I hope this ship is fully spaceworthy and stays together! By the gods, I hope so!! I pray to the old goddess of safety that we survive this. At the rate we're going, though, I'm not so sure about that. This ship is half full of people who keep arguing over where we should go. I'm not saying it's not good to have discussion about this, but they're just repeating themselves now! Can't they fucking come to some kind of informed decision, based on knowledge and not just privileged positions which give them such overconfidence and assumptions?! You'd think they might be able to agree that running from our homes because we've been marked for death by the authorities shouldn't have half of them saying we should run to the first Providencian outpost! I mean, do they forget that Providence was selling our world's government the arms which they used to massacre the protesters in the 'Rights For All' march? Have they forgotten that Providence, along with the Peace Federation imprisons people like us, too? Or have they forgotten that some of us who had to work in the sewers of Prosperitan colonies and had to live in slums and keep moving around to find more work? Have they conveniently 'forgotten' that some of us never had steady jobs to lose and did it escape their notice that while they've got every right to be pissed off at being forced out of work in their factories and offices, we were never allowed to their political meetings because, according to them, we 'caused trouble' and tried to 'hijack' their protests with our 'fringe' ideas! Yes... they forget all of that, all of their turning a blind eye when it suited them! Now they expect us to come running with them when they suggest escaping. They think we hadn't been thinking and planning this for years, already?!

Judging by how many of these fucking men (they're mostly men and mostly white, pale-skins) say how they'd had this plan to escape which they had to keep secret and all that, I'd guess they have forgotten about our long-discussed idea or just ignored it. Like everything else, these sons of hyaags steal the ideas and all the credit. Who's hijacking ideas now? Well, they have accuse others of something which is second nature to them, don't they? Assholes!
I'm sure it was some of these kvell-bleeders who snitched on us for using 'Draeks' reproducer machines. Always so desperate to stay within the law, even when the law becomes damn near racist! I'm keeping an eye on most of that crowd. They might try and pull a fast one and throw us out into space or sell us out to any authority who offers them a safe place in exhange for the most 'unruly trouble makers'. I can see things getting very ugly if it comes to that, but I won't think too much about it. Not good to be too paranoid.

I know I can trust the Aurak folk on here. None of them have any reason to betray us or to be loyal to Prosperity or Providence or that bastard, so-called 'Peace Federation'. All of them had a worse time in those places, I think, than the rest of us put together!
Glondak, the Aurak former factory cleaner is piloting the ship right now. He was paid a wage below the level which should be allowed, to clean up after some of these privileged fuckers who worked the ship factory machines and all had nice, cushy lives to go back to. None of them even bothered to consider that he's as qualified to maintain and pilot ships as they are. More so, I would bargain, but no... they all think Aurak are simple savages with no culture and little intellect or civilisation. Oh, they all deny it, but it's obvious how they feel when they see him doing something they know little about! I've known him for years, so I know he knows a lot. I've known him long enough to trust his honesty and his knowledge, so when he pointed out this old tub and said it was better than it looked and better than any government asshole realised, then I took heed. I gotta admit, I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't know how much he knew but I've seen what he knows and just how much of a wizard he is with making things work and bringing dead machines back to life. The ship is thirty-eight years old, I noticed on the registration markings. It's an old Providencian Class-3 freighter, known as a 'Kref' class ship, which holds around a hundred people and it's been used and abused a lot over that time and it's easy to see where it's been repaired and bodged and codged over the long years of its life and, I gotta say, it looks pretty unremarkable. Glondak said this was a good thing, as it's less likely to draw attention to us. It has a couple of shuttles for making short trips away from the ships course or landing on places whenever or wherever it's not convenient for the main ship to land. These are often used to sneak around and watch out for any hostile ships which might be waiting to attack. They don't usually see small shuttle when they're looking for bigger ships like this one. This is something we might find useful as Glondak and I both agreed. Glondak also made sure that there's enough escape pods in case the very worst happens and she ship gets destroyed or severely damaged. We had some more people joing us after he made sure of that, so I'm not so sure we got enough now, but I hope so. I pray we have!
some of the pale-skin former office workers pulled a face when they saw him in the cockpit but didn't dare to say anything after the looks we gave them! Their insular mindsets and their subtle little racist prejudices shine through when things get tough, even though they won't admit to being prejudiced people. Oh, no! They just don't think a mere factory cleaner from the far-off Sakaari zones would have had the knowledge of flying a ship like this! Yeah, right. Did none of them bother to think or ask that maybe his work in factories, alone should give him some idea of Prosperitan hardware? Did they not realise that even 'mere Aurak' can access old ships and various other vessels once the overpaid rich fuckers are done with them?! Their assumptions show their prejudices. Fucking snobby bastards! They can call themselves 'co-workers' and 'fellow members of the oppressed classes' all they want, but I never saw that when we were being arrested by the law agents or the cops for trying to oppose that shower of murdering bastard Droptroopers from being honoured for 'bravery in the face of danger'. Showing a bunch of savage child-murderers up for what they were was 'too divisive' for them, apparently. A bunch of kids on Skjir's World don't matter, though. They can be ignored when they get slaughtered by those red-capped bastards! Anything to keep a 'united front' in political oppositions circles, eh? Faarrrrrrkkth!!!

