05-08-2016, 08:03 AM
Entry #1 - My first Journal entry, grrr...
I don't much like writing in general, but I despise writing my personal thoughts the most. A lot goes through my head and I feel things that I can't always tell the best on my PDA. However, I realize that if I somehow end up dead (hah) that nobody's gonna really know who I was, what I went through. Like the old man said, only thing you take with you when you die is your legacy. Well, if I do go from nobody to somebody, yer dang right I want someone to read what went through my head in the whole process. I'm writing all these here entries in the safety of my PDA, so some knucklehead doesn't just get a hold of a journal made out of paper (they even make those still?) and go readin' through my stuff before I been properly buried or converted in to fine space dust. Disrespectful it'd be, so writin' it on my PDA which is with me at all times'll keep it safe from snoopy people before my time's come. That an' as a matter of fact, I like to sort out what things all happened at any given time that I gotta go through or get out of my head. I don't write the fanciest, and most of how I learned to write was by soundin' out the words I say. People gonna ask why I write so weird, well that's why.
Now this ain't no day by day journal, I ain't got time to write up one entry every friggin day! If something good or bad enough happens and I think it be worth stuffin' in as an entry on my PDA, then I'll do it. 'Nother thing I hate is dates, but I guess eventually I gotta provide 'em, otherwise nobody's gonna know when this all happened! This is already becoming a royal pain in my...
Well no sense in wasting words on some odd tangent. I'll do my entry now., I s'pose. Already put my application in for Liberty Police Incorporated, despite being given the honor of independent work in the Navy. It's not that I got somethin' against the Navy or nothin', them boys are keeping the even deadlier enemies at the border. It's jus', it's not what I want to do with my life. I jus' can't live with myself fighting some enemy at the borders when in the very place we call home, there are pirates, rogues, and who knows what else attacking our own people. I took this application here seriously though, looked through one of them old dictionaries we had at Manhattan primary (that I may or may not have returned) while writing my application. See here, I can write however the heck I want in my journal, but I start writing like this in an application, they gonna think I'm touched in the head or somethin'. Course that ain't true, otherwise I wouldn't be flyin' a ship, or writin' any of this! Right, right... the odd tangents again... anyway, they ain't gotten back to me yet. I hope I didn't leave it in the wrong place, or give 'em the wrong contact protocol for them to tell me if I'm in or not. Man, I'd feel like a real idiot if they already accepted me and they just can't get the message to me!
I might as well dig up a nice story from the past... this here's the kicker, it was my first time flying a ship. Trust me, this story here's a good one, still kicking myself in the hinder to this day:
I was 14, and it was school break in Manhattan primary. The old man's been making me study the civilian light fighter ship interface whenever I weren't doin' homework or in school. I remember that ship, been flyin' it ever since until I got... well, the Executioner as it's called... but that ain't related. Old man even made me burn the ship's name in to my head... the Stargazer. For the life of me I cannot remember the specific model number, never was good at those kinds of details. It was a light fighter, with 4 weapon hard points, 2 for Class 7 guns, and 2 for Class 8 guns. The old man didn't just go and give me this ship of course, he ain't rich... come to think of it, never asked what he did for a living neither. This ship was well used; Didn't have no guns, didn't even have a SHIELD. When I got this ship, an' I'm quotin' the guy who pawned this off to the old man, the controller chip that interacts with the weapon hardpoints got toasted in a bad dogfight with EMP weapon users. What I took from that conversation was that, basically, even if I HAD mounted guns on it, they ain't gonna shoot. 'Course I fixed that down the line eventually, but that's then, not now. I knew better than to open my mouth and complain, it ain't every 14 year old who gets to study a fighter like that... and in my particular case, fly it.
Yeah, that's right. I flew it.
Well, "flew" is a strong word. I'm sure ships back in the day were a lot more reliant on mechanical operation than electrical, but modern ship design makes almost all aspects of the ship's interface computerized. No more struggling to reach the pedal, though flyin' a ship like that had a problem, see. The ship had even more damage, its ID/IFF controller chip also fried, effectively corrupting the data. Back then, if I had went and flew it when passing ships were scan-happy, they'd get scrambled data or an alert that the ship couldn't be properly identified. That wasn't too much of an issue for the old man, as usually they would give him a warning, and he'd wait it out for a month or two so they forget about it. It was different with me however, as Liberty's laws against minors flying aircraft were not well established and generally assumed to follow car driving laws. So if they picked up a ship that can't be ID'd properly, and find out a youngin' like me is pilotin', the old man would be in some pretty serious trouble. It was almost a sure bet that unless we could get all that fixed, that I'd never get a chance to fly... but then an opportunity showed up.
