In Memoriam - CMDR Ernest Swanson (3249-3270)
18 Aug 2023Ember Lacson
Eulogy guest written by Anneliese Wolff (née Swanson)In loving memory of Ernest Swanson
20 April 3249 - 17 August 3270
CMDR Ernest Swanson was a young, ambitious man who dreamed of a better life for his family. Born aboard the Truly Dock starport in 3249 to Arthur and Astrid Swanson, Ernest grew up in the heart of the Empire and, like many of his friends and peers, aspired to become a pilot. While some wanted to become trade tycoons or notorious bounty hunters, my brother wanted nothing more than to see the wonders of the Milky Way. He filled my little head with tales of derring-do and heroism, but also of buried treasure on alien worlds, the legendary Raxxla, Sagittarius A*, NGC 7822, and other places he longed to visit.
He possessed a work ethic unlike any I have ever seen before or since. He knew nothing of exhaustion. He never complained for a moment. He accepted every credit with gratitude and humility. But he also gave them away so freely to those more needy than he that I felt he would never achieve his goal of becoming a pilot. His generosity, however, caught the eye of a nameless benefactor within the Pilots Federation, and he was gifted a Cobra Mk III as well as a quarter million credits, an honor present-day Commanders do not receive in their wildest dreams.
I distinctly remember the tears rolling down his face as the four of us—Ernest, our parents, and I—stood in the hangar. Nobody had told him what awaited him, only that he had been accepted as a new member of the Pilots Federation. Our father, of course, knew everything, and he praised his son to no end while Ernest collapsed to his knees, overwhelmed at the kindness of some anonymous stranger. I remember sharing his sense of wonder as he brought us all aboard to tour the ship. I remember sitting in the copilot's seat and playing with the stick and throttle as our parents looked on and grinned and Ernest provided appropriate sound effects. He explained how there was no sound in space, and he showed me the speakers that provided both auditory and tactile feedback in response to external stimuli. The only thing he loved more than that ship was the three of us. And though his early trade endeavors took him away from us for days, sometimes weeks at a time, he always came home exactly when he said he would.
Until he didn't.
Unbeknownst to our family, Ernest had been running rescue operations in addition to the standard array of career paths for pilots. Distress signals can be fabricated. Pirates can be waiting for an unsuspecting first responder to drop in so that they can prey on their victim. According to his journals, Ernest faced these traps no less than three times during his second year as a a pilot. But he always got away. It gave him a feeling of invincibility. One day he found a signal corresponding to a ship in distress. This ship, a Panther Clipper, belonged to a traders' guild that had become mortal enemies of a local pirate clan, and they genuinely needed help. Ernest did what he often did, firing upon the smaller pirate ships in effort to drive them off for long enough that the larger ship could repair its damaged drives and run away. He called to some of his fellow bounty hunters for assistance, but his transmission never made it through.
Ernest did not expect the arrival of two Fer-de-Lances and a combat-outfitted Anaconda, which had jammed his transmission. They targeted his drives and disabled his ship, leaving him derelict. He attempted to repair, but before he could execute the operation he found himself with a hull breach as the pirates boarded, pulled him out of his seat, and carried him at gunpoint to the Anaconda. They brought him to the bridge and forced him to watch as they reduced his beloved Cobra to a debris field. He remained obstinate as they took him to the brig and beat him for his interference. One by one, the surviving crewmembers of the Panther joined him until the brig was nearly full and the cargo hold was at capacity.
He never let them see his grief. He never let them see his fear. In his true fashion he built a rapport with the captive traders, made them feel like there was hope for release. When the pirates caught him sharing an embrace with his cellmate, a woman named Ayesha Howard, they pulled them both out of the cell and forced Ernest to watch while they executed his new friend. He remained defiant, and they continued the executions until the fifth day of captivity, when they decided he was not worth the trouble.
They stripped him down to his undersuit and jettisoned him into space early on the 17th of August, 3270. This atrocious act resulted in a prisoner revolt and the deaths of the entire Anaconda crew. The surviving traders used the Anaconda to destroy the two Fer-de-Lance escorts and put out a distress call to their guild. By the time they arrived, my brother had been dead for six hours. They collected his body and placed it in a casket, which the leader of the guild delivered to Truly Dock, along with the bronze ship and Commander nameplate he had attached to his console, recovered from the debris in the vicinity of the derelict Panther. He had spoken fondly of his home and his family to the Panther crew, and many of them thought he did so because he knew he wasn't going to see us again.
His ashes have a permanent home here aboard Truly Dock. The food bank where he made much of his early money now bears his name. But his legacy is not the only thing that has persisted. Our grief has kept his name away from the public. While my husband knew of him, my daughter did not, even after thirty years of life. It is time this changed.
If you should visit Truly Dock in the HIP 7142 system, I implore you to come to his memorial site and say a prayer. I urge you to make a donation to the Ernest Swanson Food Bank. It's what he would want. He would not go silently into the night.
May you fly evermore, my dear brother.