to move one’s feet or body, or both, rhythmically in a pattern of steps, especially to the accompaniment of music.
to leap, skip, etc., as from excitement or emotion; move nimbly or quickly: to dance with joy.
to bob up and down: The toy sailboats danced on the pond.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/dancing
Following my religious experience at the centre of our galaxy, it was time to make a dash to Plimbeau ZE-R e4-2732 where I would catch a lift back to civilisation on the Luna, thus concluding the NYND 3308.
With little over sixty jumps to the assigned meeting place, I estimated I should make it with time to spare and probably get to check out the ringed gas giants in the Luna’s current system. These are in such close orbit they are fully visible from a single landable body.
It was around the thirty plus to forty jumps that I noticed the glow from the core fading and the black between the stars darkening. To speed up the journey I had resorted to a very bad practice in the exploration community. Honk, scoop, repeat. For those not in the know, this is the process of darting through systems firing off the discovery scanner and scooping the local star for fuel, then jumping to the next system and doing the same without cataloguing the system with the full spectrum system scanner.
Occasionally I would check the readout on the full spectrum system scanner, but there was nothing of note that would halt my progress… until an ice planet. I had not seen one in a few weeks and I had an itch for some SRV-on-ice action. After scanning the system, the ice body turned out to be one with bio signals and a tenuous atmosphere. I was going in.
Gliding through the thin neon ether the icy playground dazzled back at me filled with refracted light, fields of ice blue spires dotted the planet. Slowing during the entry I noticed a small mountain range. Really it was more like a long ice wall from a fantasy world, built by giants.
Dropping onto the surface I deployed the SRV. The dance was about to begin. The clear open space before me let me get the SRV to its maximum speed, struggling with traction on the ice this performance was writing itself. The SRV slid sideways, spun in clouds of snow torn up from the ground, shimmied backwards and pounced over rocks like an over enthusiastic pantomime lead.
Poking up from over the horizon were the little blue spires I had noticed from orbit, the fonticulua bio samples. I pulled the throttle to half speed to steady the SRV, pointing it in the right direction I flicked it forward back to full power.
Flittering though the field of fonticulua was an exercise in driving control. Coming out the other side and applying the hand break, the SRV performed a perfect one eighty, enabling me to jump out and quickly grab a genetic sample and a photo for the album.
Jumping back into the SRV, the Surface Recon Vehicle ballet continued.
The fifty percent fuel warning appeared on my heads up display prompting me to pay special attention to the time. I had lost track of it pretending to be some diva on ice I forgot all about needing to be in Plimbeau ZE-R e4-2732 to hitch a ride home.
Now in a blind panic, I recalled the The Hiraeth because it was time to blaze a trail like no body’s business. The Luna would be leaving in just over twenty minutes and I had eight jumps to make to catch-up and then dock with her.
The clock was ticking.
The Javi Times 