Them Rogues must'a been feelin' real bold that day... or real dang stupid. On that day, Ageira Technologies were runnin' a convoy near Manhattan to other parts of New York, as they usually do now and then. It's well known that they're the only ones in Liberty space sanctioned to be manufacturin' lane parts, and that the right people would pay somethin' nice for those parts. The Rogues have been on a winnin' streak for the past couple months in New York, got a big head, went an' hit up the convoy before it even left the outskirts of Planet Manhattan! It weren't no small amount of Rogues neither, they all dumb but not that dumb. In general nobody expects criminals to be bold enough to attack right on the outskirts of Manhattan, and not in that kinda force. Of course any patrols near the area engaged them, and managed to throw them off their game, but couldn't quite finish off the rogues. The convoy started a warp to West Point, and the Rogues followed with Liberty patrol in pursuit of them. The old man patched in to that junker ship's comms from above, told me to lift it off now if I ever wanna get a chance to fly in my near lifetime. I took that chance... and yeah, I was scared. Thought this junker was gonna fall apart on me before even leaving the atmosphere.
Now yer probably wondering how I managed to lift off from the Docking Ring without it turning down my broker than all dangnation ID/IFF controller. See here, I said the data was CORRUPTED, I didn't say it plain out wasn't THERE. Docking Rings didn't tend to check for corrupted data, because if an official ship had their ID/IFF controller go pop too, they might lose chase of a criminal. I don't know much about Docking Rings, but what I understood was, long as there WAS data there, and it didn't conflict with any database they have that disallows docking or undocking, they tend not to fuss. Course, that mighta changed now that I'm much older, but I wouldn't know... issue with that ship has long since been fixed.
The flight out was a bit weird at first, adjusting to how the ship works, but most of the automatic systems kicked in and kept it stable. Undocking was simple as the computer handled just about the entire process. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared the Docking Ring would shut me down the moment I tried passing through, but it let me through. Space flying, by far, was one of the most interesting parts. There's no gravity in space, flying feels much more free, and the control I had was great. The old man didn't let me practice too long though, had me take one of the trade lanes to Pittsburg... now going through that was an experience. Computer handled most of it naturally, and I enjoyed very speedy travel... if not heart attack causing. I was enjoying my time flying around the area of Pittsburg... but of course, me havin' too much fun would be an issue.
Remember when I said them Rogues hit the lane to West Point? Well, see here, not ALL of them did; Rogues ain't too bright, and one of their own panicked during the patrol's counterattack and hit the Pittsburg gate when nobody else was lookin'. There was an area the old man and I flew through that had a bunch of junk floatin' around... which reminds me, never addressed the fact that the old man did in fact have a ship of his own. Looked like a much older model of civilian light fighter, kept forgetting to ask him what it was though. Anyway, he felt somethin' was real queer while we were flyin' through that garbage. Told me to kill the engine, so I did and we coasted slowly. Well, old man's always right, as a very confused and no doubt panicked Rogue started layin' down fire on his ship. Now this was the first time I ever seen a "dogfight" up close, and I was naturally freakin' out. The old man did a real tricky maneuver though, after taking 3 or 4 hits to his shield, he strafed the rest and pitched up in to the junk. The Rogue lost him, and turned his attention to me... people used to ask me if you really do soil yourself when you're scared. I can say with confidence that, yes, if you're scared enough, you will piss your pants.
He was fixin' to open fire on me no doubt, but before he got a chance, the old man pitched down and laid in to him fast. This was one of them weaker Rogues, very inexperienced and not the best equipment... shield went down in seconds of fire. Old man yelled on my comms, "Boy! Do somethin'! It's kill or be killed, I ain't gonna hold yer damn hand!" What I did next was beyond dumb, probably the most touched in the head thing I've ever done, even considerin' the old man ain't given me much choice. I had no guns, I had no shield, and this here Stargazer seen better days... and the old man wanted me to fight. Well, I did... I fought in the only way I could... I pushed the throttle to max, and hit that beat down thruster hard as I could.
Yeah, you read right... I rammed that Rogue.
