Deep into that darkness peering...

I was all set. I had a renewed purpose. I had an upgraded ship. It was time. I said a silent farewell to civilisation and jumped out of the bubble.

Destination: Colonia. The furthest outpost of humanity, some 25,000 light years distant. That's an unfathomable distance, even in this age of frame shift drives and faster-than-light travel. But it is not an impossible distance. Given enough time I can get there. Many people have made the journey. Many have failed, but more have made it to Colonia in one piece. I had a route plotted, and I was confident. I still AM confident.

My journey consists of seven legs:

1. From the bubble to Hillary Depot in Blu Thua AI-A c14-10
2. Hillary Depot to Amundsen Terminal in Lagoon Sector NI-S b4-10
3. Amundsen Terminal to Eagle's Landing in Eagle Sector IR-W d1-117
4. Eagle's Landing to Sacagawea Spaceport in Skaudai CH-B d14-34
5. Sacagawea Spaceport to Gagarin Gate in Gru Hypue KS-T d3-31
6. Gagarin Gate to Polo Harbour in Boewnst KS-S c20-959
7. Polo Harbour to Jacques Station in Colonia  

It's not going to be an easy trip, each leg is in excess of 2,000 light years. But I have a decent FSD and two Automatic Repair Modules. I think I'll be OK...

On the surface of some system somewhere

During the first leg I got overcome by wanderlust and explored a great many systems in a LOT of detail. I landed on a rocky planetoid in the Synuefe ara and mined some nickel. I honked in SWOILZ ZV-C D67A and the scan showed up ninety three celestial objects! I travelled 123,000 lightsecobnds in one system just to scan a distant sun... Then I realised if I spent this long all the way there I might never reach my destination!

On the surface of another planet somewhere

However, it's easy to fall into a routine when you're jumping long distance. And routine brings a lack of focus. Out in the black, a lack of focus can kill. I nearly burnt to a crisp jumping out of SWOILZ KK-A C3-29-A, as I span up the FSD way too close to the sun and didn't even think to drop heatsinks. To make matters worse, the next system I jumped into had its entry point in between two large and very hot stars! I got out in one piece, but a lot of my systems were more than a little crispy...

Make sure you bring plenty of heatsinks. You never know when you'll need them.

When I got closer to Hillary Depot I started exploring the systems more thoroughly. I managed to find a system which had never been logged by anyone. I spent a good while scanning all of the stellar bodies - Universal Cartographics paid me handsomely for those (I wonder if I'll be able to afford an Anaconda by the time I get back? I guess I can dream, right?)

I made a few million selling this data...

I got a promotion to Pathfinder after selling my data to Universal Cartographics

After a quick overnight in Hillary Depot I headed off to Amundsen Terminal. The journey was fairly similar. I took many photos of the planets I explored and the stunning views of the Lagoon Nebula.

The Lagoon Nebula in all its glory. Pictures can't do it justice

I'm currently at Amundsen and plotting my route for the next leg. I'm going to try something risky. There's at least one neutron star on the way to Eagle's landing. If I charge my FSD in its streams, I might be able to cut down my journey time... If I survive.

On approach to Amundsen Station

Ever feel like a Carthaginian?

While I've been working my way towards that elusive Sol permit, I've been busy soaking up every vid feed, holo-stream and data blast I can get my hands on relatiing to Sol and Earth. I read some interesting history about a place called Carthage. The Carthaginians were pretty bad-ass. Not quite as powerful as Rome but they gave it a good go. They even rode to war on ELEPHANTS! So why am I mentioning this? Well the federation military seems to have a lot in common with the Carthaginians.

You see, the army of Carthage was made up entirely of mercenaries. Foreign mercenaries. And that's JUST like how the Fed Navy feels. I'm not billeted anywhere. I don't collect a paycheque. Every so often while checking the bulletin boards I'll get contacted by some superior officer (a different one every time!) and given a mission. Some of them are nightmarish. Some of them seem easy. Some of them are downright illegal. There's something very unsettling about all of this. I try to ignore it and focus on the end goal.

Supposedly ferrying goods to commercial docks is a military matter...

After my latest mission, smuggling firearms into a prison colony (look, I don't ask questions, I just do the jobs, OK?) I got a promotion to Midshipman. I'm almost there. I'm just one promotion away. I find the work I do incredibly distasteful, but it's for the greater good. Well.... It's for MY greater good, at least.

But anyway, I found myself at a loose end with no contracts coming my way, so I ended up heading to the bar at Levi Strauss and contemplasting the massive journey I embarked upon just a couple of weeks ago, marvelling at how it all led to this point. The things I've seen, the things I've done... It's astounding. But the things I've yet to do are even more fantastic. It was here that I got into a lengthy conversation with one Commander Chris Simon.

Chris was a veteran commander who had seen for more of the galaxy than me. He smiled at my enthusiasm as I explained the tyrannic majesty of the White Dwarf stars I had seen on my travels.

"Yes, White dwarfs are utterly awesome, " he agreed, "but reserve your judgement on what you call majestic beauty until you see a Neutron Star."

It was like holding a candle out to a moth.

"Are there any nearby?" I asked. "Nearby" was a relative term, of course.

A slightly drunk commander who had been listening in chirped up with "FYI Jackson's Lighthouse is the closest neutron star," before smiling and collapsing to the floor. With renewed purpose I headed to the docking bay.

Just look at the average price of these things!

