A New Beginning

An EV story

My adventures onboard Cargo Conveyor CTS-#14051 as a crewman finally came to an end, one tranquil day in orbit around Centauri.

After serving as the first mate for over a year, I'd gotten what I wanted -- credits, and a lot of them. It was exciting to finally be within reach of independence.

Captain Sinclair knew my intentions, and was inclined to support me, although he was reluctant to give me up. But, he said he figured that everyone moved on sometimes, and that he knew that one day I would as well. An older man in his seventies, Sinclair was the closest thing I had to a mentor -- he served as a frigate captain back in the Great War, or so he claimed. I always wondered about that myself; how someone could fall so far, from the command of a warship to a tedious job as the captain of an obsolete bulk freighter. They were inspiring war stories, though, and I never said anything.

At any rate, my first ship.

It was a standard shuttle. Nothing was very special about it; it was all I could afford, and only just at that. But it still was a marvelous vessel, in my sight.

It had a sizable bridge. Most people don't think of shuttles as very large vessels; when they think of one, they think of a tiny little thing, about the same size as a magnotrain capsule. Well, I can say that that's certainly not true.

Okay, I admit that it was a bit small, compared to what a lot of people are used to. The 'cockpit', a chair surrounded by controls, was in the same room as the bedroom and kitchen, and was just a few feet away from being near the refresher. The ship was dark, but I thought it had real atmosphere, though I admit it was a little bit creepy, thinking about all the unoccupied space back behind and under me, in the ship's twenty-ton-cargo bay -- and what could be lurking back there...

The layout of the bridge was interesting; there was the control center, which I've already mentioned. In the left side, with a nearby handrail, presumably so that heavier captains could support themselves into it, there was a bunk in the wall. It was about average, as far as I've seen them. It could automatically close up at sleep cycles, so that it'd blend with the wall, but I always left that feature off. After all, the seconds spent getting out of it could really come in handy, if trouble came along.

The right side was a simple ration bar vending machine, with about two week's worth of "space meals" in it. Tasteless, they claimed to have plenty of nutrients, but all the same, when the time came that I could pick up some more exotic meals, I always did so. Spending a credit isn't that bad, when you compare it to sitting through your hyperspace trip munching on those horrible things. The water was produced from a small faucet; the same tanks that attended to it were used for the refresher, a fact that always concerned me. I learned in the owner's manual that a bunch of filters kept the waste from ever entering into my liquids, but all the same.

The "refresher" was a small room, with just enough room to contain an antique toilet and an older-model wash tube. I didn't spend much time in there, generally only coming down before going into possible danger, or when docking planetside.

All in all, it was a cozy, comfortable shuttle. The ship's computer contained a complementary copy of the "Star Voyager" game, but I felt that was rather extraneous; after all, what else would I be doing up here, if not exploring? I spent most of my time onboard browsing through the operating system's stylish, platinum interface, trying to change it into something a bit darker, to suit the rest of the shuttle.

Even despite its failings, I fell in love with the vessel the first day I saw it.

Obtaining it, however, was a bit harder.

Despite a full set of credentials and licenses from Plateau's government saying that yes, I did indeed have the proper flight experience, and yes, I was the right age, and yes, the Confederation knows I exist, the Centauri shipyards stalled and stalled, searching for paperwork to "validate my application". At one point, it seemed like it might take months, until finally Sinclair, exasperated at the long wait, gave me credits to "pass" the shipyard's master.

Curiously, those papers showed up just a few minutes after I slipped the bureaucrat the money. It wasn't the first time I'd ever given someone a bribe, but it was the first time I realized just how inherently corrupt the system was. I resolved that day that if I ever became an official, I'd purge the entire bureaucratic system and give it all to computers.

Despite all those problems, I still feel a rush of nostalgia when I think back to that day when I finally was given the papers of my first ship, and the short, fat man asked me just what I wanted to call it.

I christened it Starseeker.

More insurmountable were traffic requirements; it seemed impossible to slate the shuttle for its maiden voyage. Sinclair mentioned he was going to drop by the Levo system, a well-known free trade zone, and that if I was up to one last voyage on his freighter, he could carry my shuttle with him.

We talked a lot in those last two weeks; the last things I recall him saying were that he didn't want me to end up like him, going about doing boring tradework instead of what I loved. He told me to chase after my dreams, because, fall short or succeed, they're still something to look to, and he didn't really have that anymore.

At our final meal, after more than twelve months of hard work, long trips and good times, he handed me my last monthly salary, one thousand credits. I didn't notice until later that it included a little extra; eight thousand two hundred and fifty more. I only had seven hundred and fifty credits to my name at the time, and it was a significant step ahead for me.

I programmed Capt. Sinclair's comm number onto Starseeker 's communications device, and he made sure to tell me his likely trade route for the next few months, just in case I came into trouble and needed a hand up.

We shook hands, and I left the space-faring life I'd known for over a year, to forge my destiny.

He went into hyperspace towards the Vulcan system, and my shuttle was left. Alone for the first time, I simply let my ship sit there for a while; a far distance from Levo's orbit, where nobody could complain.

For the first time, I had real freedom, and I was more than a little confounded as what to do with it.

This post has been edited by Consul Bob : 02 November 2007 - 12:26 AM