Understand that adrenaline was pumpin' in me, and my heart was skippin' beats in the heat of the moment. I'm lucky I didn't ram him head on, otherwise I wouldn't be writin' this right now! I was goin' for it at first, but man, seein' the look on that Rogue's face when I was throttlin' at him head-first... well, I buckled hard to the left, and smashed his right wing clean off, hardpoints and guns on that side included. I saw that wing rollin' over in all its zero gravity glory past my cockpit window, seeing the window itself take a deep crack (not deep enough for me to choke in vacuum luckily). I cut my engines again and turned around, coming to a full stop. Man, the Rogue just sat there, he didn't retaliate, move or do anythin'! He musta went and did number 1 AND 2 in his cockpit after that stunt I pulled! Old man ain't say nothin' that whole time, we all stood there for 'bout a minute, before the Rogue took off screamin', didn't even hit the jumpgate, just cruised right the heck out. Still nothin' from the old man, other than "We're going back to Manhattan. Now." I thought for sure he was gonna ring my sorry hide out for nearly goin' and killin' myself like that. We got back in to Manhattan just before the patrols got back in all their scan happy glory, and landed just about immediately. I reluctantly got out of the ship, and I was ready to take whatever I had comin'. That's when the weirdest thing happened...
The old man started laughin'. Not just laughin', no, it's like someone went and told the best joke he ever heard! Let me tell you folks readin' this why this was such a shock: The old man NEVER laughs! I haven't heard him even snicker since I known him! Yet right here, he was rollin' on the landin' pad, like he's been holdin' it in for his entire life! Even I started laughin', mostly because he was though, and this went on for I'd like to say, a good 5 to 7 minutes. He managed to stand up, letting out those last few chuckles, and he looked straight at me. It weren't one of them looks that say, "you messed up" or nothin', it was a smile, like seeing a kid who's overly enthusiastic about a dream he's decided he will accomplish. All he had to say was this: "You're just like me when I first flew, fire and all." That's about the closest I've ever gotten the old man to saying that he was proud of me, and man did I enjoy that moment. I didn't get the chance to ever fly again until I was of legal considered age to fly, and got the systems on that ship fixed up, but it was great while it lasted.
Though now that I think about it, on my application I put that I had several years of experience with civilian light fighters. I DID say that I didn't get to fly again until I was of legal age to pilot, but ya see, I had a couple other methods of practice. I don't much feel like discussin' them here, partly because I don't know the legality of that method that I used, and partly because I'm sick of writing! Maybe I'll make another journal entry on it, but no promises! It also weren't very eventful, so ain't much point to writin' about it anyway.
That's about it for my first entry, hopin' I don't ever gotta do this much writing per entry again after this one. I got writer's cramp like you wouldn't friggin believe! Hope you got a laugh out of it though, because it's one of the best stories I've got. Alright, I'm out.
I don't much like writing in general, but I despise writing my personal thoughts the most. A lot goes through my head and I feel things that I can't always tell the best on my PDA. However, I realize that if I somehow end up dead (hah) that nobody's gonna really know who I was, what I went through. Like the old man said, only thing you take with you when you die is your legacy. Well, if I do go from nobody to somebody, yer dang right I want someone to read what went through my head in the whole process. I'm writing all these here entries in the safety of my PDA, so some knucklehead doesn't just get a hold of a journal made out of paper (they even make those still?) and go readin' through my stuff before I been properly buried or converted in to fine space dust. Disrespectful it'd be, so writin' it on my PDA which is with me at all times'll keep it safe from snoopy people before my time's come. That an' as a matter of fact, I like to sort out what things all happened at any given time that I gotta go through or get out of my head. I don't write the fanciest, and most of how I learned to write was by soundin' out the words I say. People gonna ask why I write so weird, well that's why.
Now this ain't no day by day journal, I ain't got time to write up one entry every friggin day! If something good or bad enough happens and I think it be worth stuffin' in as an entry on my PDA, then I'll do it. 'Nother thing I hate is dates, but I guess eventually I gotta provide 'em, otherwise nobody's gonna know when this all happened! This is already becoming a royal pain in my...
Well no sense in wasting words on some odd tangent. I'll do my entry now., I s'pose. Already put my application in for Liberty Police Incorporated, despite being given the honor of independent work in the Navy. It's not that I got somethin' against the Navy or nothin', them boys are keeping the even deadlier enemies at the border. It's jus', it's not what I want to do with my life. I jus' can't live with myself fighting some enemy at the borders when in the very place we call home, there are pirates, rogues, and who knows what else attacking our own people. I took this application here seriously though, looked through one of them old dictionaries we had at Manhattan primary (that I may or may not have returned) while writing my application. See here, I can write however the heck I want in my journal, but I start writing like this in an application, they gonna think I'm touched in the head or somethin'. Course that ain't true, otherwise I wouldn't be flyin' a ship, or writin' any of this! Right, right... the odd tangents again... anyway, they ain't gotten back to me yet. I hope I didn't leave it in the wrong place, or give 'em the wrong contact protocol for them to tell me if I'm in or not. Man, I'd feel like a real idiot if they already accepted me and they just can't get the message to me!
