Impossibly Improbable Journey
10 Nov 2018Gatimũ Kamau
CMDR’s Log, 3304.11.10, Sol Calendar; So we decide that we should look into using the Defiant Afrika commercially.We chose to do this alongside bounty hunting and diving into and out of conflict zones because of something my father once told me: "The problem with an honest dollar is that they're so hard to make.". And if there's anything I've found out, it's that transporting passengers is easy honest money (as long as you don't accidentally find yourself transporting wanted criminals). And that money is GOOD. Transporting seemed like a viable means of earning back our recent losses quickly so that we can get to where we're trying to go.
The still ever present goal of charting a course to the galactic centre and bringing back that data for the Federation and seeing what's out there.
I had a heart-to-heart with my CO about the prospect of using this "side work" for further expand the Federation's knowledge base and resource options. And give the success of our previous ventures, and the fact that it's not nearly as dangerous as a trip to Sag A, the request was approved.
Then I immediately discovered that despite all I knew about the nature of the universe, I knew NOTHING about the nature of the universe.
After investing in a 6A rated first class suite for the ship, (which ended up being so extravagantly nice that we would have kept it permanently on board as our personal quarters if its mechanical nature didn't prevent us from utilizing the ship's fighter bay), we picked up a passenger from the lounge in Abraham Lincoln and her entourage who wanted to be transported to a distant system on the fringes of one of the galactic arms some 3,000 Ly away in the name of research. She was wealthy in the way you scarcely read about. And her estate was offering us 40,000,000 CR upon our return for the trouble.
Who are we to say no to a fellow explorer? Or their money?
I should have known that there was a catch when I saw the payout. She gave the the information she had, of which there wasn't much, for a system I'd not recalled hearing of. Ex Cancri. To a supposed place she called Elysium. "Fine and dandy" we thought as we prepped for the trip. My second cause of concern should have been the apparent military-level travel ban issued via my navigational computer around the Col Sector due to possible Thargoid presence making plotting in that area impossible. Meaning I had to manually plot around the sector. The THIRD point of concern should have been the distinct lack of stars I saw in the surrounding area, which I stupidly discarded in my mind as a system glitch that would eventually correct itself.
Little did I realize until we were over a third of the way into the trip that the likelihood of reaching Ex Cancri was nonexistent. Mostly due to that very real space in between stars that I thought didn't really exist. It seems that, after I researched the issue, the only ships to have ever been reported as traveling to this far flung system were all of the fated Distant Stars 3303 Expedition.
And to my knowledge, they NEVER RETURNED. It's a hard earned journey through what's reported to be the most treacherous stretch of stars known to humankind. A manual chart through the dangerous Cancri Climb culminating in a one-way trip via a "point of no return" pulsar to the closest star in this near untouchable cluster over 200 Ly away.
What was the point of this? What good is the promise of millions of credits if you'll never be able to collect it? She had to have known what she was asking. Was she suicidal? Did she not care about taking her helpers to their doom? Did she not care about taking my wife and I along for the ride? Did she not care about our cat?!
So there we were. In the middle of the black with an utter inability to move forward shipped and equipped as we were. And I turned the boat around and burned the contract. That's when our would be benefactor did something that completely confounded me. She politely said ok, asked me to drop her at the nearest station, went to the lower decks with her +7, and the last I heard of them while I was preoccupied plotting our return to Sol was a warning from my on-board computer telling me that our escape pods were being launched. It was insanity. We were 1,000 Ly from "the bubble" of civilization. And twice that distance from her supposed destination. They'd never make it to either location in lifeboats. They refused to return. They wouldn't answer hails. They simply floated slowly in the general direction of Ex Cancri.
Not really knowing what to do, shocked into silence, Na'Kimuli and I shook our heads somberly at each other, cut our losses and started our 100 jump journey home. People, it seems, will never cease to surprise. Whether it be good, bad or otherwise. You never know what's in a person's head. But at least the trip won't be a complete bust. The information that we bring back to the Federation about the systems we passed through will aid in its expansion and the expansion of humankind as a whole. Not to mention that my wife and I will get to enjoy some very luxurious quarters during our return trip home; a pleasant change from the modified corner of the fighter bay we're currently using as a place to lay our heads.