Data Logs Starfarer

Entry 1

Log 1: Hear Your Babies Crying.

I know I should feel bad. I’m so lucky right now. There are still millions of people starving back there on Earth, and I’m up here. Safe… or at least, sorta safe. Or at least, if I starve it’ll be my own dumb fault which is a lot more than most people can say right now.

I like the guys I’m working with, too. Victor, Hamilton, Cutter, Sandy… so far we’re getting along great. Cutter can be kinda cranky and Sandy’s obviously seen some stuff that she doesn’t want to talk about, but so far we’re all in a good mood and working well together. Right now we’re all sleeping in a single dormitory and Hamilton snores like a sawmill, so I’ll be glad when we can spare the time to build separate cabins for everyone…

But really? His snoring is the worst of my concerns. That’s… it’s been a long time since I had it so good.

The first and most important step in building a ship is naming her. We decided to go with “Starfarer.” Hopefully a name like that will carry us a long way. We’re… kinda divided on what we’re going to do exactly. I think Victor and Sandy feel we owe it to the Haven Foundation to put in a real and serious search for Eden.

I think we need to take care of ourselves first. If we look out for each other and work with other Haven crews and just take it carefully, we should be fine. Maybe we’ll find Eden along the way!

If we don’t… well, just having a safe place to sleep and regular food on the table in front of me every day suits me just fine. I don’t need fame and adventure. A home is enough.

Though, I guess I’d better get back to building her. There’s still a lot of work to do before she’s really self-sufficient.

++END LOG ENTRY++

Entry 2

Log 2: They Try And Break Me.

We have to eat, and breathe. No water means neither food nor air. So, we’ll follow the ice asteroids.

Or the metal asteroids, when we’re running short on tools and building blocks to keep the ship maintained. Or power crystals, when we’re running short on energy sticks...

The point is, if we just go where the things we need are, we should be fine. Simple, right?

Well, yeah it’s simple. Which means a bunch of other people thought of it too. And I guess some of them thought they could just...

I don’t know how we’re all still alive. It was a close thing, way too close. If Sandy had still been in the hydroponics bay when that missile hit… or if Hamilton hadn’t been such a good shot… or if Cutter wasn’t such a damn good surgeon…

...We made it. We had to kill four men, but we made it. And then we held a funeral for them, even though we didn’t know their names. We mourned the pirates who tried to murder us... Why do I feel so guilty about defending myself?

I’d hoped the apocalypse would bring us together, get us all pulling in the same direction. You know? I guess I didn’t learn from the example of my parents. They hoarded what they had, and never let anyone in… and in the end, a mob broke down their front door and took it all anyway.

I wonder if maybe the key is to share. Not, like, stupidly. I don’t mean starving ourselves, and God knows that’s firmly on the cards for a few days now that we had to rebuild the grow beds and plant new crops…

But I mean like… if somebody comes to you with an empty belly and you feed them, then that’s a debt, or, or a bond. They’re with you then. They’re your friend.

Despite what happened, I don’t want to lose faith. I have to believe this galaxy is big enough for all of us. Earth wasn’t, but…

...I have to believe.

++END LOG ENTRY++

Entry 3

Log 3: Off To Find The Hero.

We hit the motherlode with this system. Enough minerals to keep us in parts and building blocks for… well for a long time. More than we could store! So… we used them to build a whole new cargo bay. Hamilton complained that the ship’s all lopsided now but it doesn’t make a difference.

Sandy tells me our water reserves are good, too. Really, really good. Enough to keep us in air and drinking water for months. Cutter, of course, keeps griping how that makes us a target. ‘It’s only a matter of time before some pirates get wind of this big fat juicy ship full of food and water,’ he says.

I have to admit, I’m worried too. He’s right, and we have only three pistols between five crew. It’s my job to protect them and right now I’m painting a huge target on their backsides. I… Pause log.

++paused++

++resumed++

That was Victor. He says he heard an old friend might be heading out this way, and maybe they’d be open to teaming up. There’s safety in numbers, after all…

I have to admit. That’s not a bad idea...

++END LOG ENTRY++

Entry 4

Log 4: Keepers Of The Flames.

Victor’s friends could have been anything. Pirates, slavers… Instead they turned out to be some of the nicest folks I’ve ever met. I guess the apocalypse just can’t take the shine off some people.

Nice, but not pushovers. I wouldn’t want to be the pirate that messes with the crew of the “Second Chance.”

We teamed up. Where we go, they go. Everything gets split fifty/fifty, and if one crew’s a little short on supplies, the other crew’s there for them. It sounds a lot simpler than it is, but it works. I’ll choose a negotiation over a gunfight every time.

It’s already paid off, too. I’m pretty sure that ship we were seeing for the last four or five jumps was stalking us. Since we teamed up with the “Second Chance,” they’ve vanished.

So, we’re gonna keep doing what we were doing. Follow the resources. I hear other crews have big ideas about searching for a new homeworld, or alien life, or whatever. They’re welcome to it. All I care about is keeping me and mine alive and honest. All other concerns are secondary.

Sandy said she had some friends on another ship that might be out this way. It worked out well enough with the “Second Chance,” so… yeah. Maybe we should go see if the crew of “Perfect Ship v.3.0” live up to their sense of humor.

So long as they can pull their weight, they’ll be welcome.

++END LOG ENTRY++

Entry 5

Log 5: Light The Way Back Home.

I’ve been so busy, I’ve forgotten to keep my personal journal updated. In fact come to think of it, I might just call this the final entry. I have too many plates to spin, it’s probably a bad idea to add one more. Still… this little story deserves an ending.

We made more friends. That’s the short version.

+Laughs+ That’s… oversimplifying it. But how do I even begin to compress all those adventures into one log entry? All the lives we saved, all the scrapes we got into. All the days we barely survived by our fingertips… and those of us who didn’t survive at all.

We lost Cutter. A stroke. It could have been worse: we nearly lost him to slavery. There’s a lot of people in the fleet who wouldn’t still have all their bits if Cutter hadn’t been there to put them back together.

Yes, I said fleet. Dozens of us, by now. A genuine nomad caravan of Earth’s flotsam. We’ve had to start getting picky about who we let in. Too many crews turned out to be slavers, or pirates, or cultists… It hurts to look starving people in the eye and turn them away, but I have hundreds of lives to worry about who earned their place in this caravan. Hundreds of mouths to feed, and there’s never enough to spare on charity.

I wish that was different. Maybe one day it will be.

I’m… going to give this journal to some of those desperate souls. Who knows, maybe word will spread. We can handle pirates, and maybe there are folks out there who don’t need charity. Maybe there’s folks who made it, somehow.

If that’s you? If you can pull your weight and help keep those mouths fed and those ships flying? Maybe there’s a spot for you in our caravan.

After all: Home is where the heart is.

This is Emily Lopez, captain of the independent haven craft “Starfarer,” signing off.

++END LOG++