Soft music plays in the cargo bay as Frank makes some, hopefully final, tweaks to the sensors. It's been a bit over a week since he started on this weird journey. The sensor integration has been the biggest pain in the ass he's had to deal with in a while. He was getting close, he could feel it. They were only about sixteen jumps out from the destination, and he wanted every advantage he could, after all, no telling what he'd run into.
"...and ever and on we go, never to learn or grow, pillars of peace estranged, I guess some things never change..." He sang absentmindedly to the music playing, soldering the last connection. He stood up, stretched his back, and fed a few command lines into the panel in the small craft. He exited and went to a panel on the side of the cargo bay, and typed in a few more commands. After a moment, lines of text began streaming across the screen. After a few more commands it seemed to be functional so he fed it back into his main computer.
"...weary feet tread stories in the dust..." He tabbed over to the sensor subsystem readout, and the information was flooding in. Star mass and composition, planet and planetoid data, calculated orbital trajectories. 'About damned time...' he mumbled to himself. As he read through the data, he noticed another estimated star mass listed. This confused him since this was only a single-star system. Digging a little deeper, the star was listed at just under 2 light-years away. He was stunned, sure it was just an estimate, but getting the star mass data at this range, without having to depend on the usual spectrography made him a bit giddy. He wasn't getting too much out of the system itself other than estimating just a couple of planets, but getting this much data at this range was still a great feeling.
"Now, I kinda can't wait to get a full sensor overhaul..." He said to himself, still giddy. He paused the playback on his music and made his way back to the living area. His guests were still asleep, well, not really, it's more of a deep meditation than sleep. He understood it slightly. He thought he remembered some Earth culture that used to do something similar to it as opposed to full sleep. However, they had no idea when he was describing what human sleep was to them. He eventually let it drop.
He checked the clock and it was almost time for the next jump. He poured some coffee into a mug and made his way to the bridge. He stood next to a monitor on the side of the bridge going over the sensor data until it was jump time. The asteroid belt in this system looked pristine. Iron, nickel, cadmium, even some diamond deposits. He marked the system down for future mining operations. Could be a gold, well, diamond mine, for credits, he chuckled to himself. He heard a slight chime and the drives registered as ready. He took his place in his seat, and activated his visor, targeted his next system in the route, and began the silent but visual countdown for the jump. The ship adjusted itself slightly before the drop in his stomach and the fade into the black.
Even in this void, he was getting some readings on the sensors, mainly that of the gravitational singularity he was in. He always knew that it was there, and the theoretical shape, but to see it left him mesmerized, eyes glued to the information. Suddenly he dropped back into real space in front of his destination star. He flinched due to the blinding orange-yellow flash of the star before the glass darkened to a viewable level. He was so preoccupied with the data, he didn't realize how the time flew. He turned from the star and belly toward it, crept closer to the corona for fuel scooping. Once he was topped off, he began his flight around the star and toward the next jump in order.
As he made his way around he aimed toward his next jump destination. He let out a large yawn. He reached over and grabbed his helmet and tossed it on and connected the hose from his seat. Easier to just run limited oxygen through the suit than flood the bridge. Still glad the only symptom of oxygen toxicity was sleepiness, he took a few deep breaths. Grateful for the brief respite. As the thought of possibly having to bring his exo-suit if he entered into their station, he began drifting to sleep.
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He woke from his nap feeling refreshed. He glanced at the clock and saw it had been almost three hours. 'Good enough' he thought. By now the drives would have been cooled down for a while. He glanced over the sensor data collected. Nothing jumped out at him as he aimed toward his next destination and triggered the next jump in route. As the view faded to black, he turned his attention to the sensor data. The system he left didn't have too much. A few planets, a handful of moons, though it did show a small artificial structure on the 4th planet. No electromagnetic signals from it so it could have just been an old outpost of some sort.
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He heard the shuffle of footsteps behind him. He turned his head and saw Ozakos making his way onto the bridge. Frank removed his helmet as Ozakos stepped over to the sensor display on the wall. "It seems like you got the sensors working." He stated.
"Finally, took long enough, but I shouldn't be too hard on myself, I was working with unknown tech." Frank shrugged.
"What kind of range were you able to achieve?" He asked as he came around and sat in the co-pilot's seat.
"If I'm reading it well enough, I'm getting a pretty good scan within a bit less than a lightyear, and almost two lightyears on the outer reaches. That was just what I picked up in the least bit. I might be able to get a better reading with a few more tweaks, but this is still far better than what I was running with." Frank went on.