I might as well dig up a nice story from the past... this here's the kicker, it was my first time flying a ship. Trust me, this story here's a good one, still kicking myself in the hinder to this day:
I was 14, and it was school break in Manhattan primary. The old man's been making me study the civilian light fighter ship interface whenever I weren't doin' homework or in school. I remember that ship, been flyin' it ever since until I got... well, the Executioner as it's called... but that ain't related. Old man even made me burn the ship's name in to my head... the Stargazer. For the life of me I cannot remember the specific model number, never was good at those kinds of details. It was a light fighter, with 4 weapon hard points, 2 for Class 7 guns, and 2 for Class 8 guns. The old man didn't just go and give me this ship of course, he ain't rich... come to think of it, never asked what he did for a living neither. This ship was well used; Didn't have no guns, didn't even have a SHIELD. When I got this ship, an' I'm quotin' the guy who pawned this off to the old man, the controller chip that interacts with the weapon hardpoints got toasted in a bad dogfight with EMP weapon users. What I took from that conversation was that, basically, even if I HAD mounted guns on it, they ain't gonna shoot. 'Course I fixed that down the line eventually, but that's then, not now. I knew better than to open my mouth and complain, it ain't every 14 year old who gets to study a fighter like that... and in my particular case, fly it.
Yeah, that's right. I flew it.
Well, "flew" is a strong word. I'm sure ships back in the day were a lot more reliant on mechanical operation than electrical, but modern ship design makes almost all aspects of the ship's interface computerized. No more struggling to reach the pedal, though flyin' a ship like that had a problem, see. The ship had even more damage, its ID/IFF controller chip also fried, effectively corrupting the data. Back then, if I had went and flew it when passing ships were scan-happy, they'd get scrambled data or an alert that the ship couldn't be properly identified. That wasn't too much of an issue for the old man, as usually they would give him a warning, and he'd wait it out for a month or two so they forget about it. It was different with me however, as Liberty's laws against minors flying aircraft were not well established and generally assumed to follow car driving laws. So if they picked up a ship that can't be ID'd properly, and find out a youngin' like me is pilotin', the old man would be in some pretty serious trouble. It was almost a sure bet that unless we could get all that fixed, that I'd never get a chance to fly... but then an opportunity showed up.
Them Rogues must'a been feelin' real bold that day... or real dang stupid. On that day, Ageira Technologies were runnin' a convoy near Manhattan to other parts of New York, as they usually do now and then. It's well known that they're the only ones in Liberty space sanctioned to be manufacturin' lane parts, and that the right people would pay somethin' nice for those parts. The Rogues have been on a winnin' streak for the past couple months in New York, got a big head, went an' hit up the convoy before it even left the outskirts of Planet Manhattan! It weren't no small amount of Rogues neither, they all dumb but not that dumb. In general nobody expects criminals to be bold enough to attack right on the outskirts of Manhattan, and not in that kinda force. Of course any patrols near the area engaged them, and managed to throw them off their game, but couldn't quite finish off the rogues. The convoy started a warp to West Point, and the Rogues followed with Liberty patrol in pursuit of them. The old man patched in to that junker ship's comms from above, told me to lift it off now if I ever wanna get a chance to fly in my near lifetime. I took that chance... and yeah, I was scared. Thought this junker was gonna fall apart on me before even leaving the atmosphere.
Now yer probably wondering how I managed to lift off from the Docking Ring without it turning down my broker than all dangnation ID/IFF controller. See here, I said the data was CORRUPTED, I didn't say it plain out wasn't THERE. Docking Rings didn't tend to check for corrupted data, because if an official ship had their ID/IFF controller go pop too, they might lose chase of a criminal. I don't know much about Docking Rings, but what I understood was, long as there WAS data there, and it didn't conflict with any database they have that disallows docking or undocking, they tend not to fuss. Course, that mighta changed now that I'm much older, but I wouldn't know... issue with that ship has long since been fixed.
The flight out was a bit weird at first, adjusting to how the ship works, but most of the automatic systems kicked in and kept it stable. Undocking was simple as the computer handled just about the entire process. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared the Docking Ring would shut me down the moment I tried passing through, but it let me through. Space flying, by far, was one of the most interesting parts. There's no gravity in space, flying feels much more free, and the control I had was great. The old man didn't let me practice too long though, had me take one of the trade lanes to Pittsburg... now going through that was an experience. Computer handled most of it naturally, and I enjoyed very speedy travel... if not heart attack causing. I was enjoying my time flying around the area of Pittsburg... but of course, me havin' too much fun would be an issue.
