Terry Mixon wrote: > > One hundred sixty four hours after entering jump Arvitis comms > > Ricardo from the Bridge, "Hey, boss! We're going to break out real > > soon now. You and Shawn ought to get up here." > > Shawn made his way up and strapped in. > > > An hour and a bit later, the ship drops out of jump space. Even > > before the brief nausea passes the alarms start to go off! > > > > "Urp!" Arvitis is still struggling with the nausea, but he's trying > > to focus, "We've got a contact at 189 by 83....range, 74,000 > > klicks dang that was close!" > > Shawn hit the all hands switch. > > "We have a contact right in our lap. Gunners to station, engineering > stand by for maneuvering!" > > > "Um, Ricky, I'm not getting a transponder signal from that bogy." > > Arvitis says, "And it's not...um,...it's a ship, I think, but it's > > not maneuvering. It's just drifting." > > > > Over the comm system you can hear the steady tone of the planetary > > signal on the standard channel. Local data is streaming in from the > > planet on the channel with the standard homing beckon. You are also > > picking up a a number of transponder signals coming from ships > > flying through the system, but all of them are millions of > > kilometers away. > > OOC: Was this the system the /Santiago/ jumped too? Without a > transponder, it is too far out to be seen from in system? OOC: Yes, the /Santiago/ would have passed through this system, but it disappeared before having arrived here. It was to jump to Sequi first then Serbia, and it disappeared on the Mark to Sequi jump. Also, yes, without a transponder, or a very lucky/unlucky accident this object could float out here for years without being spotted...pass right through the system and out into deep space where it might be centuries before it even got this close to the main planet in Serbia again. > Shawn ploted a course to the ship and estimated time to arrival if > they went that way. Arvitis says, "From the return on its surface, I'd say it has to be a ship...a small one, 100 to 200 tons, and I'm picking up an IR return that is about 2 degrees above background, so there is probably some residual power there, too. It's on a vector that takes it across the system and back out into the deep." You can pull up along side in 30 seconds, yes it is *that* close, but you'll also have to match its real vector if you want to dock with or board it and that will take about 40 minutes of burning the HEPlaR engines. Eris AKU GM