"That is pretty good with the interface. I know on the craft we would get about five lightyears accurate, and about fifteen at the extreme." Ozakos said as he was adjusting the seat.
"At least some good news for you though, we're about three hundred and twenty lightyears from the destination. Fourteen more jumps till we get there. " Frank stated.
"We seem to have made slightly better time than was estimated," Ozakos said with a raised eyebrow.
"Well, better to overestimate than underestimate. As we're getting closer to Morxik's Landing, anything I need to know? Docking procedures, transponder signals?" Frank inquired.
"Hmm..." Ozakos began thinking. "Well, I am not sure how you do it, but we usually have an active beacon on approach, data packets, of ship registration number, pilot identification, species, ship size and weight, and the number of passengers along with supplemental species identification. If I remember the distance right, between fifteen hundred and two thousand units, you would open an audio channel, send a translator coding package, then state the ship name, identification, and pilot's information and request docking. "
"Good to know sounds similar to the human way of doing things, however, my ship, race, and identification are unknown in these parts." Frank shrugged as he finished.
"That may pose a slight issue. What about what you said to use the first time you found us? That should be acceptable. May not be in our systems, but it DOES serve to identify this ship. Including that you have Brirali passengers as well should make it a bit easier to get landing clearance. They might be cautious, as they should be, but it would avoid other issues. The information can also be added to the systems on-site, get you registered." Ozakos mentioned.
"Uh-huh..." Frank sighed. "What about actual landing procedures?"
"Simple enough. Our destination is an orbital station. The docking section is under rotation so it might be a bit tricky. Once docking permission is confirmed, a data packet will be sent to you with the beacon data of the landing pad. Once landed, the ship will be lowered into the ring, the pad will be sealed, and the atmosphere pumped into the newly sealed chamber. Then egress is allowed." Ozakos claimed.
"Wouldn't be the first time landing on a rotating orbital." He had already begun typing up the transponder data. Simple enough at least, just a bit of a rewrite of his standard transponder data. "Almost forgot to mention, do you know of any outposts or anything of the sort out this way. There was an artificial structure on one of the planets in the last system."
"Cannot say that I do." Ozakos stroked his beard. "Can I see the information?"
"Sure." Frank typed in a few commands to activate the display in the co-pilot's seat and sent the data over. He spotted Ozakos going over the information carefully.
"I can't say I find it familiar. Perhaps it was an old sensor post. There's more than a few of them scattered around the outer rim of the Councils' influence. They used to be used to detect fleets or asteroids or the sort, back during its infancy." He scratched his chin. "It has been so long since I have seen one of those."
"Anything I need to worry about?" Frank asked.
"No, no. I think the last time they were functional was almost a thousand of your years ago." Ozakos shrugged.
"At least that's one less thing to worry about." He saw the timer on his display. "Prepare for drop out."
The ship dropped out in front of the deep red star. Frank turned away from it and made his slingshot around. To continue on his journey. 'Not too much longer now,' he thought.
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The next few jumps went by uneventfully. They all sat down for a meal of cheese ravioli in a butter and herb sauce. It was honestly the last of the selection he was reasonably certain they could eat safely. Frank would have Ozakos run a few meals through their shuttle's medical suite just to make sure. Since these space demons shy away from meat, there went a good majority of the meals he had on hand. He would have to check for anything tomato-related, he somewhat remembered the plant was part of the nightshade family, he couldn't remember the concentrations in the fruit.
After the meal, his guests began going through the media library of the ship. He seemed to get a good idea of what each of their preferred media was. Ozakos seemed drawn to non-fiction, mostly Human history, and boy did he have questions. Lelith seemed more absorbed into more kid-style movies, she seemed to enjoy the 'Samson the Spaceship' cartoon. He forgot he even had those files. The last time they were used was to entertain his young niece going on four years ago when his sister wanted him to shuttle her family for a vacation. Zedoris was a bit odd. She seemed to enjoy action movies as if there was a doubt in his mind, but he almost noticed her watching the occasional soap opera. Frank chuckled to himself wondering if she and his sister would get along, the personalities seemed pretty similar at times.
Just a couple more days of jumping before he made it to their station. He felt like a kid on his first trip to Europa Park. He had to calm himself a bit more than he normally would, after all, he still have to get there. He tested his beacon a few more times to ensure the transmission protocol was proper. It was picked up by the vessel in his cargo bay quite accurately, so that was promising, at the very least it might keep him from being shot immediately on approach. He yawned a bit as he prepped the ship for the next jump.
'Soon...' he thought to himself as he made the next jump.