the sanctuary of surprises

The first impressions after the jump were not the most encouraging ones...

A  vast station, or better said what looked like it was once a vast station, sat scattered in a debris field like bones of an animal's carcass devoured in haste.

If you've seen things here in space, you know what kind of power takes to do that, and you certainly hope it will not be directed towards you one day.

Optimism aside, I proceed to the coordinates I have noted on my trusty notebook.

Z: Docking allowed at docking gate three.

The voice was the one of Zoltan. The same voice I’ve heard mocking me as a youngster, back in Rheinland. He was an immigrant’s kid too,  and he knew very well what I was going through and the struggle to make it, coming from a lower class. Being older, he was my mentor for a while and we both have been accepted in the academy at the same time.

I can hear it now:

“Who else are we, but the best,

The pain and punishment for the rest,

The rest, that will refuse to bend

To a will of future blessed by strength”

It was our anthem. We would sing that at every exercise.

What did we know?!

It was all soo...glitzy...so clean… The ideal for every dirty kid from the suburbs.

It was for him that I’ve came here. He wrote to me once he heard I’ve reached Pennsylvania.

Alberta is one of the new worlds we’ve missed during our episode of space drifting, but now, the Marauders are back and ready to take the challenge from the point they left it back in the void.

While towed to the docking gate I’ve took a moment to contemplate the surroundings.

Freeport 14 is in orbit of a strangely beautiful watery world of a blue I’ve never seen before.

Mesmerizing. It even reflects so much blue, the surroundings are covered in a pale shade of blue...My trail of thought is suddenly broken and then it all stops when the surroundings become steel plate and randomly placed crates.

Z: Welcome to Freeport 14 =(\/)=die_volker. Prepare to release brakes once the docking bay door clears for pressurization. In the meantime, read a book. We recommend “Free flight for dummies”.(bursts of loud laughter)

Zoltan! Here we go again…

He’s right though. I’ve never been as good as he was.

But yet again, I am not the one missing a hand now and working in the control towers of a Freeport. A noble practice, nut not nearly worthy of him.

Very soon after he departed Rheinland and joining the ranks of the Zonners he had a terrible accident landing a Freighter somewhere in Omicron Theta. They found his hand under a Synth Paste container when they cleared out the field some months later.

The thought raises the hairs on my arms even now.

He’s happy with the prosthetics though. He even has a flashlight embedded now. Luxury! I guess he will never miss the urinal anymore...

Z: Stay with us for a while. You are an explorer, you have never been here and I know you are itching to just go blindly into this nearby nebulae… What say you?

V: With one condition.

Z: Name it.

V: You have to arrange something so, when I swing by with my camarades from time to time, to be able to find a warm bed and a warm meal. I am old now my friend, and the ship’s floors and bunks are not generous with my back anymore. As for the food, you know i like my coffee cold, but my soup boiling.

Z: Remind me...When were you young?

I could cry and laugh at the same time whenever he does that. This banter kept us both alive too many times.

All I can think is how much I would like to have LTHamlet and WICKEDX1 with me. They would got a kick out of this and maybe we would have start exploring this space many days after arrival. Maybe when the ale was on some lost in space freighter and not anymore on the station.

I am looking at my watch as if that would be late for a meeting.

In a sense, I am. I was…

They are still out there, I know it. Someday, we will be here together and stare at this incredibly blue sphere from the Freeport 14 bar’s windows.

chapter 1: the things you don't see...could be there

As a self proclaimed explorer, I always believed that apart from the dependency on technology, we have to apply in our endeavors a sense of passion and as much sprinkles of intuition as possible. Only this way the recipe could have the taste of true adventure.

I was awake for long when the wake-up call went off across the station.

The rising sounds of the agitated people going all around me back to their business did not took me away from staring at it. The Cold Lake Nebula was staring back at me. I could feel it. It was calling me.

I  can’t remember when I jumped in the cockpit, but I know the first taste of it.

The emotion of being in the unknown did not last long and it soon gave way to fear and frustration as I found myself yanking like a madman on the directional joystick trying to avoid the humongous asteroids that seemed to appear from nowhere. It looks like mother Nebula was giving birth constantly to giants aimed to smash me to bits.

