Journey's End

I'm sat in a mining colony in a hollowed out asteroid at a remote deep space outpost called Morgan's rock, watching a team of mechanics fix up the Heidegger. I made it back to civilisation. Sort of. I'm still over four thousand light years from Sol, but there was one point at which I might never make it back alive.

The Great Annihilator

 After leaving Sagittarius A*, I headed to The Great Annihilator, the largest black hole in the galaxy (besides the monster at the centre of course). From there I headed up to the very roof of the galaxy, Atlas II, some fifteen-hundred light years above the galactic plane. The views were spectacular, a black void above me and the glaring disc of the galaxy below. I felt like a king. As I headed for the Gru Hypai Stellar Remnant (a planetary nebula with a black hole at its centre), my mind started drifting back, thinking about the wonders I had seen since leaving Colonia. I started thinking how long it had been since I saw another human being.

The inside of the Gru Hypai Stellar Remnant was serenely beautiful

Not a bad way to spend the night

While drifting through the Gru Hypai Stellar Remnant system, I checked the distance to Sol - nearly fourteen thousand light years. I checked somne of the star chart data I'd picked up from the tourist office at Jaques Station in Colonia and skimmed over to find points of interest on the way back. There was another planetary nebula, this time surrounding a Wolf-Rayet star about three thousand light years away, deep below the galactic plane. I plotted a course and set off.

I named this system "Father and Son"

 The last twenty or so jumps were mostly neutron-boosted and heading mostly straight down. I supercharged my frame shift drive and hit the hyperspace engage to jump the 103 light years into the system. The system itself was eerily beautiful, everything within a few thousand lightseconds of the star bathed in a purple glow. I put down planetside and got some sleep.

The faint light from the distant star made sleep strangely restless.

 When I woke up I tried to plot a course for the pulsar PSR J1709-4429. "Cannot find route" said the ship's navigational computer. Huh? Weird. Try again. "Cannot find route". OK... Maybe it's too far away? I plotted a course for a closer star. "Cannot find route". OK this was getting beyond a joke now. I plotted a course for the next system along... And then realised with horror what was happening.

Trying to think rationally on this ghostly purple world was nigh impossible

I had neutron boosted into the system, a distance of a hundred and three light years. My maximum jump range is just over twenty five light years. The closest star was thirty one light years away. The nav computer couldn't play a route because I couldn't get out of the system. I was stranded.

Panic kicked in. I started frantically scouring the galaxy map, hoping to find a closer star, one I could reach. The only ones even remotely in range took me even further below the galactic plane. This was bad. This was very bad.

I was so far below the galactic plane there was virtually nothing below me

 I sat for a long time weighing up my options. I thoguht about the crazy spacehead explorers I'd met in bars around the bubble, the old cranks who had hit elite status and just kept on going, never satisfied with the sights they'd seen, always wanting to see more. Would I never get to be like them? At this rate I probably had a few days of power left, maybe a week if I shut down non-essential functions. But after that, I'd be dead. I'd never be that grizzled old guy I met in Hutton Orbital, handing out spacefaring tips in exchange for drinks.

"Never fly tired," he'd say, or "make sure you take more than one auto-field repair unit," or "never fly without Jumponium."

Wait! That was it! I had been gathering so much material from the planets surface, I MUST have enoguh to synthesize some Jumponium. "Jumponium" isn't a scientific term. It's something the spacers came up with. Basically, if you mix the right quantities of vernadium and germanium, and inject it into your frame shift drive, you can extend your jump range by twenty five percent. I wasn't sure of the specific amounts, but I had enough resources to try. I fed the materials into the synthesis module and whispered a silent prayer to the universe.

One of these was my only ticket out of here...

 I targeted the next system along, a main sequence star thirty one light years away. If this went ewrong, there was a good chance my ship would explode. But then if I didn't try, I was dead anyway. Hands shaking, I engaged the hyperdrive.

I made it to the next system in one piece. I scanned the galaxy map. There was a neutron star nearby! If I could get to that system, the jet cones might be able to boost me back up to an area more densely populated with stars. I checked the distances. Thirty eight light years. That was too far, even with the injected vanadium and germanium. Think, Karl, think! What had the old guy said? "If yer lucky, you can boost your output by fifty percent. You'll need some extra materials though."

