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+--- Thread: Kaze Nelson Reidman Dagon (/showthread.php?tid=138359)
Kaze Nelson Reidman Dagon - Kaze - 04-21-2016
A Wind in the Wild
Kaze Nelson Reidman Dagon Descriptive Biography
Kaze Nelson Reidman Dagon Descriptive Biography
RE: Kaze Nelson Reidman Dagon - Kaze - 04-21-2016
![[Image: KXCuQVD.png]](http://i.imgur.com/KXCuQVD.png)
I was born in Planet New London, Chelsea sector - Palace Gardens, into a family with ties to royal blood. Although noble, our wealth did not came from heritages or assets earned by my ancestors. The only thing of value was the family estate and grounds. Our true wealth came from the emerging technology company that my father built from the ground up, that granted us the needed education for young children that frequented the royal receptions and dinners. Private tutors educated me and my twin brother in etiquette, protocol and the assorted education of literature/mathematics/etc.
My parents were the uncommon couple of the nobility present in the functions. My mother, Tara, the claimer of hereditary peerage to the Duchy of Newcastle, cousin to Queen Carina the First, was at the time, a Lieutenant in the Bretonian Armed Forces (much to the chagrin of my great-grandfather, so i was told) and, to the lack of a better word, rebellious. Outspoken, quick to anger, and not afraid to get her hands dirty, she was the Queen's favorite cousin during their youth. Yet the most vivid memories i have of my mother in those days, was seeing her sitting on the porch, peacefully reading a book with a smile on her face, as her imagination ran rampant. My father, Andrew, you could say he was the complete opposite. Sired by a former Blood Dragon pilot, Hotaru, that fell in love with what seemed a knight in shining armor that saved her from quite the predicament, but was truly a Junker from Yanagi, Alec, a good looking man with dashing features and an easy going smile. My father is without a doubt, one of the most silent men i have ever met. But his blue eyes speak volumes. With a technological savvy above reproach, my father was raised and studied in Liberty, losing his father in his childhood. Before going to Bretonia, he worked for the Liberty Security Force in the civilian R&D department. Needless to say, a half-Kusarian junker mongrel was ill suited for a lady of the Bretonian court. Luckily, my mother considered herself nothing of that. She was a soldier of Bretonia, first and foremost, and damned be the sensibilities of the weak-chinned sirs and puffed up ladies.
Me and my twin brother, Meallan, followed the same course. Complete opposites. While i was solemn, silent and educated in the matters of etiquette, my brother was a young cowboy, to say the least. The devil with two legs, one of the housekeepers called him. The only times i saw my brother silent was when he was glued to my father, watching him disassembling an engine or designing a new circuit. He obviously took that from my father, since my mother didn't even know how to function with a robotic stove properly.
It was a good life. Yet, i learned since tender age, that people wear masks everyday. The procedures, the courtly receptions, royal parties, they all proved that to me, since i could assimilate the information for that. And that clearly influenced my way. When i was freed from the standard and respectful presentations, i would roam the rooms, using my small size to hear and look at situations where the masks fell. Silent agreements. Solemn nods. Whispers near a table. Information became my weapon of choice, and i learned how to use it. Normally it ended up in my mother's ear, which she later on used as ammunition whenever someone tried to blacken and tarnish our family. The priceless looks on those broken masks.
It was a treat.
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RE: Kaze Nelson Reidman Dagon - Kaze - 04-22-2016
![[Image: mdyppE5.png]](http://i.imgur.com/mdyppE5.png)
Happiness, they say, never lasts forever. I am forced to decompose the sentence and it's meaning. It is impossible to live a full life with happiness from moment zero to the last moment. And i am glad such is true. Because it is in turmoil, sorrow, despair and rage that we find our true selves. In pain, both physical and mental, we see our limits. And three days before mine and my brother's ninth birthday, happiness ended for the first time in my life. A cold dark night that any children has one time in their life.
My parents woke me and my brother up in the middle of the night, and quickly told us to pack our essential belongings. I asked why.
My mother did not replied and my father pursed his lips. All we got was words to be fast, there wasn't any time left. It dawned on me at that time, we were leaving home. My home. My planet. Everything i have ever knew. As our ship cleared the atmo and pressed on to cold space, my brother's eyes were in awe. Mine were packed with a seething rage. With only one question in mind, i asked it again to my mother. She was stressed, she was on edge and she did not replied, again. It was my first outburst. It was the first time i noticed how much alike my mother and I are.
