Evangeline Anastasia McDowell

[Bazza]

Entry#: 146
Date: 14 - 05 - 819 AS @ 11:58 SUT
Title: Untitled.

Now that I've managed to find the charger pack for my laptop I can finally pen down all of my thoughts and retell my recent history up to today. For the record, it was stashed in the back of the utility cupboard in the toilet. Thinking about it now I put it in there when I wanted to use it somewhere private... the toilet being about the only truly private place on this ship these days.

Anyway, I digress.

We ended up at Freeport 1 not long after I'd managed to finally remember why we were going there. It was a reunion party for Bret, Vixen & Co; which turned into a surprise marriage proposal.

I feel so stupid for it now, I really do. I was having a fun time meeting all these old faces I'd mostly forgotten about right up until all these old wounds in my heart were reopened. It's of course no fault of Bret nor Vix but all the themes of weddings, marriages, proposals and the "f" word really didn't do my psyche any good.

I had to break through a huge emotional barrier only hours beforehand, which in hindsight really could have been timed better. I decided to throw away the ring Gunther gave me when he kind-of-sorta proposed to me about, oh, must be 6 months ago now.

I also forced myself to the realisation that he isn't coming back this time. Well, I kinda figured that out from about 10 seconds after he left but it's been an uphill battle convincing myself properly.

So, I was pretty rotten. BUT! I didn't want to be a downer on the whole evening so I put on my best happy face and went along with the party.

Worked for a while...

I ended up leaving in a huge dramatic mess and spent the night hiding on my ship.

I didn't leave straight away, though, because despite my fragile emotional state I was still intent on making some credits out of the trip I'd made. When I did finally leave, the ship was boasting a significant shipment of illegal artifacts.

Been a while since I properly broke the law. Felt good, too.

We filled up on fuel and supplies and jetted out of the station's protection; making a bee-line for the ice cloud in the eastern edge of Omega-3. Within that field lay the jumphole to Cambridge.

A well-known shortcut for ne'er-do-wells such as ourselves, the first jumphole dumped us in Cambridge well outside any lawful patrol route yet within a relatively short distance of the jumphole to Leeds. Of course the scenery change between the two systems was most noticeable - Cambridge being a clear, brilliant ocean of stars except where the deep haze of the ice extended compared to Leeds being little more than a festering puddle of brown smog. It was there that myself and Misaka turned in for the night, switching duty with our night shift comprising of the nocturnal Fumika and the permanantly sleepy Kana.

The smog clouds serving their sole real purpose splendidly kept the ship off the radar right across the system until we reached the jumphole to Magellan. Misaka and I were awoken by our two employees somewhere inside the Cortez system after having traversed the unending ice and dust of The Barrier through Magellan. With no direct, stable jumphole link between Magellan and California a detour was necessary to avoid contact with undesirables.

This came in the form of a well-traversed path through the backwaters of Cortez. After a brief changeover period I once again took control of In Silico and took over the arduous task of.... periodically checking the autopilot and radar screens for any changes...

It must be said In Silico requires a lot less human interaction to fly than her predecessor. Which is a huge relief considering there is a very certain young demoness who is hell-bent on draining the life energy out of her mother and all of those surrounding her.

After the trek across Cortez we once again found ourselves in California. Retracing routes taken a hundred times before we snuck across the system to Liberty's Unfashionable Hat (also known as Ontario). Without barely a human contact we drifted across the desolate edges of the under-developed system and arrived at the co-ordinates of the jumphole to Colorado.

The final leg of the run usually proves to be the most hectic as it passes within earshot of the well known Xeno installation of Ouray. However, fortunately for us, their numbers seem to have dwindled to almost negligible amounts in the recent months and we crossed the Silverton field unhindered.

Within the edges of the barren wasteland of the Silverton field lies the jumphole to New York. The final stage of our journey consisted of dodging junk and scrapped ships through the Jersey field before finally coming to rest at Rochester.

Finding a buyer for our artifacts proved no hassle what so ever and within minutes I was in possession of much less cargo and many more credits.

A couple more items of note; details thereof to be filled in at a later date when I'm not about to pass out from exhaustion.

'€¢I ran into Admiral Hale outside West Point as I was planning on returning to Alsatia.

'€¢My plan of going to Alsatia had to wait a while. Los Angeles seemed like a nice enough place to crash out. Was that or run the ship aground on an asteroid after falling asleep.

'€¢I found some smelly hippie named Tharog who wants my help for some reason.

'€¢Ended up going back to Manhattan to spend some of the credits we made and then ran into the Admiral again.

'€¢Had to help him in a firefight and save an LSF agent's life.

'€¢I can't call Admiral Hale Admiral Hale either! He's not an Admiral any more. Son of a bitch retired!

In any case.


It's almost bloody midnight. I'm outta here.

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