3|??|3307 - "Old Beginnings, Renewed"
24 Mar 2021vonKesh
[ . . . POWER - ON. INITIALIZING LOGBOOK, PLEASE WAIT . . . ][ . . . LOGBOOK VERS 5.2.9.1 - OWNER: V. VON KESH | MESSAGES: 4407 UNREAD . . . ]
[ . . . LOCATION - ERROR, NO DATA. GALSYNC DEVICE REMOVED, RETRYING . . . ]
. . . somewhere inside the Bubble . . .
"This place - the galaxy, sure, the Bubble, yes, its outskirts, even more so, and of course this patchwork Coriolis in particular - can be bleaker than long naps in maintenance canals after being kicked out of a dive. It's hard for me to imagine how the shambling goblins of humanity can keep it together day by day, risking hell, high water & high caliber return fire all for a pittance, and sober at that; always told anyone that'd listen that's why it's better not to be. But I see now why the old man always disagreed. There's something stark about it, rough and ugly to be sure, without a chance for the smooth edges BAC% provides. Think I'll give it a try while I'm out here turning over other new leaves."
"The Company has some strange rules. They don't mind where you get your material, but the personnel - they insist on them being local. Something about familiar faces & local loyalty running deeper than credit lines - I don't know, I wasn't really paying attention. The man they brought with 'em, some rotund grizzly by the name of Giuseppe, is supposed to pilot the pair of SLFs I liberated from a surplus paramerc depot yesterday. His last name, I won't even try to pronounce it - too many damn syllables. Point is, I've taken to calling him Dervish, and he seems pleased, so I chalked that as a victory. We're still working on conversation, but he's damn good in the hotseat - we strolled thru the local resource zone, zapped a few pathetic Feddie thugs calling themselves corsairs - he made quick work of those seals in the Gutamaya - and then called it a day shortly after. Not exactly peak combat, but it looked like we both needed to shake the rust off anyways. It's progress, something of a new habit for me."
"The Company promised us credits in a hurry and on that they have surely delivered. A week of almost round-the-clock patrols thru the res-sites and shipping lanes, blitzed off flight amps in the shadow of our local white dwarf star, now with nine new zeroes to show for it - not half bad for a pilot who hasn't seen a flight chair in four years. Ol' Dervish has grown on me - being back in the seat of an Impie fighter seems to have revitalized him somehow, brought out the conversationalist. Turns out he worked a decade or two as an escort airman for some whitesuit prick, the parade type; banquet nobles that scurry off at the first sign of trouble. He's still a little high strung, but the payday once we got home definitely helped. Haven't seen him since - I imagine he's riding high somewhere in the entertainment district, and more power to him. Unfortunately for me, the Company has more business for me to attend to - the kind you need to be dressed for when you show up. A pity."
"When I bought my first starship - a beat up little Sidewinder, something that had no business in vacuum - I dreamed, no, knew, that I'd turn it into one of those DeLacy behemoths one day. Of course, I figured it'd be after a long and illustrious career shooting down Saturday morning villains and pirate captains, or at the very least some Impies. Never expected that it'd be off the back of ore hauling... and yet here we are. That meeting with the Company? A cargo contract for some big time refinery corp, a guarantee for rare metals and a couple other odds and ends, all private sourced of course. Most god damn boring two days of my life, but at the end of it I got to keep the keys, so to speak, and now she's mine - a fresh DeLacy Anaconda, with hardly the plaswrap taken off yet. Still working on names, so I'm just enjoying the feeling of a proper captain's chair - and damn is the bridge big. Wonder what ol' Dervish will say when I get back to port."