Throughout 2001 and early 2002 there ran a narrative experiment on Kuro5hin.org, a series of diaries by a user purporting to be Captain Alan Ledford, a run-of-the-mill starship freighter pilot who would drop in and publish the occasional account of his life and experiences as he hopped about space.

Totaling thirteen diaries over the year and a half (plus a final entry a couple years later, revealing the author and leading to a now-dead website), these sporadic stories were a highlight of K5 during that time, weaving a compelling tale within the everyday cacophony and discord of the diary section.

With apologies to K5 user tiamet whose 2003 article I’m paraphrasing, here are the Diaries of Captain Ledford:

Entry 1: How the hell do you figure the stardate, anyway?

I never did get the hang of keeping track of time out here. I suppose it’s because I never have to meet anyone, and nothing I ship is important enough to qualify as a rush delivery.

Things I have on board right now, for those interested:

Entry 2: Letter-opening

So my holo broke down today. There I was, talking to the first sentient being I’d seen in days, and the damn thing just stops working. I had to rush over to the old-fasioned viewscreen-type communicator before she left – the alternative being waiting around until the next ship happens to float by.

Entry 3: Finally got in

Got into station the day before yesterday, but I hardly had any time to relax then; deliveries are always a pain. I’d say it has something to do with the Tannanti tendency toward being completely meticulous about every little thing, only it isn’t because every Tannanti I’ve ever met is just as lazy as I am. It’s more to do with the fact that Outward Station, like nearly every sane station that I know of, has contracted out Receiving to some nameless corporation whose job it is to be completely meticulous about every little thing.

Entry 4: Will Work For Pay

Someone, get me off this station.

Entry 5: Got my travel on

My current run is from Outward Station to Poln, a tiny little planet just colonized whose people have decided they want a space station (they’ll probably call it something like ‘Outward Station’.) As my ship, great and powerful though it may be, is in no way capable of towing all the equipment which will be used to build the station, I’m doing escort work for the Hugeass Construction Corporation fleet of tugs.

Entry 6: Yotian Anomoly

Okay, I’m not famous, but I am old. And in this business, if you’ve survived this long, you automatically earn a certain amount of respect.

Entry 7: So this is what the ground feels like….

Rakjini is a nice planet. Good temperature, nice weather, atmosphere I can breathe for an entire hour before various toxins build up to dangerous levels in my body – it’s like paradise, only more expensive and with a bunch of rookies.

Entry 8: So, what is war good for again? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Okay, first of all, I thought the Poln-Anor of some indeterminate point in the past happened a lot further ago than it did. That’s the one that destroyed their old Outward Station, the one I got hired to help rebuild.

Turns out that war happened a few years ago, and Poln-Anor relations have been horrible for four hundred years, not the other way around. But still, not my problem, right?

Entry 9: RANDOM

I still don’t know where I’m going. I mentioned before that I’d hit the ‘random’ button to just go somewhere. What I didn’t mention was that I’ve gone through a lot of trouble to make sure that the computer doesn’t tell me where that somewhere is.

Why? Well, it’s a lot more interesting that way.

Entry 10: RANDOM + 1

I’ve spent a very very long time in deep-sleep in the vastness of space, and as it turns out, for no reason whatsoever.

The moral is: I really ought to upgrade.

Entry 11: Those Ulix made some big-ass colony ships

Deep-sleep again. Did it on purpose this time since I really was running low on supplies and the stars, while pretty to look at every once in a while, were starting to irritate me with their nasty habit of not moving nearly fast enough.

On the plus side, I have a new ship.

Entry 12: Curiosity killed the Captain

Now I know what you’re thinking at this point. “Captain!” you say, “I’ve seen the movies! This is easy!” And you’re horribly, horribly wrong. See, in the movies, the hero just runs into the cargo bay, hair streaming heroically after him, blaster in each hand knocking off security bots as fast as they appear, the bots missing by miles as the hero does his heroic thing.

Entry 13: Space is boring again

So there I was, just me and my two mostly-drained blasters and my hacked-together FAST units and my not-much-cleaner-than-before hair versus a cargo bay full of killer robots avenging a dying civilization.

Addendum: The Last Entry of Alan Ledford