A Record to Validate Reality
26 Feb 2020Nathaniel Burke
Date 26.2.3306Not gonna lie, this past month has been a roller coaster, enough that I'm still not completely sure it was real. So for the first time in years, I'm gonna put pen to paper, so to speak, as a record of how I came to where I now stand.
I started out a career ship mechanic who drifted from station to station, changing commanders like most people change clothes as my captains either discarded me, died, or lost their ships and the ability to fly with a crew. I made good credits, kept my head down, always followed orders. You don't get food on your plate by debating an Imperial noble on her use of slaves, or telling a recon pilot that using the "Neutron Highway" is patently insane, or asking a pirate why he felt the need to empty his missile bank into the power core of a trader who'd already spaced their entire cargo bay. I do my job, get paid, and enjoy the view, sometimes even get a kind word from passengers when I'm on a Saud Kruger space yacht. Life was alright... I guess.
Then some jackass who's got a beef with The Code clapped me over the head, strapped a bomb to me, and tossed me onto the ship of an initiate pirate. Now, I've got experience with explosives. Pirates I've worked with taught me how to use breaching charges since everyone appreciates an extra pair of hands. This was an amateur job of a bomb, just a basic bitch C4 charge. They're less than worthless without a detonation wire, and only morons don't hook a dead-man trigger to it in case someone's clever enough to pull it out. Still, my new "captain" did not like having a stowaway, even if I'd effectively saved her life. And she was halfway to Colonia by the time I woke up, so we were stuck with each other. Still, after a few threats to shoot me into a star, drop me on an ice world, or even dump me into Sagittarius A, we actually managed to connect. If anything, she was even more jaded than I was, and piracy was her way of getting by. Imperial, given her outfit. Aisling loyalist from her words. And supremely lonely. A week of travel from the Core to Colonia helped us give each other perspective. I went to Dromi, got my license, and alternated between bounties, mining, and bulk trading to get my way up to owning a Python. She... went back to the Princess and got a privateering writ. I have to wonder if our next meeting is gonna start with me cussing her out for interdicting me... but I think I wouldn't mind that. Life is strange.