Then there’s pirates.
Dust smugglers. They pick up black beacons when they see them. A doomed man is a loyal man.
I didn’t believe a word of it. Space is so vast, chance of a radio beacon being anywhere close to another ship is impossible. They were looking for me.
Whovever decided that the proper way to execute someone in space was to put them out into the void in a pressure suit was a saint. It absolved executioners of guilt. It provided chance of rescue. Though I have never known a capatian to pick up black beacons.
And yet…
Floating alone in vacuum I always tend to go introspective. Absolutely nothing between my suit and me and the ship. It’s very existential. Now, floating alone in vacuum with your ship powering up and away from you gets a different feeling.
Panic.
“Just switch on the beacon,” my suit says.
The first generation of humanoid robots was clunky. They were still working out kinks in walking and talking and seeming human. By the time they got to generation 4.2 a major breakthrough occurred, the robots could think as fast as humans and match us for performance. Alex was a 5.6. A masterpiece.
The ship sails at midnight. This ain’t some pleasure cruise, lad. Privateering! The pay is high, the danger is constant. No guarantees, boy. You need scratch and obviously you need a discreete hop off this rock. Way I see it, you don’t have a choice. Welcome to the Black Swan.
Being a leader meant making hard choices. Being the captain of a elite covert ops dropship meant making hard choices that could cost the lives of entire planets. When I decided to follow the call to Earth, I also decided to leave the colony on the rim to certain death.
How does it feel to be you, here, now? We live at the height of society. Kings of previous ages didn’t have the simple luxuries that we take for granted. Ice cold clean water. It’s the hight of technology. And with that glass of pure life, I sealed the deal.
Dad was banned from trade for a good few core cycles, about 50 local cycles. In the meantime, I’d found a life here for myself. I’d landed myself here, learned a lot about the culture and spread my consciousness, diversified, across a number of the local populace. They think of themselves as individuals. Imagine that.
My dad was an idiot. Within a core cycle the Rangers were onto us. I fled to Earth, marooned. It was simpler to forget about dad’s business and get some bearings for the local trade. It actually seemed like these Humans might not be destroying themselves after all. Very interesting.
Our family were prospectors, we’d travelled galaxies for years trying to find good mineral deposits. There were all kinds of interstellar laws about laying claims in occupied solar systems, but my dad was a gambler. His guess what that the earlthings would destroy their planet within the next ten cycles.