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2nd of September, 4501 CE

Arrival on Midgard

by Captain Peter Avignon

Captain's Log - SS Harrier du Bois


2 September 4501 – Midgard System
 
We slipped into the Midgard system like a whisper—masked jump signature, holographic disguises active. Almost immediately, three sleek patrol vessels emerged. Not Jred. Something worse: Dictys Vendetta system defence drones—same manufacturer as the Harrier du Bois, but optimized for killing. Lucid jammed their targeting arrays while I threw us into evasive maneuvers. Took a full hour of tense navigation to break for the planet.
 
Castor, in a fit of inspiration (or panic), managed to lock himself out of the ship’s database trying to ID the drones. Lucid had to perform a full reset. Not her favourite use of time. Beñat eventually pulled the drone specs from backup files. Dictys Vendetta-class. Autonomous. Nasty. We couldn’t fight them, so we tried talking—or rather, spoofing. Lucid wrote a virus to mark us as friendly. I nearly screwed it up by misreading the sensor output—almost sent us toward the planetary core instead of the control transmitter on the moon.
 
When we dropped jamming, the drones didn’t fire. They just… scanned us. Maybe sharing a manufacturer bought us grace. Then a comm message crackled through—calm, automated:
 
[box]This is the Dictys Automated Technical Overseer (DATO). It appears your ship is in need of repair. Please dock at these coordinates.[/box]
 
Lucid dubbed it “the car wash.” Castor mentioned he could “hear” the Jred—a staticky, dissonant noise humming at the edge of perception. “Like hearing your own voice through TV static,” he said. Charming.
 
We descended through thin atmosphere into a nightmare landscape. The entire surface was choked in red Jred biomass—vines, cysts, fungal forests swallowing ruins of old mining towns. Only one tech signature showed clean: DATO’s facility.
 
We suited up. Beñat, Astrid, and Castor in battle dress; me in a vac suit feeling distinctly under-dressed. Two dog-like robots—floppy ears and all—met us on the landing pad and led us inside. The place was a patchwork of decay and desperate repair. Monkey-bots skittered across ceilings, welding and rewiring under the dim, flickering lights.
 
DATO’s voice welcomed us in the same flat tone. We requested the Cazador parts.
 
“Unfortunately, these parts are no longer available due to requisition by Admiral Franco of the Stellar League. They may be available at the orbital facility. However, Ragnarok protocols are in effect.”
 
Admiral Franco. The Remembrancer Fleet. Ghost stories we’ve traded in port bars for years.
 
Ragnarok protocol meant evacuation, blast doors, vacuum-sealed interiors, and automated defenses set to kill. No all-clear without a physical code input.
 
And the reactor’s failing. Months from total collapse. DATO needs an engineer.
 
So here we are. In a dead system. Surrounded by Jred. Talking to a robot. Looking for parts that might not exist.
 
Just another Tuesday.
 
— Captain Peter Avignon
SS Good Times II
“We don’t find trouble. It finds us.”
 
[Addendum: If we die here, I’m blaming Castor’s static-voice. And Beñat’s face. Mostly Beñat’s face.]

Continue reading...

  1. Personal Log - New Year, New Shipping Codes
    2nd of January, 4500
  2. Lots of Dead Bodies
    2nd of January, 4500
  3. Personal Log
    9th of January, 4500
  4. Personal Log: Ship Upgrades on Mehen
    10th of January, 4500
  5. Personal Log: The Kumarbi Conspiracy
    17th of January, 4500
  6. Heading into the Unknown
    28th January 4500
  7. The Expedition Begins
    18th of February, 4500
  8. Faxi
  9. Eldanea System + Pariahan Fronts
    4th of March, 4500
  10. Against the Solanian Survey Corp
    18th of March, 4500
  11. Obligatory Water Level
    20th of March, 4500 CE
  12. Aidan Thorpe Arrested
    8th of April, 4500
  13. Leunus Prime
    15th of April, 4500 CE
  14. Impounded on Catta Primae
    25th of April, 4500 CE
  15. Captain's Log: Communications officer detained
    7th of June, 4500 CE
  16. next steps
    14 June 4500
  17. the Mistake (the Planet)
    21st of June, 4500
  18. Licking our wounds in Wild Space
    18 September, 4500
  19. Wow, Civilised Space!
    5 October 4500
  20. Opus Dei strikes Guild science facility
    19th of November, 4500
  21. Hey Geneviève (sup, Hüsnü)
  22. Extra-judicial shipping in the Union of Sol
    7 December, 4500
  23. Derelict space Station - Shiva Rao
    11th December, 4500
  24. Welcome to the Aseni Republic of Vega
    16th of December, 4500
  25. Returning with the spoils of salvage
    11th of January 4501
  26. Fancy Auction
  27. Peter joins the Military-Industrial Complex
  28. Operation Murder Galvao [TOP SECRET]
    9th of April, 4501
  29. I'm at Soup
  30. Taking down Galvao
    18th of April, 4501
  31. Xin Heinan Occupied
    May 6th, 4501
  32. THIS MAIL RUN WENT FULL CHAOS MODE! (GONE WRONG? GONE SEXUAL? GONE CLASSIFIED?!) [NOT CLICKBAIT] [100% LEGIT]
    14 May 4501
  33. Save us, Aidan
    16th of May, 4501
  34. Making the Trek to the Jred Frontier, pt 1
    19th of May, 4501
  35. Guerilla Journalism
    20th of May, 4501 CE
  36. Water Crisis on Actium
    12 June 4501
  37. Just your typical vaporator delivery
    13 June 4501
  38. VapeTech® Infiltration: Operation "Clawed Opportunity"
    15 June, 4501 CE
  39. Veii vs VapeTech®
    16 June, 4501 CE
  40. Killer Robot v. Big Bomb
  41. Onwards, to Jred Space!
    26 August, 4501 CE
  42. Arrival on Midgard
    2nd of September, 4501 CE
  43. Jackpot! Lots of ships!
    3 September, 4501
  44. Upgrades, people. Upgrades.
    24th of September, 4501
  45. Merc Doods
    10th October, 4501
  46. Merc Doods 2
    11 October 4501
  47. Merc Doods 3: The Merckening
    11 OCtober, 4501
  48. Bringing the Fight to Them
    28th of October, 4501
  49. From Fleet-Makers to Corp-Searchers
    11th of November, 4501
  50. Many Services to be Found
    17th November, 4501
  51. Tracking them Down
    28th of November, 4501 CE
  52. Caspia
  53. Scientists Rescued on Krest
    1 March, 4502
  54. A Meeting on Miracle
    2nd of May, 4502 CE

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by 3 Armored Kittens · Prodromos v.1.1 - World Anvil 0.9.15.050 © 2017-2025 [en] | Anvil Time: 21:18, Jun 30 2026