I was born in 3262 in a planetary settlement on the outskirts of the explored galaxy.
My childhood was spent between federal training courses for factory workers and helping my parents with their work. I spent all my free time, of which there was not much, on the roof, studying the stars and dreaming of space travel. Often in the marketplace I listened to stories from adults about star heroes pioneers, about brave pilots furrowing deep space. About veterans of the war against the alien threat.
These stories seemed like fairy tales and allowed me to distract from the reality that surrounded me. Space ships rarely visited our settlement.
My family was not wealthy, just enough money to keep a roof over my head and a regular meal on the family table.
Just when I was ready to go to work in a food briquette factory, a happy accident brought a recruiter from the Independent Pilots Federation to the planet. I still do not understand why he decided to take me with him, because my parents could not give the money for my schooling.
My father, with his usual restraint, shook my hand, but I could see that in his heart he was happy that his son would escape the fate of becoming part of the briquette production line. My mother couldn't hold back tears, but she smiled.
I could not believe in these wonderful circumstances all the way to the pilots' school, the whole way I was waiting to wake up on the roof of my house, as I must have fallen asleep looking up into the sky again.
Even now I remember the look in my eyes when the officer from the pilot's federation school arrived at the spaceport. He looked down into my eyes for a minute, held me by the shoulders, then gestured with his head toward the entrance to the spaceport and let me go. What motivated him I never knew, we never met again. But every time I convict myself of weakness, I remember the look in his eyes.
Despite the fact that the years had worked out well enough for me and I had succeeded financially in the mines and trade, my parents did not want to move closer to the center of the inhabited bubble.
Now, having worked my way up from pilot school graduate to Elite, sitting on the bridge of my research anaconda, I often think back to my childhood and the happy accident that opened my way to the stars.