(Story) Homecoming
HomecomingShip, lost. Loans, maxed. Sidewinder, claustrophobic.
A trip in an Escape Pod that lasts a lifetime, as you watch the Ship you worked so hard to build being ripped apart by Pirates.
A short, terse conversation with the Bank where all your pleading, all your promises go unheeded and unheard.
A long, depressing trip, hitching from system to system, just for that promise of the free Sidewinder.
We’ve all been there, right?
Back in the Purgatory of LHS 3447. Trevithick? Terrific. A “pleasant” 90,000 ls journey from the FSD drop point. Don’t believe what the tourism boards tell you: “A fresh start!” “A Sidewinder for every new Pilot, gratis!” Make no mistake - this is hell. As if the Sidewinder traffic of greenhorns, barely able to deploy a cargo scoop, wasn’t bad enough? The predatory Commanders, soaring past about in their gleaming, engineered craft make it all so much worse. They might kill you, just for the sport of it. They might just shoot out your canopy and leave you spinning in space. Who knows? So you get out. You move to a safe starting point, a fresh location.
So my grind begins once more. The trickle of pathetic income for “Being a Citizen of the Great Federation” means nothing. However many bounties you can steal from system authority? That’s what matters. So I hunt, I stalk my prey like a mosquito stalks a tiger, and when the time is right I whisk away the bounty and jump from the other hunters. Rinse. Repeat. Economy grows, soon the Sidey is traded in for something new. What this time? Revenge. Revenge for the Hauler once taken. Another combat ship. Eagle? Or save for that Viper or Cobra? It makes little difference to me.
Weeks pass like the blink of an eye, and I find myself back in a Diamondback Scout, my oldest friend. We’ve had many adventures together, he and I. Exploration and Combat, those are his namesakes and lineage, but the former means nothing to me. Again and again I strike those who cannot see me coming, burning through their cheap shields like a beam laser through butter. Bounties roll in, assassinations completed, enemies massacred. Fight, Fly, Jump, Kill, Land. Before long his internals are well decked out, his capabilities expanded. Still we find no purpose.
Listing aimlessly through space, system to system. A mission here, a Conflict Zone there. None of it really matters. Why am I here again? What am I doing?
The latest mission, flying in Convoy. In a wing for once. Escort duty, a Type-7 Federal Logistics craft, laden with cargo. Some interest from local pirates, but nothing a few railgun blasts don’t deal with. Boring, but well paid work.
Until a familiar noise, but not from my end. The crew of the T7 cries out in fear, I can hear the familiar rattle of an Interdiction pattern though comms. Before long they are pulled out, and I whirl about and drop in with them, in front of my opponent.
An Imperial Cutter. Rare this deep in Federation Space. My scan completes, an Empire craft - Imperials doubtless baying for Federation blood. I know I cannot fight this, flick off my shields and turn to flee.
The first volley rips straight through the T7. Weapons fire, chunks of freighter are thrown into my way by the blast. The screams of the crew over comms are interrupted by the message from this stranger on open channel: “Arissa Invicta! Ad Nonum Gloria!” His voice tears through my craft, and I flee as best I am able, but you cannot outrun a Cutter in a Scout. It is no contest, and his sharp eyes track me across the star spangled black of space.
The deadly whine of a Hammer hurtles into my eardrums as several bolts rip into my ship, and an answering “Hull Integrity Compromised” drones from my console. A damage report later, it is obvious that my power plant has been crippled. All begins to shut down, my ship lists through space limply. Life support is active, and even as the subsystem repairs start the race against time, I know all is too late.
I lash out through open comms, screaming all the insults I can at the man who wants to remove yet another piece of my hard work, goading him to finish what he has begun. His ship hovers motionless in front of my crippled wreck, close enough to read the ship name; Archon. The impassive Gutayama cockpit staring at mine as I await another trip by escape pod.
Then he laughs. He chuckles with some furious glee, and his hardpoints retract. Confusion streaks through me - what is he doing? Imperials never leave Feds alive. But he keeps speaking, his voice reverberating through my ship.
