Captain's Log: The Expanse

Captain’s Log.
November 5, somewhere near -163:4. The Expanse.

Just got back from the cabins. Marian’s bulkhead door was locked and I swear I heard two voices go quiet when I stopped outside, but when I knocked it was answered only by silence. Silence, and the echo chamber reverb of an empty metal hallway, hollow as a bird’s bone. These Mk I’s ain’t exactly built for comfort.

“It’ll be a new life,” I had promised her. This was before everything. Back on Bitterroot, watching the sun set, Eembaxyeu 6 hanging behind the gauze of heat-shimmer sky like a droplet of mercury, suspended.

“We’ll see,” she said.

Goddamn the day that I signed on to lead this ship.

For two weeks we’ve had nothing but malcud. And, yeah, I got myself into this. And, yeah, I’m grateful to be alive and fed—there are starving kids on Dee Phairno 5, whatever. From a technological viewpoint it’s impressive that some fancypants at the university dreamed up a fungal culture that could literally recycle shit into food. But goddamn if I don’t get tired of eating “burgers” with the mouthfeel of an eraser and an aftertaste as funky as the smell of my First Mate’s boots.

And if our so-called-leader, President Strychnine, hadn’t sold us out, we’d be there by now. We should’ve waited for the technology to improve. Should've spent the money to do it right. But it’s an election year, and the Mk II is three times the price. So here we are: state-issue bunk beds, shelf-stable malcud, and an underpowered engine that’ll take ten times as long to get us there. Your tax payer dollars at works, folks.

President Strychnine has allied with an intergalactic movement called “Culture." Made some big press-release about "knowledge and the advancement of humankind." So why does he seem hell-bent on conquering The Expanse, one solar system at a time? Why did the suits think fit to send my ass out here in a short-range ship that moves slow as an air bubble rising through a bottle of algae syrup?

Who am I kidding? It’s not the leadership I’m pissed about. And it’s not the food either.

If I see that bastard with Marian again, I’ll open the goddamn airlock.




* * *
This story is a work of fan fiction from the amazing world of The Lacuna Expanse--a free (and brilliant!) massively multiplayer online game.

Play now at: http://www.lacunaexpanse.com/