Finding Father - Chapter 1: Histories of Gold and Tales of Old
17 Aug 2016I am worth nothing
-Day 27-Truth is loneliness
Agony is loneliness
Loneliness is a prison
Loneliness is the cult of death
Loneliness is the stop on the way to madness
Out There, 2014
===========================================
Deep Space, Asteroid Field, Krumine
"Hard."
"Yes sir. Sir, it's done."
I cranked the volume knob to high.
Narrowed my eyes as the Anaconda's turreted beam laser sliced a clean line across the front of my Eagle's nose. Music pumped. Shields held. Barely. A flight off flight on maneuver, and I was out of harms way.
The Anaconda was not so lucky. My feint succeeded in grabbing the pilot's attention long enough- so that his dorsal side scrapped against the bottom of an asteroid.
"Common you lousy piece of crap.." I muttered under my breath. I waited for the Anaconda to gain its bearings, taunting him by flicking my headlights on and off rapidly. A quick evasive roll and the mountainous ship rumbled past.
I flipped the flight assist off and flipped in a quick gut wrenching turn to avoid another attack, the inertial dampeners moaning in process as they kept my body frame from squishing up into a piece of paper. The Anaconda blew past a moment later: another failed ram.
Another quick flip, and the Eagle corkscrewed over the belly of the larger ship; Enhanced Thrusters kicking in. I felt the Eagle hum with delight as the power couplings heated up, and twin beam lasers began to carefully sketch crisscrossing patterns over the weakened shields.
I could see the turrets begin to swizzle around, trying to achieve a lock on my position.
I kicked the afterburners and switched the flight assist off once more. The Eagle sprang forward past the turrets and beneath the belly of the Anaconda. I cut down the speed slightly to match the Anaconda's trajectory, cranked the stick as far as I could to the left, and watched as I began circling the ship, like how a moon orbited its mother planet.
The captain of the other ship must've been in a panic as he hit full throttle, attempting to shake me.
"He's only wasting his available power.." I mused to myself.
The Anaconda wasn't by any means fast and though neither a typical stock Eagle, it shouldn't have taken a genius to realize a hopeless situation.
The Anaconda lurched forward, and I upped the throttle only slightly, perfectly glued to his ship in orbit.
The Anaconda's shields were nearly spent.
The captain tried one more desperate maneuver, turning to lead the front of his ship into the face of an asteroid. He meant to force me off him or risk crashing into hard ice-cold rock.
Unfortunately for him, his calculation was about to fail.
Shields, cracked, splintered, and broke crashing back down into his shield generator.
The flight assist was immediately reinitialized, and I found myself settled in the perfect spot. Right in the infamous blindspot that marred every Anaconda. It took less than a second for me to switch firing groups and release the already locked Torpedo Pylon.
There was pop and the tiny frame of the Eagle shook as the missile rocketed to the Anaconda's drives.
Like how the black arrow sprung from the hands of the bard which pierced the dragon, the missile flew past the auto point defense system, and smashed point blank into the rear of the ship. An audible crack was heard over the intercom marking it's successful detonation.
All weapons and turrets ceased firing as the ship drifted, almost ceremoniously to the beckoning half-mile wide asteroid.
The Anaconda was finished and the pilot surely must've realized this. Still he tried in vain to alter his course, his damaged thrusters flashing and cracking with all the useless energy in the galaxy, as fuel slowly leaped out of the ship guts, mortally wounded by my "black arrow."
I had already retraced my hardpoints when the ship smashed headlong into the rock. The front of the nose crumpled, tiny pocketed flares bloomed across the hull, suddenly a brilliant flash, and it was over.
"Sabrina turn music off."
"Yes sir." The AI responded. The music stopped, marked by a quiet beep.
"Time to travel."
"Initializing.. Completed."
The music began again, but instead of heart pounding electric soundscapes, gentle piano music echoed. I hummed a tune to my own recordings, as they filled the snug cockpit.