“I was like you once. Nothing to do but everything, right? No purpose, no fun, just a lonely existence in space.”
He leaves me to float there in my confusion for some seconds before continuing.
“Ever felt like you wanted something more? Your ship and your skills say you’re capable, but I don’t know if you’re ready. You’re still just biting at dust, changing nothing and being nothing.”
He starts to wheel his ship away from mine, and I hear a quiet roar as his FSD starts to charge up.
“If you ever feel like you were meant to be more? Come to Malaikudi. Heckmann Ring. Come to the Saloon there. See what you can be, and what you can do, Mantis. Or... Well, a KWS is certainly cheaper than the fuel costs.”
With that his ship hurtles away from me, and blinks out of existence, the wake shunting my DBS round in a spin. I am shaken, I am angry, but I am alive, and I am going to stay that way. Presently my systems are repaired enough to fly, and I make haste to the closest starport for repairs. All the way back, and the days after this his words play on repeat in my head, every jump I make.
“See what you can be, and what you can do, Mantis”
Before long I make my choice. I turn my back on the federation, and prepare myself for the journey to Malaikudi. 300 ly. A long trip for a combat vessel with a poor FSD, a Federation Bounty for the destruction of Federal Logistics, and through Federation Space every inch of the way. I can stay long enough to invest in a fuel scoop, before I must run.
Jump after Jump, star after star, refuelling when I can, and escaping Federation Agents system after system. I feel I can taste the back of my seat, so many times my head is rammed into it by sudden Frame Shifts. I sleep orbiting Dwarfs, I eat the little rations I have, but I do not stop. I will not be stopped by this.
Several unlucky dwarfs in row, my hastily plotted route brings my fuel low. I’ve forgotten what it feels like to sleep out my chair, my hands grasp sticks that aren’t there when I stand. I know I must be close, but I cannot bear to look at the Nav systems. I cannot take realising that I am far when I feel so close. Another jump and I know I’ll be in fumes. I align, I jump.
A binary star system. 2 dwarfs. No scooping, no respite, no escape from my senseless life. All seems lost until I realise something - my navigation ball has no set destination. I greedily haul open the navigation console, and it is so - I am at Malaikudi. A few button presses later, I’m accelerating towards Malaikudi A1, a mere 115 ls from my arrival destination. Minutes race by almost as fast as my heart thumps, as I negotiate landing with the Station Authority, and stumble out of my craft, feet unsteady in the Art-Grav. I ask the nearest personnel how to reach the… What was it? Bar? Pub? Salary? He laughs, and puts me on a transport for some obscene price as my DBS sinks into the floor. I pay him. I don’t care.
I find myself outside a grey looking building, 2 storeys high and mostly composite alloys, with a sign that proclaims “Leopold’s Saloon” in Deep Crimson. There is an insignia above it - the crest of the Empire in this same colour, with IX engraved either side.
The penny drops. This is the safe haven of the 9th Legion. I swallow my screeching nerves, and step in, through the archaic Saloon doors.
Music stops, and every head turns to face me, every eye searing into mine. Soldiers, all of them; Scars and medal festooned flight suits. I, stammering, explain myself and my reason for being here. A familiar voice from the upper balcony greets me, and presently two figures look down at me. The first, my recruiter, a man who names himself as Cody. The second, a tall, lean man, with sunken dark eyes, thin trimmed facial hair, and an imperious, angular face. I know who he must be: Ronnie Kane, one of the leaders of the 9th. He bids me tell him my story.
I do so, such as it is. He and the rest of the Legion listen, still none of them speaking. Finally, when I am finished with my part, and after a minute of so of quiet discussions with those up above, Kane himself speaks.
“You are ready then? To leave that aimless past behind? To pledge fealty to the Empress and join our Legion?”
I tear the Federation patch from off my shoulder, and salute.
The assembled Legionnaires cheer in greeting. Drink is poured, laughter and conversation and music spill forth in this Saloon once more.
Just like that, I know.
I am home.