Lost in the Beyond (// invite only)

[Cheetah]

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Date: 05.05.823 A.S.
Location: Somewhere on the far fringes of Omicron Lost

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Onboard of "Snowstorm" torpedo-boat destroyer, local time 15:54 (SMT +3)

Gumilev kept gazing onto long range sensors panel. For two days of subluminal flight, their only guidance — and the only hope — was a lone blue dwarf, barely recognizable by stellar navigation system on the background of green and blue patches of outer Edge Nebula. They even could not tell which star exactly it was. The navigational computers were not able to initialize themselves — being hard-coded to use the New York-based coordinate system, they suddenly find themselves presented with invalid coordinates and stopped with "Value out of bounds" error. Even reserve algorithms from Zoner homebrew software were unable to determine location of the ship based on eight main 'anchor stars'. In the situation when the only determined direction was "towards that star" and the only existing coordinate system was relative to ship itself, the only way to pilot the Fearless was full manual handling. Yes, just with engine throttle (obviously always set to "cruise" mode) and pitch-yaw-roll controls. Just like the first airplanes on old Earth. The blueish starry beacon in forwards and the deep space in every other direction.



After, perhaps, half a hour, something like an another star almost fully eclipsed by some object was slowly appeared about 30 degrees rightwards: most likely a gas giant, guessing from the strange colors of halo formed by eclipsed star's light going through, but in the Omicrons you may never be sure what is what. With that star being obscured, it was impossible to determine it's type and possible identicalness to data in navmaps. Gumilev pulled up for roughly 90 degrees upwards — fighter airplane, you say? — and kept it that for five minutes, then restored the course towards blue star. As expected, such maneuver allowed to open the other star for direct observation, using the difference in distance between it and the planet.



— Andrey Lvovich! — said the navigator, Claus Linden, — I've picked up another two... no, three guidance points! Two green stars and something what seems like a purple planet. I bet it's Moros.

— Nice. Boot up the nav comps.

Few minutes had passed like an eternity. Stellar navigation system was still determining ship's position, but it didn't drop out with error. Inertial navigation system connected to main navigational computer and outputted the total covered distance, starting from the independent flight separate of the fleet and until now. Gumilev had said a rather rude word at the moment. How incoverable may the distances become without Jump Holes, hyperdrives and other means of superluminal travel. Finally, the main stellar navigation was fully online. The planet in front of them really was the Moros. They were back at home, despite the still remaining distance to cover to Delta jumphole through the Omicron Lost.



— Oh hell yes, comrades. We did it. Now we only have to make it to Livadia, fix our own engines, pick up supplies and engine components, then bring it all back to our lil' fleet. With properly repaired and tuned propulsion systems we shall make it much quicker. If some other Zoners will not need some urgent help, ofc.

Communications system beeped, receiving thousands of messages and broadcasts not picked up in months. But few of them blinked with urgency — with few days old urgency. There were some breaking news from Freeport 11: it was attacked by the Core forces for few times.

Speak of the devil...

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