┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ Genevieve Uihara's Personal Journal
11-AUG-830 ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
What a mess I've gotten us into.
The Spirit’s spent the better part of the past two weeks in drydock at Bethlehem Station after we blew out engine two’s cooling system in a mad dash through the Appalachian Asteroid Field, trying to find the jump hole to California that’s allegedly somewhere in there. Good news: We shook the Navy patrol that was chasing us. Bad news: We didn’t find the jump hole. So we had to limp back to Bethlehem and pray that we wouldn’t run into any more Libertonians. It’s a small miracle we didn’t.
Repairing the cooling system would have been easy enough … if we had the credits to pay for spare parts. But even with all of us pooling our cash together - even Gretsky, the stingy goon -, we’re all but broke. So that means we’ve spent the past week and a half doing odd jobs around the station, gambling, and selling our bodies. That last one’s a joke. Except maybe for Hunnigan. He’s into that.
The point is, we finally scrounged together just enough money to buy new used parts from the vendors and spent yesterday fixing up the Spirit. Stars know she needed a bit of love after what I’ve put her through these past two months.
Thinking about it, maybe coming to Pennsylvania wasn’t such a great idea, after all. We spent six weeks hauling goods to Pinnacle to keep those people from starving, dying of dehydration, or suffocating on the stench of their own crap, all the while evading patrols and teasing every last pound of thrust out of the Spirit’s aging afterburners. And for what? Nothing. Literally. It was all for charity. Out of the kindness of our own hearts and for the adoration of “our fellow Zoners.” Like that would pay for fuel, supplies, and maintenance.
Heck, I didn’t even find Tommy. Or anyone else from the old gang, for that matter. And finding them was the main reason I dragged us here in the first place.
And now Liberty’s gone and declared Zoners a criminal organization, to be apprehended or shot on sight, with us still in Liberty space. Good work, people. You’ve really made things better for all Zoners everywhere.
Even with the Spirit fixed up and running again, until I figure out where that damn jump hole into California actually is, we’re effectively stranded on Bethlehem. And from what I’ve seen and heard, Liberty doesn’t plan on respecting its no fire zone. Not that I can blame them, now that it has been labeled as a terrorist stronghold.
I should get a message off to Sis and Edgar before Bethlehem’s comm array gets jammed. I haven’t gotten around to it in weeks and they’ll be getting worried about me.
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ Genevieve Uihara's Personal Journal
12-AUG-830 ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
Ask and you will receive.
Looks like the stars smiled down upon us again, because mere hours after I wrote that last entry, the commander of the Xeno Alliance broadcasted a message on a Zoner frequency about evacuating Bethlehem Station, offering transport and escort out of Liberty. I wasn't about to pass up an offer like that, even if I don't know a thing about the man, or his Alliance, for that matter, nor how trustworthy they are. All I know is that they don't like Liberty and that they have frequent dealings with the people on Ames Research Station, and that was good enough for me as far as trusting them to get us out of Pennsylvania was concerned.
We prepared to unmoor just as soon as I got a reply about guiding us out of the system. Traffic around Bethlehem was surprisingly light. I expected more people to make a break for it, but maybe I should have known that most of Pennsylvania's Zoners aren't going to bail on their home. Even if that means getting arrested or killed by Liberty. Their problem, not ours.
We met a freelancer of sorts - or maybe a revolutionary, or idealist, or terrorist? Who knows? - by the name of Erich Klugmann. Rheinlander, former leading figure in the Bundschuh. I didn't get to ask too many questions before the Xeno, Cobra, pinged us with coordinates for a rendezvous. Klugmann offered to escort us there and I accepted. Good call, too, because we ran into a Rogue gunboat halfway to our destination, but their attempts at disrupting us were nothing our countermeasures couldn't handle, and once Cobra and his wingman popped onto our scanners, the pirates turned tail.
As promised, the Xenos and Klugmann escorted us to the California jump hole - it actually exists! - and then through California to the jump hole to Cortez. The escape out of Liberty was surprisingly uneventful. Almost disappointing, to tell the truth, after how close a call our last attempt was. Cobra offered to reimburse us for our efforts in helping the Pennsylvanians, but I declined. I'm not about to take someone's money on top of an escort free of charge. Gretsky complained, of course, and I get it, we could use the cash. But now that we're out of Liberty, earning a few credits to keep us afloat shouldn't be too difficult.
Anyway, we parted ways with our new "friends" after I insisted that we owed them each a favor and made our way to Bretonia. Simon has some friends on New London who might have a job only the Spirit can handle. But I'll send off another message to Sis and Edgar before we take on any new work to let them know we made it out of Liberty alive.
