Into The Deep Night

His flaming robes stream’d out beyond his heels,
And gave a roar, as if of earthly fire,
That scar’d away the meek ethereal Hours
And made their dove-wings tremble. On he flared.
The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream - John Keats

It was quiet in space. It's always quiet. Sometimes, as I pass through the darkness between places and deeds, I wonder how anyone finds someone in that vast blackness. Aren't we all disconnected? How do we find ourselves? Does it matter?

I wasn't really concerned with finding myself today. That's going to take more than a Cheetah. As I guided my cloaked ship between planets and through belts, I found a sort of warmth in the cold. I found someone else, someone sharing the night with myself. I decloaked. I dropped a probe. The automated beeping was little shield against the darkness that surrounded me. I cloaked again and began to scan. The first scan came up with little beyond empty wrecks.

The second scan was more successful. I warped my covert ops ship to his location and ended up at an acceleration gate. I bookmarked the location in my navigation computer and went back to the station. I have flown rifters for such a long time, and I've fit out some other, larger ships. I decided that since the other ship was a rifter, I would bring something larger. The Queen of Diamonds, one of my new stabbers, drifted effortlessly out of the hangar and entered warp.

I landed at the gate again, and I activated it. The warp bubble rushed over me and I began to travel.

I came out of warp twenty-four kilometers away from the rifter. I headed his way and activated my disruptor at twenty kilometers. His rifter's shields were abnormally strong, and he was not an easy ship to kill. Still, he eventually died.

I messaged him as I locked his escape pod down. He answered me and I requested a million in return for his life. He declined, and I was alone again.

Good Day.