Stardate 0606-3302

Commander Brenner Soriah speaking. It seems like such a long time since my last desperate words. Time has an odd way of passing so fast and so slowly. I’ve been reflecting, and am still trying to find my next path. Maybe speaking this out will help me?


Who am I? You already know my name by now, I’m sure. But that isn’t the real question then, is it? You’re not asking what my name is, but who I really am. Where have I been? What have I done? Who IS Brenner Elaine Soriah?

The best place to start with any story is its beginning. In the year 3276, I was born to my parents Clark Soriah and Elizabeth Ddraig in what used to be the very quiet and fairly independent system of Eravate. My father was once a decorated member of the Federation Navy, serving primarily in small convoy escorts and other security force positions. It wasn’t the most glamourous of duties, often looked upon to be in equal with janitorial status, but it was one I looked up to him with pride. When he retired from the military life, he could not find it in himself to leave it completely behind. Where he went next was the only plain option to anyone with their heart in the cockpit. He became an instructor in the Pilot’s Federation Academy, training the eager of mind the arts to a joystick and throttle.  His wife, Elizabeth, followed him in adventure, supporting him as she could and settling into her own enjoyment of botanical research and testing. Neither was a path of any ease. Both of my parents, while not necessarily leaders, were very intelligent and hard workers.

So then with them in mind, is it any surprise to you to know I have ended up here in the cockpit of my own personal fleet? My father filled my head with his short stories of his various escapades both in school and in the space navy. I grew up surrounded by the machinery of Eravate, the data pads and the holograms. My interests flew up to the stars, to a higher calling and a destiny I knew had to be mine. Stories of heroism and daring that sang a sweet siren’s tune to lure me to the expanses. My education was well taken care of by my family’s success. While my father continued to give me a drive to be just like him, my mother gave me the roots to remember that adventure was not all of life. I remember the days walking in her homegrown gardens. I digress, that’s getting too deep. By any measure, I found a deep thrill with the strategy that lay within ace combat. While I waited out my days to my coming of age, I solar surfed the time by under my aging parents’ watchful gaze. I had a lot of expectations to live up to, and I just knew that I’d make them proud.

My birthday came and passed, and so did my time in the Pilot Academy. Day after day was hard study with an aspiration to meet my father’s high standards. It is in my mind that the foundation to piloting cannot be taught, but natural held in one’s spirit. I wasn’t the absolute best, but I was darn near it. And where power resides, so too does want of it by other men. Because of my family’s presence in the Academy, the rumor that was never spoken but always held against me was that I got my marks only on my father’s name. I never had the chance to prove myself to them. I never cared to. My throttle was mine and mine alone, and back then, I didn’t need anyone else to achieve the heroism I sought.

It was time from there to make my own first steps into a world so much bigger than the station life I had known for so long. My father gave me his Viper, modeled after those in the military, to begin my journey into space. My steps were small at first. I supported the Federation that had kept a watchful eye over the system, all the way until conflict broke out between the Network and the criers for Independence. It was the best place to start for me really, seeing as it was where my father first began. I kept my independence, signing on as a contractor for the Federal Navy and running missions against ships that stated combat intentions, both pirate and militant alike. That’s really the basis of my background. The rest begins where my audio logs began. A journey spent. Is it a journey over now? Or a journey just beginning? I need to find where I need to go next. I want it to be back. But is that door locked forever now?

I hope to find it sometime soon, because the dark feels so very close, nibbling at my flesh.
Until my next thoughts come to mind, may your swords stay sharp and may you soar on dragon's wings.
Commander Brenner Soriah, signing off.