Two days later, the clouds of Hokkaido colored the space around us. Not that i cared. I was resigned to what had happened, and both my parents, apart from whatever made them run, were concerned with my outburst. My brother however, the gentle fool, was ecstatic. All i heard during the voyage was him and the replies from my parents. But then, silence. My brother was silent. I looked up, and a shadow covered half the freighter. I ran to the closest view port and there it was. Something beautiful, bred for war. My mother's B-907A Crusader was an excellent combat vessel in it's own right, but this was totally above it. Every detail, every curve and every edge breathed battle. I found myself breathing faster as my mind raced to find who they were. The sound of my father's replying on the comms woke us up from our daydream. He was talking to them in Kusarian. Never i have ever heard my father using the Kusarian language and that riled me up. Secrets. There were more secrets in my life that i did not know. Not later on, in a black cloud filled with thunder.. There it was. My home for the next foreseeable future.
Kyoto.
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RE: Kaze Nelson Reidman Dagon - Kaze - 04-22-2016
![[Image: YRhqIkW.png]](http://i.imgur.com/YRhqIkW.png)
While the beginning in Kyoto was quite difficult, i adapted to it quite well after a time. My brother, thankfully, has the adaptation capacity of a cockroach, and took it like a duck to water, in lack of a better metaphor. Although he was still a cowboy, trying to harass girls whenever he felt like and playing the obvious prank whenever he could, he learned the language, the protocol and what he could do and what he could not. Me, however, found myself under the scrutiny of my grandmother, who I, up until the time i had reached Kyoto, didn't knew she was alive. And proverbially kicking behinds. After my father left for Bretonia, she decided it was time to return to her home, and left Liberty, and was there ever since. Warm and serene, she took me under her wing as her favorite target for what passes for respectful affection that the Kusari traditional ways have. And the main target for her to pass her knowledge.
Training. An insanely amount of training was the norm with her. While some would look at it as martial arms and combat training, it was had a deeper reasoning. A deeper meaning on the why it was happening. My mother explained to her our common difficulty to deal with our emotions. Namely after the point of breakage. Thus, they decided to kill two birds with a stone, so to speak, giving me a much needed foundation in combat, and the mental stability and will to cope with the outbursts that were increasing. My mother and my father also played a key role in this. My mother taught me the basics of fighting in a vessel, and my father, who i thought that his sole talent was the understanding of technology, taught me something far greater. The art of the shadows.
Little by little, day by day, i learned bits and pieces of the history that plunged us into Kyoto, into hiding. Father, in the past, did not worked for a civilian R&D company that was sub-contracted to the Liberty Security Forces. He was actually in the Liberty Security Forces and managed to enter their Weaponry Development program. And it was that past that allowed him to teach multiple skills that i felt truly at home. Human Intelligence. how to disguise, how to act, how to steal, how to see past the masks i so very well knew. Then came the technology that gave support to that area of expertise. Hacking, securing data, reading sensors, explosives. How preparation was the key of success. How assumption was the mother of all failures. And when i thought i knew myself at last, then came my grandmother for one last lesson.
How to kill.
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RE: Kaze Nelson Reidman Dagon - Kaze - 04-22-2016
![[Image: dTtBaLO.png]](http://i.imgur.com/dTtBaLO.png)
New Tokyo is the most depressing planet i have ever seen. A total opposite of the remaining planets that belong to Kusari. My grandmother and i landed without a hassle by the planet security force. Whatever papers the Blood Dragons arranged us, they were good. A sickly old woman and her young companion/servant. Although i was stone faced, as i learned back all those years back in New London, my mind was racing. Afraid. Feeling the panic flowing, as i tried hard not to show it in my hands and body. As we traveled to our destination, a hospital, my grandmother looked to me and said that it would be alright if i did not wanted to go forward. I shook my head and steeled myself in reply. But an incessant question was the why. Why is always the question in my mind if you are wondering. My grandmother, looking the part of a sickly old woman, made me sometimes wonder if she had psychic powers of some kind, because not even ten seconds after looking at me she said:
"You are wondering why you are going to do this?"
My eyes didn't moved, my mouth did not opened. All that was around us was the sound of the speeding hover-taxi. And my breathing. I felt that my breathing was being too loud, too fast. I was nervous, feeling that i was made of glass, where one touch would unravel me.
"You are going to do this because to kill a person takes a toll. Even more so the first."
She looked ahead, and the hospital was coming into view. Without warning, she placed her hand on top of mine and continued.
"And i want you to take this toll now, when you have your family around, than later, when you won't."
