Origins
29 Aug 2019Marlfan1
I was born on February 27, 3249 at 3:30AM. Birthed by a midwife attending to my mother, Rosella and my father, Marlfan. I, of course, have no memories of any of this. I was told I was a big baby, long and fat as a baby should be. Healthy, healthy lungs too I am further told. I entered the settlement of Fafner in the Jotun system where my father worked with his brother Murray, and his father, Warren on the family farm. Other family members were Murray's wife and his two children, James and Karen, and my grandmother Dorothy. I don't remember any of them. At all. There are no family pictures laying around to point them out in either. My earliest memories are of fire. Fire and screaming and the ground shaking beneath my tiny feet as I ran crying with my hand in mother's towards the family's type 6 transport. My dad was there somewhere, but all I remember is my mother.It was 3253 and the Thargoids were destroying our home and family. I was told that our world came to a shattering end without warning. In one second we were at peace and going about our day, the next, everything was on fire and everyone was dead.
My dad tried to the find others. He went running into the house and then the barn even as they burned, looking for them. Nothing was left. No-one was left. My father was burned badly on his left arm from the fires raging through the homestead, scars gotten while he was searching. He carried the scars from that horrific burn the rest of his life. He allowed the healing of the wounds, but refused the skin grafts to cover the scars. They were all he had left of his family, he said.
With mother begging him to leave, he finally sent us towards the type 6, Pockets, so we could try to escape. We did. We got out. Not many others from Fafner ever did.
Dad flew us to Caleta, to Savinykh Dock just under 11Ly away. A Federation system. Jotun had been Independent, but the Federation had a navy. The Federation could protect what was left of his family.
Dad said he flew back to Jotun, to Fafner, to our farm, 3 days later. Everything was gone. The fields were smoking stubble. The house, barn, and other outbuildings were reduced to piles of rubble. Out in the middle of the nearest field there was an Imperial Clipper. Around the house and barn 5 or 6 men were working industriously surveying and measuring everything. One man, in a sharp, new suit with a bright red tie walked up to dad with his hand out.
He was with such and such corporation. Terrible what happened here, just terrible! Was this your place? Were these your family?, pointing to six tarp covered mounds to the side of the house. A shame, such a shame really, what happened here, he said. Its got to be hard, coming back here after such a devastating loss. Why, if it were me, I would just want to sell out, leave, start over fresh somewhere away from the haunting, painful memories...
We can do that for you. We can buy you out, give you a stake you can take with you anywhere you want to go to start over. You wouldn't want to have to rebuild here from scratch, not with all the ghosts and fears, and pain...
Suit never saw it coming. Never even knew he'd been punched until he woke up several minutes later.