I wonder how those pricks feel now. I wonder if they can feel how we felt or how those kids on Skjir's Wolrd felt or how those countless Aurak slaves felt when they were being oppressed, brutalised and killed and all of it being denied in the circles of power. I noticed how some have conveniently 'forgotten' about denying this and somehow developed some sense of 'solidarity' with us now that they found themselves on the new government's hit list!
To be fair, some of them just didn't know any better and some thought they could change things from inside the Prosperitan system. Monetism, prosperism and all the other versions of it... you can't reform that! I just hope that some of those fuckers will finally wake up and realise that now! But when I saw the expressions on some of their faces at Glondak piloting the ship that time... I felt that this was too much to expect.

I asked Shiilok the cyborg girl to keep an eye on things. She's not quite so heavily augmented as some, so she can hide much of it from the more conservative fuckers who distrust cyborgs. Her brain and her eyes can record what they say, which they won't know about, so she's reliable in sending me information about possible treachery. She's also someone I've known for years, so I know I can trust her. Some of the men can be charmed by her pretty face and her sweet little smile, too. She's managed to keep some of them away from me and the other girls more than once with her charms. She's lost most of her family too. Massacred by the Prosperitan Guard or the Droptroopers, so they can't really blackmail or coerce her anymore. They used to do that when her mother still lived and when she had to work in one of the seedy clubs as a dancer. The amount of secrets she and her male companion got ahold of proved useful when we finally knew we had to escape from the colony were were on and it proved vital in getting us out of the restricted zone and past the security guards who had orders to shoot to kill anyone seen trying to board ships in the hangar without passes. She'd managed to get access for forged documents which looked so real, that even a master forger might not guess they were fake! This is the level of things Shiilok and her companion, Dengor managed to get for us. It's just a fucking terrible shame that he had to die before we managed to get away. He was perhaps the last person she had who they could use to blackmail her with. When he'd been murdered so violently by those crooks who he fell foul of, she became cold and dead inside. I could see it in her eyes. Since then, she's become almost reckless in her acts of revenge. I managed to convince her to calm down and to find the time for her to get back at them and at all of the puppet masters in the Prosperitan government who pull their strings.

Shiilok is looking after things back in the main section of the ship right now. Last message she sent was that all things were fairly quiet and nothing unusual was happening or giving her reason to be suspicious, at least no more than usual. Glondak hears a sound over the communicator. I hear it too. Faint sounds of bleeps and distorted hash. Ships in the distance patrolling the local colonies, which means we're getting closer to the last of the Prosperitan mining colonies, if our calculations are correct. We set the sensers on the ship to full power, so we don't get detected before we detect them. Glondak did some work to this ship, which I only found out about the other day. He managed to fix up a basic cloaking device to make us harder to detect. These vessels don't usually have them, but Sakaari engineers and developers always had them. They were so far advanced in the People's Sakaari Republic, despite what is still said about them to this day. Glondak, being a technical wizard from that time and that area, managed to rig this thing with something quite amazing, considering how little he had in resources. It seems to have worked so far, but we haven't really been able to test it properly yet. It's starting to look like we'll soon get our big chance to test out this ship fully and all the modifications we made to get us off that damn colony and to safety.

