23 November, 3603
Day 11
3,000LY from Cel
Now that I'm in a better state of mind, today I backtracked to the system I found the Sky Skipper in. In fact I went all the way back to the wreck itself to have a closer look. Now that I wasn't panicking and fearing for my life, I took a much better look over. And you know what I discovered?
The escape pods had jettisoned. There where no escape pods on my sensors, so they either went somewhere, or the thing that destroyed the ship took or destroyed them. I tried not to think about the second possibility too hard.
I checked over the wreck a bit more before heading out to explore the system. And what do you know there was an Equis-like world. Quite near to the wreck too. Most importantly it had a breathable atmosphere.
That brought the possibly of the survivors being down on the surface. Escape pods are by law required to be able to survive reentry and planetfall. The wreck was a year old so if they were alive, they'd be down there.
So I set my sensors to maximum sensitivity looking for electronics and pony lifeforms, and went down. I spent three hours flying a search pattern around the planet. The Cobra is one of the better ships out there as far as atmospheric aerodynamic performance is concerned, which meant I could go zipping around supersonic and cover a ton of ground. And I do mean ground. I didn't bother searching the oceans, for obvious reasons.
Eventually my scanners did pick something up. A small escape pod distress beacon. I beelined straight there. Lo and behold, there was a camp. It was in the treeline just off a beach. As I landed I noticed how similar the area was to any tropical beach back home on Harmony. The trees even had a bit of resemblance to palms.
Two ponies came running out to greet me, a mare and a stallion. As I stepped of the ramp they stopped ten meters away.
"Are you real?" One of them asked, seemingly stunned. He came up and delicately reached out to touch my hoof I held out, almost afraid I'd disappear. Then he glomped me and began weeping in joy.
I joined them by their fire pit and they told me their story. The mare was Dr. Star Cam and the stallion CMDR Skip Ray himself. Turns out the two of them had escaped the ship as it began to break up. The third member of the crew Misty Valley hadn't made it. They had been unbelievably lucky to have a habitable world so close. The survival supplies in the pods had allowed them to survive as long as they had. They'd had to test most of the plants with a chemical kit to check if they were edible. Star was missing a leg as well. Some native wolf like predator had attacked them and taken her leg off, poor girl.
I told them to pack up anything they wanted to bring and headed back to the ship. I immediately contacted the Pilot's Federation Authorities and reported my find. I spoke with one of the Search and Rescue Reps. We agreed that I would take the survivors aboard. In the meantime they'd dispatch a SAR Anaconda to come collect them. We set up a rendezvous two days from now in a system on my planned route. The 'Conda has a far better FSD than my little Cobra, and I've been taking my time exploring and scanning, so they'll easily be able to catch up if they head straight there.
As is I made the second bunk up for Star, while Skip offered to sleep in the co-pilot's chair. There were still plenty of hours left in the day though and I asked the two if they're be willing to ride along. They were all for it, wanting to get back into space after so long planet bound. They had some stories to tell and the conversation flowed the rest of the day. Found some great stuff too.
I feel happy. More than I have the last two days that's for sure. I'm going to get to bed on that happy note.
Felling content,
-Con
Today's Discoveries:
Pru Eurk SH-N B20-5:
Inhabitable Equis-Like:
2 Survivors of ESS Sky Skipper rescued
Pru Eurk VQ-G c10-5:
Water World tf, Azizos
Pru Eurk IF-R d4-72:
Water world, Vaire