One day, my friend Ysdra ask me why I have taken the Anaconda, instead of a more manoeuvrable ASP or a diamondback. But when I see his quarters, his tiny kitchen and his dependency to the fleet carriers for repair, I don't know how he is able to spend month in it out of the bubble. In my anaconda I have a full kitchen, a room, an office, and even a gimballed hydroponic farm for fresh vegetables and fruits. Yes, I almost never eat dehydrated food! It reminds me of something that happened last week. I was wondering if we could cook some flora that we found on other planets. So, I took an aleoida, and after a mass spectrographic study to make sure I don't poison myself, I tried to eat it as a salad. Well, I should have done a pH test also, because it almost makes a hole in my tongue. Damn it, a pH of 0,2 isn't something I want in my sandwich.

After some gruesome week in the bubble, were a pilot classmate wants me to try mercenary jobs, i'm back in the good ol' job of searching life forms and planets. The explosion of color of the Eta Carina nebula spread in a sky of a millions stars, over my head. I rather be sipping a comet mojito in the canopy of my ship with some old earth classical music, than stressing out for my life and my ship in front of dozens of enemies. And franckly, the anaconda is much more comfy than the mamba, if you don't mind the look... But enough stargazing, I have some aleoida to find !

After almost two years traveling through space, I reach Colonia. My ears were blown by the chatter of the people and I had to retreat in the calm area of my ship. I'm still not use to the constant noises around me, but I need to go back to speak to people. Luckily, my researches on exobiology were welcomed by Vista, and I got a pretty good fee for them. But bills and mails are invading my mailbox at Shinrarta, so I have to go back. "Welcome again, traveller, you are late on your pilot's obligations !"... I already want to go back in deep space. Maybe I will choose the comfort of a fleet carrier for the return journey.

I have been in this system for several days. My scanner promises me rare minerals on almost all planets, the perfect opportunity to fill my workshop with raw materials! But after tens of kilometers in VRS, I have to face the facts: it is much more tiring to travel in this bumpy tin can than in the calm of my ship. My back hurts, and my neck protesting, besides the anxiety of not finding my ship as soon as it parks in orbit ...

I'm a little nostalgic, I've often been told that we shouldn't always depend on drones. So from time to time I like to land on a planet and analyze samples manually, with an old pocket particle accelerator, unearthed in a flea market. I have a whole bunch of old instruments, I set up a laboratory in a cargo hold of my ship. I love getting results on my own, the old fashioned way, when scientists didn't have those surface probes that does everything for you.

Sol system, at last !

With my classmate Ysdra, we had been dreaming about it for a long time.

It's like going back to basics. To know that all our planets and our stations are built on the model of this simple stone, on which it all began. It's amazing to know that we have survived so long on something so insecure, without the possibility of being saved by an outside system in the event of a major problem ...