Into the Unknown
16 Aug 2021The Bell Tolls
Captain's Log, date... I don't know, I tend not to look a the clock. It's easier that way.I've spent long hours in the bubble. Trading resources, acting as a tour guide, building favor with the various engineers, and delivering some sensitive data for the factions. But at this point, I've spent even longer out in The Black. Out in the unknown, where I'm the only soul for hundreds, nay, thousands of lightyears. Of course, that's not to diminish the efforts of the DSSA Network. God bless the crews of those lonely Fleet Carriers who live out here to benefit people like me.
But I digress. As said, I've been out here for a while. And it's going to stay that way for quite a while longer. My latest expedition had me sightseeing the Galactic Center, and visiting the goliath Sagittarius A*. But that expedition quickly spiraled into something... much greater.
I had heard of Colonia before. The "second bubble" humanity had established far out in the depths of the galaxy. I figured, if I'm out here, I may as well investigate. I'm an explorer and researcher at heart, so it made sense to visit Jacques Station in honor of that crazy bastard. But then something came over me. I don't know what it was. There I was, looking at the Galaxy Map, choosing how to plot my course to Colonia when I remembered the Economical routing option. I'd never used it before, as I always just wanted to get where I was going as fast as I could... but this time, I don't know. Maybe it's space madness, maybe it's the thrill of raking in so many credits, or maybe I just want my name on as many stars and planets as I can get.
Whatever it was, I ran the numbers and started to plot my course. From near Sagittarius A* to Colonia, only using the Economical routing. A near 11,500Ly journey. And it seemed to me I was hitting every system possible on the way to it. I punched the first waypoint into my computer, and I was greeted with a course of 742 jumps. 742 jumps to go 950 lightyears. And that was just the first waypoint of a 14 waypoint journey. I felt like something must have been wrong with me, but I stuck with the course and began my journey.
That was 12 days ago, give or take. Today, I finally reached the first waypoint. I decided to double back to the nearest DSSA carrier to sell my data, which only took 14 jumps to get to. 14 jumps to cover the distance that took nearly 2 weeks to accomplish. The insanity of my journey started to set in. Fortunately, I made it to the carrier with no issue and began to turn in my data. Page after page of it. The Universal Cartographics software was having trouble parsing the thousands of bodies I had logged into my ship's computer, but eventually, their systems caught up and deposited the credits into my account. It was the most credits I had ever seen, and I still had so much farther to travel.
So I set off back to my first waypoint. Upon arrival, I queued up my next waypoint. Another 515 jumps to go. And go I shall, because I'm an explorer and researcher.
The unknown calls to me, and I'll gladly answer.
//CMDR The Bell Tolls
