Night Swimming
22 Oct 2017LongDistanceClara
I still can't believe I'm getting paid to do this. I know for some pilots my job would be hell on toast, but for me to earn credits doing what I love, traveling all over the galaxy? I keep waiting for someone to tell me its all been a horrible mistake 
After we rolled back into Jameson after the last tour, I took stock. What had started out as a way of paying the bills by hauling explorers and tourists out to the far reaches had become a real pleasure, not to mention incredibly lucrative! I'd amassed a small fortune and could certainly retire in relative luxury at this point; but in all honesty, I enjoyed the company while out exploring. True, one of the pleasures in traversing the vastness of the galaxy was the solitude that comes with it; but it's also wonderful once in a while to share those experiences with people who truly appreciate them and as a general rule, most long distance explorers and tourists are a nice bunch
I know a lot of pilots have jumped on the passenger bandwagon recently, running folks around the bubble at ridiculously inflated prices of late. Now I'm not judging them; but I like my passengers to feel they've got their money's worth and I've been paid a fair price - call me a sap or a sucker, but I'm in it for the long haul, not a fly-by-night operation and reputation is important! Even so, I still feel guilty sometimes taking their credits when I'm just doing what I'd be doing anyway, even without passengers!
My venerable flight suit was looking a bit threadbare; so I decided, since I wasn't planning on giving up the core tours any time soon, I should maybe "update my image" and smarten up a bit! A new hairstyle (I hadn't changed my hairstyle more than once since leaving flight school and figured "why not - new suit, new style!" ), one of those swanky new Remlok suits and I hoped I looked a little more professional - although most of the folks traveling to the core aren't overly hung up on appearance
Still feels kinda funny, but I guess it'll just take some getting used to.
We already had a full passenger load; so the moment the Clair's touch-up paint was dry, we headed out. The road to the core is getting pretty well trodden these days, so I decided to tack on a few thousand light years and spear way off on a tangent out of the bubble before turning in towards the galactic center. We were rewarded pretty soon with a system containing this wonderful ringed giant:
I should probably have taken some exterior pics to give a sense of scale, as the rings were enormous! But I just loved this view from the cockpit, these lovely coffee-colored rings glinting in the light of their parent star.
This guy pretty much set the tone for the rest of the day - system after system with ringed gas giants, stars, planets - just non stop rings; and so pretty! It felt like we were stopping every other system to take scans, pics and just sit and marvel at them all. Unfortunately I noticed we were starting to fall way behind our schedule so I grudgingly had to point the Clair due Core and plod on. Until we came across this beautiful beastie:
That's exactly as we found her; a gorgeous blue giant, ringed in ice and glowing softly under the light of the nearby pulsar. It might just have been me procrastinating but we spent quite a while there, just quietly gazing at this wonderful sight. Still, I don't think the passengers were complaining
Throughout the rest of the afternoon and evening we managed to visit three of the sights the guests had on their tick-list - all places I'd visited myself before, but still beautiful nonetheless. As we reached the end of the day, we pulled into the final sight for day one of the tour - a system far above the galactic plane.
Again, I've been here before; several times in fact; and I don't know why - maybe I was incredibly tired, maybe I'd just caught it at the wrong angle - but I've never seen it looking quite as lovely as this.
That picture doesn't do it justice at all. It just looked like the two planets were floating above a sea of light, a reef of stars far below illuminating the whole system. I've never felt like I was swimming through the night sky quite as much as I did just then
I can't think of a better place to power down and lay up for the night.We'll be heading off early next morning, with a few more sights to see before aiming to be back in the bubble, much later in the day. It's already late and I'll have to be up soon - but I think I'm going to sit up alone on the bridge a little longer and quietly watch the galaxy spinning far below in silence.
Wherever you are in the galaxy - goodnight!