Date of Birth: 15/04/3275
Place of Birth: Lambaesis City, Cubeo 3, Cubeo
Height: 1.90 m
Loyalty.
I never understood such intense loyalty. Such a thing is so... foreign to me.
Why are people so loyal to the Empire, and loath the Federation so heavily?
Why do people fight, yell, and sacrifice friendships over which brand of soft drink is better, or which ship manufacturer is superior.
I don't get it.
People yell, cheer and cry over President Hudson, or Emperor Duval. They say "we" won when their favourite CQC pilot wins the championship, or their favourite sports team scores the most points. But who is "we"? The pilot in his Eagle did all the work. The team on the field were the ones kicking the ball. "We" didn't do jack shit. All "we" ever did was yell and scream whenever the ball went in our favoured direction.
Why the tears over Hudson? What has he ever done for you? He doesn't even know, or care that you exist. So why expend so much energy over him?
People mention of humanity's intrinsic tribal nature. The desire to belong. The wish to fit in with a group. Logically that makes sense, but I can't say I have ever felt such a desire to be patriotic to the Empire, or obsessively loyal to Faulcon de Lacy. Sure, the Empire has served as my home for most of my life, and Faulcon de Lacy have manufactured ships that have allowed me to make a living. However I could have easily gotten by just fine in Federation space with a Saud Kruger vessel.
Perhaps all this is why I've always been so neutral in my journeys. To me, everyone is a potential source of income. People need shit done no matter where they're from or who they voted for in the presidential election, and they are willing to pay a pilot like me to make it happen. I've never been interested in the politics or the conflicts. They aren't my battles, they aren't my problem.
But you want to know more about my background, huh? Well, I'm nothing special. I am just a pilot with a ship that needs gas. As long as I'm still flying, that's good enough for me.
I wasn't always destined to be a pilot, mind you. Before I was a captain of my own ship (I don't particularly like the term "commander". I'm not sure why the Pilot's Fed refers to us as such), I was a software engineering student back on Cubeo 3. Lambaesis City to be precise. A city with the usual Imperial elegance that comes with all of the architecture in the core systems. An A+ student? Hell no, not even close. I mean, I did do alright. I passed everything to an acceptable standard. I was a graduate from the Lambaesis University, and my friend and I were going to take a trip to the Nortes system to celebrate. It would be our first time out of the Cubeo system and, in fact, off world.
Things took a turn when the passenger vessel, the Spirit of Nortes was attacked. A band of thugs brought the ship out of supercruise in an unknown system and boarded the ship, killing many and capturing many more. My friend, James, was shot dead right in front of me, while me? I was captured and thrown in a slave camp in Eravate. Apparently Imps like me are worth a lot of money over there, so I was told.
Three years went by in the camp. The work was hard, the conditions were brutal, and the people running the place were probably some of the sickest individuals I'd ever encountered. When they weren't beating us for looking at them funny, they were sending slaves off in shitty Sidewinders, running small in-system deliveries (the Sidewinders were locked down, if you're wondering how no one used them to escape). On top of that, they would place bets on whether or not they'd make it back (the flights almost always took us through pirate infested areas of Eravate). All this was happening under the noses of the Federation, who either didn't know or care that any of this was happening. On the other hand, that's also how I learned to fly.
There was also a fighting ring where they pit slaves against each other in brutal fights to the death. No, I do not wish to divulge further.
Yes, that is where I killed my first man.
No, I am not proud of it.
I made a friend, his name was Luke. He always seemed to have this "glass half full" outlook with him. It was refreshing and it helped to keep me sane. They managed to whittle him down over the years though, until he was just a shell of his former self. He killed himself in a rather gruesome way, and I'd prefer not to go into more detail. Before he did though, he gave me a bunch of letters he wrote to his fiancée. He and I had planned to somehow break out of that place. I use the term "planned" very loosely though. Her name is Emily and she lives in the Nortes system. I did end up taking the letters to her, and we keep in touch from time to time. She's doing well. That reminds me, I need to pay her a visit again soon.
So how did I get out? Well, Luke's death was the tipping point for me. I didn't have a plan. All I knew is that I wanted out. Or die in the process. At that point I didn't care. I had nothing to lose. There was an opportune moment for me to smuggle myself into a Cobra they had sitting in the hangar. The guards, you see, were brutal but they weren't exactly smart. I had a container marked as "urgent" and hid inside until I was loaded into the ship. I sprung the guy moving the crate and flew that ship right out, leaving the planet and my problems behind.
...or so I thought. One thing I forgot to mention is that every slave there was micro chipped. If we left the facility unauthorized, an alarm would sound and they'd be on us like a pack of starving dogs to a steak, and I doubt you'd come out of that alive. They also had tracking capabilities, which is how they managed to send a wing of ships out and find me.
And yes, the Cobra was unarmed. That Cobra took a huge beating, but somehow I was able to feign death inside the ship, which by that point was barely holding together. The wing of ships left me behind. I managed to get enough power to engines to fly me to a nearby station for repairs.
Freedom! Finally! Except not, for when you disappear without a trace for three years, people tend to assume that you're dead. To reverse your dead status, you have to go through a whole lot of legal crap with an Imperial Magistrate that I couldn't even begin to explain to you. Just sign papers, speak to people, sign more papers, see a judge, sign more papers... You get the idea. The whole process took weeks, and I was confined to that space station for the whole time. I did however, by sheer luck alone, have money left over from prior to my capture which surprisingly was enough to live off for a little, as well as get the Cobra back into a space-worthy state. You see, my Dad left me quite a bit as a graduation gift.
Hell, the dock workers even wiped the ship's datacore clean and gave it a new name for me. I named it Rattlesnake, because a Cobra is a snake and it did a lot of rattling during my escape (at least I'm sure it would have, if all the air hadn't been vented into space).
Of course, once I was done with all the legal crap to reverse my deceased status, I had to actually obtain a pilot's license so I could actually legally fly the thing. That process wasn't too hard. Sign up to the Pilot's Fed, take a few tests, take some more tests and you're good to go. Okay, I over simplified there, but you get the idea.
So yeah, that's how I became a pilot, roaming the stars, paying the bills, keeping gas in the tank. How did the years as a slave affect me? Well... You might describe me as... What? Paranoid? I prefer to think of it as cautious. People can be quick to turn on you.
Now, I reside in Pegasi, and that is a long story I don't have time to tell right now.
You want to know more? Well... Perhaps if we become more acquainted I will tell you. I'm sure you're a nice person and all but... I've said enough already.
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[OOC] If you do want to know more, here's the story so far.
---Prelude - A Future Torn---
Chapter 1: A Seemingly Normal Day
Chapter 2: The Dawn of Hell
Chapter 3: The Moon Job
Chapter 4: The Pit
Chapter 5: The Final Straw
Chapter 6: Escape
Epilogue: Rattlesnake
---Special Pickup---
Chapter 1: Reestablishment
Chapter 2: Tiberius
Chapter 3: Change of Plans
Chapter 4: Field of Sighs
Chapter 5: House Arrest
Chapter 6: Into the Twilight
Chapter 7: The Hearing
Epilogue: Parting Ways
---Settling a Grievance---
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10