Killing Human Beings
03 Feb 2022Aurora Bael
I've murdered 100 people in the last 72 hours.I am not writing that with pride or to brag or to showcase my skill. It is merely a fact. If you were following along and didn't believe that I was capable of those things or thought my story was some kind of exaggeration? Well, check my PFed record. You'll find 78 bounties and a poorly timed rescue and rebuy which lost me proof of the other 22. They were all criminals (as if that makes it better; loitering on a landing pad is enought to catch a bounty most places), and most of them were caught in the act robbing or attempting to rob miners, traders, and travellers. Most of them were very bad eggs...
So why do I feel so rotten about it?
This is my fighting ship, the SS Solidarity. I renamed it because at first, I thought I was getting called to fight in one of Sirius Corp's pocket wars over in Reorte. But by the time I got her out of mothballs and up to spec, the conflict was over. I never even set foot on the field. But for some reason once I was behind the stick of this finely tuned gun with wings, I couldn't just get back out of it. I was compelled to search for trouble. And boy did I find it. First, I called my friend Bob Harkness to see if there were any hot planetside combat zones that needed extra guns. But he and the rest of Foxtrot Company have their dance-cards full for at least the next week with a real persnickety bastard of a client who wouldn't take a new face this late in the planning phase. So, with no way to find the action on the ground, I instead took to space to looking for trouble.
It's easy to find trouble in this ship. Lots of hot-shots with something to prove see an unranked Commander in her shiny new combat ship and think they can make quick work of her. They didn't realize I'd stacked the deck. I flew to half the damn engineers in the bubble to tune, tweak, and tinker with every critical component of this vessel. Now Solidarity really is forever. I took a few targets before she was finished and got my canopy shot out in a CZ. Lesson learned. After that I knew exactly how much I could bite off, chew, and swallow. The beam can reach out and touch someone 4 km away with ease, and the multicannon can chew through hull like tissue paper once I get close. Seasoned pirates melted before me like so much butter on mashed spuds. It was bad. Real bad. In the best way. I killed so many outlaws that the Feds in five systems know me by sight and make sure to thank me for coming when I roll up to the Haz Res now. I've never fought ship to ship before now. It seems I have a knack for it.
...So why do I feel so rotten?
Couple reasons. First, I found myself working with Pigs. After picking clean the second hot-shot in an FDL that evening, one of the Feds I was fighting along side asked me if I'd be interested in a career in the Federation Navy or maybe Law Enforcement. For an anarcho-communist like me, that was a biiiiig red flag. When one finds oneself on the side of established power structures, it is time to pause and reflect. No amount of "relaxing my principles" was able to make that offer feel okay.
Second... Well, second is the last lesson I learned before I died. And it was exemplified in the amazing view I caught as I was packing in on night three.
This is better. It's just better. It's clean, it's free, it's beautiful, and nobody has to die for me to enjoy it. I'd so accepted that I had just survived my own death that the screams and desperation of pilots watching their ships--their homes--disintegrate around them lost meaning. But I checked the transponder codes... none of my marks ever came back like I did. So if that's real for most everyone else, I have to allow it to be real for me, too.
And third... Third is this:
Asmodai. My home. A ship I bought and outfitted specifically for the purpose of returning to the great black yonder. And I know damn well the longer I stay in this blood-soaked death machine, the farther away that return trip will get. So no. No more. It's time to put this thing into storage and make good on the promise of answers to the bigger questions I'm facing right now. Whether or not the old Rory Bael is dead and I am now her clone is, frankly, above my pay-grade. It's beyond the scope of what I can figure out on my own. Some other questions about the nature and source of life in the Galaxy, on the other hand? That I can handle.
So stay tuned, kids. Aunt Rory is about to make the moves that put her back out into the wild, untamed, unseen places in this universe. But I'm going to need some equipment... and I'm going to need to hire some help. Not strictly for the research, mind you. I can probably figure that out on my own. But to keep Azzy running and keep away the space madness while I spend the next two or three months diving deeper into uncharted space? Even just one companion could make all the difference in the world. The Krait is a big fucking ship. An extra pair of hands is worth almost any price.
Fly Dangerous,
-Rory