With that said, her hand left. So was the warmth. I could feel her steel herself as well. I could sense she was doing something against her own nature. Yet, she was there. And for what i knew from my grandmother, she only did the necessary. Not one fraction more or a fraction less. I was going to open my mouth asking another why and she looked at me with those eyes. Eyes of a teacher. Of a grandmother. Of a god that is looking down upon us, strained in questions of what to do with us.
"You are going to kill this man, because not only is needed by the Dragons. But because you will need it as well."
I wondered what did she mean back then. Now i know very well the why, the how and the what.
"Your path will be violent. It will be harsh. All i can do is to soften the start."
The hover-taxi halted, and her whole form changed from a statue made of steel to that of an elderly woman, trying to get out of the hover-taxi at much cost. She shouted for help and I quickly woke up from my daze and hurried to help her.
The man, the target, was a doctor in the hospital. My grandmother stated over and over again to be quick, to be silent and to be deadly. Of the three, the last one was absolute. I could not fail. And i did not. Armed only with a small polymer needle that my grandmother managed to smuggle inside her cane, i stabbed him in the elevator. Right in the heart. He died trying to grab me and my clothes for support. His eyes, filled with anger, pain and fear were carved ever since then in my mind. The blood, painting his white lab coat red. Slowly. I turned around, and left. Finally back in Kyoto, i went to the darkest corner i could remember. And i did not scream. I did not cry. I did not feel.
And that was what scared me the most.
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RE: Kaze Nelson Reidman Dagon - Kaze - 04-25-2016
![[Image: 4XtseY7.png]](http://i.imgur.com/4XtseY7.png)
Two years after killing my first person, i was prolific, i was focused, i studied and trained everyday until i failed to stand up properly. In this, i had found a small shard of peace. As long my head and my body were occupied, the darkness i had found was kept at bay, and the incessant questions of the why i was going through all of this were buried deep in a constant barrage of tiredness. On our seventeenth birthday, my brother and i were not surprised with a birthday party, but with a family reunion in the most true Kusarian style. Our parents told us what was the event that forced us to flee Bretonia.
As i previously said, my father lost my grandfather at a young age. Lost, as in, he simply vanished in short trip from Planet Denver to Planet Manhattan. While some attributed the disappearance to pirating gone wrong, since there was quite the Xeno presence in Colorado, my father and my grandmother always felt something was amiss, since there was no reports of disrupted lanes or detected pirate movement at the time of the voyage. There was however a great interest of the Liberty Security Force in the whole case, something abnormal for a random Junker disappearance, thus my father decided then that he find what had happened and where his father was, since there was a lot of discrepancies in the whole event.
So he followed the only true lead he had. Liberty Security Forces. When of age, he applied and got in. Unfortunately, he was more valuable to the R&D Department than to Operational Department, so access to classified operational files was, if nothing, exceedingly monitored. Years passed and connections were created. Bonds, if you wish. Debts, if it would. And so, before my father managed to be too much of an annoyance, he left the Agency as he met my mother. But he never really did stop. His friends in debt, to put it mildly, continued the search in his name, and several old classified data was identified. But has they managed to get that information, someone got the information that it was still being searched. All the warning my father had was a check-in security data packet sent by one of his contacts, telling him that he was most likely dead, after digging too much.
And the rest happened, as it was described before. At that moment, my feelings were boiling. Children paying for their fathers mistakes, i thought. My grandmother placed her hand on my shoulder, and what was a raging storm became a warm wind. This was not created by my father. It was created by whoever decided this pain to be brought upon him. All i asked was what they would have me do.
And by the heavenly hells, my mother was completely against it.
By now, dear reader, you can assume on how that went.
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RE: Kaze Nelson Reidman Dagon - Kaze - 04-28-2016
![[Image: ZMiexVz.png]](http://i.imgur.com/ZMiexVz.png)
Liberty. If i would ever imagine when i arrived the first time in New York, that this House would be such a pivotal member of several of my defining moments in life, i would say i was mad. Liberty was something i was not prepared to meet in the first time. Messy, chaos, and with an ever eternal spiral of movement. I was not prepared. But somehow it felt right. It felt good. All that madness that seems to populate the central core of Sirius. And why Liberty, one would ask. And the answer to that question was the Liberty Security Forces. My father's last lead lay there in the cold and darkness. Me and my brother, with some exceedingly well made forgeries and convenient and well payed bureaucrats, arrived and each went to their own target. I joined the Liberty Security Forces as my brother joined the Liberty Navy, since the Navy did not had the same security protocols when it came to reports.
