This has been a long time coming.

Hundreds of tons of precious ore mined, hundreds of light years carrying passengers around, many trips to the crash site of CMDR Jameson, and many more trips scouring the star systems for materials. Not to mention earning the favor with the Engineers in the bubble.

But it's finally culminated into my pride and joy: Starship Inquirer. SS Inquirer for short. Outfitted for long-range exploration, engineered to the gills, and costing more time and credits than I care to admit.

The investment was worth it. I'm giving her a bit of a test run, traveling to some of the star systems far below the bubble. Down here, you can count the stars in the distance on your fingers. I suppose this is why they call it The Black.

So far, all systems are nominal. Well, most of them. Looks like my automated landing system is on the fritz. Has a real habit of keeping the ship in the air longer than needed, then giving the planet a love tap with the hull. I'll have to stick to manually landing until I can back to a station and give it a look.

The suits are working as expected. Haven't taken the time to bring them to an engineer, or even procure the goods to get them upgraded, but they'll do the job. I'm much more at home in the cockpit of my Anaconda than trekking across the surface of one of the thousands of Icy Bodies I've scanned. The surprise Skimmers don't help with that.

I'll jump to a few more nearby systems before heading back to the bubble to make some final preparations. After that, it's off to some uncharted section of the galaxy. Where? No idea. My only goal is to go where no commander has gone before and put my name on the map.

//CMDR The Bell Tolls