Remember when I said them Rogues hit the lane to West Point? Well, see here, not ALL of them did; Rogues ain't too bright, and one of their own panicked during the patrol's counterattack and hit the Pittsburg gate when nobody else was lookin'. There was an area the old man and I flew through that had a bunch of junk floatin' around... which reminds me, never addressed the fact that the old man did in fact have a ship of his own. Looked like a much older model of civilian light fighter, kept forgetting to ask him what it was though. Anyway, he felt somethin' was real queer while we were flyin' through that garbage. Told me to kill the engine, so I did and we coasted slowly. Well, old man's always right, as a very confused and no doubt panicked Rogue started layin' down fire on his ship. Now this was the first time I ever seen a "dogfight" up close, and I was naturally freakin' out. The old man did a real tricky maneuver though, after taking 3 or 4 hits to his shield, he strafed the rest and pitched up in to the junk. The Rogue lost him, and turned his attention to me... people used to ask me if you really do soil yourself when you're scared. I can say with confidence that, yes, if you're scared enough, you will piss your pants.
He was fixin' to open fire on me no doubt, but before he got a chance, the old man pitched down and laid in to him fast. This was one of them weaker Rogues, very inexperienced and not the best equipment... shield went down in seconds of fire. Old man yelled on my comms, "Boy! Do somethin'! It's kill or be killed, I ain't gonna hold yer damn hand!" What I did next was beyond dumb, probably the most touched in the head thing I've ever done, even considerin' the old man ain't given me much choice. I had no guns, I had no shield, and this here Stargazer seen better days... and the old man wanted me to fight. Well, I did... I fought in the only way I could... I pushed the throttle to max, and hit that beat down thruster hard as I could.
Yeah, you read right... I rammed that Rogue.
Understand that adrenaline was pumpin' in me, and my heart was skippin' beats in the heat of the moment. I'm lucky I didn't ram him head on, otherwise I wouldn't be writin' this right now! I was goin' for it at first, but man, seein' the look on that Rogue's face when I was throttlin' at him head-first... well, I buckled hard to the left, and smashed his right wing clean off, hardpoints and guns on that side included. I saw that wing rollin' over in all its zero gravity glory past my cockpit window, seeing the window itself take a deep crack (not deep enough for me to choke in vacuum luckily). I cut my engines again and turned around, coming to a full stop. Man, the Rogue just sat there, he didn't retaliate, move or do anythin'! He musta went and did number 1 AND 2 in his cockpit after that stunt I pulled! Old man ain't say nothin' that whole time, we all stood there for 'bout a minute, before the Rogue took off screamin', didn't even hit the jumpgate, just cruised right the heck out. Still nothin' from the old man, other than "We're going back to Manhattan. Now." I thought for sure he was gonna ring my sorry hide out for nearly goin' and killin' myself like that. We got back in to Manhattan just before the patrols got back in all their scan happy glory, and landed just about immediately. I reluctantly got out of the ship, and I was ready to take whatever I had comin'. That's when the weirdest thing happened...
The old man started laughin'. Not just laughin', no, it's like someone went and told the best joke he ever heard! Let me tell you folks readin' this why this was such a shock: The old man NEVER laughs! I haven't heard him even snicker since I known him! Yet right here, he was rollin' on the landin' pad, like he's been holdin' it in for his entire life! Even I started laughin', mostly because he was though, and this went on for I'd like to say, a good 5 to 7 minutes. He managed to stand up, letting out those last few chuckles, and he looked straight at me. It weren't one of them looks that say, "you messed up" or nothin', it was a smile, like seeing a kid who's overly enthusiastic about a dream he's decided he will accomplish. All he had to say was this: "You're just like me when I first flew, fire and all." That's about the closest I've ever gotten the old man to saying that he was proud of me, and man did I enjoy that moment. I didn't get the chance to ever fly again until I was of legal considered age to fly, and got the systems on that ship fixed up, but it was great while it lasted.
Though now that I think about it, on my application I put that I had several years of experience with civilian light fighters. I DID say that I didn't get to fly again until I was of legal age to pilot, but ya see, I had a couple other methods of practice. I don't much feel like discussin' them here, partly because I don't know the legality of that method that I used, and partly because I'm sick of writing! Maybe I'll make another journal entry on it, but no promises! It also weren't very eventful, so ain't much point to writin' about it anyway.
That's about it for my first entry, hopin' I don't ever gotta do this much writing per entry again after this one. I got writer's cramp like you wouldn't friggin believe! Hope you got a laugh out of it though, because it's one of the best stories I've got. Alright, I'm out.