02-19-2008, 12:12 PM
Log Entry: 6th May, 816 A.S, Trafalger Bar
Dear Diary,
I can't believe I just wrote that. 'Dear Diary'. Bloody hell, I sound like a girl saying that! No matter.
It's done. I actually went through with it. I took Uncle's Blue Blossom. It's a Bounty Hunter Gunboat, one of those nice ones with all the automation; it just needs me to fire the guns and pick the destinations, it can do most of the rest. Now, of course, the Police will be all up in arms looking for me-you know the moment Grandpa rings they'll be all over the place trying to bring me back home-but they won't find me until I'm ready for them. And when they do, will they be sorry or what?
Hmm...just in case anybody actually bothers to listen to all of this, I should probably tell more about myself. My name is Jason Whitacre. Yes, those Whitacres, the filthy rich BMM-funded family that owns half of Cambridge, and the famous Bounty Hunter Ace Jonathan Whitacre, and the Home Defense Guard Captain Fidelius Whitacre. I hate them all. Well, not all of them...my brother Jerry, he was a great friend, but he joined the police, of all things! He couldn't have stuck to the Clydesdale, oh no...Ah well. I hope I don't have to blow him out of the sky. He knows I'm a better pilot than him, anyways.
So what am I doing on Trafalgar, the log may ask? Simple. I'm running off to join the bloody circus. I am sick and tired of living under a family name that breeds industrial filth everywhere it goes, that thrives in this burned-out, filthy garbage dump in space we call Bretonia. Leeds is nothing but one gigantic bleeding city, for crying out loud! New London's night sky would be a horrible orange thing to behold, spotted with grey from all the junk clouds we've churned out-if it ever stopped raining acid! That planet used to be a sunny place, it's in the history books. Pictures from the first few centuries of settlement here; it was a clear, beautiful place. Not anymore. And my family is right at the spearhead, strip-mining asteroids and hauling all the metals it can get to become whatever's next on the order, making, guess what, more scrap. I'm sick of it. I won't be a part of it. Dad raised me to have a healthy respect for Cambridge's wildlife, to pick up after ourselves, but what happened to him? Shot, of course. Conveniently. In the middle of a forest. With a sniper's .65-cal military round, too, not something you'd use to hunt the deer if you actually intended for there to be anything left of it after you shot it.
So I'm running away. Leaving. And I'm going to show them bloody well what they need to be doing, whether they like it or not. I have the ship, and I have the people to give me upkeep now. My old schoolmaster's sent ahead for me; the Gaians are coming to pick me up. Then they'll help me get these engines up to spec. As much fun as he is at parties, Uncle never really cared for a beautiful little thing called fuel efficiency...
Here's my escort now. I'll get back to this log in a few days, then.
*gulp*
*thunk*
Jason Whitacre, logging off.
End of Log 6th May, 816 A.S.