Evangeline Anastasia McDowell

[Bazza]

Entry#: 132
Date: 22 - 01 - 819 AS @ 18:34 SUT
Title: Untitled.

I had almost begun to miss this sort of life.

Rummaging around deep inside a radioactive, pitch-black pea soup of dark matter searching for anything which may be of value to us. Dodging the long-dead remains of numerous ships, stations, all kinds of man-made solar bodies... turning upside down the final resting place of thousands of people who lost their lives to what now pays my way.

It really is astounding, and chilling, to ponder what it must have been like when the disaster occured here. One moment life continues as it always does, the system alive with the miscellaneous, nondescript shuffling that makes up any core sector of space... people going about their daily lives no differently to how they did yesterday nor any different to how they would have conducted their "tomorrow" - had their tomorrow ever arrived.

To be snuffed out in an instant by the unending waves of radiation and energy that spewed out of the jumpgate in its final moment, to not even be aware of what had taken your life... to drift forever more inside its clutches. Never rescued, never returned home. Abandoned.

Some of the things I have seen in this cloud... tore my heart in two. A single, lone transport, seething with radiation and dirt - yet - without so much as a single scratch upon her hull. Dating from the time long before rampant piracy and terrorism demanded capable shielding, this ship would have become the tomb of her crew within seconds after the gate's cataclysmic collapse.

The insignia upon the side of the vessel indicated her name to be the Fort Worth of Deep Space Engineering. It now rests indefinitely inside the cloud, one of many, many ships lost that day - but - this one tugged at my emotions moreso than any other I've seen to date.

If one were to remove it from the cloud I am almost certain it would start up with nothing but fresh fuel added to the tanks - and that is why it hit so close to home. Nearly everything else out here has been damaged or destroyed, hence losing its emotional pull... but the Fort Worth is something else. If you look at a random chunk of steel, you see it as nothing more. But a complete and aesthetically intact vessel is just so much more...

I stood there in silence taking in the lines of the ship in front of me for what seemed like hours before Misaka pulled me out of my daze, appealing for her orders in a business-like manner. A ship in that sort of condition would no doubt be worth millions... a point I stuck on for some time. But I just couldn't force myself to disturb it.

We eventually embarked to locate other remains inside the cloud, slowly navigating the laden tugboat through the swamp of unidentified scrap; being careful not to damage the armour plating that was protecting us from the acidic radiation surrounding us.

Slow sweeps of the innards of the field produced remarkable results, the cargo bay of the salvager quickly filling up with highly valuable alloys and precious metals. Gold from computer and superconductor components, alloys from ship and station hulls, tonne after tonne of copper...

The major issue holding up the quick sale of the materials is, of course, the fact it's all irradiated. Were it afflicted with nothing more than the background radiation of space, I could move and sell it easily. The payload we carry needs special handling and treatment before it can be considered safe.

It's perfectly safe locked up inside the hold of the tug - being purpose built to handle radioactive materials, but anyone who were to enter would be dead within hours. About the only organisation that can process this stuff are the boys aboard Culebra Smelter - specialising in the processing of radioactive materials. I of course will have to eat the decreased buy-in price to cover all of this, but, the sheer tonnages I can bring in will more than cover it.

I cannot wait until we have enough loot to fill the bays and get out of this cloud. We're all starting to get a bit.... loopy. It ain't no place to be raising a child, either.

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