There’s something quite comforting about waking up in the middle of a nebulae. It’s like having a multi-coloured space blanket wrapped around you with stars peeking dimly through like the stars do on earth with a thin haze of cloud.

But I’m nowhere near earth now. In fact, I’m not even in my first nebulae. My route out from my base in the Didiomanja system in the bubble saw me flying the well winged route out to the Jellyfish Nebulae and then on to the Monkeyhead Nebula. Both systems are appropriately named although they kind of lose the definition when you get within a 100 light years of them.

I didn’t realise how well travelled this route was until I found that every jump bar 1 landed me in a system that was already explored and mostly mapped. With it’s proximity to the Bubble, I shouldn’t be surprised but on my shake-down exploration trip to the Heart and Soul Nebulae I was first to find half a dozen systems, including my first Earth-Like World. I would have thought with 150+ jumps so far, I would have found something! But no, I’m obviously on the Nebulae super highway.

All that will change with the next leg of my journey, I am sure. I’ve picked a rough route now that will see me turn left (from my perspective) at the MonkeyHead Nebula and along the Perseus Arm until the stars start to thin out. Then I’ll map a path across the far end of the Orion Shallows and pick up the Centaurus Reach, travelling on to the Sagittarius-Carina Arm and eventually out to Beagle Point. From there I will take a round-about route into the centre and Sagittarius A before stopping off for a coffee in Colonia.

After that, who knows? Maybe I’ll find something critical to the war effort (I’ve been logging plenty of exobiology on the way), maybe I’ll just clear my mind and be able to load up the Guardian Shard Cannons again, or maybe the Black will call again and I’ll be drawn out into the void for further exploration.

Somehow, I think the war will still be raging and I will still have a chance to make an impact

I'm only a couple of hundred light years outside the bubble, heading towards the Jellyfish Nebula, when I decided to settle down for the night on a large metalic planet.
As I came out of my deep dive, (a technique I used a lot when fighting Thargoids invading bases), I wondered why Shackleton - my Anaconda - wasn't slowing down? Sure, the 'conda is a bit more lumbersome than my combat tuned Chieftan but surely not this bad?

I shallowed out the dive but still the ground rushed up towards me. Then I remembered to check the gravity on the planet and saw a 1.9g magnet sucking me down.

I pulled hard back on the stick, put all power to engines and boosted and prayed at the same time. Elevation continued to fall and I thought I was going to have to limp back to civilisation just hours into my second expedition. Another boost and the elevation levelled out at just under 400m.

Close!

Complacency kills in space. Let's hope I'm a bit more focused for the rest of the trip!

After months of fighting Thargoids, I've got to get out into the black again. Maybe I'm running away or maybe I'm kidding myself that the long term solution to this war is out there somewhere.

Either way, I'm going and I hope it's not just an escape.

After lots of false starts, I've got my log book up and running. Good job, too, as I head towards the Heart Nebulae on my first exploration trip.