768-05-03 10:50
Dear Diary,
I can’t believe I’m docked on this thing! It’s incredible… but I’m getting ahead of myself. Since my last entry, I’ve filled out my trading fleet according to plan, and have been steadily improving my relations with Strong Arms and Atreus. I’ve also got law enforcement licenses with every race except Teladi, so my race relations are getting quite good. My station is making money, and I’m nearly ready to purchase an Orca. I might have one now, in fact, if not for this little interruption…
Between missions for Atreus and Strong Arms, I found a Boron space station that was being overwhelmed with refugees and desperately needed medical supplies. They were so desperate, in fact, that they were willing to pay me three million credits just to bring some in from the Meneleus’s Harbor in under 10 minutes. They were even already paid for; that’s simply a delivery fee. I was able to get them loaded on my Caiman and back to the station with two minutes to spare, which not only got me a huge amount of money, but apparently greatly impressed the Boron government as well; I am now a Boron King’s Knight.

While I’m getting my ships organized for another Atreus mission, this Boron jumps in from the Meneleus gate and hails me, asking for my help. Apparently, he’s sought me out specifically, based on my reputation, to help locate some friends of his that have gone missing. In Xenon space. Apparently, ‘crazy’ or ‘stupid’ must be part of my reputation as well. He won’t tell me who they are, since treasure hunting in Xenon territory is apparently illegal for Boron citizens (I guess it’s similar to how attempting suicide is illegal on Terra?), but does tell me where they were headed… Xenon Core 23. Ok, so not just any system, but the most heavily defended Xenon system we know of.
I agreed, obviously. Nothing like a reputation for complete insanity to discourage someone from trying to cheat you.

I jumped my Pleco up to Grand Exchange and took my Kestrel into Xenon Sector 598.

Dodged and outran some Xenon patrols at the gates of Sector 598 and Sector 627, then jumped into Xenon Core 23…

Except this was not Xenon Core 23. It was some kind of huge alien artifact, very close to an uncharted star. It didn’t look like Terraformer/Xenon make to me, and had some strange jumpgates, but nothing affected my ship as far as I could tell, and the few Xenon here ignored me.

I found the remains of what was probably a Commonwealth ship and downloaded its logs…
Apparently, my two mystery friends are Bala Gi and Julian Brennan. They had gone to survey Xenon Core 23, but on their way back found the jump gates redirected to this hub. Bala Gi had hacked the docking mechanism to get them on board, and sent Julian off to collect Mahi Ma in order to help him investigate the thing.
I drop off a satellite near the bottom of the sphere and jump straight back to Queen’s Harbor. After telling Mahi Ma what I found, he ditches his ship and asks me to take him there. I claim his Enhanced Dolphin (wouldn’t want pirates to get it or anything), pick up some energy cells from my Caiman, hop up to Grand Exchange, resupply at my Pleco, and jump to the gate leading to the hub. The hub itself is out of the jump range for my Kestrel… it can’t hold enough fuel to get me directly there, and I don’t want to bring my Pleco in while there are Xenon ships present. A small Xenon fleet entered Grand Exchange as well, but my Pleco is probably safe enough at the trade station…

Anyway, Mahi Ma managed to repeat Bala Gi’s trick and get us on board, but did not find Bala Gi or Julian Brennan. He needs some supplies to build an interface to control the ancient systems and further explore the hub. It might take me a while to get everything together, but he should be pretty safe in there in the meantime.
Now, back to building my em- err, trade network. Yes. I’m going to opt for an Orca instead of a Mammoth, which has a larger cargo bay, because it has a larger hangar and can hold up to ten fighters. It’s quite a bit faster too, and it still has one of the largest bays available, able to hold a few stations.