Elite dangerous: Noir against deepest night

Elite dangerous: Noir against deepest night

In a gentle star port out beyond the cares of wistful old terra; I watch the ships come and go from a sleepy little lounge. Maybe it’s just me? Sagging down, face pressed into white table cloth. I watch the effervescence flitter away in my Andorran chardonnay. Head heavy from long hours over the inky expanse of night, I pull up at her approach; I’ve seen plenty of stars before, but none that twinkle quite like her.

I try to smile, like the fool that I am, high-G acceleration day after day have done a number to this old mug. The Cybrex interface has left me with a slight tremor in my features. I must look like an old mutt in the pound. I certainly feel like one.

I don’t catch her eye, lucky me, another chance to straighten out at a clinic before picking up where we left off. It doesn’t feel like a lifetime ago, but it does feel like a dream. Even more cliché, but it’s true, I’m not trying to be corny: it’s just the way the implants make me.

A day later, the repairs are done, and I’m back in my shell; hauling cargo across an endless night. I just sit there and let the computer think it all over for me. I twiddle my thumbs and make those few minor adjustment now and again. I watch the stars flicker, I try to make friends with a few; me and proxima hit it off, she’s a riot, a real out there gal. The loneliness is setting in again, nothing like the stars to remind you how small you are.

I’ve been punching this run for the better part of a week, and the money’s good, but the only way to spend it is on a better ship, more features, and bigger engines. Whoop tee doo! Worth the overtime for sure.

We pilots aren’t like other people, and we’re not big on mirrors either. We haul ass, make bank and haul more ass. No time for a family, no time to stop and talk to the fifteen trillion souls of this galaxy, I pay fines, buy fuel and have my virtual therapy all through the same screen. I can’t remember the last time I took a stroll, or smelt flowers. Heck, all the shrink has to do is run down the clock, I’ve got more problems than they’ve got hours in the day.

I overshoot an orbital and come careening around at a 1/10th C, sloppy piloting. It’s faster to let the ship fly itself, but I got to feel something. Pilots need buzz: you hear that a lot. Out amongst the stars there’s nothing but a low thrum on frame shift drive. If you can make your soul feel that; make it buzz, just a little, then it ain’t so bad.

I think there’s some kind of war happening off somewhere deep on the edge of known space. That’s all I’ve got for news. There’s some factions back home got beef with one another, but I can’t tell one from the other, it’s all the same to me. They pay the same, issue the same fine; have the same rules, customs, regulations, demands. I’m not sure what they have to disagree over? How about the font size on a liability waver? Big whoop, thanks for the waste of recycled air. Back to shipping.

My shrink says I need an outlet, so a flash some cash on a combat model and go prowling for blood. It’s alright, certainly up the pace of things a little; though it doesn’t quite sit right with me. As I watch the flashing lights, and trails of shrapnel spill into the void. I feel as though pieces of me are flying off with them. No, I don’t mean my ship, I mean myself; though at this point that’s not a marked distinction. I wanted to visit the stars, and here I am taking out my frustration by ending the lives of two bit crooks. I’m doing the laws job for them, a janitor in space taking out just another form of trash.

I wanted to visit the stars, but there’s a thin layer of glass and million miles of void between me and touching her face. Space however is cold and empty, which is how I know I belong out here.