I feel more and more tense as we go on toward the end of this Prosperitan sector of space. The distant ships become less distant and before long they're close enough to be seen clearly as ships on our scanners. Shortly after that they're recognisable as Prosperitan vessels on patrol, just as we'd suspected. The move so fast when you consider the huge distances out here! The outer colonies here are often well guarded so we proceed very extreme caution! Shiilok reports to me that everyone is being quiet. There's tension and fear back there but they all know to stay calm if we're going to survive this. We fly on with all cloaking and evading devices activated. The Prosperitan patrol ships are far enough away to maybe miss us anyway but Glondak is taking no chances.
We keep going, continuing on our course as we planned. I feel the tension building. I can't help it, it's just too terrifying to think of what might happen if they detect us. I don't want to think of that. Got to stay calm. Too many people depending on us up here for me to be losing it now. One of the Prosperitan patrol ships turns towards us as another one turns the opposite way to patrol the other side of this designated area. I have every faith in Glondak and the other guys who worked on this ship, but I still feel scared and intimidated when I see that fucking ship coming towards us on the scanner! Glondak pilots the ship gradually away from the path of the oncoming vessel. Despite having a cloak, we don't want to chance them seeing or detecting us as they get closer. He takes a gradual diving manoeuver so they can pass over where we go. I see what he's doing. There's a collection of junk floating in space nearby, obviously the place where they dump their crap and don't fly too close to it. This junk can confuse Prosperitan detectors because of the various contaminated parts which usually gets left here. Regulations were passed by the old People's Party government, forbidding the dumping of polluted junk in First World areas so they dump it in places like here where only the poorest, most ignored folk live and where most other people think it doesn't exist. The shit on this junk plays havoc with sensers. Most of it, apparently was used in research and work on secret stealth weapons. Funny how it might even help us to evade them!

They're getting frighteningly close to us now. They glide closer as we sail beneath their path and under their sensers. The space junk is almost in front of us and Glondak gently dives beneath it, so we can hide behind its cover. He's a brilliant pilot! Too bad these ungrateful fuckers barely even noticed before. I wonder if they'll notice that he's saving their sorry lives. I hear some murmers behind us in the main section of the ship. If they're starting any shit back there, they'll be sorry! Shiilok messages to say they're grumbling but no-one is starting any trouble. I'm slightly reassured by this...
We fly on until we become stationary with the space junk and just glide with it. The Prosperitan patrol ship glides by close enough to be seen by our own eyes through the portals, now and it doesn't seem to notice us at all. I'm not sure what I'd do without Glondak at the controls of this thing and Shiilok back there keeping things calm. I'm indebted to them both, that's for sure.

We're staying with this floating junkpile for a while. Spaceship sensers can pick up lone spacecraft too easily with some of the devices they have these days. This ship is modified pretty heavily by Glondak and his colleagues but even so, we can't be too careful out here, especially with families onboard! These warships and patrol vessels can pick you up from so far away that you'd barely know what hit you before being vapourised or pulled apart by some plasma bolt or railgun from one of their interceptor ships. It never happens in simple ways like how it is in kid's adventure stories, that's for sure! Sometimes having to evade those warships makes you generate enough heat to burn your ship up, even with today's technology! But I'm not going to dwell on that now...

The Prosperitan ship glides neraby, seemingly not aware of our presence. This is good to see.


