Reality of my fantasy...
21 May 2020El_Guapo_Gaucho
Star Date: 14.05.3306Ship: “Night Cat” Custom Touring DBX
Location: OOCHOSS TO-Z EO A
Prompt: Reality of my fantasy…
I am certain it was real. I am not certain it happened when I think it did. I am certain it did happen. If it did happen, It just happened, I am certain.
Doctor Fyans appeared on screen, frantic, ruffled hair and wide eyed, shouting; between the static white noise crackling and distortion of the image, I could not comprehend much. The long range sensors spitting stabs of his communication through the visiscreen, crashing waves of rainbow pixels and spirals - that’s what happens in deep deep space, the signals get mashed up and broken.
He could see and hear me. Clearly. When I spoke he seemed to react immediately to me, prompted by my words. So I asked.
Is everything all-right?
I thought back to when I last saw him. Doctor Fyans. Was he alive?
I had just come back from checking on the ship.The nurse confirmed with her contact at the shipyard that Night Cat was ready for me to fly out - that very afternoon If I liked. The doctor had joined me for the inspection. We were walking back from seeing the ship. The doctor was telling me how impressed he was with the ship, a real piece of work, perfect for exploring. Between the previous owners custom modules and a few pieces we had bought and tinkered with, we had the jump range up to 60ly and the scanners capacity to meet efficiency target on all but the biggest of gas giants. We had even managed to fit an SRV bay in the craft to enable surface exploration and materials gathering. Suffice to say I was excited and all that was left now was a grand despidida.
We entered the room, lit the candle on the cake to toast, and raised the glasses on our Soothis Soothers - at that point my memories are a little multifaceted but I am sure of the following. Doctor Fyans raised his glass and began quoting Nietzsche “We must learn to hide in the darkness…”. The nurse (Jineafer?? - I still cant be sure of her name) was toasting, a few others were present but I cannot yet see them clearly. Then sudden commotion and the cat eyed assassin appeared and shot Doctor Fyans. The nurse was somehow injured, and dropped to the floor. The assassin levelled her eyes and her weapon with me. I can't seem to get clarity over anything that happened directly after that, but I have recollected a lot of what happened before.
With the help of the Class A stars and my droning sleep/wake technique, I have pieced together the following narrative of events after being found in the escape pod. Approximately one month in the coma and critical recovery where I was mostly drugged up and healing. I have vague memories of this, but I distinctly remember the Nurse describing it a few times. Then approximately a month of physical rehabilitation. Some of my damaged body has been supplanted with cybernetic inserts which I now understand is quite common, but the muscle strength and nerve connections needed for activation of these “modules” are best trained with repetitious domestic duties.
Thankfully, the MediBay also offered Meditech advanced learning modules at a general MedicoSpecialist level. I was able to study and work off my debt with maintenance and assistant duties in the school. I spent the following two months working, studying, and paying off my accrued medical debts. This also gave me time to secure and modify Night Cat with the help of the mechanic at the star port, the nurses girlfriend.
I could have stayed on and worked as a MedicoSpecialist. I was more interested in getting into my first real space voyage. I had done a couple of test flights to local stars and back. Nothing over 20ly. Just making sure I could comfortably launch, dock, and hyper-jump. After one session out I decided I definitely did not need auto dock on such a little ship - especially since I was not intending to do much docking while I was out and about. Flying the ship came very naturally even with the cybernetic-modules defining new neural pathways in my body for interaction. I felt I had been flying for many many years. Exploration however felt like something new. The Heart and Soul Nebulas. I had picked them from a group of local and not so local Nebula destinations in the brochures at the spaceport. It was considered a relatively safe destination with a high chance of a deep space megaship being in the vicinity, good in in case I needed repairs and supplies upon arrival.
Through my recovery and subsequent rehabilitation, I had this feeling that I needed to go, something was waiting out there in the black. I could not seem to unlock the memories of my former self. We tried a multitude of scans and basic therapies, but in the end the doctor classified it as Trauma Induced Anterograde Amnesia. The physical trauma of the attack that left me marooned in Robigo. He described my former self as Hiding in the Darkness He had a theory that with enough exposure of the trauma, some memories may be revealed. Though he had neither the training or the means - that was the kind of treatment advanced psychotherapists would do. Robigo is a mining and refinery outpost - I would need to go to more populated areas to find that kind of treatment - If I really wanted it. To be honest we agreed I was stable enough to pursue this in my own time or not… But now, thinking over it, I realise it is this very idea is what drove me to find the class A stars. The stark white light helps me push past the trauma, exposing the memories it has confounded.
