Keep on Truckin'
17 Jun 2020Dante Cortez
I made good time today. 25+ jumps before I decided to land and call it a night. Probably 750ly or so in all. I fiddled with the route a little. At first, I was going to use only systems with A, B, and F class stars, figuring they give better odds of finding interesting planets. And I did find a couple of water worlds and an ammonia world out there in mid-nowhere.But then I thought... Hey, I'm supposed to be an explorer. How can I just ignore all those other stars out there? So I rerouted with G and K stars, but finally I relented and added back in the M class and all the brown dwarfs and T Tauri stars too. Turns out it shortens the route to Eta Carina, so that's a bonus. According to Jena (yes I named my ship's computer shut up you'd do the same she's the only one to talk to out there) I have about 180 jumps left on this route. Half my brain thinks "That's not so bad," and then the other half tries to strangle the first half, because that's a lot of jumps.
I probably should have spent more time in Sagan's pilot lounge. The bartender was cool. I think. She didn't mind that I was absolute crap at talking to other humans, at least. I mean, considering I haven't said more than three words out loud in six or eight months, just ordering bourbon was a challenge. Anyway, she seemed to have no problem understanding me.
Then a couple of other pilots walked in and the place started to feel very crowded. With three of us and the bartender, in a room that might have been able to hold 50 or 60 people. (That was creeping me out too - so much room! Not banging my shins against a console every time I turned around.) I eventually left and got a cheap room for the night while they fixed up some minor dents and dings on the ship and restocked her. That was weird too. God. Sagan's a tiny hole in the wall compared to some of the stations back in the bubble. If I had trouble adjusting to that after months in the Black, what's it going to be like if I head back to civilization?
Aha! says the first half of my brain. That's not a concern right now, because we are heading AWAY from civilization! Troublesome thoughts successfully averted.
And now I'm bedding down in my tiny pilot's cabin at the bottom of a 3 km deep canyon on the second moon of a gas giant that is the 12th of 13 planets orbiting an M-class star in Outoppy Sector, and I couldn't feel more at home.