From Love to Lyulka
02 Oct 2016KronenBrg
Life was good.I'd finally got off the pooh train, no more Sophis for me. I wasn't sure if it was because I'd reached all the targets I'd set for myself, or because I'd finally had enough of the awful smell that invaded even my sleep, or because of my strange encounter in the deeps of blackness outside the bubble.
Whichever, I had said goodbye to the crews at Newholm Station, and set off on one last run (no pun intended). I couldn't help but notice their jovial smiles, no doubt expecting me to return and reload my ship with the pungent cargo later in the day.
But I really meant it this time, there would be no "oh, maybe another" to change my mind.
Once I'd dropped the last of loads (again, no pun intended) I took Little Red to XXX where a friend owed me a favour. As it happened, owed favours only cover so much cleaning, and by the time my cargo hold was back to its original metallic grey colour he was happy to present me a bill of one million credits. I guess he was surprised when I pressed my thumb on the scanner and the bill was instantly cleared, but as he was a hardened poker player I couldn't discern anything from his face.
I stayed there for a little under a week, loitering by day in the aboureatum and by night in the bars, listening to conversations, chatting with strangers of all species, reading the Galnet news on my Pad and generally doing as little as possible to replace what felt like a month of flying shit from A to B. By day five I could even say that the strange ship I'd seen (or had I?) was no longer interrupting my train of thought every five minutes, and I figured it was time to head out again.
I checked my credit balance. It was still good. Hell, it was insane. When I think back to the first Sidewinder I owned, the pitiful amount of credits that I'd had, the struggle it had taken to afford even my first Burst Laser. And now I thought nothing that five days board, lodgings and beer had cost just shy of five million credits. What had I become?
I realised that I needed a purpose again. Working for Zac Hudson had given me that for some time, but I needed something different, something with less blood, less lasers. And less shit.
Flicking on the Galnet feed again I read about the second bubble. I envied those Commanders, out there and forging out a new future, a new life. And it was then I saw the advert, looking for traders to bring in Stuff to Love Orbital. They were looking to build fuel stops, to help the less fortunate reach the second colony. It sounded a grand task. It sounded like I'd found a new purpose.