Loving Woman
Sarna News
| Loving Woman | |
|---|---|
| Vessel Profile | |
| Type | DropShip or DropShuttle |
History
The Loving Woman was an iceship operated by the Ryan Cartel. The Loving Woman featured in the publication Stories of the Frontier compiled by Richard Sturgis for Alliance Press in 2399. Sturgis' publication recounted the account left by Captain Henry Devillers, who had served as captain of the Loving Woman at one point during its history. Devillers' account detailed how the Loving Woman collected chunks of ice broken off from the large chunks brought in-system by JumpShips and ferried those chunks down to planets. While the Loving Woman was delivering ice to Mucka Flats, the largest colony on the world of Proserpina at the time, it landed at the port without being hailed at any point during transit, which Devillers' noted was unusual; after landing, the Loving Woman wasn't approached by any ground crew to perform the usual post-landing tasks such as providing cool-down tanks or unloading the cargo, although the port automatic navigation systems had functioned correctly during the approach.[1]
Devillers and a number of the crew disembarked from the Loving Woman to investigate the absence of personnel at the port, and encountered some kind of hostile native wildlife, described as resembling Terran limpets, but with three pairs of purple eyes, three armoured, segmented legs, and three pairs of claws tipped with needles, varying in size from relatively small up to two meters in diameter. One of the crew, Mitchell, attempted to attack the creatures with a pistol as the crew retreated to the port control tower, only to be bitten by a number of the creatures, who had to be forcibly removed by the crew. The creatures were extremely strong - each small creature having to be removed by three crewmen - before being beaten to death using a 9kg wrench. Mitchell initially appeared to have been poisoned by the creatures, but several more crewmembers came down with identical symptoms to Mitchell: blotches, delirium and retching. Devillers was the last of the crew to contract whatever illness had infected and killed the others, and speculated that the absence of other people at the port indicated that everyone in the colony had either died of the swamp fever or retreated to the hills. It is unclear if Devillers also died, although his account of events evidently survived.[1]