The Darkness Within...
04 May 2020El_Guapo_Gaucho
Star Date: 05.05.3306Ship: “Night Cat” Custom Touring DBX
Location: SYNUEFAI SV-Z C2-1 A
Prompt: The darkness within…
Deep space has a way of reminding me what it is that I am trying so hard to forget. In amongst the blackness and the millions of stars I see, I stare and I feel something staring back, it’s not real, it’s not true, but it certainly feels that way.
My reverie is interrupted by constant flashes of what was, I have been droning, again, too many jumps and no constancy beguile the mind from tracking reality and distinguishing fantasy. Sometimes I feel like I am no longer in my body, drifting through this void, the odd flash of a Class A Blue-White Star as I pull out of hyperspace bringing memories I cannot recall correctly, or even know if they are mine.
I have been passing time by flicking through some of the flatties from the Golden Era. Humanity, it seems, was obsessed with narratives about daily drama in the pre-space travel era. I am forever grateful to the Central Archive Authority for keeping such quality entertainment of significant importance, but even after 1000 or so years, some things never change. Judging by the narratives in popular culture, my ancestors were drug runners, domestic cleaners, professional criminals and to a lesser extent - competitive physical exertion elitists and idolised musical vocalists. Essential all the posts now held by droids and cyborgs of one form or another. A Superstar, a term which no longer has the colloquial implications it once had, defined the likes of Latinos like Jennifer Lopez, Shakira (not her true name, a bit like a commander moniker from what I can tell) and some form of early human/canine hybrid called a “Pitbull”. That last one was very talented for something that was part dog, and seemed to be a major collaborator with many other Superstars…
So it’s a simple long range space voyage to the Heart and Soul Nebulas - and back. I am hoping to get some credits from various exploration discoveries on the way. A chance meeting with an avid explorer who goes by the nickname Souly has me interested in finding out more. To be honest, anything from before I woke up is still as black as the deep space outside this ship. I am getting odd flashes of what it was, who I was, but nothing substantial, nothing finite. Hence why I like the droning - in that liminal space, between sleeping and waking, when the fatigue is closing my eyes but my will to know more pushes them awake, I am seeing things…
Souly explained the exploration process. A standard DS like you get on any ship, an upgraded DSS and a decent amount of FSD upgrades will get you far enough to find unexplored worlds. He was recommending the Annaconda, but not yet, not for me. The DBX is enough, small, manoeuvrable, and extremely efficient - and I didn’t have to heart to tell him that my Rear Admiral Federal Navy rank must be a computer error - as far as I could tell. Sure, I know how to fly a ship, it feels instinctual, I must have done a decent amount of flying before the incident that wiped my memory to be so far from the bubble - but an Annaconda? Through Deep Space on my own? No thanks - that sounds like a flaming death by plunging into a burning star on arrival out of hyperspace. Anyhow, once I have had my fill of exploring, I take the scanned data from multitudes of stars, planets, planet surfaces and even some of the things I may find on planets to the nearest space port and they will pay[b] for it. Credits for my musing and moping about the stars in this second hand space junk? Sounds good to me.
It’s obvious I am part of this reality, it’s obvious I am in the year 3306 and making my way through the void of space for the greater good. But there are times I feel more connection to the characters in the flatties, the stories from the Golden Era of Earth bound humans, so fragile yet so defined. Sometimes I feel like I am there more than I am here. Sometimes I feel more human watching flatties than I do in our ISES experiencing the [b]Marvels of Mars, swimming in oceans with golden age whales, or flying with mega-reptiles on pre-humanity earth. While those things are entertaining they are not…. real - even though with the hardware plugged directly into my nervous system, they feel even more real than this reality.
But when the flatty ends, when J-Lo (Jennifer Lopezs’ CMDR name I believe) musical sequence list ends, I am left facing the oblivion abyss of deep space, staring into that blackness and wondering … Is it staring back? When the opportunity arose from necessity to leave, in a hurry, from that damn space port, I was quick to finalise the purchase of said DBX. It probably needed a few more weeks of tinkering with modifications and upgrades, but she flies well and I didnt have the luxury of time to complete them. I didnt even get to change its name! It was named Night Cat by its last owner. She explained to me the size of this craft was similar to the size of native cats on her home world, but never did tell me where that was exactly. I don’t care much for cats, the only one I have met was fairly certain I was good only for scratching and biting, and had a habit of doing both to me whenever the doctor was not present. But the ship flies well, has good structural integrity, and she looks great whenever I take a data verification image.
I have been floating in space for far too long, taking time to make a quick note so I can distinguish today from tomorrow and yesterday was meant to be a coupe of lines, not this essay. Either way, back to the space flight with another 6135 LY to hit my destination, one of the many EAFOTS systems.
An image from earlier today - missed the details of the star, but looked lovely enough to add to my personal collection. Something about it gives me comfort, like a giant embrace from an old friend, it sort of reminds me of a character from a classic childrens flattie called Alice in Wonderland A giant cat who appears from a stellar rocky body known as Moon (I assume its part of the Sol system, I have to check that detail) - he has a large smile, and jests with Alice, the central character of the story, in all sorts of trickery - I wonder if this cat were to smile, would it also bite?