Pussyfooting around in the Cat's Paw Nebula
17 Dec 2022Carbucketty
I've been out in the black for months. A tour of Colonia, then a biological survey mission all the way out to Salomé's Reach and back to the Bubble via Sagittarius A*. Made it back as far as the Cat's Paw Nebula, and decided I'd take a brief pause to make landfall on a few planets and scout for some of the strange organisms that make their home in such places. And that's when I got word that humankind had decided to kick a big nest of angry insectoids. Now, I don't have a favourite side here. I've had plenty of hassle from human and Thargoid alike when all I wanted to do was mind my own business. And frankly, from what I can see the humans have brought a lot of this on themselves. Why should I get dragged into a fight I never started? And yet, humankind getting wiped out would be so damned inconvenient. No man is an island, and neither is any other species, all these single-organism ecosystems I keep finding notwithstanding. Sure, the Mercy will last my lifetime if treated gently, and it can synth decent-enough food pellets, I suppose. Or... I did find that system a while back with three Earthlike planets... perhaps an escape pod could make it down to the surface of the friendliest-looking one, and I could live out my remaining years in peace. But my adventuring days would be gone forever, and it would always feel like I was hiding. No more tussling with pirates, no more Esuseku caviar or Ceti rabbit, no more freedom of a vast and uncharted galaxy. And there are one or two engineers who aren't so bad as people go.I suppose it's time to head back.