Captain’s Log – Commander Tom Bacon
Stardate 3311.197 – System Quemie EF-A E9
I climbed as high as I could.
There’s one more star within reach from here — but only with a premium injection. I could just about make it there and back… but it’s no fuel star, neither ist this here. I’d be stranded.
Maybe one day I’ll find another vector, another angle, and push even further.
The journey was quiet. No great discoveries.
Well — save one. Recepta. New to me, at least. That was the first time I realized: even plants have a voice.
This one cracked and popped softly, like this orange seed pods trying to burst from within.
Tubus Conifera, I noticed, produces deep, hollow notes — almost like a great pan flute stirred by the wind. I never listened before. Never thought to. But now I can’t help but wonder: what other voices have I missed out here? I’ll be paying more attention from now on.
On the way up from Colonia toward the core, the stars changed. From sharp white pinpoints to a hazy, golden-brown glow. The whole sky suffused with warm light.
But just ten jumps off the galactic plane, the haze peeled away. The stars began to thin. Jump by jump, the heavens opened — the spaces between stars grew wider. Blackness claimed the view.
And here I am now — at the end of this path.
Nothing beyond me but more black. That’s what Out in the Black really means.
It’s unsettling, piloting when you have no visual frame of reference.
It stops feeling like flying and starts feeling like falling.
And when I turn the nose around — the Milky Way lies beneath me like a colossal, glowing disc. A sea of yellow warmth in the void.
The only word that comes to mind is: majestic.
And if there is a god out here — then he didn’t craft his creation with care and measure. He just flung his spark into the dark, handfuls here, handfuls there.
And here we are. Tiny grains scattered in the void.
Majestic. That’s my galaxy.
Somewhere in that glow — 25,000 light-years in a straight line — is home.
On the way up here, I marked two systems I’ll revisit on the way back — both teeming with biosignals I didn’t have the patience to stop for. Once I’ve had my fill of this places, I’ll return to the Solaris and ready myself for the next leg: the Eye of Hell Nebula.
That quadrant I plan to Boxel-search, properly. For that, I’ll need to update my KI’s journal processor. Shouldn’t be a problem — I can pick it up on one of the carriers, or back on the Solaris.
For now… I can’t tear my eyes away from the sight of the Milky Way hanging there below me. Grand and quiet.
Even though… the black behind me has started to press in a little. That infinite, soulless gulf — it gets to you, if you let it.
And yet: I can’t remember the last time I felt this alive.
So I’ll stay a little while longer here. Keeping company with this lonely red sun.
Tom Bacon out.
"Maybe that’s all we are — sparks scattered in the dark, trying to find someone to shine with."
