Day 6 // 0238A

Woke up in a cold sweat. Had a nightmare. I don’t usually have nightmares. Maybe that rifle butt to the head scrambled something.

In the nightmare I was standing on a large seat. Not just oversized, but enormous. Easily the size of a building. A man was standing next to me. He looked familiar, but I knew I had never seen him before. We were having a conversation, but I couldn’t, for the life of me, hear what was being said. It was like our mouths were moving but no words were coming out. One of us must have said something funny because we both started laughing. Suddenly, the man turned away, and when he turned back to face me, his face had changed. His body was still human, but his face was the face of a beast you find only in a nightmare. I was paralyzed by fear. The man/creature reached out and grabbed me and in one quick move threw me off the chair. I fell, but as I did I looked up and saw the man standing at the edge of the seat, watching me fall. Smiling. He was no longer a monster. I twisted my body just in time to see the black floor rushing up at me and then — bam! I woke up in a cold sweat with my heart racing. Took me a few minutes to get my bearings and realize it was all just a bad dream.

Feeling better now. All is quiet, except for the hum of the Jackyl’s generators, and the sounds of Fresno talking in his sleep. I really should try and get some sleep myself. We’ve got a big day today. Going to head to Mezr later this morning and buy some fuel and supplies. Hopefully I can get a good deal on a fake ship ID from Sol. Then, after Mezr we’re heading straight to Tanar. Can’t afford any delays since Tanar is a hike from Mezr. Probably take 4 to 5 hours on full jump to get to that dumpy little planet.

Once we pick up the rock, it should be easy to lay low inside the Void until it’s time to make the delivery run. We’ll just need to make sure the cargo bay is cloaked, in case pirates are scanning. Damn pirates. The Void is crawling with them.

Called Pitt just before I went to sleep last night to let him know that Fresno and I had gotten out of Illiasa Port without incident. I didn’t want to worry him unnecessarily by giving him all of the specifics about my run-in with the Dominion. With our luck, Pitt my have gotten spooked and rescheduled the delivery or, worse, pulled the plug on the whole thing. Either way, we would have been in a really bad spot. Fortunately, Pitt believed what I told him, and didn’t ask any questions. So we’re still on for tomorrow. All that’s left to do now is make the delivery and get paid.

I’m thirsty and my head hurts. Think I’ll have a quick drink and see if I can squeeze in a few more hours of sleep before Fresno wakes me up.

- C

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