[ Stellar Salvage Union Log, Item L11352000/EF ]

Value: 0
Original Owner: Actual identity unknown, metadata username 'I.Fainlik'
Processing Protocol Suggestion: Lost-and-Found
Description: The following document was discovered on board a recovered A643-B2 2nd Generation Fighter/Cruiser [L11352000/A], found abandoned on a remote landing dock on planet X32-B-244/A. Whereabouts of the captain and other crew are unknown.

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Captain's log, day 843.
Marty keeps telling me there's no point to starting all my logs with "Captain's log, day ..." because it's 'all in the metadata' but look, I grew up watching space captain serial-dramas and I need SOMETHING I saw on those shows to be real.
Today we waited. Just sitting deep in empty space. Waiting for a signal from our contact for our rendezvous details. Just sitting. So much sitting. Staring at charts and graphs to make sure our ship stayed well within the location band the transmission was targetting. This whole job we've been running has just been bouncing from one location to the next, always waiting for the next transmission, always waiting for the next coordinate and time. This so isn't what I signed up for.
Have I ever really mentioned why I became a ship's captain?
I grew up watching all the popular space serials. Star-Command Five, Space Pirate Iona, Journey to the Edge. Even the really shitty ones, like, the kind you watch after a night that's gone on for far too long, in a state somewhere near delirium. Didn't matter, they all had the same forumla: some daring, usually attractive, space captain and their crew of lovable weirdos and nerds take on the galaxy's many horrors, fighting at the yoke to keep their ships in control, doing the absolute last thing anyone would want them to because "no one's ever ____ and lived".
Those shows fuckin' lied. The only place you'll find a yoke, ever, is on a terrestrial craft. Once you're in space? Once you're dealing with near-light travel and fission-jumps? Yeah, you can't do that manually. I realized that about 5 minutes after I boarded my first ship. Space captains? They're just sociable nerds. It's charts and graphs all the way down. You modify configurations for pieces of software that control various ship systems and functions and then you just let the computers do the work.
And why wouldn't you?
Computers are way better at thinkin' than I am, that's for damn sure. I definitely couldn't calculate the exact dropout for a coordinate while traveling between two points at near light speed without several pads of paper and a textbook open for reference. My pocket terminal can do it in less than a millisecond. So what does that make me? Some glorified asshole with a big computer?
Pretty much.
I guess there's the whole 'leading your crew on the ground' thing but, honestly, I'm just the 'captain' because everyone else is better at more specific functions. I can help with those things but... on my own I'm pretty useless. I don't really give orders, I give suggestions.
Some day -- when I've gotten as tired as I possibly can of running information and supplies to far-flung corners of the galaxy -- I'm gonna find some planet with plenty of ocean to sail. I'm gonna build an old-timey manually controlled boat and just sail around. Maybe get into some hijinks, who knows.
But let's be honest, I'll probably just keep waiting.

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Addendum: The following was found in the captain's quarters, presumed to be I.Fainlik.