Tapped a few buttons, look to my right: a quick check of modules, look to my right: a star locked- "prepare to jump-" commands given- then with the sound like a suction cup being pulled of a wall, space wailed, tunneled, churned, and I zipped out of reality. Gone.
===========================================
Popon was about desolate as a system could be before being called "empty."
One tiny star lit the several even tinier planets in orbit, the planet I was stationed on rotating every 17.5 hours. The total population barely soared past a thousand.
Common commodities, your typical big-time wannabe pirates that plagued a many star systems near the central bubble, hell, even reliable Galnet connections were scarce.
It was home. Quaint, quiet, secure.
Literally a few minutes drive from a neighboring Anarchy system.
Today was just another usual day.
Before the yellow orb of light had rose above the mountain range far in the distance, I woke and headed downstairs to the retractable docking platform.
I spent my morning working on the only possession that I took as worth from my unknown father: a battered old Eagle Mark II. It hadn't even come with a custom paint job. Oh but it had come with a LOT of pain in the ass. Repairs, fine-tuning, and outfitting the core internals was a nightmare. It seemed like every piece had been glued together in the most intricate of ways, making it nearly impossible for me to delve into the depths of the craft without breaking a line or unhooking an important wire. I shouldn't be complaining honestly. Once I got the damn thing working it wasn't half a bad of a ship.
Or maybe it was because I've had my ass parked in its seat for too long to notice the difference?
After an hour there was a gentle knock on the door, and an aging man pushed open the double doors. He was an slender, slightly shorter than me. His eyes were bright blue and withered with experience. Grayish hair, mouth tight. Hands thin and knobby from serving patrons and handling foods at various houses for the past several decades. He was settling nicely at 163 years old.
"Mr. Banks. I never heard you arrive last night (he was my butler) please excuse my tardy. Had I known I would've immediately seen you off to your good health."
"Nah, that's quite alright Brent. I didn't want to disturb your sleep."
"Master Banks, you come as kind as always. But please, at least let me know you've arrived next time? You gave me the shock when I saw the family bedroom door open."
I let out a quick laugh. "What? Do you memorize exactly how everything was as I left it?"
The aging man walked to the Eagle with his hand out, tracing the ship's left wing (same one I was standing on as I reloaded the torpedo pylon).
"If you had to spend days on end, occasionally weeks, roaming an empty house with nothin better to do than await the inevitable return of the "Infamous Silhouette Banks" then yes, after awhile, you would begin to recognize even when the tiniest things are out of place."
"Infamous Silhouette.. Is that what they call me now?" I chuckled, growling slightly as I prayed apart a thin metal plate to access the underlay.
"No. Not yet. But you've begun to complete what you set off to do, and that's make your name. But there are rumors.. Rumors most unpleasant as to your.. Nefarious past.."
I was silent for a moment.
It was true. I too had begun hearing the background chatter. It was the attention that I needed so desperately, but not the kind that I wanted. For years I had spent my life slowly reaping what I sowed, earning bit by bit the rep and credit rewards, all the while doing my best to keep the family name hidden.
What if he had a son..? they whispered.
What if he ever comes back..? they spoke.
What if the thing we tried burying deep down in our hearts, forever blacklisting the very memory.. Resurfaced?
I shook my head.
"Oh let them talk. They'll move onto something far more interesting once they've realized that whatever it is cleaning out house in the dark alleyways of space is just another low-leveled mercenary."
"But that's not what you are. A 'low-leveled mercenary.' I've seem the footage onboard your flight recorder, and what you've done certainly is for the betterment of the people if not specifically for yourself, but avoiding police scans, traveling incognito.. In one instance deliberately conning a trader into giving you hydrogen for believing that were some high-ranking politician? These acts are going to raise plenty of questions!"
"I didn't have any money at the moment Brent." I responded neutrally.
"What, the trader? Do you think he did?"
