Here. I. Am.
31 Oct 2017Kodeyne
So…here I am. Wedged into the cushions in the cramped sleep-cell of a Sidewinder, shaking, and taking slugs from a bottle of bourbon. Really, really, wondering if I’ve done the right thing. A pilot for nearly a whole day now, woohoo!Everyone else I ever knew has done the sensible thing, the accepted thing. Bowed the head and hopped onto the corporate ladder like a good, obedient Federation citizen. But you hear stories. How a pretty girl can rise up the ladder soooo fast if she doesn’t mind sacrificing a few things. Like self-respect, decency and morals. That’s where most of my friends went, and maybe that’s why they’re not my friends any more. But Ali, she quietly stood by me. She did the sensible thing, because her family would have disowned her without a credit to her name if she didn’t. The last time I saw her, we were talking over fragrant black coffee in a backstreet café back home.
“Girl, run for the stars. You’re too good a person to get violated by what goes on behind the closed doors of the corporations. You deserve more. You are so much better than that. Does it really matter who offered you this ship, or why? Oh, it won’t be easy, but I think you’re more than capable. Run, dearest, run. Do it for yourself…but for me as well.”
We finished our Americanos, hugged and parted ways. Haven’t heard from her since, and I worry. But she warned me that’s how it might be, once she got sucked into the corporate black hole.
I just don’t think I was ready for the level of derision you get greeted with. You log onto the bulletin boards, hungry for a well-paid mission, and you get looked at like you just crawled out of a sewer. But I guess these people have got other people breathing down their necks. Stuff needs done and they’re the ones who will be beaten down if it doesn’t get done. But maybe they’re prodding you deliberately too, seeing if you’ve got the steel in you to take it and come up fighting.
Fighting! Great gods below, I haven’t been interdicted yet, and I am terrified of it happening. I can’t fight back, not in a reconditioned Sidewinder that creaks alarmingly whenever I engage the frame shift drive.
More bourbon. It helps. Trying not to cry.
Call me weak if you want. Try being where I am, and see how you feel.
There’s a ray of hope. Not long after I took my first steps up the ramp into this humble starship, the messages started arriving. How did he get my number? How does he know who I am? All I can guess is that he’s a veteran pilot, a successful one – maybe very successful indeed. Why would he even give a damn? Yet he does. Gives me advice. Advice that, by his own admission, won’t be of much use until I get a few more credits under my belt and have a half-decent ship. But useful things. “Interdictions? Run, run like hell. If it’s a stalker pirate, or a hitman, slow right down as soon as they start threatening you, drop out, recharge the FSD and then you can scarper as soon as they appear.” Trading? “Find a system that’s got an outbreak of disease…and haul medicines!”
Most recent message ended: “K. Circumstances mean that we will probably never meet. But if even one scrap of the things I’ve said help, then that is good. I would like to think my words mean a fellow pilot won’t have to go through half the s*** I did. My thoughts are with you. TR.”
Oh hell. In a few days or weeks, I could be dead, dead, DEAD! But on the other hand, in a few months or years, I could be loaded and grinning. And free!
Time to put the bourbon away, and get some sleep.