Diary of A Citizen of the Stars – A Bit of This and A Bit of That

written by Fyren

 

Lorville. A maze of corridors, airlocks, trains, platforms and walkways. For someone who has never visited the city before, it is very easy to get lost. Of course, this was my first visit and that is exactly what I did. I found my way out of the habitation area and began stumbling, tired, around the streets. I didn’t find the way out I was looking for right away. Instead I found a bar.

My kind of place too. The lights are dim, mostly neon. A pool table sits untouched in the corner with a large man in full armor appearing to be keeping watch over it. The electric music thumps loudly, reverberating around the place with each beat. I grab a seat at the bar. “What’ll it be?” the barman asks me. “What are my choices?” I ask him. He flexes his chest a bit before he replies. “You can get whiskey or nothing.” Definitely my kind of place. “Whiskey it is.” Just then I get a call from a friend. They are on the way to pick me up and I’m supposed to meet them at Gate 4.

I stand up and down the rest of the whiskey. Decent stuff, it’s a bit of a shame to drink it so fast. I motion towards the barkeep “Hey, where in the hell is Gate 4?”. He points in a direction and the makes a shooing motion. Fat lot of good that is. A few minutes later I’m strolling past a hospital, still no closer to Gate 4. “Are you coming or what?” I hear the crackled voice of my ride come through. “Uh, I’m a bit lost. I don’t know where I am or where I’m going.” I tell him, hoping to get some solid directions on how to navigate the labyrinth of similar looking corridors. “You gotta get on the train” he tells me before the channel goes dead. The train, right.

It takes several more dead ends, and several minutes of staring at the wrong train line to actually find the correct station. The train whisks me away towards Gate 4. When I get there, there is only one direction to go. *static* “I’m almost there, you find it?” comes the familiar voice in my helmet again. I look around, surrounded my large metal structures, pipes, and shipping containers. In front of my stretches a vast plain consisting of wild grass, rocks and dirt. “Umm, I’m standing in a field. I hope this is right” I say with more than a little exasperation. There is no response. I look behind to see Lorville looming up behind me, obscuring the horizon and not wanting to go back the way I came I start jogging out into the field.

Luckily, I was in the right place. I hitch a ride back to Port Olisar, more familiar territory for me. My brand new Cutlass Black is waiting for me. Fresh coat of paint glinting under the light of thousands of stars. I take off listening to the beautiful hum of the engines. Again, my friend contacts me, voice buzzing in my ear. “Wanna get rich quick? Find a lab on Yela, I’ll meet you there. It’s just above the finger shaped landmass” he tells me. I sure do want to get rich but this sounds a little shady. Before I can ask for better directions the line goes dead again. I’m gonna need to have a talk with him about that.

The quantum drive gets me to Yela quickly, but I spend nearly an hour circling the planet before I find any ‘finger shaped landmass’. It is on the dark side of the planet. When it gets dark on Yela, it gets exceptionally dark. I begin my descent hoping that this lab will be a fairly obvious discovery. It isn’t. As soon as I break atmosphere I realize that not only is it incredibly dark at this time, I’m coming down in the middle of a blizzard. I turn on the Cutlass’s lights in hopes that I might find this lab in the dark a bit easier. The only thing they light up though is the swirling snow; I can’t see a damn thing. I get close to the surface, close enough to see the frozen rock and snow drifts below. After almost another hour of scouring the surface with no directions to go on and several near crashes with frost tipped mountains, I decide that getting rich will have to wait. Maybe tomorrow I can find my way as just one of many citizens among the stars.