Personal Log 4: 20th - 26th April, 3301
04 Sep 2016Jemine Caesar
20th - 26th April, 3301Still shaken by last week's two pirate attacks, I decided to look at increasing The Last Thing's firepower.
"What you need is a fixed-mount Beam Laser, my lovely", said the slightly lascivious salesman at Cleve Hub's ship's outfitters. "Gives you plenty of crunch for your cred, and only 37,430CR to you." I was doing better at trading, and, though not awash with money, I took the salesman's recommendation in part-exchange for one of my pulse lasers.
A little later I docked at Ackerman Market, and went straight to Rikk's Cafe. Rikk smiled as I entered the cafe.
"You'll be here to collect your mint choc chip fudge sundae," he said, serving it with an extra chocolate straw. "That Rudolphus seemed like a pretty nice guy," he added, watching me eat the dessert. I could feel it going straight on to my hips.
After spending the night before my birthday on Dalton Gateway, I boarded the shuttle down to my homeworld. Waiting for me in the arrivals lounge was my grandpapa, Barnes Darrell. (You may have heard of him. He was a holovid actor, as was his wife, my grandmama Rebekka.) The happiness of our meeting was cut short by the bad news he had brought to me.
* * * * *
My parents, he told me, had died in an accident on April 16th. A faulty atomostove had exploded in their caravan, killing them instantly. I had been thought to have died in the fire as well, until the authorities discovered that I had left the planet in February. On April 23rd they notified my grandpapa that I had booked a seat on the planetbound shuttle, giving him just enough time to be there to meet me.
The funerals took place on April 24th, the day after my 28th birthday, which, of course, had passed uncelebrated.
After a tearful goodbye to my grandparents, I returned to my ship in a daze. With four canisters of polysatinester fabric in the hold, I jumped to Chamunda and locked on course for Gidzenko Ring. Dropping into normal space I found I was still over 100km from the starport, and had to make two microjumps to reach it, only to then be bumped in the entry slot by a departing Sidewinder.
A couple of delivery jobs took me to the Sun Takush system. Shortly after docking at McNair Gateway, an open channel message from another CMDR flashed up on the comms panel, asking for help in finding the way into the station. I responded with instructions as best I could, and a few minutes later the CMDR thanked me for my assistance as he flew in to dock.
Notification came through that my Trader Rank had increased from Penniless to Mostly Penniless. It would have been encouraging news at any other time, but my heart was heavy with the loss of my mama and papa. I checked into my room, lay on the bed and cried myself to sleep.