They say life comes at you fast, and all at once. I never really thought that through; not till recently, but gorram if it's not true!

There I was, just trying to keep my nose clean and make some honest credits for once, pottering around this shitty little mining operation. I get tapped by the boss lady to be her canary in this new section with some gravity wobbles in it, find an honest-to-Core alien tian xiaode imbedded in a crystal growth. Thing knocks me on my ass when I touch it, gives me visions and a hangover like a Neon weekend bender.

Next thing I know, this wan nao Constellation fella shows up and gives me his bot and this old but shiny as hell skipflat - free and gorram clear, can you believe it? - in exchange for taking this alien shite to his group. So of course I do, right? Even if the bot hadn't had the nav locked, I mean - alien gou shi in my hands, I want to know what that's about!

So off we go, and I don't know I've kipped more than an hour or two since. In the past ten hours or so, I've - in no particular order:

Fought a decent handful of pirates, first at the mining site, then at a little outpost they set up in-system. The bot and I both figured, might as well clear the thing, keep them from going after the miners again. Plus apparently my new ship's famous - pity the treasure wasn't real, though.

Met up with these Constellation folk - decent people seems like, gave me a place to kip and store my stuff. Seem real enthusiastic about me joining, though I've got this Ms. Morgan following me around for the foreseeable. Gives me the stinkeye now and then, but knows her way around a ship and a burner, so good enough for me.

Dropped by my parent's current place, let them know about my career upgrade. They were very proud. Even swung by the Lodge a few hours later to give me this jing cai pistol that apparently belonged to Constellation's founder!

Met this weird sycophantic bastard, seems obsessed with me. Little scared he might try to skin me and wear it like a suit, but he's a competent hand, so I let him join my crew, provisionally. Plus I got him to give me his life savings, 50cred. And a toilet paper roll, for some reason. It's probably fine.

Met this guy studying the trees in New Atlantis, ran around collecting scanner pods for him. Talked down the price on the one that some kid scuffed to the Trade Alliance, payout for helping covered the cost eventually. Plus apparently the trees are.... singing? Tian xiao de that's all about. I should check back with him later, find out what's up with that.

Helped out a fellow Freespacer who was getting ran around by the Uccies at the port. Just a quick trip to the embassy cleared it up. Stopped to listen to some Unitarian group having a little public get-together. Not up my lane, but seems decent enough.

Heard about some brownouts in the Well, so I dropped in. Ran around flipping breakers for this one lady, who had some serious beef with the Traddie jian huo down there, ended up back topside in an apartment squat with a computer running a cute little theft scheme. Don't know why they used an apartment, seems like an office space would have worked better. Traddie bint had serious attitude, a real gui tou gui nao, that one - tried to buy the evidence off me - but didn't seem involved in the scheme.

Almost made it back to my ship before an SSNN intern caught me, asked me to swing by their office for an interview. Credits involved, so why not?

Dropped by the cosmetics beforehand to look good for the cameras, ended up finding his lost list of customers and their info for him. Thought really hard about making him work for it, but decided to just let it be - don't piss off the doctor, right? So I got my little spruce-up and headed over to SSNN, had a nice little interview about the mining op. Sarah reminded me to keep our little alien thing quiet, but they got a good story anyway.

Finally made it off Jemison - still got a ton to do there, overheard something about the bartender having issues, got recruitment notices for a few other things to look at - but it was really time to get into the Black, Sarah was getting really ancy about her contact. So we popped over to Mars.

Made a quick stop outside Cydonia and found an old base overrun with Crimson Fleet qing wa cao de liu mang, so of course I cleared it out. Turns out they've gotten their mitts on all sorts of old abandoned facilities, all through the Black. Could be a little profit in clearing out some more, when I've got the time.

Cydonia's a nasty little hole in the red guy, but some decent opportunities. Found a couple of prospective crew when I have the chits to afford them, got pulled into a homesteader survey thing too. Even made my first convert and grabbed some pamphlets. Never know who you'll run into out there, right?

Our next lead was at the old lunar shipyards. Of course I made a pit stop to jump around on Earth's moon, who wouldn't? But can you believe it, a Crimson Fleet ship just put down a bit off from me. Didn't seem like they noticed me, so I scuttled on into the ship behind them as they spread out. Took out the couple scabs inside and nicked me a shiny new ship and headed up to the yards.

Now I'm sitting in the entrance with a dead body in front of me, and I'm guessing a se duhng of pirates between me and this Maora guy. But I've got a nice little kit of weaponry on me, so hopefully it'll go smooth.

Ah, who am I kidding, it never just goes smooth.