A Month In, A Month Out
13 Jun 2023Taneth
Day 32 | 27,662LY from Sol | Errant Marches | Fraufae SectorWell, yesterday marked a month since I set out. I haven't gone mad yet, or at least I don't think I have. Does a man know when he goes mad? Is there some internal mechanism to inform him thusly that his faculties are no longer fully his own, or does he merely slip into that disquiet blissfully unaware of his condition and ultimate doom? It would be doom out here, I've no doubt of that. The smallest mistakes can mean the end. I'm reminded of my close brush with that magma vent, and I'm careful not to repeat it.
Not to say that I haven't taken any risks. Sometimes sheer boredom has led me to doing things I probably shouldn't, like jumping my SRV onto the top of the ship or doing flips midair just for the thrill of it. Why do all the crazy things pilots do take place in our SRVs?
Maybe I have gone mad.
I saw a beautiful world with a thin oxygen atmosphere. The sunsets were breathtaking in hues of pink and plum. It was a ringed world orbiting a gas giant as well. I managed to climb an incredibly steep mountain to get some pretty amazing views. Almost lost the SRV a few times on that hike. See, another case of being risky in an SRV. I think it was worth it, though.
I finally made my way over to the newly placed Pioneer VIII carrier. They were some nice folks, and I was able to sell more of my data. My credit balance just keeps growing, and I'll admit I'm starting to think about what I can do with it. It's like those numbers on the terminal are trying to pull me back to civilization.
Not yet, though... not yet.
Thanks to some intel I received on the Pioneer VIII, I'm now heading to a place known colloquially as Star One. It's supposed to be the closest star in the Milky Way to the Andromeda Galaxy. I wonder if I'll even be able to make out the distant galaxy from there. At any rate, it should be interesting... but it's going to be a good journey to get there.
Will swing by the DSSA Andromeda Calling on my way, which suddenly has a much more understandable name given what it's close to.
After I left Pioneer VIII I did finally try something I've always been a bit too nervous to risk. I flew the Ecco through both a White Dwarf and a Neutron with my scoop open. I've always heard of it, even heard of the neutron highway, but honestly those stars have always terrified me a little. Okay, maybe a lot. Since I had just sold my data though, and all that was left was... you know, my actual life (which is consequently far less valuable on the cosmic scale of humanity), I decided to give it a whirl. Shook my nerves up a lot, but I managed it. Felt good enough about it that I let the plotting computer included them in its calculations. Who knows, maybe I'll shave a few hundred light years off here and there now.
Found a few Ammonia worlds, and honestly they just made me think back to those 'Goid sensors I found. I heard rumors back in the bubble that they might've come from worlds like that, so you can imagine I fired my probes and didn't even wait for them to land before I started flying off. I half-expected a titan to rise off the surface and give chase.
I didn't look back to find out.
Alright. I've run out of things to talk about, and I'm probably starting to sound like a chicken shit, so I suppose I'll sign off until next time.