On the hunt for materials

What were the materials I needed? Vanadium and germanium I remembered. Cadmium. That was another. What was the last one? Began with N... Nickel? No, too common. This was rare... NIOBIUM! YES! I checked the stores. I had enough for one injection. If this didn't work, I was a dead man. I injected the materials and hit the hyperdrive... And nothing happened! Panic gripped me again, before I realised I had not pliotted the route to the neutron star. Would have been just my luck to find a solution to this mess then die of a heart attack. I plotted the route, hit the hyperdrive, and jumped.

Once I arrived at the neutron star I tried plotting the course to PSR J1709-4429 and breathed a sigh of relief as the route appeared. I was back on the map.

The asteroid base of Morgan's Rock

After a long and fairly uneventful trip the rest of the way, I finally pulled into the dock at Morgan's Rock. I called the mechanics to service my ship and headed to the Universal Cartographics bulletin board to sell my exploration data. For the second time, I almost had a heart attack. one hundred million credits. That's how much they paid me. A hundred mil! I almost had enough in the bank to buy a bloody Anaconda! The icing on the cake was the message that pinged up from the Pilots' Federation, informing me that I'd been promoted to "Pioneer". I was one step away from Elite...

Safely back in civilization

 I flopped down onto a bench in the hangar bay, and wondered what my former self would say if I showed up a year ago and told him that in a year's time he'd have travelled sixty thousand light years and be worth a hundred and sixty million credits. I think he'd probably laugh. That's what I'm doing.

A just reward for the trials I've gone through.

Repairs on the ship will take a while. When she's ready to go I have plans to visit the Guardian Ruins and Crab Nebula. But right now, I'm going to have a shower.

Until next time, Fly safe.

The End is in Sight

I docked last night at Polo Harbour and started preparing for the final leg of my journey to Colonia. I can get there in about 100 jumps. I lay back in the observation room and looked up at the night sky. Here in the midst of the Venetian Nebula the stars are packed in so densely they're everywhere. The bright glow from the galactic core serves as a backdrip to a million beacons of light against the dark. As I taak it all in, I considered the journey from Gagarin Gate.

I'm starting to get the hang of this Selfie lark

I'd taken a little detour at the start of my foray from Gagarin Gate, in order to visit the system GRU HYPUE AA-A G4, known to some travellers as Jo Ella's Flares. It's a dead system. Literally. No planets, and all four stars in the system have collapsed. At the centre a black hole and and angry pulsar orbit each other, with two more neutron stars slightly further out. Black holes have interested me ever since my trip to Maia and I find myself drawn to them like a moth to flame.

It's difficult to get a photo of a black hole, for obvious reasons...

I headed closer. And closer, and closer - mere kilometres away from the singularity as the light began to warp around me. As before with Maia I became suddenly terrified. The fear as you approach a black hole is like nothing I can describe. It's an existential fear of a scale of magnitude rarely experienced. You feel concern for the essence of your very soal as you approach. I don't think I'd call it a pleasant experience in and of itself, but as you boost away from the tiny yet all encompassing monstrous lurking horror you feel more alive than ever. Will I feel the same when I see Sagitarius A*?

I will never tire of neutron stars

I used the jetstreams of the netron stars to supercharge my engines and left Jo Ella's flares behind.

In astronomical terms, they're practically touching

When I arrived in the Nuekuae LW-M D7-20 system I was greeted with a full system unexplored by anyone. Ever eager to carve out my name across the galaxy, I started tagging and bagging. Eventually I came across an extraordinary sight: two ice planets who were orbiting each other so closely I initially thought that they were touching! I grabbed some photos and landed on the surface of the larger of the two (I say larger - its diameter was only some twenty kilometres more than its partner) in oder to do some exploration and just take in the wonder of it all. Here I was, the first person ever to see this beautiful sight. It's moments like these which define why I am addicted to exploration.

The rest of the trip was fairly standard - I found some familiar but beautiful sights like a binary star system and multi-ringed metal planets, and just smiled at the feeling inside. When I fianlly touched down at Polo Harbour, I received a promotion to Ranger. I plotted the course to Jacques Station before I went to bed. My journey was almost over.

Or was it about to truly begin?

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.