The path of Prospector

[Doom]

Live to fight another day.

Ten years have passed. Sirius has changed.
Countless battles York has led left few scars on him. He seemed a lot older that he was. If you saw him now for the first time you would think to yourself: Here is a beaten up man. Life was hard on him.

You would be right.

As part of his daily routine he sat in the bar on Ouray base drinking and remembering his lost friends. There was so many lost. Good fighters, but excellent people.

He spent a lot of days lately the same way....in the bar, stuck in some dark corner looking the young bucks eager to slip into a cockpit or Starblazer or Eagle if the were lucky and fly to the closest battle with Junkers or Liberty police.

Richard on the other hand prepared for much ominous threat that reviled it self in the past years.
His old ship, small rusty gunboat Prospector was lost in the unstable jumhole that emerged near Nome base, later to disappear and never appearing again.

Even now the memory of the event brings York a lot of pain.
That day started as usual. Patrolling near trade lane just off the Ouray base. As usual it was uneventful so York ordered for the gunboat to return to dock. Their resources were running low and York didn't want to waste them on hunting lone traders. Fighters were more suitable for that. So small wing of Sarblazers were sent instead of Ouray's base largest and most dangerous defender.
Upon returning to the base and just when York was exiting Prospector, one docking Starblazer pilot made an error and crashed his ship into cargo crates that were laying waiting for the Barge of Doom to pick them up. One of the crates broke and parts were flying all around the docking bay. One of the Yorks crew died when chard hit him in the stomach, almost cutting him in half. York was hit too. He was lucky though, only breaking his leg.
Thompson ran to help York when alarm sounded for all pilots to their ships.
York, with them from Thompson limped to the nearest comm system.

- This is York, what is going on?

- Nome base send mayday signal, only once and then it stopped.- operator responded

York turned toward Prospector when Thompson stopped him. - You are not in condition to take her out. Let me do it.

York knew Thompson was right. - Go! Report back to Ouray as soon as you have Nome in sight.

York left in the dock bay until gunboat left. He never thought this will be the last time he sees that ship.
He went to the medical bay, limping. Alone.
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York was sitting in control room with his leg raised to another chair.
As instructed,Thompson reported as soon as hew saw Nome base.
Base itself was fine. An gravitational anomaly appeared few klicks above the base and one fighter was lost in it.
Interference caused by the anomaly disabled Nome's long range communication array as well as scanners on Prospector. To be honest they were never state of the art ones and half of the time they barely worked at all.

- This is Thompson from Prospector. York, we are seeing gravitational anomaly. It looks like jump hole, but it is larger.
Scanners can't penetrate or lock on it. Comms are Down on Nome and our wont last much longer.

- Ok Thompson - York replied. - try to get closer to see will scanners work there. But be careful.

- Will do. - Thompson said - We are closing in. There is some kind energy field around it i think.

Ship started to rumble. York could hear it over the comms.

- Thompson, don't go further in. I have a bad feeling about this - York yelled to the comms.

Static....no response................
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Nome base later reported that gunboat was pulled into anomaly and few hours later anomaly disappeared as mysteriously as it appeared. Once healed York searched for day and never found any clues about where hole could lead or whether the crew and ship were destroyed. It remained a mystery for him.

For Ouray that meant it lost largest and strongest ship from it's small fleet. Hard days were ahead.
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York never recovered from this, although he would never admit that. After that event he retreated to himself and only took sporadic lonely missions out of Ouray. For newcomers to the base he became a legend, distant rumor that you could pick up in the bar. On the surface, an old man sitting in a dark corner of a bar....looking at young bucks who took over the game and ran the base.