I don’t remember a great deal about my early history, other than it was fairly happy. My Foster-Mother died when I was in my early teens but my Foster-Father, beloved Phyrem, never caused me to miss her. Life was good.
When Phyrem died, not six months ago, I felt such a wrench; the core of my being had been savagely cut from my living flesh leaving a great cold and empty hole.
I had never considered it before, but now I had to face the fact that I was alone, they were the only family I knew. Of course I had blood family somewhere, I just knew not where and if I didn’t know where to look how could I ever find them?
I decided to leave my few friends and school life in Ammold and seek out my kin. Not knowing what lay before me, I sold a few of my things, had a kick-arse party and set off full of hope and very hung-over for pastures new……….well not that new as I had to stop off at Odatrik first, I’d managed to get a temp job to earn some exploration funds :o)
I was beginning to like this ‘grown-up’ life, I made money and spent it how I liked, frivolously :o) for all of a day.
It was during a straightforward delivery drop that I had my rude awakening to the universe. There I was trundling along slowly in my Reaper waiting for the cap to recharge, listening to some good sounds and dreaming of bigger ships when suddenly I was pulled from my reverie by the knowledge that I was no longer moving at all, and there was this strange orange flashing on my overview screen. It struck me like lightning that this must be one of the pirates I had heard so much of as a child, those souls that roam the wastelands preying on the weak and vulnerable. With a sense of rising panic I tried to look at the ship only to hit the lock target button instead. Without warning the ship fired on me, one hit destroyed my shields and half my armour, with no repairers onboard I was a sitting duck, this wasn’t meant to be happening to me! I fired back, I don’t know why, what was I expecting a civilian gun to do against his firepower other than piss him off. My ship exploded, blinding flash spewing shrapnel into the abyss of space, only split seconds after I managed to escape in my capsule. What had I done to deserve this? I was only meant to earn cash to find my kinsfolk, I wasn’t meant to die out here. The pilot initiated a communications link and demanded that I pay him half a million to be allowed passage to a station, I laughed as I only had 100k, there was no way I could pay.
I awoke back in Ammold, one day out in the real world and I’d had to activate my clone already…….maybe they were right and I was too young to attempt to find family, maybe I should wait until I was older and wiser.
For another day I sulked around the station, running errands and doubting my future.
But no, I will not be told what to do, I decided to make it on my own and make it on my own I will, so again I packed a few belongings and set forth.
Feeling low with the loss of a second ship I decided to sit back and just monitor the chat for a while, GwenO was offering tutorials in surviving and countering pirate encounters. I was suddenly awake, my heart was pounding, and finally there was a flicker of hope. If I could learn to survive and maybe hit back with enough ferocity to deter, I could continue in my quest.
It was becoming more and more obvious that to find my hearts desire I would need cash and plenty of it, and although my job paid fairly well the real money was to be made in the deeper regions and to go there I would need to be a competent, aggressive pilot; here was a way being offered on a plate.
I mailed him and got a reply, my lessons start today
Cleared for publication by: Ander