Soon, concentration became habit and the joy of speeding grew and the rhythm that the frozen mud balls were picked up by the radar seemed like music to me.

I was enjoying this to much, or maybe providence just wanted to cut my fun, when the corner or my eye caught it.

A shadow. Another unusual boulder or something with purpose?

A couple of projectiles bouncing from my shield brought with them the answer: a base.

The two lane hackers that were holding me in their crosshairs refused radio contact, but it would have been nothing more than a confirmation of the rumors.

I restrained my joy until the two made it safe in my cargo hold.

The rumors were true. My luck just gave a sign it did not left me. He’s still hanging out with me. For the best or the worst, i presume. A true promise.

Zoltan was talking about a mysterious base called Airdrie. A hideout of the lane hackers.The owners are so secretive, that the towers don’t even register a signal on my systems.

A jammer of some sort. These hackers are not only good at disrupting the trade lanes.

They are good in many regards.

Even the two in my cargo hold are to be respected. They did not get there with ease....

For now I will get lost from this area… They mean business. Another wing was dispatched and they are heading this way. Another occasion for my thruster to show its worth.

chapter 2: the secrets of the north

I chose north. I always choose north.

The nebula is so thick that I have the hardest time to keep orientation with the sun.

I lost too soon the track of time and distances. I can’t even tell if where I am going is north.

My radar released a discreet sound. A target? A considerable target…

And so it was. Like in all the magic thought of childhood, the darkness dissipated and the clearest and cleanest of the bubbles form around me, and in the middle of it, there was it.

The inhabitants call it Leduc and it guards and coordinated the most interesting jump gate project I’ve ever seen. It's like a mechanical oversized beast decided to swallow a defenseless fairy floating unaware in this murky purple gas.

It's like the entire system was showing its worth and riches to me: man, machine, matter and time laid out in front of me in a concentrated symbol of wonder. It was playing with my mind:

- You want poetry. Here is poetry for you. Talk about this.

I did not dare to jump. For now, I have it on my navmap and should any road will bring me back here, I know I have a new horizon to explore. It opens to a system named Poole.

I have to do a research first and ask the people on the station. Who better to answer my inquiry then them?

The Nebula has to end somewhere, so yet again , I choose north.

Intuition rewarded. On a count of just about 20k, the thick cloud is behind me and I am staring at the cleanest piece of space I've seen in many days now.

One last look behind at the purple magic puff that shields like a protective mother the bases I've managed to stumbleupon. There even was a wreck... nothing notable and the poor soul in that cabin dissolved into the ether long ago or was recovered... I can only hope for the latter.

Soon, I find myself zooming past a planetoid which seemed to draw to its demise another unlucky explorer, in my way to what seems like a promise-land type of planet. Very similar to Nuremberg from what I gather.

A rock there, another a bit further and soon I found myself in an asteroid field where sensors show remarcable quantities of minerals... I must map this thoroughly. Our traders could benefit one day from it. It is an exposed position and defenses could fail to be established if well organized entities could decide to attack them, but if these minerals are worth the risk, we might be onto something. The sampling turns to be extremely easy. No radiation and the field is quite well placed outside the immediate influence gravitational fields of the sun and even my target planet.

My Sutinga is a reliable little bugger, but does not hold to much in cargo. I could soon find myself in need to jettison something to reduce the effort of the engines if I am to listen constantly to my hoarder instincts.

- Just 4 pieces of rock! I keep telling to myself.

My imagination runs wild speeding towards my Nuremberg-like planet. It must be the home-sickness more than fatigue. It's true, I've been living in the ship for 4 days again, but Isn't that an explorer's risk? I don't like it anymore. I really don't enjoy it, but the perks of new sights, new discoveries and horizonts to be opened are trampling all these discomforts.

Memories of getting lost in the thick nebulae of Munich, flying based on instinct and learning the basics of survival, being hunted and hunting down hostiles and most of all, seeing the outline of the planet as we approached home are rushing through my head.

I'm approaching this planet from the opposite side of the sun-lit face so I can't tell much about it. From here it looks like a black hole that is ready to swallow me whole. I'm not into that game, so I flip a coin to decide which way I'm going.