"No. But I did make it safer by one less pirate in that same system. Guaranteed him a better chance to get home to fuck his alluring wife and smile in another family portrait with his two to three kids."
Brent winced slightly. "I could do without the vulgarities Master Banks."
"Yeah. Sorry. Old habits." I gave him a half-hearted smile.
Brent sat on a nearby chair.
"Nick, you must understand. I can't keep doing this for you. After your father died and then you ran away from home I.. I never expected to see you again.."
"I never wanted to come back."
"But you did. I kept the house clean and took care of myself as best I could for two decades, alone. Then who shows but Master Nick Banks himself. Except he wasn't himself. He was no longer the young boy who I always found happily running through the enclosed yard and the rest of the house. Instead, I have a person caught in conflict with himself. Dark. Foreboding. Lost in place. Sometimes I get the feeling your twice as experienced as me. And I'm nearly five times your age!"
"Six Brent."
He blinked. "Yes well.. Same difference. You can't keep me on like this. One day I'm going to be cleaning and find you stuck to the bottom of somebody's shoe! And that sentiment does sit well in my stomach.."
I stood up finally and turned to face him.
"I'm not going to sit around waiting for you to die. It's supposed to be the other way Nick."
A faint smile touched my lips.
"You've done my family a great service-"
"One that I intended to continue doing until the end of my days."
"-one that I cannot thank you enough for. But.. This is my life now. I've only begun scratching the surface. Pretty soon I'll be reviving contacts potentially worth millions. If you don't want any part of it or can't bear to wait for the outcome of my destiny, then I won't stop you."
Brent looked up at me, sorrow filling his eyes.
"Come down here for a moment."
When I had leapt down from the Eagle's wing and stood in front of him, he pulled out a thin envelope.
"Jesus people still use those things?"
"Bit antique, but your father had a particular love for them. Said that they delivered a more pronounced, personal meaning."
He held out the black folder. The family's crescent, a tiny blue snowflake, was in the upper far left corner.
I gently took the folder but didn't open it.
"Your father instructed me to hand this to you when it was time. I did not know what he meant by that. Nor would I know when said time right. But as this may be our last time.. I figured it was now or never."
Jesus he must've been planning this. I realized.
"Is goodbye too harsh?"
"With you, this family? No. Nothing will make me look in the past with unhappiness."
I held out my hand.
"Goodluck Brent."
"Master Banks. And for God's sake, be safe." He took it, then came in for a long hug.
I recall it being pronouncedly silent after he had left..
===========================================
It was later that night I took a look at the folder.
Inside were long messages and passages, most depicting his history as a slave, his dogfights, space combat tactics.
He also mentioned the war he served in, his time afterwards bounty hunting, then moving on to assassinating various political people. Some important, some not so much. He apparently turned down a multi-million dollar contract for the assassination of Shadow President.
His list of "achievements" (aka crimes) were long and grueling to read through, and his scrawled hand writing didn't help speed the process any.
Various people he met over his years were scribbled down in black faded ink, people's names that looked like "cri--so----ar---w" and "Martuuk."
There was one named "Lehm---," one called "As---l," and another named "Sa-s". There was also strange symbol at the very bottom of the page. It was a snowflake almost resembling that of a heart, the initials inside the shape being "T.S. and T.S.."
Pages and pages of lined graphs and charts were all that was left. It meant nothing but gibberish to me.
After taking an hour trying to ascertain the secret to my father I slammed the folder shut and tossed it away frustrated. The bastard had always been fond of riddles, and yet, even after his death, I was still no closer to figuring out his demise.
"These names..." I suddenly wondered out loud. "What if..?"
Despite the faded ink, if I was able to grab even a handful of names from this list then there was a good chance at least one of them would still be alive. I look up at my ship.
It's modified wings and gleaming fins glowing in the dark hanger.
"Fine." I though. "First thing tomorrow, I'm going out to find at least one of these people."
"Martuuk" seemed like the most complete name, so that's where I would start.
===========================================