CMDR Airman_Dan’s Log, 7th September 3307
I’m back.
And I’m on fire again. Thought I’d show off a bit and take the Fragmen Stercore down to Monde de la Mort. I’ve got a sizable fleet out here, both from my own collection of ships and of those out here with me. I guess we’re a thing now — I heard about us on the radio and apparently we’re even in some newsletter circulating back in Sol. The Wild Wild West expedition is what they’re calling us. Fitting enough.
The irony, of course, is that this Eagle wasn’t even the ship I was supposed to take out today. The Per Scientiam was up in the rotation, because I wanted to demonstrate that this Planet of Death could be conquered even by a flying hotbox contraption like the Type 7. That was supposed to be Thursday. But one of our crazy cohorts found a planet with 11 Gs to land on, and like many others I dutifully diverted in search of new and creative ways of s̢̼̹̳̥̺̾̓̿̄̀͢p̞̟̱̟̦͍̹̥̱̀́͌͌̀͘͠ͅḽ̛͖̞̩̰̄͗̓͑̇̋͠a̧̛͍͍̰̤͕̠͆̍̄͌̽̀̕͡ṯ̸̡̛̰̖̰͚̈́͛̑͜͝ţ͔̠͉̦̦̟̪̟͇̍̽̓̃͘ḛ̴̢̰̼͖̩̃̍̀̌͆̔͒͜͡r͖̰̼̜̯̘̘̲̬̖͛̆̍̐̅͛̕͘î̹̖̙̹͙̰̒̐̔̽͘͜͠n̢͓̣̮͓̘̰͛͆̾͋̕͟͜g̶̡̡̻̮̲͈̪͎͊͂̇̍̈̏͟͝͞ myself through the universe. So the T7 remained safely docked today, and instead the Eagle came out to play for a little hide-and-seek near the Silver’s Landing. One thing led to another and this papier-mâché pile came with me to play ding dong ditch with the devil.
Can I just stop for a moment and point out how profoundly disappointing the Eagle is on so many levels? It’s shaped like a fighter, but isn’t fast. It looks sleek, but poor planning produced a pudgy platform with perilous module placement. It’s too fat for its own good, and because the hardpoints are jammed into the underside of the fuselage rather than bolted to the wingtips like any reasonable person would expect given the shape of the ship, there wasn’t room for a properly proportioned fuel tank or frame shift drive. They’re both too small, and so not only can the ship not go anywhere, but it runs out of gas while it’s not doing it. It’s impossible to overstate how astonished—and confused—I was the day I got it back from the outfitter and took the beam lasers out for a whirl, and found the came from underneath and above my seat instead of out the nose and wingtips like I’d expected. Maybe I’d watched too many sci-fi vids when I was a kid, but cool-looking weapons were one of the few expectations I had of this ship, and even there it let me down.
All this is mostly to say this ship doesn’t get out much. After the beam lasers brought out the sad trombone, I gave the ship its name—translation is left as an exercise for the viewer—and mostly mothballed it. So no, I didn’t check it for heat sinks before I brought it out today, and now it’s on fire, and I’m in it.
You’re going to have to do better than that.