Vantablack
04 Dec 2020Valanga
This thing is MASSIVE. And it's mine. Holy hell.Control of my new Victory-class megaship, the RSC Infinitas, was handed over to me today by my contact at the Brewer Corporation. I still need to get it outfitted with all of the labs and instruments I want to have it equipped with, and I'll have to migrate some of our science team onboard... but even raw, with minimum operational services, this thing is a beast. Slathered with turrets to ward off pirates, damn near untouchable by conventional ship-mounted weaponry, plenty of space for my field agents to park, and words cannot describe how satisfying it is to wield a Frame Shift Drive that can go pretty much anywhere you want it to.
The downside is that this thing is gonna cost me a pretty penny to keep staffed and fixed up, considering I've had to hire an entire crew to pilot this behemoth when I'm not around. I'll be honest, I hadn't really considered the implications of owning a ship of this size until now. Between the upfront cost and all the money I dumped into hiring a crew I could trust...
I'm pretty much dirt poor again.
Which means that the day-in, day-out quest for Credits never really did end, did it?
It's hardly a secret that the Seven Keys Alliance doesn't exactly net us the most money. All of this has always been a passion project that I've operated at a loss. Maybe that's insane- in fact, it absolutely is. But if it means compromising on my vision and my goals, I'll probably never change it. Living this way has always been more interesting to me.
What good fortune it is, then, that Sirius Corp. chose now of all times to start workshopping their ammonia world terraforming technology, because now they're looking for survey and cartography data of ammonia worlds for research purposes, and offering a nice sum of Credits for those willing to hand it over. Additionally, if my understanding is correct, they said something about distributing prototype surface scanner modules to the more active participants as a token of their thanks? I'm thinking there could be a typo on the pamphlet I got, or else these new DSS modules have an ungodly-strong probe signal, because I've never seen range numbers like this.
This all is so up my alley. I left the Infinitas in high orbit above Fomalhaut to establish a presence there, and set off this evening for the Coalsack region. A sector of space outside the Bubble so-named for the titular Coalsack Nebula, a pitch-black star factory shaped approximately like a bag with stuff spilling out if you look from the right angle. I've never actually been out this way before - I didn't even realize Sirius had a starport out here until today when I got the directions to it.
And that brings us to now. I'm sitting in my Krait Phantom, nestled within the dark clouds of the Coalsack Nebula, looking out at... pure darkness.
Sitting inside this thing has painted all of space totally black. Like, blacker than black. It's almost unsettling. I've been inside of nebulae before, and typically they tint the galaxy around you a fantastical shade of red or blue or purple or yellow or what-have-you. But this is different. It's like the whole galaxy has gone the color of anxiety and imminent danger.
I'm definitely docking before I sleep tonight. I feel like I'm being watched by the void out here.
Val, out.