Jackson's lighthouse was some 176 light years away. With my current FSD it was going to take over thirty jumps to get there, but I was undeterred. However, I figured there was nothing wrong with turning a profit if I was heading that way anyway. On a previous military contract I had managed to... acquire an amount of rare Ophiuch Exino Artefacts. Supposedly alien in origin, although cheap fakes to my eyes, I'd heard people on the other side of the bubble pay handsomely for this tat. So I loaded up my hold, plotted a course and started the long haul.

The journey was uneventful. The sight that greeted me when I arrived though. I have no words, so here are some pictures.

 

Even photos do not do this justice. The swirling plasma jetstreams are hypnotic in their helical twisting. The star itself is so dense it's difficult to get near, but I flew as close as I could, before accidentally wandering into the jetstreams. My systems went haywire, my FSD started barking warning after warning at me, and I was shaken out of the trance I had entered while staring at the neutron star. I headed to the closest system and docked up.

After shifting the artefacts for a VERY tidy profit, I decided to grab a coffee before hitting the long road back to Barnard's Star. I explained to the bartender what had happened whe I got to close to the lighthouse's jetstreams.

"Ahh, trying to boost your frameshift drive were ya?" he asked.

Wait, what? I enquired as to what he was talking about. Appartently if you fly into these jet streams, and your systems DON'T get fried, it will overcharge your FSD allowing you to jump VAST distances in a single go. Four times your normal jump range, by the bartender's reckoning. Well, I thought, that would make the trip back a lot shorter.

I decided to try it. What was the worst that could happen? I mean obviously my ship could be torn apart by gravitational forces and I could be obliterated by stellar radiation... but I decided to try it anyway. Four times normal jump range? That was 60 light years in one go.

Each one of those lines shows a star that can be reached with my current jump range...

I fired up the engines and flew into the maelstrom.

Anchors aweigh, my boys, anchors aweigh

After getting back to Barnard's Star having witnessed the majesty of a White Dwarf, I had new and renewed focus to see everything the galaxy has to offer. I want to explore beyond the realms of the bubble. I want to visit black holes and hypergiants and supernova remnants and nebulae. To use an ancient cliché - I want to go where noone has gone before.

Just one of the many places in the galaxy I want to go.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. My original goal was to see the Sol system, and by Jove I'm going to see it. As luck would have it, when I arrived at Levi Strauss station in Barnard's Star I noticed that there was a Navy recruitment officer! So they DO exist! He offered me a job - take out some pirates in Ross 154 and if I do well enough there will be a place in the navy for me.

This was it. My ticket to Sol. I signed up there and then, and headed for Ross 154.

The contract was to kill 16 members of the Ross 154 boys. There was no intel on where they were hanging out so I just set to hunting. supercruising the spacelanes and interdicting where I could find them. Progress was slow going; my interdiction attempts failed time and again. These buys were just too slippery! Eventually I got my first chance at the prize - when I was interdicted by THEM!

I swear it used to be easier to interdict - maybe I'm losing my touch.

I dropped to normal space, spinning wildly, but I was on the ball. I got my hardpoints deployed and hit the throttle before my hunter even knew where I was. He was in a Sidewinder - more manoeuvrable than my Cobra, but I swear it was made of tinfoil. My beam lasers stripped the shields in seconds and my multicannon tore him to pieces. I checked my mission transactions for the kill confirmation and smiled. Buit that smile wasn't to last - two Vipers had just dropped in and were heading straight for me.

That sidewinder pilot must have gotten off a distress call to his buddies. I needed to take these guys out fast otherwise I would be swamped. And where were the feds? Shouldn't they be monitoring the system for signs of violence? One viper went down, and then the other. I was holding my own, but I'd lost shields. I diverted power to my systems in order to raise them again, but then I heard the telltale "pop" of someone dropping out of supercruise. I thought it was the feds. I couldn't be more wrong.

Seems that people still name their kids after the heroes of legend.

Storming up behind me was one of the Ross 154 boys in a vulture. The speed he was travelling, I knew it couldn't have been a standard fitting. He was guns blazing as he came, and even though I had military grade composite armour on I was still taking a pounding. Then things went bad to worse.

I was frantically trying to spin up my FSD so I could hit supercruise and limp to a station, but as I went to hit the boost the Vulture came at me from above, shooting out my canopy. I panicked as the cabin depressurised, the sound of my own breathing now deafening in my ears. I checked my hull status: 23%. this was bad. I saw no way out.

"Pop!"

"Pop!"

"Pop!"

Oh not more, surely? I was going to die. I knew it. I closed my eyes and waited. But nothing happened.

When I opened my eyes I checked my radar. One red blip and 4 green blips - the feds were here at last! I didn't stick around to watch that party. I gunned my throttle, hit supercruise and limped back to the starport. Trying to land with no HUD is a scary experience. You forget how reliant you are on all of your instruments. Eventually I touched down, ripped off my helmet and breathed a sigh of relief.

I've never been happier to see this sight (this was taken before the pirates blew my canopy)

After repairing my ship I got back into the action. It took me a long time, but eventually I managed to polish off the rest of my quota - most of the biys were flkying Vipers or Cobras and I made reasonably short work of them. When I got back to Levi Strauss I was greeted by a familiar craggy old man in a Navy officer's uniform.

"I'm proud of you Son, you're going to go far. Sit down, I have a mission for you, if you're interested. Covert ops. You interested?"

I was in the navy, finally. If I played my cards right I could be in Sol sooner than I realised. But I needed to gain ranks. I was ready to take on any mission they could throw at me.

"Yeah I'm interested."

"Good. So tell me, you ever tried your hand at smuggling?"