Second Expeditionary Voyage; Second Leg - Day 5
07 May 2018Gatimũ Kamau
CMDR's Log, 3304.05.07, Sol Calendar; Life is strife.We've been traversing the verse for nearly five years now. And my wife brought up a very good question to me.
"Gatimũ," said she, "why don't you ever document anything?" Such a simple yet important thing. And, as usual, I bowed to her wisdom. So now, here I sit at my terminal. "Documenting".
As of today, we're about a tenth of the way through my self-imposed 300 light year round trip from 10 Tauri and back in an attempt to survey 100 worlds around the outskirts of "the bubble" for water, land and resources, Goddess keep us. All in the hopes of impressing myself upon my commanding officers. Or...mostly in the hope of it.
It's a distressing thing when you learn something as sad as the fact that you cannot return home. My wife and I bought our first Sidewinder, Motherland's Breath, in the hopes of seeing the stars. And, after Sol's boarders were closed due to the lingering threat of a invasion...be it by a rival government or hostile zeno alike, the military became my only means of us ever hoping to see Afrikan soil again.
And while the superpowers continue to fight their misguided internal war over the space immediately adjacent to the Mother Planet, (as if there weren't enough space for everyone), we are collectively facing a very real external threat from the Thargoids. A threat that the governments proper of our part of the galaxy seem all but too happy to ignore on the whole. Sure, Shadow President Winters has seen fit to allow independent CMDR's and the like to accept contracts to explore the threat and research it to their individual satisfaction, but at the end of all things, as I told my superiors, that's not going to be enough.
Even I myself, as an advocate for pro-zeno relationships, can see that. And while I've settled into being of the non-violent sort since I left Afrika, and while I personally hope we never cross the path of a Thargoid, I'll willingly admit that I've thought once or twice about separating from service and joining the coalition of independent pilots calling themselves the Anti Zeno Combat Initiative solely in an effort to learn how to better defend my family through better piloting and proper outfitting in the face of Felicia Winters', and the other galactic rulers', complacence. After all, I've no doubt that conventional weapons will offer us little hope in the face of this looming darkness...
But I digress...
The proposal for our first expeditionary voyage was green-lit and funded some months ago by the Federation. A voyage in which we did a 100 lightyear trip out from the Hyades Sector and back in which I surveyed 10 high value planets yielded not only valuable information for the Federation that will help strengthen Sol when they inevitably unify all the systems under their flag, but the proceeds got my wife and I out of Motherland's Heart, (our third ship, a Keelback, which we owned after a short stent in an Adder named Afrika's Determination after I was able to afford to get us out of Motherland's Breath when I was still an independent), and into our much more nimble and sleeker Chieftain. A FAR superior ship in nearly every conceivable fashion.
There was also a short stent that I spent with an Eagle I'd rented for short single person jaunts, which we eventually bought just in case we were ever to need a small fighter for some reason, which we dubbed Afrika's Fury.
Regardless, far have we come from sleeping in the cold bay of the Sidewinder. Now we sleep in a warmer modified one. And the credits I made from the first leg of our current venture, which was hastily approved once the Federation saw the value in what I brought back, paid for our updated modules. Not to mention that the mineral samples I collected went a long way towards their further engineering. (Such things are so important since we now travel in such dangerous times.)
...Speaking of which, I need to make sure to pass by the nearest station after we complete leg two/planet 20 so that I can pick up some more cat food and litter for our little Jolie...