Thinking about Sothis? Yeah, I’ve had a couple of CMDRs that have headed that way. In fact, not too long ago, this kid came by wanting to do the Sothis job. I told ‘er, listen kid, no offense, but you don’t want to go there. That’s way outside the bubble. There be monsters out there.
I could tell the kid was green. Spend enough time out in the black, and you can see it in the eyes. Sometimes its subtle, a glint of the dark behind the lids. Sometimes the void is right there in their ocular holes. The deep darkness, it gets you. This kid? This kid looked like she still puked when knocked out of orbital cruise, and I let her know that. I served her a Polluxian Polypurpose Panacea, a house specialty CMDR Polish Dan helps me distill. Told her that’s what it felt like, when the drink almost knocked her off the chair.
And you know what she did? She straightened up, finished the drink, and let out one single magnificent burp. Gotta hand it to her, the kid had guts. Came back every evening after working on her boat, downed a Polluxian plus a couple of other drinks like any other regular spacer.
A couple of Sols later she finished fixing up her Diamondback Explorer, paid her open tab, and threatened to shove me ass-first off an exhaust port if I called her kid one more time.
So the kid, I mean Drexla, was green. But she was determined, that’s for sure. She wanted to do the Sothis Job, earn some cash on the frontier, and maybe rank up with the Federation while she was at it. Not that she had them in too high esteem, but she wanted a Dropship, and you can’t just go to the nearest Fed starport and buy one off the rack. In the frontier they need all the help they can get, and they won’t be too picky as to who does the job. Good way to earn some credentials for back in the bubble.
It took her a while to get to Newholm Station in Sothis. From here to there it is little over 581 light years. That’s a lot farther than many commanders rack up in a lifetime. If she was green when she launched from our humble little station, she docked in Sothis a veteran pilot. You don’t cross that amount of space without being interdicted by pirates, toast a module or two fuel scooping a star, suffer general and near fatal mechanical malfunction, or just survive the murderous nature of space. And that will burn the green right off any CMDR. If anything remains, it’s hard as nails.
The person running the ‘Federation Unite!’ party at Newholm Station, Advisor Illiana Matthews, did not much care for CMDR Drexla. In all fairness, she did not care much for anyone. Turns out having war and civil unrest at the ass end of the galaxy tends to kill off the sense of humour in some lifeforms.
From what Drexla could gather, Federation Unite! and the Liberate Ceos were tired of being subtle in their bid to control the two frontier systems, and went from skirmishes to full blown war in Sothis.
Drexla had arrived to a storm without knowing which way the wind was blowing.
She started doing courier jobs between Sothis and the neighbouring Ceos system, where Federation Unite! were also struggling to maintain their foothold. Running data from Sothis to New Dawn Station in Ceos sounded like an easy gig. It was only about 9 lightyears away, and both stations were not too far from their system stars. Do it fast enough, discretely enough, and the job’s main risk is how utterly boring it can get. It got to the point where she would hope she would get interdicted, just to break the monotony.
But Drexla didn’t fly all the way out to the frontier to be a data courier to some Federation administrator. She kept pushing Advisor Matthews for more jobs, better jobs, something that would pay better, preferably.
Hard to say if it was Drexla’s insistence or Matthews finally getting to trust the CMDR slightly more, but in the end Matthews gave in.
Advisor Matthews shut the door to her office, drew a tablet from her desk, and pointed to neighbouring Ceos. There, she informed Drexla, one of her ships had been shot down. A ship carrying technical blueprints of New Dawn Station. Blueprints that were essential if they wanted to maintain their presence in Ceos.
Alright you two, break it off! If you dent another table I will strap you to the landing gear of a Type-9 so help me A’Tuin!
Listen, I have to deal with those Teamster miners. They have worse social skills that the rocks they fry all day. I’ll get back to the story after I throw those two out. Yes, I mean you! Out! Out! And I told you to clean up before you come here, you keep dragging rock dust all over the place. Out!
(Link to the version over at Medium is
here)
