Your Own Space Ship
Of course you can’t afford a spaceship. Are you daft? Not even the top 1% of the 1% get their own spaceships. Getting through the gates is tough enough, but to be a part of the Ballet enough to get to hyperspace? That requires special materials. Special construction. Tonnage. The Recon claim the future was supposed to have smaller ships for one or two people, somehow driven by your feet? But this isn’t the future they imagined. It’s barely the future we imagined. Nah, the hulls are all owned by the Syndicates. We’ve got a load left, but we can’t make any more - They’ll send you with a geologist gun and a hopeful look, but the materials are rare - and they’ll basically rent them out to anyone who can convince them you should be allowed one. Bring a responsible adult, or at least someone to hold the paperwork.
Once you’ve got the hull, you get to kit her up. Pick stuff your engineer can spell the name of, or pick an engineer who can spell what you’ve got. Swap out some cargo space for a workshop, if your carver’s got an idea, or flip your comms array for something that can belt out Ride of the Valkeries if that’s your toast-topping. So long as you keep an engine and a bit of bunk space, you’ll be fine. Every so often someone switches out their galley for something a bit more chargeable, because you can survived on Jonespec Rations for years, can’t you? Some colonies have facilities to swap things around a bit more, and those people are rapidly grateful for their facilities.
The glorious optimism of the free lunch is an incitement to many, but the dawn isn’t quite that rosy, and your sandwich has a price tag. The traders expect trade, obviously. Less clear are what the high command of the Second Reconnaissance will request. Either way you’ll meet their representives on route, I’d imagine, and they’ll have ideas for how you can repay their generosity.
Once you have a ship, the Polity will be in touch with your Captain to schedule your place in the Ballet and your caravan run. Be it for money, for research, an escape, an excuse or just to prove you can do it, a caravan run is a good way to experience new things. And don’t worry about your safety - you did equip shields, didn’t you? - the caravans are a milk run.
Nicholas Avenell