Neural implant trace of Broker IV - AM Mining Operative 77c-Pe52
*Audio file: -"Hm"-*
Nope there's not a lot else I can really think of saying right now.
*Audio file: -"Hm"-*
What was that quote again? From that book I read in the archives on Broker IV once. The one about Hitchhiking.
*Information prompt: -'Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind - bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space'-*
Ha! That was it.
Being a miner I think I must have laughed a bit at this. I used to figure that my frequent trips back and forth from the AM fields to Broker IV had given me a pretty good perspective on just how big space is. Clamped to the rusting hull of the Persephone, banging away at a bit of extra plating I would occasionally look up and see just how utterly vast space was. I remember looking out into the eternal nothing, the speckling of stars bright against the pure vanta-black blanket and smiling. Then I would just go back to hammering away at the old piece of scrap, whistling whatever idiot tune was stuck in my head at the time and not really giving it the proper consideration that it so clearly deserves.
Yes Space is Big, big with a capital B. But I don't think I ever truly appreciated that capital B until right now. I mean look at it!
*Audio file: -"Hm"-*
I have to say though that space is particularly Big when you're just stuck floating in it.
Looks like I'll be stuck here for good as well, once you're stranded out in nothing it's not like you can put a thumb up and get a lift, it's not like that book. I'm not about to go swimming off through a vacuum. Wait can you swim through a vacuum?
*Audio file: - strained grunting sounds -*
Nope. Apparently not, I'm just flailing at nothing here. Well there's some scientific research at least.
I suppose even if I could there's the whole 'space is Big' thing again. I can barely swim half a kilometre without becoming a panting quivering wreck of bad cardio and half a kilometre isn't very far when you measure things in lightyears. I wonder how many half kilometres there are in a lightyear?
*Information prompt: -'1.8922e+13' half kilometres to a lightyear-*
Yes, thank you suit you snarky bastard, that was meant to be rhetorical.
Ah well, at least I'm not actually moving all that much, I've seen fast space junk can spin at just the slightest shove. I get terrible motion sickness and don't really want to spend the rest of my life spinning wildly as a pool of my own vomit sloshes around inside my helmet. Oh god don't think about that...
*Audio file: -Loud retching sound-*
Nope nope nope, quick, think about something else.
Hey that cluster of stars kind of looks like a dick... Wait... Yup that's a full shaft and balls right there. Christ I'm a mature. But it really does, look I'll highlight it for you.
*Image file enclosed: -censored-*
Ha ha ha, as if my final communication is going to be an interstellar dick pic.
Urgh, my final communication. There's a happy thought.
It's funny, I’m not sure why I'm acting like this. People say that humour is a coping mechanism and right now I'm inclined to believe them, the more I think about all this stupid shit the less I'm thinking about... well.
Oh god but it is beautiful out here.
You think of space as being pitched nothingness, blackness on blackness with nothing but eternity between you and everything else, but it isn't you know? It's bright, space is so bright! Just over there to my left is the galactic core, the stars so densely packed together they've formed a sort of fuzzy white orb that's been smudged along its axis, splashing in opposite directions to fly outwards into the glowing arms. They're like huge sweeping brushstrokes painted with the fundamental building blocks of the universe. Some ancient deity took their brush and painted over the blackness to create a galactic artwork glinting and shining as it fades gradually to either side, splattering stars and nebulae in smatterings all across the black canvas. There's no curves to it all either, no fuzziness or flickering, it's not like being planetside where there's lensing effects from atmosphere and curvature of the ground beneath you to provide perspective. No out here it's pure light, a sweeping mass that is so immeasurably... I was about to say Big again. Ha!
*Audio file: -loud snorting sound-*
But it's not just the macro of the galaxy that's beautiful, just there over my right shoulder there's all sorts of wild and wacky cosmic goings on, mostly dotted stars but also what looks like an old Nebula, a stellar nursery. It's close enough just to make out the different colours if I zoom with the suit HUD. I suppose if I was much closer I'd probably be vaporised by the weirder parts of the laws of physics so I'm pretty happy I'm this far out to be honest. But what colours those are! It's like a collection of all the different pallets of the old masters that's been blended together and then flung through lightyears of dust to create the most imperfectly glorious art work that certainly I've ever seen.
Wow listen to me, waxing all poetic like this. My mum used to...
*Audio file: -brief choking sound-*
My mum... she always used to say that I was wasted on the mining Junks, that I could have been an academic working at some fancy Academy on a Republic core world. I'd then have to remind her that I was in fact expelled from one of those very same Academies for being too 'energetic'. Mining certainly sated some of those energies, and the nightlife back on Broker IV sated the rest! Though I'm quite sure it anything but sated Mum's aspirations for me. But that shows what she knows, I'm damn good at my job, I'm the youngest engineer on Broker IV! Well I think I was for a time at least, they don't exactly keep records of these things and I've been doing it a while, so I'm a bit older now.
Not old enough though... Not old enough for this... Jesus why the fuck is this happening I'm going to die, I'm going to fucking die. Mum I'm...
*Trace record cut: -37 seconds-*
Yup, mining engineer is what I was born to be, no-one can keep those damn heaps of scrap floating like I can, I belong out there, on the hulls of the Junkers, keeping them flying, keeping the antimatter flowing into Faction space. The Factions don't have the fancy Oan-Dyson spheres the Republic does so they need energy the old-fashioned way, and it's me that keeps the lights on. Sure it may not keep mum happy, but it certainly keeps me happy.
