Log 7: The Black
26 Oct 2020Tala Wren
Sitting here in my bunk aboard Razorcrest, I can hardly believe where I am, and what I'm doing.In my previous log, I talked about planning a journey to the center of the galaxy with a good friend; well, we set off not long after I wrote that.
Cmdr Tritogenia and I both parked ourselves aboard a carrier in Komovoy, the system I consider to be home, of sorts; the owner of the carrier is a good friend of mine, as are most of the commanders who operate out of it, and he granted us both access to the carriers facilities, so I figured it was a good place to start.
We spent some time finalizing the preparations aboard our respective ships, and then we just...set out. Like we were just taking a quick hop out to Sol. It was at once incredibly mundane and awesomely exciting; the departure was exactly like every other carrier departure I've ever made in my life, but hanging over all of it was the anticipation and the excitement of the large journey we were setting out on.
I am now 5 thousand lightyears from there. I have seen all sorts of cool systems, and all sorts of dull systems. And there is so much more to see still! I'm not even halfway to the destination; Saggitarius A* is so far out that we've both had to route to somewhere a little bit closer, because our navigation computers just can't cope with that kind of distance.
I am giddy with the knowledge that my ship's databanks contain scans and maps of dozens of systems and planets, a significant number of which I may be the first human, or even the first living being, to have seen.
And the Neutron Highway is fun, and exciting! I know boosting off of a neutron star increases wear and tear on the frame shift drive, but it's incredibly useful. And the stars themselves are incredible! I had no idea there was such variation in the speed of the jet cone rotations; I have seen every speed from slow and barely turning, all the way to rotating so fast the flashing gave me a headache.
And I never realized just how small they are! I mean, of course, I knew that neutron stars are much smaller than most other stars, with comparable mass, but it's one thing to know, and quite another to actually see and experience it. When I was trying to scoop up enough of the jet cone to super-charge my fsd, it took me a few go-arounds, and for the first one I struggled to actually locate it, it was so small.
And the data! Oh, the data; there is so much data. It's worth a lot of credits, of course; my best estimate suggests Universal Cartographics would pay around 19 million credits for everything I currently have. But that's not really what excites me the most, if I'm being honest; what really excites me, and makes me absolutely, insanely giddy, is the thought that when I finally return to populated space, I will be bringing with me new discoveries, data on systems that were previously unknown, and unmapped, and unseen.
And this is a destination that many explorers and travelers go to! Imagine what lays out there in the less-traveled regions, where few, if any, have journeyed....