I need some drive, and not the ionic fusion kind
24 Jan 2017swaghat
I grew up in an upper middle class family on a Coriolis orbital. The system was vaguely Imperial, though not so much as to reflect that in the flamboyant dress or architecture (they can save that biowaste for the core systems, anyway). We were well off enough to manage to live in the upper part of the station where I got to wake up to the artificial sunlight streaming through my window in the morning, a luxury that I eventually found out the more impoverished types seldom experienced. The struggle was never socioeconomic, but money doesn't seem to be able to fix broken families. Dad was a bit of a drunk and mom was a bit of a pushover, and sister and I found ourselves caught in between.I don't want to dance the humble waltz and claim that sister and I weren't gifted; teachers and parents alike knew that we were talented and bright, at least more so than most. Sister got out of the system on a grant from a private Imperial academy as soon as they could get their hands on her, and for good reason, too. She dreamed of being an officer in the navy for years and, though that dream eventually changed, the drive that it takes to make it in the military, especially one so organized as the Imperial navy, burned in her more than I've seen in anyone before. She was goal oriented and strong and she managed to make it out of the station before the family fell apart. That's the biggest difference between her and I. After mom finally grew a pair and kicked dad out, leaving him wandering around in his hauler full of tools doing low-level maintenance work for a couple of the local outposts, it was just me and her. She was always certain that I would make a name for myself, do something important, and I appreciate the enthusiasm but I can't help but wonder if her judgment just isn't what it used to be. She can't see that I don't have the drive that sister has; that girl could make it as an admiral in the Imperial navy, I couldn't even make it as a grunt in the Alliance's excuse for a militia.
Aimless, that's the word I would use for myself. I have never really seemed to be able to nail down what I want. I was at least driven enough to take up the Pilot Federation's offer of a free Sidewinder and make it out of the system I felt so comfortable in for so many years. I was driven enough to sleep in a cramped cabin for months on end, running 2 ton cargo transport jobs and learning how to fight rather than tuck tail and run every time some pirate came after the damn grain that I was carrying. And I was driven enough to work until I was sitting on a rimworld fortune and a small fleet of ships, but I still don't know where I'm going. In that time I've mined asteroids, tracked down criminals, explored the quadrant, and I still don't know what I'm doing. You can only spend so many credits at a planetary outpost bar talking up some girl before you get tired of them telling you that they want a man with goals. You can only spend so many nights sitting on an airless planet looking out of the cockpit at the night sky, drunk on cheap gin, wondering if you're doomed to tread the same route through the stars as your father, that is, a course that leads you to a lonely dead end life fixing faucets for miners. I'm rambling now (gin really does that to me) and I smell some bounties a couple jumps away with my name on them. Wish me luck and maybe send up a prayer to the Galactic Watcher for me, too.
o7