wanted to go and take a closer look. What I did not expect was that I would also stumble upon a black hole. The embodiment of entropy, and I couldn’t resist its pull either. I had to go and see from up close. The rational part of my brain was screaming at me to turn away before being torn to shreds, but I kept going.

A while later, I went back to the heart of the Bubble, in Epsilon Indi, where I landed on Mitterand’s Hollow. That was very unique. I had meant to join other people there, but I arrived too late and everyone had already left, so I stayed there for a moment, watching an uncountable number of eclipses, waving at the people living on New Africa. There was a crash site, and I thought I’d go investigate. Unfortunately, skimmers popped out of nowhere, and after I got rid of them, I was notified that I was now a criminal for property destruction. Oops.

Got that taken care of, and I left for Stein 2051, where I spent a while looking for bio samples on a dark planet, under the cold, distant glow of a white dwarf. Shortly after that, I found myself in Thunderbird, which had a magnificent Earth-like planet surrounded by rings! I’ve been strangely drawn to rings lately. They offer such interesting sights.

35 Vulpeculae was another highlight. I landed on another ringed planet from which I could see two stars, so close together in the sky. It was very hot, and I couldn’t stay out for long because my suit was about to melt, but landing on that soft, green ground, watching the geysers and the rings and that pair of stars... I loved it.

Later, as I was looking for Tubus on a moon somewhere in the same system, my attention was caught by something I had not seen before on my onboard computer... A “non-human signature”. Intrigued, and a little worried, I decided to get closer. There was something on the ground, glowing blue and green. Pretty. Definitely of Thargoid origin. Some probe, maybe? This couldn’t possibly be good. I usually like to make sure I don’t damage anything when I am exploring around, but given the current context, I decided I couldn’t take any risks. I destroyed the probe, and kept some fragments, in case it might come in handy later.

Every jump is an adventure, and I can never be quite sure what I’m going to find next. Is it going to be a single, lonely star? Is it going to be a huge system where I’ll be spending weeks mapping and cataloguing my findings? Am I going to find a moon orbiting its planet so close I can recognise the mountains where I went to look for fungoida? A number of discoveries are now attached to my name – while I did not discover any new systems, very few Commanders have ever visited some of the places I stopped at, and no one had apparently mapped or landed on some of those planets and moons. It’s hard to pick pictures to attach to this entry, because I’ve been taking so many. (Which is why I try to post screenshots regularly on my blog so I can still share them.)

Towards the end of February, I made my way back towards inhabited systems. This is part of Alliance territory, and the data I sold at stations owned by Alioth Independents quickly made me an ally of theirs. I have yet to go and visit their home system, but since I have been issued a permit, I will certainly be doing that at some point.

They’ve also been sending me offers for delivery missions, out of the blue. This last one didn’t go as expected. Shortly after I reached Ryijin, my client messaged me with a warning that enemy ships had been sent after me. My Cobra doesn’t even have any weapons on her, because I don’t expect to be doing any fighting in the mostly empty systems I spend most of my time in. I throttled down to take a quick look at my map so I could decide on the best course of action.

The HUD turned itself off before my eyes as Verity notified me that we were under attack. And my shields were off, because I really only activate them when I am about to land or dock somewhere. Quick, jump, anywhere, knowing that Simon “Frogs” Frost was probably going to be following me. I docked at the first station I could find, so I could at least sell my precious exploration and biological data, and have some weapons installed on my ship, just in case.

Fortunately, _Frogs _wasn’t able to interdict me, and I eventually managed to reach Bryant Gateway, deliver the data I had been given, and take a long moment to breathe. I am currently landed on a small moon with an ammonia atmosphere. The sky is full of reddish and brownish hues. I’m spending the night next to a patch of fungoida, hidden deep in the mountains. I’ve noticed there’s a bunch of visitor beacons around this system, so I’m going to go and learn more about BD+74 526 pretty soon.

The other day, I was doing some exploration around Tarach Tor, where one of the rescue megaships is staying. Sparrow had told me she’d be busy evacuating wounded people from 70 Tauri (this was before the invasion of that system, mind you) and I figured I’d go and help out, even though the Elmwing is not currently outfitted for hauling massive amounts of cargo at the time.

Plotted my route and initiated the jump sequence. Once I reached HR 1279, I had to take a slightly deeper breath than usual, because I knew my next jump was the one to 70 Tauri. That’s okay, I thought. I’ve got this. Alright. Time to jump.

A big, red message suddenly flashed on my HUD. WARNING. HYPERSPACE CONDUIT UNSTABLE. That was one I had never seen before, but I knew what it meant. Oh boy, oh boy. Here we go. The Thargoids had decided to throw me a welcome party.

I’ve never met any Thargoids before. To be honest, I’ve done my best to avoid them. I’m not much of a fighter. But, I had watched the training videos and spent time reading the advice of experimented AX pilots. A few, long seconds elapsed as I waited for my HUD to reappear. Time to escape. Deploy heat sinks. Full pips to engines. Boost far, far away. "Under attack", said Verity, in a tone that was definitely too calm for this situation. I caught a glimpse of a shiny, red, angry flower.

That’s okay, that’s okay, that’s okay. Just keep boosting. Charge the FSD. Deploy another heat sink. Just keep boosting. Ohhh why is it charging so slowly? My ship was starting to make funny noises. I looked down at my hull health indicator. 17%. It was at this moment... I knew... I fucked up.

Next thing I know, Sparrow had somehow found my escape pod and scooped me up. She took me to Bosch Enterprise so I could complete the insurance paperwork and get my ship back. Fortunately, the rest of the trip went smoothly.

Part of me wishes I had activated the camera drones so I could at least have some footage of the incident (who knows, maybe the insurance people would have given me a discount on the rebuy?). But, I don’t have any footage, so instead, here’s a picture of the fireworks I decided to set off for the New Year. A warm welcome to 3309, here’s to hoping the world can return to peace.