Who am I?


2 Weeks ago:

Times have never been busier at the Mathis institute. This is the only office where cloning is legal and necessary for the safety of the empire. “Bloody hell sir, this makes it 247 just this week. Do you think we will ever win this war?” Jools has always had grand ideas of huge space battles, like in the old stories. “That’s not for us to think about son, we just do what we do and reboot those with more cash than sense.” “They are going to be adding us to that list if we work any longer shifts” moaned Jools. His boss, Marcus managed and authorised the activated insurance policies received when a death was registered. “Here’s the next batch, get on it or we’ll fall behind again.” Marcus handed a bunch of data chips to Jools and retreated to his office for another cigar. “My head’s going to burn out at this rate, I didn’t sign up for this.”


Present day:

Everything looked grey. There was a layer of dust over everything… What happened here? I sat up and my head swam, funny, I don’t remember drinking last night. I remember a desk, and a flash… No a cockpit, I was in a ship. I tried to stand but was caught on something. I reached round and found there was a data cable sticking out from the back of my head. Without thinking I twisted the locking mechanism and disengaged the cable. I stood and looked around. I was standing in what was left of a warehouse with many cylinders stood in rows. This was a cloning facility, which meant I had been killed… The flash, yes. I remember the layout, a Vulture, and I was escorting a Type 6. Why? I froze, “Who am I?” I said out loud. Panic was already closing in as I came to the realisation something was very wrong. I frantically looked around for something I recognised, not the facility, I knew what each gadget and machine did, and how, but there was nothing personal in my head at all. To my left was a feint flashing light, obscured by some fallen rubble. I stumbled over to the source, moving fallen concrete out of the way. A terminal was still working so I keyed in the manifest request command (I knew how to do this too) and typed in the number on my wrist band:

Empire captain Rob Mathis – Combat grade Elite – KIA Spec Ops escort

Holy shit, I’m a fighter pilot…. Elite too, but I can’t remember anything. What is wrong with me? I selected my name on the screen and accessed download logs for my cloning.

Physical form – Complete
Technical knowledge – Complete
Skill set – Complete
Personal data – ERROR – Corrupted file

Not to worry I thought, the data will still be on file somewhere, let’s see. “Computer, run search for personal data CMDR Rob Mathis”… Nothing, the damage must have knocked out the connection to the mainframe. That background rumble seemed to be getting louder, it didn’t register at first but now it was noticeably louder. AS I turned to go towards what was left of the door, a spotlight hit the floor to my right and panned towards me. I don’t know why, but I had a bad feeling about this, so I bolted for the service exit on the other side of the room. As I reached the door, shots were fired and I heard shouting. They were shooting into the unopened canisters of clones yet to be complete. What was this and why were they destroying everything? I didn’t wait around to find out and crept through the door leading to the hangar bay. I hoped my replacement Vulture had been delivered so I could get some distance and time to digest what had happened.

I reached the hangar bay and my heart sank. There were piles of twisted bulkhead, engine parts and ammo everywhere. Even a Military grade Anaconda in pieces. The only ship left untouched was a Sidewinder in a far corner. “It might be small enough to navigate through this mess”. I sprinted to the hatch, keyed in a code I just thought of and jumped in. As I sat in the cockpit a data cable extended from behind the seat and connected to the port on my head. I was not surprised by this as technical memories came flooding back. I powered up the ship and gently edged over the mangled Anaconda. As I was nearing the hangar entrance, I started spooling the FSD drive, knowing it would destroy all that was left in the hangar. I didn’t care as I had no emotional connection to the place at all, or to anything. The countdown started as a wing of Eagles rounded the communications antenna at the top of the station. They targeted my ship and deployed hard points. I selected a system as far away my range would allow and hit Jump. I checked the Ships data register and found it belonged to the Mathis Institute. So I was part of something fairly big to own ships. At least that takes some heat off when scanned. I sat back and engaged the news feed… “Time to learn who I am”…