The Loneliness of the Deep Space Cargoist

Getting the hell away from people was why she started as a cargo. It was quiet work where she didn’t need to interact with anyone much unless she wanted to. She didn’t like people, to be honest. Some deep-seated trust issues were of concern, and she wasn’t shy about warning anyone interested in her. Out here, there was just the ever-expanding future and the ever-expanding universe. Inez was comforted that the universe would go out with a quiet sigh rather than the explosive end she had wished for when she was younger. Inez’s upbringing was probably ordinary under the Free Earth. She preferred not to think about when she was younger or about what happened to her mother.

She was just under thirty standard revs old, more than old enough to be angry at herself for ruminating. She had lots of time to think between destinations and spent as much time as she could not believe. With a few taps on the console, she started a full ship-wide diagnostic, hoping for confirmation whether or not the ship was louder and reading over her messages. A half dozen new directives from the Company, a mail forwarded to her from a third cousin she’d never met about some political thing that she didn’t know about (and that sounded just a bit like bullshit), compulsory Free Earth propaganda, nothing that captured her interest. She thought Free Earth might get a report that she didn’t spend enough time looking at their latest. Then again, with her systems scrambled, who knew?