DW2: From Sol to Thor's Eye
17 Jan 2019Wayward Plane
This ain't the furthest I've ever been from the bubble. Nah. That'd be... Rohini, probably. Or some little no-name system in the middle of nowhere that I jumped to and scooped and scanned and forgot. I've put my name on over a thousand stars and planets, and most of 'em I'll never see again, and maybe no one else will, either. That's all right, though. Just how it goes.But this is the furthest I've ever been into the black with the intention - the firm and sworn intention - to go further, all the way, as far as I can go. Always before, I'd set some lofty goal - and then get scared, feeling the weight of how far away the closest station might be, and how thin the hull of my ship really is against the darkness of space and all the types of fire and stone that live there. I'm at my best when I'm out in the black, with no one to shoot me or fight with me or argue with: just me and my ship and the great unknown. But too much unknown can be formidable - especially when that "unknown" includes the uncertainty of whether I'll make it back to a station to repair after one too many failed approaches to neutron stars or moments of inattention while fuel-scooping.
So I'd set a course for Colonia, or the Devil's Dancefloor, or whatever, and then... I'd think about it too much, and duck back to safety. Some Explorer I am, huh?
Then I heard about this expedition. And I thought: Yeah. Signed up at pretty much the last possible moment, and here I am, busting my ASP (didja see what I did there?) to catch up to the others at Omega Mining, and head off deeper into the deep dark than I've ever been before.
I might not make it. Might leave pieces of my ship and me scattered around some other backwater star that no one will ever visit again. I mean, I'm kind of prone to disaster at the best of times, in the safest of systems, so... yeah.
But y'know what, it's worth that risk. Just to be out there. As far out there as I can go.
The last things I did before I left the bubble were bucket-list items: I'd never been to Hutton for the mug, and I'd never seen Earth. So I did both. Wasn't planning it as some sort of grand farewell gesture, but... camped out on the surface of Mercury that last night, looking up at the first star humanity ever knew, it felt right. Y'know? To head out of Sol system to go see distant worlds. So that's what I did. Stopped at Daedalus to fix up my paint (worn down to nothing from my previous trips into the black) and set off, all shiny-bright, into the unknown.
And tonight, I'm sleeping on the edge of a black hole, in a ship already starting to get scruffy from the trip... and I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.
Whatever it is, it'll surely be an adventure.
