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Privateers 01.01: Long Jump

Kara was my co-pilot, a fellow privateer, and I had never seen her as anything more than a friend and co-worker before our first “long jump” mission. Nothing could have prepared us for that flight. I mean, they tell you all about it in flight school, but the reality of a two-manned, six-week expedition… Well, let me put it this way: Two weeks with one other human, and auto-pilot is doing most of the work. You can get real bored, real fast.

After about 72 hours into the flight, we’d covered all the checklists, we’d already called in our twice-daily status reports, and we’d exhausted pretty much every avenue of small talk we could cover. We’d always been casual friends, co-workers, and our everyday interactions had been largely professional as of that point. So suddenly, the realization clicks. I’m going to be spending the next six weeks floating in space with nothing but my reports and this girl to keep me busy.

“Kara,” I said.

“Yes, Mike?” she replied.

“Six weeks. How are we going to fight boredom?”

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