We have completed the refit of our magnificent vessel the SS Dolphin Doodle since our last journey outer atmo. We have obtained our provisions for the first three stops and are finishing up our final checks on the new equipment. We will be testing out the new engine refits later but for now we are boarding all the science crew and technology they managed to acquire and settling our crew into their quarters. The security crew and engineers have been settled in working on the final preparations for the last week. The last thing we are waiting on is the medical staff needed and the additional provisions and family good byes for the crew aboard.
Well we wait, allow me to introduce some of our crew. Our ship's captain Captain Sheriden (whom is me) will be giving his captains log (which consists of this and following entries) up for posterity and will additionally be in charge of the overall functions of the ship on our journey. Our helmsman / pilot is a most capable flight officer named Christopher Cruz. He has a hobby for racing larger cargo freighters on one of the duster moons in the Telky system. It seems to be that he has the highest speed record in the known solar systems for any cargo freighter on a desert world. But he also has one of the lowest winning records as he spends so much effort getting to top speed that he very often is unable to slow these craft down and ends up missing many of the turns. Our first officer and my right hand man is a Lucon War veteran named Hawk Edward Postumus. He has so many combat ribbons that he has had to purchase three additional jackets to properly display them all. Well not actually able to show them all on the same uniform, he has been known to bring his 2 additional jackets to social occasions and place them on separate seats. Stating that we'll he is always pleased to talk to others, that only someone with more medals or higher rank may sit next to him at the dinner table. This has caused a few irritations with his wife who insists that he buy a bigger jacket. And thirdly Our medical Officer A Dr. Andrew Talbonium. He has spent many years on creative assignments abroad including the retrieval of lost space men. Apparently when many of these astronauts are doing repairs on less reputable yet larger vessels, they are commonly forgotten about once the repairs are completed and when the ship begins traveling again, these poor workers are plucked from their tow cables by the sheer momentum of the ship in motion again. One of Dr. Talbonium's cases actually involved him attempting to retrieve a lost astronaut when his own vessel began to move away, where upon he swung the astronaut like a lasso into the ships forward crease and was able to tag along until they noticed him 3 systems later, playing cards with the outboard retrieve.
Finally we are ready to take off from what it looks like. So we will be starting up the new cellular vacuum engines as we leave from our current port. Our current port is in fact here at the naval scrap facility in Gottyem which is an asteroid belt and a midway point between earth and a few of the larger civilized inhabited areas through the galaxy. Almost like a very large airplane graveyard with a gas station. Although we are in a rather remote area with a rather remote facility, we were able to obtain some rather satisfying upgrades to our ship which we will be hopefully able to get some great use out of late. The junk yard has a great deal of corporate experimental ships that were ditched here after attempting to sell and market them towards the military build ups of the last couple intrusion wars. So we were able to pull our new cell upgrades from one of the seemingly newer ships there. They seem to be a variation on one of the Freklo-j-5340's which were famous for being quiet and leaving very little heat signature well still getting excellent fuel usage and power. The modifications seem to be to the way in which we can store or transfer energy between them and other systems on the ship. The ship we pulled them from itself was actually covered in Histoks.
They are sort of like a reverse electric eel but they look a little more like a see cow. Not necessarily dangerous but a damp trouble to detach without making more mess. Typically they feed on a variation of solar fungus that seems to grow rather abundantly in this quadrant and is actually an organism that leaves titanium oxide waste products. The asteroids in the area are loaded and covered with it and it is why it became a big mining station before it became a ship graveyard and now a partial ecological preserve. No in habitat planets in the system mean just a minimal crew for the station and a few traders here for scrap are all that disturb the organisms here anymore. At one time some of the Histoks were actually experimented on too see if their ability to absorb energies could be weaponized but this was soon abandon for reasons of extremely low energy consumption methods and the apparent moaning thuds that were heard from the creatures as they were hurled at targeted starships. Although it was agreed that it was a significant means of demoralizing a target, it was considered to inappropriate to be throwing "space cows" at an enemy in an attempt to slow them down.
