Exploration Log 1 : A night of firsts
13 Mar 2022Creamy Goodness III
12 – 03 – 08 Bout 20:30
Introduction
While The Disc is a unique station with plenty going on to keep a chap entertained, I felt like the only person in the room that didn’t get the joke. I was in a club called the Mended Drum; it’s a sort of theme club, when I realised I was so far out to sea with what it was about, I was growing barnacles on my bum.
After a few libations in honour of her grace, Brizo, I decided to start my journey this evening. It would mean I sacrificed my last night in a bed with enough centro-force to at least feel like ‘lying down’, but when one feels brave enough to jump into the abyss, one should jump before reason is reasserted.
This isn’t an expedition to see what is out there per-se, I’m hoping to follow in the footsteps of my Uncle and find out what happened to him. A few years ago, he left to take a deco at a nebula reasonably close to the bubble, and that was the last anyone heard from him. As I was, and still am, in self-imposed exile, I wasn’t informed he had been pronounced deceased.
I have the expedition treatise he submitted to the Imperial Explorers Society, so I’ll not be taking blind stabs in the dark every jump. I hope I will happen upon a system with his name on the star, and that could very well be my first solid step towards discovering his fate, and with luck, learn more about the Guardian device he left in my care.
Launch
Wiggy suggested I took a picture of my ship for a comparison when I return, so I launched a drone and did just that before taking the plunge. He also informed me keeping a journal would help make this journey feel much less lonely. As a liner pilot, I’m no stranger to long flights, but the feeling of launching alone heading toward unpopulated space does feel somewhat bleak.
What can I say about my first evening ‘out in the black’ as they say? Well, it was indeed an evening of firsts. For the first time (when I was actually paying attention) I was the first human to enter a star system. It is a very mundane system, but I was the first person to visit it and that feels good. Alright because the ship I’m flying does not belong to me, someone else’s name in on the star, but I know it is my honour.
I experienced being the first person to put a footprint on a planet. Again, it is just a run-of-the-mill ice body, but I was the first human to make a mess of its pristine surface.
I landed here because I detected my first bio-signal. Again, it’s the first one when I was actually looking for them, and again it was as uninteresting as a bio-signal it could be, but it is my first.
I ‘worked’ until a little after midnight before deciding that was enough for the first day. I was advised to keep a schedule and stick to it in an effort to ward off cabin fever, so I’ll start that tomorrow. As it is, I’m tucked up in bed on the surface of another Ice world, dictating my first expedition log to Ninette. She is only a PA program, but I’m glad I have her familiar company on my first long, solo journey.