It's an old coin that it said to have been smuggled onto the Rheinland sleeper ship on the soles of someone's shoe. It made it here, be it on the soles of a live person or dead...It made it here!? I am entrusting my fate to it ever since I found it in the flea market back in Pittsburgh. Best 3 credits I've ever spent.

Right, sais fate. Well...right it is then, I say.

The sun's light curbs around the planet and lights up the atmosphere like a giant invisible warm river of honey poured on a fresh albense dough ball.

- You are hungry again. Snap out of it! I'll make it back to Freeport 14 and tame these cravings with what the Zonners have to offer. I hope they do have honey... Snap out of it!

I snapped. I snapped when I saw the darkness beyond. It's like the planet was standing watch at the edge of hell, facing the radiant clarity of heaven... I have to see this clearer. I need a new vantage point. Climbing above the planet pole is when I saw it. A mirage in the distance, past the planet, standing in its orbit like a premantyan snake, half in the sun, half in the shadow.

I can't register it, but it let me approach. A mining company's outpost. These guys are investing in a structure of this size and I consider a breakthrough the fact that I found this place. It's humbling when you really think about it. Humbling indeed. They did not rush to colonize the planet, which means they are smart enough to think small.

In hopes I can get it registered on my navmap I rush to the Camrose Supply Depot just outside the Sun's corona. To my disappointment, these guys here don't employ a cartography expert and from all my confirmed radar logs, this one will always have to make my hand written register. I have one. Remember when I was talking about the dependency on technology? About overcoming it or supplementing it? My best addition is a pencil... A pencil.

chapter 3: half way in darkness is never enough

I am not talking about the dark side. We all have lived that feeling of drifting there. Some make a living out of that. Some succumb to it and throw themself in wreckless piracy. Some make a living out of healing people who gave up in front of it.

I am talking about the real, almost tangible darkness. The one that always seems to hide a secret. I like secrets. I like other people secrets best.

The eastern quadrant of the system is left unexplored for now, and I can't live with not knowing what could lurk inside it.

One more swing around the planet that now I know it by the name Edmonton and into the mysterious asteroid field I go, only to find myself followed and scanned. I am not in an advantage position so I prefer not to stop and not to research when someone is clever enough to stay in may wake. I haven't finished my thought and projectiles are bouncing again left an right from my shields. My shield is down! When was there time so anyone could decloak  charge weapons and fire a weapon capable to disable my shield?

Not many will admit that in moments like this panic can set in, fear could lead and feelings master concentration. I do let myself pray to them and use them as vehicles to what I believe to be a crisis born solution. So there I go... I panic

How could I have been paying attention to my radar in that instance? I barely had any time to switch batteries when I almost scraped the walls of Fort McMurray. What a trickery!

The whole base is camouflaged against the black appearance of the cloud that absorbs any flicker of light and hidden in an immense asteroid. I'm not sticking around this time either. I know when I'm not wanted and if this is not one of those cases..well...I don't know which one is.

My Sutinga starts making sounds like I've never heard before. I feel in my chair every piece of rock that bounces out of my hull as I put distance between me and those guys, riding the edge of the cloud.

To my right sits yet another muse of my curiosity and to the left safety. The duality of this moment is overwhelming. I ride like this for many k's before I see my radar taking a skip. I know what that means... It means I'll die soon or I'll die happy a bit later with another mark on my maps. Yes, it is a wormhole... 

chapter 4: to another realm with a lesson learned

I'm satisfied with what I know now about this system. There could be so much more hidden between these wondrous formations. It is enough for now to guide my fellow Marauders around these paths.

As I make the jump, I say my goodbyes to Alberta. Zoltan was out of reach. It looked like 70k to Freeport 14 and I was in too much of a hurry to jump and put this place behind me.

I'm calculating my possibilities to bribe my way into those hostile bases. Who knows them? Maybe... Zoltan? Zonners have quite a reputation to work with everyone and be secretive about their real business relationships. I'll leave that as it is. I am profiting from it and I can't accept to upset this balance now, as I am quite uninformed about the recent dealings.

A last look on my updated map and recent inventory.

I have to find some jobs. My credits are dangerously low and my exploring takes its toll on this ship.

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