The next clear memory I have is banking out of that space port in Robigo as fast the Night Cat could fly. I slipped a few quick jumps to get distance between me and that madness, and then began plotting my long distance voyage, working my way out into the nothingness... To escape but also to forget…then while fuel scooping, I started to remember the night I was shot out of the sky.
I have had very brief, very strong memory flashes of that night. It has only been in my pursuit of the Class A stars that I have seen more and more. It was no accident. It is a little hazy, but there was laser fire, cannons, missile and torpedoes. I see my attackers. Condors, Gunships and Cobras. Gu-97s, Eagles and couriers. Leading the gunfire an unlikely trio of a Conda, a Clipper and an Assault Ship. Commanding from the back a Vette and a Cutter. I see it, I feel it, like a frozen sensory plateau, I have been coming back to over and over - it's fixed in my mind, like a frozen space. I can see the ships, the barrage of enemy fire. I can see the plates of the ships, I can almost see the commanders and their crews, their faces.
In the centre of all the gunfire, mass-locked and surrounded, is my ship. It was amazing - A gold flamed Federal Corvette with custom body kit and what appears to be some advanced technology. The shielding while it lasted was green, but the ship itself was severed and burning, holes punched through the hull and loosing spacial stability. I cant even begin to imagine what it was worth! I am certain they believe me dead. I must have seriously pissed off some powerful people to get that send off. The Black Spot, the Mancha Negra, Lilliths’ Kiss - I have found a few references to it, known as a technique reserved for traitors among thieves. Essentially, they all line you up at once and shoot you down - no escape, mass locked by their cumulative size you just have to take it….
I have also worked out I have a mild acquired brain injury which is affecting my capacity to record new memories- so essentially I have reoccurring anterograde amnesia and have moments of loosing references to stimuli I just experienced. This is where these journals are really helping me keep track. Though sometimes even while writing I am loosing moments between one sentence and the next. Sometimes I am looking at the screen and I don’t even remember writing the last line.
Hence what started me writing just now. I am certain I just saw the doctor talking to me on the Visiscreen, but obviously he is not there anymore.
I did ask him though - Is everything all-right?
More shouting, more frantic gesticulation - I would have called him a little eccentric even before this message, now he just looked inhuman.
I cannot hear you clearly, is everything all-right.
For a moment it was full clarity, perfect resolution, perfect pitch, like he was in the room with me.
You need to turn back. You are not well. Something is wrong in your head. The stars, stop looking at the stars…Something is pushing you away. You need to turn back.
The words, the sincerity, the duplicitous care in his eyes, I have seen somewhere before, it filled me with rage, in my gut I felt it squeeze tight, my hands clamped, my jaw clenched, a hot burning spasm rocked through me and pushed me to shout, I clenched my eyes and screamed LEAVE ME ALONE!
And as I opened them, nothing. No Doctor Fyans, no communication, the long range sensors were not even turned on, the visiscreen black. I blinked again, looked at my hands to make sure I was awake, moving them up and down, rotating left and right, like I always do. I rolled my eyes left up and right, stretching, and checked again. There was nothing. I checked the log book for communications, nothing. I checked the data com for any signal in the last day, week, month - nothing but Galnet deliveries and my navigation pings between jumps.
I had been dreaming again, I must have been dreaming, droning again, halfway between sleep and waking, that liminal space. Never too sure what is real and what is not.
But it felt so real. The only problem with that was that Doctor Fyans was dead. I was certain of it… till a moment ago. I had seen him drop to the ground when the assassin fired. The assassin…
The assassin with cat eyes.
Now I am wondering - am I lost in the reality of my fantasy, or giving credibility to the fantasy of my reality. I am caught staring into an OOCHOSS TO-Z EO Class A tossing this conundrum back and forth…
