Entry 117 - 05.22.3304 The Story So Far...
22 May 2018MBaldelli
Current System: Outopps JX-A c27-4I had blasted the Pilot's Guild in a long missive of an email based on boh the lack of agency and the insane levels of bureaucracies necessary to perform the work both inside and outside the bubble. I knew that there were moments where the diplomatic that I try to be was being tattered in the attempt; underneath I was positively incendiary. While I knew when I was through that email, I was going to need a cooling off period, there were more than a couple of moments I should retire my commission, sell all my ships and go back home and find some sort of job that would never require me to go back to space and outside of any gravity well.
I didn't though. Something about selling the Tokugawa felt wrong. And like it or not, the Zheng He felt like my home away from home. I plotted a course home to BD-01 3500 and decided that with the massive haul of credits I had earned from my expedition to Eta Carinae it was time to take a long-awaited vacation.
I landed at one of the main starports on the planet and far from the smaller port in my hometown. I didn't want to alert my family that I was back and wanting less of them asking all the questions they would invariably ask when it came to an unscheduled return home.
After performing the final shut down and putting the Zheng He to standby I strolled down the gantry with duffel over my shoulder and headed into the concourse of the main building to book passage to one of the hundreds of locations in the south continent that accommodates both pilots and tourists with the beauty home has to offer.
I was able to book last minute passage to one of the more excluded vacation spots along the coast of the Southern Continent; a perfect place for a Deep Space Pilot used to seclusion and the quieter sounds of a ship's cockpit.
Stepping out of the concourse, I lumbered to the gantry for the intercontinental aircraft , found my seat and enjoyed the moment that I wouldn't have to fly myself from one part of the world to the other.
I remember that I had only a week of tranquility to enjoy before the calls from my family began. It took no time for my parents to realize I wasn't in the black and were asking where I currently was, what I was doing, who I was spending time with.
The faux hurt began when they realized I was home and vacationing in the southern part of the world.
I cut my vacation short, headed home and was greeted at the port with my family standing there in the luggage concourse. It was the typical warm-come-cooler greeting from them when they realized in their queries I would be home for an extended period of time.
I reminded them that I still had the apartment that I've been living in prior to my joining the academy and was planning on staying there like I typically did when I came home. When I stopped my parents in their tracks that this didn't mean I was settling down and giving them the grandchildren they routinely asked me for -- they returned to being more like themselves when I was in the Black.
About a month later as I was puttering around town, my wrist-comm buzzed with an unknown Caller ID. Answering, I found myself talking with one of the administratives for a well-known politician from the planet: Kobe Fabienne.
Fabienne's administrator was as direct as he was terse. It seems that he and his office were inviting me to participate in a local event to speak about the Thargoid threat that was going on within other sectors of known civilization.
I explained I was a Deep Space Explorer and the Thargoid Threat was something I never got involved in.
He wouldn't take no for an answer.
I relented and explained I would attend, but wouldn't have much to say on the subject.
A couple of days later, I found myself in a standard auditorium of one of the concert halls, with Fabienne's assistant greeting me and leading me to the side of the stage where there were other pilots sitting. Some of them were green, as I saw them in their uniforms. Veterans were moderately dressed in civilian clothes. One of them was in their Imperial Uniform and sporting the rank of Earl.
I shook hands and saluted some of the pilots that were there, though I don't remember any of their names. Looking around the auditorium, I noticed that it was filled to capacity. Anyone who was anyone was here and waiting patiently for the quorum to begin, not-quite-quietly muttering to each other.
When Fabienne and the other delegates from the local government arrived, that's when the spectacle began.
People there while being civil were clearly in a panic about the threat of the Thargoid. We were the panel that the politicians wanted to use to create either FUD or Confidence with the masses -- most of the pilots present either couldn't answer the questions and those that did explained time and again just how far away the threat truly was to my home.
While it wasn't the answers people were looking for they did seem a bit calmer than the beginning of the spectacle; but it wasn't the circus I was thinking it was going to be.
For the next month my comm was trying to buzz my hand off my wrist. It wasn't a complete surprise that the local news noticed that I was silent through the town hall meeting. But it was a surprise at how the various newscasters that contacted me tried to interpret that silence. No matter how often I told them that it was because I have no experience with Thargoids, they didn't believe it.
When I got tired of the calls and shut off my comm; they would come to visit. When I stopped answering my doorbell, they would ambush me when I did leave the house. I got tired of that, went to the starport, brought the Zheng He out of standby, and decided that the Deep Black would be a better choice than the popularity.