Believe it or not, I am currently hiding in a 7 star system. Yes, hiding. I came across my first space faring species, and they were... hostile. I'd say they were pirates, or if not pirates, I stumbled into a war and they were almost literally ripping apart the other ship. Just pounding on it with projectile and energy weapons. They weren't trying to disable it, they were successfully destroying it outright. I had slowed down to refuel at the gas giant. They came around from behind one of the moons, pursuing the other ship, and when they saw me, they opened fire on me as well.
What I think scares me the most is that their transmissions were threats. I understood the language, well..., most of it. The Viteză Furie did not take any damage of any real note, but only because the first few shots missed and I was able to activate the defensive systems. I returned fire with the rear facing batteries, destroying two of them, the others continuing to pursue, and another ship, larger, and faster, joined the chase.
I managed to get up to speed and jumped a few light-years, and they were waiting for me. Or maybe it was different ships. I don't know, but they were of the same design, and they opened fire as soon as I was clear of jump. I am so glad that I decided to add the weapons systems and shields. All CT's designs. That decision literally saved my life.
Every system I jumped to was rife with these beings, their transmissions all the same. Essentially surrender and join them or be destroyed. I tried to reply back a few times, to explain that I am just an explorer, only to be fired on again and again. Finally I found this system. They chased me here from a nearby binary, which essentially orbits these seven stars. However, the gravity field is really complex and they don't seem to be able to navigate it. I spent two weeks just hiding outright.
I finally got up the guts to sneak over to the gas giant on whose moon I was hiding and do the refueling I was trying to do originally. There are still several dozen of their ships out beyond the edge, where gravity stops being weird. The Viteză Furie's gravity sensors, thank you CT, allow me to navigate the weird gravitational interactions in this system easily. I've watched a few of their braver, or crazier, ships try and get torn to shreds or tossed into one of the stars, or both.
This system really is fascinating, and I have spent the last few weeks mapping it, as I watch these beings stalk me from beyond its edge. I'm just waiting for an opening. One thing I cannot do is jump from within this system, I get alerts from the ARC Drive systems that, now that I look back at the logs, are much like the alerts I never got to see, caused by the crew compartment. I may end up having to risk it. There are a couple of spots in the system where I could probably try it from safely, and I'm waiting on simulations to confirm that. The only issue being. They are tiny regions, some of them only a few hundred miles across, and I'd have to initiate jump within that, at over .5c. That is not an easy ask for the Viteză Furie or me, despite the augmentations and implants.
I am genuinely scared. I would really like to know why a large portion of their language appears to be at least a derivative of mine. Or maybe mine is a derivative of theirs? I don't know. I wish I did. I might suggest that I am misinterpreting what they are saying, accept they understood me and replied in kind. I wonder if these people are what my people became? I've done my best to mark the major universal landmarks here, and even taking my universe and playing it out 10 billion years, nothing matches, so I don't think this is my universe. Maybe they are the descendants of a lost colony ship that tried to use the ARC Drive and ended up lost like me? I'm pretty sure I'll never know.
Well, the simulations are about to finish up, so I am going to pull those up in the lounge while Kotth, Lurr, and I have something to eat.