*Audio file: -quietly "kept"-*
It's funny, dying is always something that seems to happen to other people. Death is a statistic on a news vid or something harrowing that happens to someone you know. When dad died I remember feeling... well just hollow. Anger, pain, hardship, all these things. But his death didn't happen to me, it was something that had an effect on me but... I'm not sure what I'm trying to say really. I think it's strange how we can experience everything else that anyone else can, every cause and effect every moment in life we share with everyone else, hand in hand with the billions of other souls that've ever felt the same before or will again in the future. Death though. Your death happens to you once and only to you, no-one that has ever been or will be will be able to have that experience and so when I step over the threshold to non-existence, I'll be doing it alone.
I suppose there are worse ways to die, the suit tells me that life support can keep me hydrated and breathing for another 26 standard hours, after which I'll just slowly slip away from hypoxia as the CO2 levels rise. Not so bad. Then I'll be drifting in space forever, a tiny speck of space junk floating in infinity. Maybe one day I'll smack onto the windscreen of some trade vessel, that'd give them a shock! Ahahaha, Splat! Like a giant bug smearing across the glass. If there is a God then please let that happen.
Shit, I suppose I'll be finding out the answer to that one pretty soon as well, now there's a weird thought. The question that philosophers throughout history have all fought with and I'm about to find out the answer. 'Is there a God' ha ha, fuck you Nietzsche.
It is beautiful out here though. There's so much to see, and the longer you focus at a point the more emerges from the nothingness, it's wonderful. Part of me thinks I should take a 360' pic for whoever finds this, but perhaps that would detract from the personal nature of this a little? No, I think I won't, this is my spot in heaven, these are my stars and I'm going to keep it that way. Only I will know exactly how the constellations stand out in certain ways at this moment, only I will know the exact colours and shapes of this little corner of space, and when I go that information will go too. I'm sorry if that seems a little selfish.
I hope there is a God you know. I hope this isn't the end, that it isn't just nothingness after. I.... yeah I hope there's a God... I hope they're kind... I'd like... I think I'd like a little kindness at the moment.
*Audio file: -quiet sobbing-*
Fuck this. You know what fuck this, Jesus fuck. This can't be it, I can't be about to die, this isn't the end it's not. I don't want to die here I don't want to die, what if there's nothing what if it's just nothing after. I'm so fucking scared I'm so fucking scared I'm so scared, I don't want to go, Jesus FUCK
*Audio file: -"No No NOOOO please god NOOOOOOOOO! ARGH! FUUUUUUUCK!"-
*Audio file: -loud screaming- *
*Audio file: -quiet sobbing-*
-"I don't want to go. Please help. Please. Mum. Someone please. Please help, I don't... I can't..."-*
*Trace record cut: -29 minutes 42 seconds-*
It's funny, I know I should probably be thinking about my family, my old friends, love interests past and future. But in all honesty the only thing I can focus on is that I left a bloody rivet loose during my last botch job and now I'll never get round to tightening it. That and my knee itches, seriously who gets an itchy knee, that's like the weirdest bit to get itchy.
*Inactivity: -7 minutes-*
You know what, 26 hours is a long time to float around waiting for the end.
Did you ever find a piece of music? Something that you listened to a few times and it was so beautiful, more than just chills down the spine but full on emotional overload from the first listen, because of an event it's tied to or just the way the music works with your soul. Do you ever find a song like that and you stop listening to it after a couple of plays through because you're afraid that you'll get sick of it and you'll lose that feeling? I've found three pieces of music like that, ones that I've saved for... well I guess I was saving them for right now, although I didn't know it at the time.
*Audio file –deep breath-*
Mum if by some miracle you get this before you pop your clogs and come join me wherever I am, there's a million and one things that I want to say to you and as you know, if I get started I'll never bloody stop. All I will say instead then is thank you, you've been perfect through every part of my life, both good and bad and you will never begin to understand how deep my love for you goes. I love you.
To the people who eventually find me, I'm sorry I splattered on your windscreen, bill me.
And to anyone who is listening to this in the future, please make sure it gets back to my family, however many generations on it is, I think they'd like to hear what happened to me, even if it's just a curiosity. Oh and sorry for all the swearing.
Actually no I'm not, fuck you.
*Input instruction: -play Playlist: The Last 3-*
Oh wow this... is an amazing song, I'm so glad I saved this.
*Inactivity: -2 minutes-*
*Input instruction: -Disable life support system: air purification-*
*Warning note: -Carbon dioxide levels rising-*
*Input instruction: -Mute all warning notes-*
*Warning note (muted): -Carbon dioxide levels rising-*
*Warning note (muted): -Carbon dioxide levels rising-*
*Warning note (muted): -Carbon dioxide levels rising-*
*Audio file: -"It really is beautiful out here you know."-*
*Warning note (muted): -Carbon dioxide levels rising-*
*Warning note (muted): -Carbon dioxide levels above safe breathing level-*
*Warning note (muted): -Carbon dioxide levels above safe breathing level-*
*Warning note (muted): -Carbon dioxide levels above safe breathing level-*
*Warning note (muted): -resuscitation attempt unsuccessful-*
*Warning note (muted): -Carbon dioxide levels above safe breathing level-*
*Warning note (muted): -resuscitation attempt unsuccessful-*
*Passive note: -Playlist: -The Last 3 ended-*
*Warning note (muted): -Carbon dioxide levels above safe breathing level-*
*Warning note (muted): -resuscitation attempt unsuccessful-*
*Neural trace activity reduced to zero. Entering shutdown.*
*End Trace.*
