Travelling Man
29 Feb 2016TheDarkLord
In Transit to Kaushpoos, Imperial Clipper.November 3301.
With a new Clipper underneath me, I was heading to Neville Horizons, in the Kaushpoos system. There was a community goal requiring the services of miners to acquire palladium from nearby rocks. Since mining was something of a specialty of mine, it looked to be an easy way to make money to outfit my new home.
Kaushpoos felt like a long way away, it has to be said. 350 light years. Jump-jump-jump-scoop-jump-jump-jump. I’d thrown an Advanced Discovery Scanner on so I could scan systems as I was passing through, to help my Exploration rank. It seemed so dull though. Jump-jump-jump-yawn. There were people I knew out there, outwardly sane people, who thought that Exploration was a great gig. Perhaps these were not my kind of people. Or at least given to proclivities that I couldn’t understand.
I was starting to settle into my twin roles in space. The aggression of bounty hunting was stimulating and rewarding. Dancing amongst the stars, exerting my will on my ship to do my part in cleaning up the galaxy. I still evidently had the quickness of mind, the spatial awareness, and the flying skills to function in a combative environment. I felt great. These new ships were more complex to pilot than the ones from the old days before my enforced break from flying. The power and fuel management in particular had taken some getting used to.
And on the other hand, I loved the slow quiet miner’s life. Gently coaxing large lumbering ships that couldn’t use their agility to overcome any ham-fistedness on my part. Managing the systems to maximise earnings. And the joy of finding rocks packed full of the good stuff. Then bringing it all home safely.
I also liked the ability to choose on the day what that day was going to bring. It felt like freedom. It was illusory of course. At any moment, I could be blown up. Lose hundreds of thousands of credits, or more in bounties, cargoes, and insurance payments. I was exhausted. I was drinking too much. And every time I pushed too hard I would see her. She would crash through my head landing in the pit of my stomach. In my mind’s eye, she had a perfect beauty. That I had loved her was clear. I was starting to remember the sound of her voice. In some deity-forsaken star port, there had been a smell that had snapped her into my mind. Had it been her perfume? I’d looked around me, but hadn’t seen anyone (or indeed any thing) that could have been a clue.
I jump-jump-jumped my way towards Kaushpoos. The class 2 fuel scoop (the best I could afford) was causing me too much downtime. I tried to mentally place her in the co-pilot’s seat of the Clipper. It wasn’t really working, so I retreated back to the simplicity of concentrating on the flight controls. Jump-jump-jump.
Whether I was jumping towards or away from her was as unknown as the icy body 286,000 light seconds from the star in which I was resident for the 38 seconds it took my Frame Shift Drive to cool down and recharge.
Jump-jump-jump.