Well, I made it, another 10,000ly and now I'm on "top" of the galaxy. Yeah, it's all relative but I don't care. Blu Aics DC-S C18-0 is a nothing of K class star, all by it's lonesome way above the ecliptic. Not even a single planet, just a lonely star. It's odd, I didn't run into as many neutron stars and white dwarfs on my way up here. Could just be a quirk of my flight path but checking the galaxy map I don't see as many either... I really need to talk to an actual astronomer when I get back to civilization.

On the plus side, the view from here is spectacular. Gonna camp out for the night under the light of galaxy, been a while since I spent the night asleep in the cockpit in zero g, on purpose.

After that, I've got a course plotted down into the plane of the ecliptic to get back into the thick of things. I'll go through the Arcadian Stream and into the Empyrean Straits. I'll wrap around the north of the core through Ryker's Hope and Odin's Hold before I go to Sagittarius A* from the west. Then it's onto Explorer's Anchorage, Colonia, and then home. I'll of course swing well out of the direct routes to make sure I'm in virgin territory. Funny thing, the next leg of my trip is 208 jumps. I can remember when a trip of 45 jumps was a daunting task I had to prepare for. Now I see 208 jumps as just a bit of a lark.

Yes, up and down is relative in space and it doesn't mean anything but human minds aren't logical and I'm going up damn it. Getting some more stars between me and the yawning empty abyss between galaxies makes me feel better. My next target is almost 10,000 lightyears away and it's going to take me through the heart of the Norma Expanse. Gotta admit, the density of the stars in the heart of the Expanse is exciting. I may stop and just bum around a bit in the densest region, just see what I might be able to suss out instead of having Ghostrider just help me blast through it 56ly at a time.

Oh, and so far I've found five undiscovered water worlds and an ammonia world, so I got that going for me, which is nice.

9,327 Lightyears from Sol, at the bottom of the galaxy looking up. I could go farther down but stars are getting very thin down here and very dead. Neutron stars and white dwarfs abound but not much else. As gorgeous as neutron stars are the light is weak, and even 1,000 LS from the thing this rock I'm camping on is dark and cold. If I'm honest, as much as I enjoy deep space there's something erie about being down here, there is a genuine abyss down here, and I'm happy I'll be heading back up after this.

Not sure if I'll neutron jump out of here, tempting to take the ride again.

Statue of Liberty Sector DL-Y D25 1 A, it's an unassuming world 6,001LY from Sol. Beautiful though. The main star here is class A, screaming hot and white making the ground here positively glow white. It's light gray in the shadows. The entire sky glows red from the nebula and it's gorgeous. I'm going to camp out here for the night, enjoy some gravity even it's only a quarter G.

Tomorrow I'm heading out, heading pretty much due north on the plane but down. I'm going to see if I can't get down low out of the galactic plane, check another mark of the old bucket list before I head upwards as well.

In other news, the Phantom handles like a dream.

I've been putting this trip off far too long. I want to see the Galactic core and Colonia and they aren't getting any closer. The Ghostrider is engineered about as much as she can be. I'm sure there's a few more kilograms we could pare off her systems, maybe eek another lightyear, even two, of jump range but I need to get out of the bubble, back into the black.

So I'm setting off. The plan is simple, head anti-spinward, loop out through the galactic east and back to Sagittarius A* and Explorer's Anchorage then back to Colonia, a wide loop spinward and back to the bubble. Just a quick 75,000 lightyears.

First leg is well underway, first stop is the Statue of Liberty nebula. The Ghostrider is doing great, this first 1,200 lightyears has flown by. No undiscovered systems yet though. I'm paitent, I'm just now getting well and truly out of area. We'll see how things go here in the next ten or twenty jumps. If I don't find some unexplored systems soon I'll have to tack up or down out of the galactic plane, put me out of a straight shot to the nebula just in case this is a more heavily trafficked route than I thought.

Party of Yoru? How do people even come up with this stuff. Yoru's a crappy nothing of a system. The closest thing it's got to value is an unterraformed waterworld that in a hundred or two years might be something. Right now all Yoru is is a pair of outposts, two tiny colony's and less than 100,000 people yet somehow the Party of Yoru has sway in almost fifty systems with almost a billion people.

Maybe Nemo's onto something, if you can be that crap and yet convince everyone you're awesome maybe they're worth being buddy buddy with.

But seriously, I've killed half a dozen people for them and they still don't consider me friendly.

Didn't think I'd have a choice, but now I do. Do I take my Asp Explorer, Snickerdoodle 4 to Colonia, or do I take the Ghostrider, my brand new Krait Phantom? Wouldn't be a choice if the Phantom wasn't so damn good. Maybe I'll take Ghostrider out for a jaunt into the black for a bit, I do want to go see Barnard's Loop up close, maybe sight see a few points of interest near the bubble, take the scenic route.

I hate some of these people. 200 Tons of gold, 50 tons of cigars, 50 tons of brandy? I thought I had bad habits. If your intoxicants of choice have to be measured in metric tons maybe you need to quit.

Well, now I've seen both Thargoids and Guardians first hand. The remains of them at least. A crashed Thargoid ship with two Anacondas and a pair of Type 9's for company. I can figure the Anacondas but what were two Type-9's full of booze doing 1,000ly from the bubble? The Guardians aren't exactly friendly. Their little bots tried to kill me, but they suck. I must have killed a dozen of their crap drones yet somehow this FSD booster gives me another 6ly of jump range?

5,339 LY as the crow flies, that's how far I am from Sol. Found and Earth like world only a few jumps before hand. Odd to think I'm the first person to ever lay eyes on it.