<REDACTED>
06 Jul 2023Totallynotademon
I just turned in my last courier manifest for a while. Next week I am leaving the bubble for what will be my longest expedition yet. If my leave request is approved that is, but why wouldn't it? I'm just a contractor. A hired gun. I can leave anytime I want. The request is really just a formality. You know how these imperials are with their traditions. I heard there are thousands of earth-like worlds out in the Elysian Shore just waiting to be found, and if I'm the first to find them, Universal Cartographics will pay big time for that data.
But it's not about the money. I made billions mining platinum. I have enough credits to last me a long long time, and there is plenty of platinum still out there if I ever start running low.
No. It's the desire to explore that was imbedded in me by my <REDACTED>. Well, he's not really my uncle. He was just this old man who lived near my family when I was a kid. All my friends and I just called him <REDACTED>. Nobody knew where that came from, it's just what we called him. Come to think of it, I'm not even sure if <REDACTED> is even his real name. Some say he used to be a federal officer who went AWOL and never went back, or a retired pirate who is still in hiding. Its all rumors.
<REDACTED> loved telling us kids about all his adventures exploring the galaxy, and I could listen to him all day. I remember him telling me about the supermassive black hole at the galactic core. I couldn't comprehend the size. Hell, I had never even left our system, let alone see any black hole. To think he travelled 20 thousand light years away just to see it. To be alone for months at a time. Just him and his ship.
I had to do it for myself. There are plenty of explorers who started in their 50s, right? No time like the present.
I talked to my contracts officer at the navy and told her my plans. She laughed and said "you're really going to take that beat up Python out to the black?"
She's got a point. Maybe I should get a new ship.