On the trip out, Baxu spent time hanging out in the canteen at odd hours. Picking different times to cycle through the crew's shifts. Lots of stories and lots of drinking. Bax shared some of the Traveler's Palm Nectar that he'd brought, quickly running out, leaving only the synthale. But his unique appearance and general charisma made a number of transit friends. He'd done this before.

Bax overheard an engineer bragging about the old days onboard, and egged him into spinning this yarn.

“It was about 20 years ago. The Radiant Arrow was new and so was her crew. We were on a corporate delivery errand, much like this one. Out in the system's depths, far from what you'd recognize as civilization. Mainly mining and prospecting camps lashed to the side of a small moon. Not much to see, but they did have some of the smoothest miner's moonshine. We'd been there a few hours and were loading back in, with some extra 'samples' if you take my meaning, when we picked up a distress signal. Corporate rules say we gotta check it out. Nobody else should have been out there. The locals just had suits and hoppers, nothing to get to where this signal was triangulating.

To 'check the box' for corporate, we pulled out and headed that way. I told 'em it didn't smell right. The captain must have smelled it too, ‘cause he had us prepare, just in case.

Got to a nearby asteroid and found the planted wreckage with a note sayin' “Thanks for your business.” That's when the raiders skiff came over the rim, hit their floodlights and launched tether bolts. Would have been more than enough to take a small shuttle, but we were bigger than they expected. Their bolts bounced off our hull as we shot up and away, getting them all tangled in the debris. Well, we'd checked the box for corporate, but no good deed shall go unpunished.

We passed a large asteroid on the way out, just as their Galleon pulled out of hiding. That's when the cat and mouse game really began. They were pretty nimble for the kluged hunk of junk they were flying. It had some sprint propulsion like I'd never seen. Bolting from one location to the next. Looked like they'd gotten a few of them artifacts mounted around a cluster of repurposed hab modules. They had a couple nasty pellet launchers too.

They were gaining on us, anticipating each of our moves, when the captain pulled an abrupt slingshot maneuver around a particularly large rock. Ordering us to dump the excess superheated radiator fluid, spraying out as a huge cloud. They came around, right into that mess, covering their visibility and trashing their sensors, just as we hit our FTLs. Heard that ship get torn apart as our transit bubble collapsed.

Heh, and that's how she got the nickname 'Slippery Antelope'.”

Bax laughed, truly in awe of what he'd just heard. Several of the crew nodded and raised a glass to the 'Slippery Antelope'.

Later, Bax got The engineer to give him the coordinates of their encounter, even though the lead was a couple decades old. You don't often run across this kind of artifact story. Carter-Layne Scientific would be very interested in this, but we’d need an armed expedition.

Baxu Zanthi [Mark “@Voxel” Dowman], Niecti Star System, 4288 OEC (Old Earth Calendar)
~ 2025-01-08

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