C.V.12

Cistuvaert V. Moon 12. What a shit hole.

From the station it looks much like every other ball of rock I've ever seen. What terrible lives mudders must live. My parents are miners, the backbone of the Federation; their feet have never touched dirt. Neither have mine.

I can't understand mudders; who could trust a life not surrounded by metal, nothing between me and the cold but a thin layer of air? I get queasy just thinking about it; a cold sweat breaking out so fierce I'm surprised my sockets don't loosen. I know all about gravity; my parents trained me to slingshot well lips in case my drive ever quit and I could probably do the math in my head. Don't tell me shit about gravity; I've been in station when the plates failed and everything went flying: I trust gravity as far as I can warp it. My brain understands, it's my mind that wouldn't be caught dead mud side; it's my gut that knows it's wrong living under a thin blue haze of exhaust. Let's do an experiment: I'll take getting shot at in my ship anyday and you get shot at under an atmosphere; we'll see who lives longer.

C.V.12 is a beautiful station; but whether human or station, beauty always comes with problems. It was designed to look like a dromis, one of the reptilian gliders back on Gallente; its double hammer head faces the moon, stylized wings swept back behind it in two graceful arcs curving around the central docking spine. Almost anywhere you go in here you have a clear view of space, the moon, or the multitude of ships coming and going constantly from the dock. This also means it takes forever to get anywhere, riding the tram on the long trip along the spinal arcs. Give me a squat, ugly tin can station anyday that I can cut straight along the diameter of and bam I'm where I want to be. Better yet, let me stay out of stations as much as possible. I'm only here now because I've got to get my certs. I'll bet my parents have taught me more about mining than most of the profs here at CAS have known, but the Feds won't hire you, and the corps won't take the time to shoot at you, unless you've got the certs to back it up; so CAS will own my body for a while.

At least they are fairly generous. Taxes can allow you to be that way I suppose. I've been given a room, a cybernetics book, and a Velator tucked off in a very out of the way niche of the bay. Artisticly designed stations have plenty of out of the way niches, and this one is naturally a long tram ride from my room. If I know CAS, the Velator is stored along with about a thousand others, the product of engineering classes at the school. Nothing'll give you confidence in your equipment like a ship constructed by C students.

Gotta go now. Someone named Jarck Feritte has left a message on COSMOS and wants to talk to me.