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The Private Diary of Peter Ericson

By, me, Peter Ericson

So, a diary. Hello! ... Yeah, not really used to writing one of these, I know some people do since they were a child, but I didnt, really. Not sure why. Anyway, sort of useless to spam my own diary with babble, so, on to the point. Namely, a lot of... stuff happening. Yeah, thatll do. Stuff.

Ok then, I can see your not impressed, Mr. Diary. Still, writing lots was never my forte. Especially not with a pen, anyhow. Still, most secure thing there is now, paper. I say paper, not made out of trees or anything. Not sure what its made out of actually... Synth? Who knew Synth Foods made books? Anyway, its not from a real plant, so its all good. And secure, like I said. Cant be sure of anything on the neural net these days, what with hackers, and the governments. They monitor everything, cant ever be sure what they know, or see. Cramped in one of their bunkers on New London, no doubt, sifting through it all, Trying to get into your head... well lets not go into that. Heads, that is. Not yet... err...

Better introduce myself then! My name is Peter Ericson, and Im 6 years old! Well, Im not, clearly, Im 26 actually. But, young at heart, eh? Right... I was born on Planet Cambridge. Then when I was about 8 or thereabouts, we all moved to Planet Leeds. Me mum and dad, and my little brother. Dad got a job with BMM I think, quite good from what I heard. So, Grew up on Leeds after that. Got into Cambridge Uni, luckily, did an Engineering Degree, got a 2-2 by the end of it. Had a lot of fun, made some nice friends. Got into doing Green Front things, leafleting, protest marches, all that fun stuff. Left, wondering what to do with my life, long story short (too late, HA!), became a Gaian. Got myself a Hawk, then did it up, rebuilt it over a year or two. Now pretty much a Falcon, got the parts from the Junkers at Trafalgar, and some at The Hood. Never was much into racing though, seemed suicidal, though my cousin loved it. Then, she is a Zoner, what can you expect? Ha! And I think my brothers a policeman now, he was always a bit boring. So yeah, thats me, Mr. Diary. Nosy, arent you? Heh.

Still, things changed. A while back, dunno really when they first started to, just sort of did. I found myself flying the long-way-round to get to places, going to the edge of this asteroid field, seeing whats in that nebula. I still asked for the occasional donation, wasnt completely wasting my time an all. Just, well, wanted to explore a little, I guess. And when I say donation, I mean it, I have never robbed anyone, or shot first, Im not like that. I know some of the lads here are a bit rough, trigger happy maybe, but not me. Still, the government labels you as a terrorist, youre a terrorist, I suppose.

Cripes, I have gone on a bit, havent I? Ill get on to the good part in the morning...

[font=Comic Sans Ms]Were was I? Right, well a few weeks ago I was flying through the Dublin system, looking for donations and such. I happened to fly close to the jump hole to Chester. A pretty empty system, and not much use as a shortcut to anywhere, but Ive been through a couple of times before. Still, I was pretty bored, and I went through the jump hole. Dont really know why, was just curious at the time. Looking back, perhaps more than mere curiosity, who can tell. Still, theres a nebula there, on the other side of the star to Planet Shirley, far away from the jump holes. No-one seems to fly out there, other people who flew through Chester dont seem to mention it. Just another dark, boring cloud of useless dust... but. I dont know what made me fly out to it, but I did. Flew right into the centre of it. And I felt, well, sort of strange-ish. Like, much more than just an idle curiosity, like I had to know what was there. I knew it was empty, yet I carried on, aiming right at the centre of the nebula.

Turns out, not so empty after all. I only caught a glimpse, but it was something solid, and huge, bigger than any station or asteroid Ive seen before. It looked... sort of oval, no, elliptical maybe, and geometrically perfect. No, I dont know what that means either. I wanted to get a better look at it, but then... They came.

My cockpit brought up all sorts of alarms and messages, things were reading as unknown, the sensors werent making any sense. I felt scared, terrified, and yet angry. Anger, but not my anger. Theirs. Of course, I was already hitting various controls, trying to get a fix to the jump hole out of here, charging cruise engines. The sensors cleared a little, and I briefly saw what appeared to be four ships, but unlike any ship ever made. My engines stalled, the shields faltered and I panicked. I turned the ship around, shut my eyes, and opened fire...

Pain. I felt such pain, I thought I was dying. Like every nerve in my body was tearing itself free from my skin. The I heard my tractor beam activate, saw my hand on the activation switch. After that, I could think a little more clearly. I managed to get the engines working again, and got away. Not sure how. Maybe, they felt the pain more than I, maybe it distracted them, or scared them, Ill never know. But I got to the Newcastle system, and set down on Skye.

Mostly just glad to have survived, I went to leave the hangar and find a bed for the night, when I suddenly remembered something. The tractor beam, it went off, picked something up. I rushed back to my ship and gingerly opened the cargo bay. Inside was... well...

Gah, cant think of the words to describe it. Eh, I need some lunch, thatll help.

Wood

Wood