Shiilok comes up front for a bit and I go back to take over keeping an eye on things. I go down the main section of the ship to see if everyone and everything is alright. Many faces looking scared, especially mothers with their children, desperate to escape what was coming for them on that colony. Some workers' organisers who were listed for imprisonment of elimination by the new military rulers. Some entertainers or writers who said the wrong thing and sex workers who knew too much about the businessmen they were fucking and some political leaders who opposed the new yonatistic military government are all here. All were scared of what might happen to them or their families so they were escaping too. These political leaders are the ones I trust the least. Shiilok told me of some in particular who kept talking down to her or some who wouldn't even talk to her at all, with her being a woman and poor one at that. Even more so with her being augmented with synthetic parts! I wondered if they'd pick up on her augmentations! Cyborgs are often disliked and distrusted in Prosperity, Providence and the Peace Federation. Only ones who are carefully government controlled and usually not self aware are permitted into the First Worlds or if they are, then they're closely monitored and restricted.
They're slightly less condescending towards me, but only slightly. Any woman is considered less improtant to some of these pricks and even more so, if we've got dark faces!
I aks if things are okay and if anything is in need of fixing and they all say things are fine in a dismissive way. The one advantage of being so looked down upon is that they tend to think we don't notice their treachery. I'm keeping a close watch on them!
We continue staying like this for some time. It seems like hours... I check the time and sure enough it has been a few hours of just sitting here. I go back and forth and change places with Shiilok in making sure things are running smoothy and everyone is quiet and eventually, Glondak decides that it's safe to continue on our course away from this sector. The cloaks on the ship are switched on again after being switched off when we hid under the space junk and all decoys are activated to distract any vessel from sensing us as we go along. Shiilok has scanned everyone on the ship and made sure that no one is a spy or a traitor and no one has anything which can be used against us or to show up where we are. Not many people had anything but a few of the snobby ones complained about their flashy gadgets being taken from them. I remember when they all thought it was fine to do the same to us when we were involved in their political activities. Maybe they think we'll try to control them and that we'll sell them out just they did, huh? Some of us haven't forgotten, even though they'd like to think and hope that we have!

We fly on into the small neutral zone between Prosperitan and Providencian zones. Some of these fucking careerists think that if we head towards Providencian space we'll be fine but some of us know only too well how treacherous its government is! Some of the people here escaped persecuation on Providencian colonies and are absolutely certain they're not going back there. These arrogant pricks keep saying it'll be all fine and they'll make sure it's all safe with their influence. Such vanity! They really think that being a member of the Workers Group of Prosperitan Worlds will get them favours among their equivalent in Providence? We keep telling them that this shit was done before and that people trying to do it were sold out to the Providencian government but they shake their heads in typical supercilious fashion and tell us how it's not the same now with the non-imperial government. Ha! Not an empire officially anymore but still one in effect. But It's pointless trying to convice this lot of fucking know-it-alls of that, so we just leave it for now.
Those of us who don't want to touch Providence or the Peace Federation have discussed a place near to what's left of Sakaari space. The parts that weren't destroyed by Prosperity and the Peace Fed with the help of Providence! There's a zone there, which some say is just a legend, but others insist is real. A place at the end of the sectors where these imperialists feel safe. Beyond their military or industrial zones and beyond their so-called 'Problem Zones'. It's known to most people as 'Prosperity's End'. Kinda fitting and supposedly some kind of play on words. I heard in some stories about it being a safe haven for dissidents and refugees and a place where the Hruk Na-Gaa often hide out. Apparently, they have some bases around there, but no one knows for sure. Prosperity tries to inflitrate it as much as possible and some bad things have been known to happen there, mostly to government snitches and infiltrators, but not so much to dissidents like us. According what I've heard from some people, this place still holds out, despite everything. Me, Glondak, Shiilok and many others say this is our best hope if we have any hope at all. We have a long way to go and a lot of people we need to convince to stop believing in the shit they've been told about the Sakaari and the Hruk Na-Gaa but some may come round when we compare it to the shit said about them. The hardest ones to convince are these pompous pricks in the middle classes and higher castes. They never got any shit until they upset some ruling warlords or questioned the new military laws put into play at the behest of the Bersch military dynasty and that bastard politician who runs most of the war profits, Djeb Drahn Kveller. Those parasites are nearly always behind every military takeover and change of government that we've seen, though they never admit it! Half this sector of the galaxy that we're leaving is like a scene from the Underworld in the ancient religions and old folk tales. Mutated mosters which possess dead bodies and feed off the living, machines programmed to kill everything on sight and radiation on some colonies so poisonous, it's dangerous to even orbit them, or so some people say. I hope to live long enough to see those bastards like Kveller and all those Bersch bastards pay for what they've done. Somehow I doubt that'll happen anytime soon... but I live in hope. We've all lost someone and most of us have lost most of what we had because of them.
One day!

(To be continued)