Unwitting Greenhorn
06 Oct 2015Arsen Cross
I started off like any other Commander. A typical Pilots Federation graduation followed by an abrupt drop into the freedom that is being an independent starship pilot. Before all that I grew up in the Cantjarisni system. I was born and lived most of my life on Cochrane Enterprise. Back before the feds robbed the station and system of its Independence. My childhood was mostly uneventful. I never knew my family. All I know is that I was abandoned on the station. I was fortunate though and a kind woman named Evelyn took me in. That was when I was five. She raised me by herself always encouraging my exploration into various subjects. She could see the spacer in me, even way back then. She paved a path for me to become a pilot by doing everything in her power to make sure I was exposed to starships as much as possible.
By age ten I was running around the hangar bays like I owned the place. My favorite was the fitting bays. I loved watching the pilots tinker with their ships. As a child I often found the pilots happy to receive the admiration of a young boy, stary eyed at a possible future truly among the stars.
It was only natural that when I became old enough to work, I started out in the very hangar bays I explored as a child. I began as a dock hand monitoring the machinery and quickly resolving minor loading and unloading issues for the high volume traders. Eventually I moved up and became the swing shift supervisor for bay 41.
I loved working forty-one. So many Commanders would get complacent and fail to realize their bay assignment and come in too hot. I loved watching the good pilots recover from the mistake. I watched so many ships flip, roll and tuck. None captured my attention like the Python though. We had a regular trader that frequented the station and flew a Python rigged for trade. He was a great pilot and it was like watching the creation of art when he landed his Python at my pad as if it were a leaf gently kissing the ground in fall.
I had known for many years that I was going to be a spacer. In fact, I wasn't far off from my required simulator hours for entry into a pilots academy. What I learned at bay 41 however is that the Python was calling to me. I knew that's the ship I had to fly one day and set my mark.
My time at the academy was no more special than any others. Like many, I had a natural talent but was green as could be. I even managed to crash a training shuttle in a real flight exercise. That's when the other nuggets started calling me 'Razer' for the way I managed to shave the cockpit of the shuttle clean off on the entry cage. That experience taught me a most important lesson, respect the mass.
Once I graduated I immediately started off exploring. Just jumping in random directions just to go. It's blind luck that I didn't get myself stranded in those early days. I just couldn't contain my excitement. While exploring a nearby system I set into my first career as an independent. Unauthorized salvage operations. Having grown up on Cochrane I was well connected on the station so selling my haul was never an issue on the local black market.
I very quickly increased my wealth. I spent a short time in most of the entry price range ships while salvaging. Once I got to the Cobra though, I split away from my salvage operations and ran trade. With a decent cargo ship and enough capital I had finally managed to set off the chain reaction to reach my goals. It only took a couple short months of dedicated trade to get my first Python.
The Python was worth every bit of effort. It's large and heavy. But capable and well defended. I used it to trade up to a Type 9, and then an Anaconda. From there I traded until I reached a point of wealth where I could purchase and equip a Python with top of the line equipment across the board. It took a couple more months, but I learned a lot about many starships.
The day I traded in the Anaconda, was the day that I achieved my dream of piloting a true starship capable of withstanding all the hardships of space and thriving, while still retaining freedom of travel. The Python was everything I dreamed it would be. Enter, Sojourn.
It didn't take me long to start giving in to the mercenary contracts. I quickly received many notices requesting mercenaries and found myself constantly waging wars I knew nothing about, for money. The most notable, and only truly major military action I saw was a war for debt reclamation of Kui Hsien on behalf of Senator Denton Patreus.
It was a short, but excessively bloody war. Sojourn treated me well. I made more money from my performance than I had initially hoped for. I now had spending money on top of my security funds. An extra 14,000,000CR worth of spending money. I was happy for my pay and proud to have helped put those who dishonored their agreements in their place.
The war ended the day after my birthday. When the Senator released the mercenaries and paid out the contracts a news article was released within hours. Apparently, in the final hours of the conflict the Senator decided that the assets were no longer worth the value of the debt. He claimed the debt of the corporation, by enslaving its citizens. I was appalled.
The best part about being an independent is that when a client becomes sour; you can move on easily. I left for the black and spent a time two kylies away from the furthest edge of the human bubble. A guilt induced vacation of sorts. I disconnected myself from the activity of humanity and decided to watch from afar like a curious child.
I learned about the Utopians through Galnet and found myself attracted to their cause. I came back to the bubble and signed up as a contractor with them eager to do good for the universe. At the time though I couldn't find actual properly paid work for the supporting governments. They were so poor that they were constantly requesting donations, while not ever offering any paid work. They were struggling to take care of their own people while trying to get more to join them. Then there's the prisoner transports for dissidents. They claim it's only criminals, but transporting them myself sure didn't feel right. Everything about the protocols for handling and transferring the prisoners was just down right skeevy.
Then, I turned to Sirius.