Benjamin Jackson signed up for a 7 year mission (3.5 there, 3.5 back) to travel out to the 80 Ursae Majoris system and pick up one million tons of a mineral called pyraxirutile for the Bowman-Cardil corporation. It was mined out of the second planet in that system and packed into shuttle containers by automatic mining machines left there nearly 100 years ago by a company called Rogers Capital. Bowman-Cardil found out about the mineral load when they bought out Rogers Capital after it had gone bankrupt. The corporation now plans on using the pyraxirutile for some sort of high level optical beam technology.
Unfortunately, Jackson's ship and cargo were found abandoned 6 years and 8 months after he left, less than 4 months away of his home system of Maia. It was presumed by Bowman-Cardil detectives that he was hijacked and killed before the hijackers realized that pyraxirutile would be next to impossible to sell to anyone on the black market. The complete cargo hold, the ship, and nearly 7 years of Benjamin Jackson's writings and memories in the form of 200+ notebooks, coindrives, and various collectibles from the planets he visited on his journey were recovered. Jackson was never found.
Jackson was fond of haiku, here is a selection of those haiku found in his journals:
asleep in the ship
as I approach the far moon
the red light wakes me
the desolation,
entering a small system
with no sentient life
For many years now
I have been on course for home
many more will pass
on this path, there is
no beacon or dawn, only
the empty night sky
each morning I take
half a gram of fentanyl
I can afford it
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