Personal Log 130: 15th – 21st August, 3302
05 Nov 2016Jemine Caesar
15th – 21st August, 3302Miriyan Thiessen had set no dates or deadlines for our proposed meeting, so Sam and I adopted a leisurely attitude towards the trip to Bactrimpox.
We left Ross 129 shortly before 00:00 Galactic Standard Time on August 14th, and arrived at Coney Enterprise three-and-a-bit days later. There had been various incidents and mishaps along the way.
The most notable of these was at Trishigaut, when The Last Thing was interdicted and destroyed by a Vulture to prevent the delivery of twelve cans of washing machines. After waking up in Schlegel Terminal medicentre I bought a replacement Cobra IV and tried again. The same saboteur was waiting for me at Trishigaut once more, but this time I managed to reach port before he could bring his lasers to bear.
At Wirdh I replaced two of my beam lasers with 2F-rated burst lasers. They cost 162000CR each, but would give The Last Thing "a bit more welly", as the salesman had put it.
On August 17th Sam was called up by the Federal Medical Corps to help deal with an outbreak of plague in the Tamba system.
"I'm not sure how long I'll be needed," he told me, "so I think we'd best agree to meet up at Bactrimpox."
*****
It was late when I docked at Coney Enterprise; the offices of Elite And Real, the Thiessen family business, had closed for the day. I had no other contact details for Miriyan Thiessen, so my only remaining course of action was to book into a room and try again the next day.
*****
The following morning I contacted Elite And Real by holo-com from my room.
"I'm sorry," said the receptionist. "I'm afraid Miss Thiessen is out of the system on urgent business. Would you like to leave a message?"
"Um... yes," I said, disappointed. "Please tell Miss Thiessen that Jemine Caesar called, in response to her invitation regarding Valentina! magazine. Do you know when she'll be back?"
The receptionist shot me a professional smile. "I really couldn't say," she said.
I closed the holo-com link and slumped back onto my bed, feeling deflated. I considered giving the whole thing up as a bad job and getting out of Bactrimpox again, but my curiosity got the better of me. Sooner or later Miriyan Thiessen would return, and I'd find out what her proposal was all about. Until then, I decided, I might as well make myself useful to her family's business by taking on delivery jobs from the Mission Board.
A few cargo runs soon raised my rep with Elite And Real to Cordial. The neighbouring systems of Chertrima, Njoere, Sekenks and Masai soon became familiar names to me. Elite And Real established itself fairly quickly, and entered a boom state on August 20th.
Of course, the rival factions resented the appearance of Elite And Real, as I learned when I was interdicted by an Asp Scout flown by Novice-rated Caroline Temble. I beat her fairly easily for a bounty of 22000CR, but my new 2F burst lasers revealed themselves to be power-hungry in the extreme. I booked The Last Thing in at the Coney Enterprise outfitters for yet another weapons change, when I spotted an advertisement for a Viper Mark IV.
Perhaps now was the time to try something a little different.