It's been a while since I got back into the Bubble and so much has changed. At least, I think so. My AI tells me so.

So what have I managed to do, the Mug asks? Well, there's been those evacuations from burning stations. Mounting marshmellows on the hull was a great idea, they get crisped just right inside a burning Coriolis. Then there is fixing the broken stations, it simply astounds me that the builders can clear up their construction equipment so rapidly. Like, overnight.

There was some memorial flight around a whole bunch of stations named for some ancient scientist who loved Tea...but then who does not? I mean, Mugs are not ONLY for megagin after all. We did our bit to help the heat death of the universe by dumping loads of Tea into a black hole FOR SCIENCE.

Then...well, this thing. I have been running around in my memorial ship. She doesn't carry much cargo, but the flame decals look pretty and the extended wings help the aerodynamics...uhh...I'll get back to you on that one.

Anyway, so yeah, those Federal chaps seemed eager for me to take all this data around for them. Some guys were also after donations for Help The Tharg Orphans or Save the Adders or some other such thing. I always do what I can to aid the needy, when I'm not using the credits for Megagin anyway.

Anyway, woke up this morning in Tun's Wart and the Federal officers around here were SALUTING me as I walked past. Not that sodding 07 idiot nonsense, no, FULL ON DOUBLE RIMMERS. Thought it must have been recognition for one of those things I'd done. Got back to the station bar for refuelling and the bar steward called me Admiral. Must be a joke.

Then I saw the man sitting behind the barroom drinks. Dashing chap, freelancer's jacket, slightly fuzzled hair, definitely a pilot to go on the sunglasses he was wearing. Rear Admiral's clasps on his jacket collar. Hang on, there isn't another bar behind the drinks wall. There's a mirr...oh crap.

Rear Admiral Dayglo Viking of the Federal Reserve...

I had been away for a while, the megagin keeping me in a medicinal state for a while. When I came to, I saw that the Truckers had issued an ATB, an All Truckers Bulletin, for immediate evacuation efforts.

Three stations, all in the Pleiades. All swarmed by Thargoids, a new type of vessel more powerful than encountered before, had rendered the stations defenceless, had plasted open hull plating, had ruptured reactors. Three rescue ships had been dispatched but they were maintaining a small distance. Clever people, if the stations blew, nothing within tens of kilometres would be safe.

However, that meant the Truckers were needed. Someone had to get refugees out of those floating cities. Someone had to get rescue equipment in there. It didn't look good. Every docking bay was glowing hot with nuclear fires, so any ship entering had to be cold and popping heat sinks. Every docking bay was full of debris so it would take top flight commanders. Truckers.

I may have been late to the game but in an hour, the Hammer had borne 2000 people out of those infernos. She had even managed to pull some black box data and encrypted caches from under a thargoid's tractor beam, even if it earned her some fractured hull plating for her efforts. Her first combat experience with one of those weird squiddies, and all she needed was some T-cut and high speed tape.

Back to the rescue efforts!

Always the crackling of the radio. Ever since coming back to the Bubble, there have been demands for the Dayglo Viking to go this way and that, but it is up to him to decide where he goes, and not what the beachball in the hold wants.

How did it manage to get there from Colonia...

Anyway, there had been voyages to be made. The lovely people of Tranquility wanted to have Breakfast, but they wanted breakfast made up from a bunch of stuff from Leesti, Lave, and the environs. I honestly don't know how the drugs got into the cargo. I will have a word with the dockhands at George Lucas. Likewise, the good people of Leesti wanted to have a nice picknick made up of things acquired around Tranquility. I don't know how the drugs got in my hold there either. I need to have a word with the supercargo at Tanach Tor.

How is it that my profits jumped significantly anyway? Your guess is as good as mine.

Anyway, some random fellow claiming to be a counsellor suggested that I should take some electroshock therapy to help with my feelings concerning the beachball alien. I took what he said to mean I should sit in the middle of heavy weaponry and have a blast. At anyone with a wanted label on their hull. Who wasn't a Hutton Trucker.

I should do this more often.

I also saw Joshua Valienté out there in Wolf 359. I wonder how far stepwise we are from Datum Earth. He was hanging around with Napoleon Solo, so I wonder if other UNCLE agents are nearby.

It was rumour. Gossip. Something I'd heard while knocking back the Megagin in between missions.

Seems some folks had gone missing, out in the rough direction of Antares. Snippets of information, broken transmissions, something about a whole Anaconda just...lying there, and then these folks went off the radar.

I'd done enough for the locals, so I loaded up an SRV and made sure that that damned beachball hadn't somehow made it back fro Colonia and into the crawlways, and headed out in Cleo.

Farseer Inc have done a beautiful number on Cleo's FSD, I was out there before I had even finished drinking from my mug. There it was. A brilliant white star, a distant companion, some giants...and the moon.

Riven with great fissures, the promise of a little prospecting, but nothing massively tempting. Still, it had been enough for one pilot.

There, on a precipice before a great drop-off, a silent Anaconda. Wreckage strewn around. Some kind of dead beacon tower. A couple of containers. And then, the sensor picked up a signal. Logs.

Someone else had been here first. Two explorers, surprised by this great, reticent beast. They wanted it. They could tell, as I could, this Anaconda was only sleeping. It isn't dead. Who could refuse a whole Anaconda if she could still fly?

After reviewing what data was available, I decided that I could.

With the downloadable logs in hand, I returned to Cleo, took a sip for the mug and the memories, and waked out of there.

...but it’s more comfortable relaxing in your jacuzzi in an Anaconda than trying to avoid hitting your head in the cockpit of a Sidewinder.

Really I’m an explorer at heart.

But sometimes I like to shoot things.

Ah, the dark teatime of the soul when the ship has to remain docked up for a period of time, and one must abide.

Who needs 200 landmines every time someone wants to come by for a mug of Centauri Megagin...

Helping out those filthy truckers, and Supreme Snuffler Alvin, to get established in another system. Why though, why do the handlers in the stations insist on trying to force kill missions on me? I'm a trader and explorer! They have the wrong man for the job!

Still, Felicity has nicely worked over my FSD on Cleo and now we can jump 40ly with a load on board.

It's all about making friends in this universe when you're a freebooter.

Maybe you want to hunt someone down, and they've crossed a boundary you're not able to jump over. Maybe you want to bring valuable cargo into a region but your FSD won't let you go there. Maybe you just like to go places.

I notified my handlers at the Federal Navy Reserve that I would be on a sabbatical and headed downrange. I hauled meat, alcohol, data, I contributed to charitable activities. I bought Centauri megagin for likely representatives.

After a few days, my good behaviour caught the attention of the Alioth Independants, and right before I had to power down the power plant for some much-needed maintenance, they invited me to come visit the capital of the Alliance.

Right now, the techies are swarming all over Cleo while I chill out in the bar for some extended R'n'R.