A gift from heaven

A most remarkable thing happened to me today: God smiled on my efforts and sent me help.

I was doing some more experiments close to the New Eden sun, laying down bookmarks, when my combat probes picked up another ship. An Astero frigate, a vessel type of the Sister's design, meant for exploration but capable of battle.

I immediately cloaked up, fearing White Sky thugs or similar miscreants. But to my surprise I was alone in local, and the only probes around were mine. I scanned down the Astero's location.

I mustered my courage, and warped to the ship at some distance, ready to re-warp away immediately should an attack ensue. But, the Astero just hung there, in space, no sign of life. I tried hailing it, but there was no response. The ship did not appear damaged, just powered down. My own ship's AI offered the option to board the ship, a menu item I had never seen before alongside orbit and approach... 

 

Maybe the Sisters were in danger. Had the ship lost power somehow? I boarded the vessel. It is a weird experience to change ship outside of a station. As my pod plugged in to the Astero's systems I could immediately see that there was no sign of life on the ship. Also, no sign of struggle or battle. For some unknown reason, the ship had just been abandoned in all haste and left in space in a fully equipped state.

It took a bit of time to get the engines up and running, and I had to offline several systems that I cannot use yet, such as the covert ops cloak. I brought the ship as well as my own ship back to the Farthest Shore, happy I was able to dock both up. I was also glad no malevolent capsuleer had destroyed the abandoned frigate before I found it.

The maintenance and repair crew at Farthest Shore tell me it will be fully operational soon. This is a far more advanced exploration vessel than what I am flying now, with expensive modules. In fact, it would be quite unaffordable to me at the moment: I would have to complete nearly 1500 flow cytometry analyses in project Discovery to pay for it.

 

I will wait for a couple of days in system to see if someone or some corporation turns up to look for their vessel. If no-one does, I will accept it as a gift from God, as encouragement and help for my quest. I will then name the vessel Ratakh Hubrau, the frigate from heaven.