The world is cold... The universe is just as cold. It is filled with an unknowable number of stars that burn at billions of degrees by way of nuclear fission. However even those stellar giants die. They may be trying to warm the universe but in the end the cold still win. They're efforts are in vain. People... Humans are the same way. Yeah every couple generations a truly great person comes around, however their goodness, their warmth, dies with them. Sometimes their afterglow lives on for a few more decades but ultimately the cold wins. As humanity spend among the stars of the galaxy, it divided and turned on itself. Nothing new. Humans are cold and they cannot leave each other alone. When the first planetary exodus left the Sol system, they were so hopeful. They hoped to leave the scourges of war, famine, and greed behind. However the scourges followed them like rats on a ship. I have seen it over and over again among the human worlds. Thousands of worlds in the galaxy and not one truly pure. I saw combat in environments that would terrify the imaginations of the first space colonists. I have seen warships burn off the shoulder of Orion. I have seen in entire planets die burning in the invisible fire of nuclear warheads. Humanity is only alive because I do not know what. I would have to guess it is because the distance in the cold vacuum of the universe.
I swirl the ice cube around the bottom of my drinking glass. Synahol was a poor substitute for alcohol but it gave all the flavor without the dizziness. It still suited me. It at least allowed me to relax like the real thing. I looked around the room. I was sitting in a booth by myself at the back of a noisy establishment. This place was not the best place. The planet it was on was far from Federation space and it's central government was nonexistent. This place was a gathering place for space pirates, mercenaries, and other criminal scum. Not a place one would expect to find a former Federation officer like myself. I no longer looked like a Federation soldier anyways. I had left that past behind me. My Brown hair was long and I had the beginning of a beard from not shaving in 2 days. I wore plain cloths that drew no attention to myself. Sadly and with a little anger showing in my focused eyes, I scanned over the patrons in the establishment. All of whom, I felt were just lying to themselves that they were happy and safe in this cold corner of a cold universe.
I swirl the ice cube around the bottom of my drinking glass. Synahol was a poor substitute for alcohol but it gave all the flavor without the dizziness. It still suited me. It at least allowed me to relax like the real thing. I looked around the room. I was sitting in a booth by myself at the back of a noisy establishment. This place was not the best place. The planet it was on was far from Federation space and it's central government was nonexistent. This place was a gathering place for space pirates, mercenaries, and other criminal scum. Not a place one would expect to find a former Federation officer like myself. I no longer looked like a Federation soldier anyways. I had left that past behind me. My Brown hair was long and I had the beginning of a beard from not shaving in 2 days. I wore plain cloths that drew no attention to myself. Sadly and with a little anger showing in my focused eyes, I scanned over the patrons in the establishment. All of whom, I felt were just lying to themselves that they were happy and safe in this cold corner of a cold universe.