Driven
17 Jan 2020Rooster DeVarenne
What drives a man to do a thing? Who the hell knows. I am not even sure what has driven me to put pen to paper...or fingers to keys as it were. Yet here I am pondering over my situation in life and the recent choices I have made. For years I have been content to wander about the galaxy, not really having a place other than the place I made. Making just enough to live comfortably and do some good from time to time when it needed done. Yet here I am pulled into this whirlwind as if the ghost of my past decided to make itself manifest. No good deed goes unpunished I suppose. I here how the Empire has gone out to the Witchhead and set up a few stations right in the backyard of the Thargoids. It wasn't long before they came under attack and the call for help went out. So I drop some creds on a used Dolphin loaded with passenger seats and headed out there to give those people a hand.
I have never seen a Thargoid up close. But I have heard their howls in the void. I have heard the stories of their destructive powers and when I pulled up on that station, I knew the stories where grossly underestimating. So I got to work and bit by bit I helped pull those people off that station. 5 days I did this. I just switched on and got to work. I slept only a few minutes at a time as I got refueled and repaired between trips. I ate here and there. Mostly, I just kept flying into that hell hole and corralling people into seats. Then it was over. That was 5 months ago.
But this tale isn't the reason for my writing this nor is it the reason that I shake my head myself for my recent choices. No, it was her. For a long while now I have accepted the fact that I would never return to my old life, that my House would forever be erased from history and my family's murderer would be left to the fates. I was actually content with life. Then suddenly, there she was. Apparently, my deeds had caught the notice of none other than Her Royal Highness, Princess Aisling Duval.
The long and short of it, the Princess herself bestowed upon me a promotion in the Auxiliary and when she heard of my story, immediately granted my citizenship into the Empire and even recognized me with knighthood into my father's old order the Ordo De Leone et Piscium.
Now, this all sounds like a big fanfare and that we had this nice long chat and that somehow there was some sort of connection between us. The truth is. It was five minutes of fame for me and five minutes for her doing what she does best, being the People's Princess. But our eyes met and I was lost. Not the lost where you take a wrong turn but the sort of lost that says that you have been going nowhere for so long that you didn't realize you were lost and suddenly there is a light guiding the way. It was a feeling I had not felt for 16 years ever since I had lost Allysa.
So there I was a citizen of the Empire...only 16 years late and Knighted no less and what do I do? I hit the black. I wandered around keeping myself busy as far from Imperial space as possible. But the ghosts of my past kept calling me back...and those eyes. Damnit all, those eyes.
I am making my way to Cubeo, the seat of power for Her Highness. One of the Empire's most esteemed organizations hails from there and supports the Princess. It is time I do my duty for the Empire and to my family and with any luck I will see her again. Hopeless....