My path, with my father's training, was stellar. I knew what to do, i knew how to act and above all, i knew how to not make a wave and summon unneeded attention over my persona. Finally, with many favors collected and in debt, i became apt in hiding in the shadows and in plain sight with the information that i needed. File numbers related to my father. Unfortunately, the data-core that contained those data files was a repository for old classified mission files and it was going to be transported from Alaska to the Liberty Security Forces vaults. And to add that special touch of fate, said data-core was to be transported by none other than the flagship of the Liberty Navy, the Panzerfaust, that was currently enjoying a retrofit in the Juneau Shipyard.
We had less than a week and the plan, however daft it was, involved using my brother's position as a Lieutenant in the Navy to gain entrance into the Panzerfaust. In our path, i placed several explosive charges, to guarantee that if followed, we could block the pursuit. Short story is.. We did retrieved two files regarding my father and my grandfather case. However we were caught in the act. Which rang the klaxon alarm and basically got us on the run. In an attempt to lose our pursuers, i triggered the explosives, closing several security bulkheads and effectively cutting them off. Unfortunately it seems i also triggered several malfunctions that had a catastrophic result. The Panzerfaust core became overcharged and soon it would release enough energy to rip it apart. And it did. More than seven hundred lifes were lost. We managed to escape in the nick of time and in the middle of the confusion that was general system wide. I also heard that the, at then, Fleet Admiral Christopher Phelps was also in the Panzerfaust but managed to escape unscathed. We had to run, because i knew we would be identified in a question of minutes after the explosion. So me and my brother parted ways. He followed a friend to the Order. I went on in the opposite direction until i was satisfied i was far away and found myself in what i considered Hell in Sirius. The front line of the Colonial/Outcast war.
Tau-23.
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RE: Kaze Nelson Reidman Dagon - Kaze - 04-30-2016
![[Image: 5TmZdwG.png]](http://i.imgur.com/5TmZdwG.png)
When i arrived to the Taus, it was a relatively unknown hotbed of chaos and destruction. A struggle of maddening proportions with a surprising delicate geopolitical balance. IMG, Colonials, Outcasts, Privateers, Bretonian Armed Forces, Imperial Kusarian Forces, Hogosha, Chrysanthemums, Dragons, Pirates, Mercenaries, the occasional terrorist madman and asteroids. An unforgiving amount of asteroids. And in the words of the bartender in Java, the 'roids always wins.
I arrived at Java Station in a sleazy shuttle, after selling my Guardian in the Barrier Gate Station for a measly sum. I sent all the data back to my parents from there, unfortunately encrypted beyond belief. Only the metadata of the files headers indicated it was the right ones. From Barrier, i took a shuttle to Freeport 6, arranged for fake identification papers, and headed to Planet Harris. There i worked for a couple of weeks as a cleaner, time needed for a more solid paperwork. Got killed by a nasty bandit for 50.000 credits, and with that new set of identification, finally flew to my last destination. Java. A station built by the IMG in the end crevice of the Taus. There, i shed my fake identification papers and finally used my real name and paperwork. Such was needed if i wanted to actually work for more than mere pickings. With the paltry sum of credits, i bought a second hand CTU-4b "Waran". Old model, but trustworthy enough to work in this region. Yes. Work. Miners asking for protection detail, Colonials hiring all the mercenaries that showed up to fight in their war, you had it all in the Taus.
For a couple of weeks, i had found out that the miner protection detail was profitable enough to get a decent vessel, yet it was murderous and dangerous, as several incursions of the Outcasts and pirates happened everyday. They did not just went to extort money from the miners. No, they were out for blood. Including the escorts like myself. I did wonder if it was because the prey that gives a fight is more rewarding. So, at the end of those weeks, i released the Waran, so to speak, selling it to another unlucky soul that was looking for a new start in that gods forsaken piece of the universe. With some brown nosing to the local IMG representative, i managed to get permission to use a brand new Mafic. A marvelous machine that was used to mining. Why, i always wondered, since the size and the sheer amount of firepower it could deliver was above average.
I was then hired by the Colonials, in the spur of the moment, for a large scale engagement in Tau-37. And it was beyond madness. While in Tau 23, a nightmare for capitals, one could use the rocks to even the odds against a superior enemy number, Tau 37 was nothing like it. Open space, with a Freeport right in the middle, like an invisible line splitting two warring kingdoms. And in that line stood two armies to the lack of a better word. One side, the Outcasts with a fleet capable of putting several Liberty Navy fleets to shame. The other, Colonials all in snubcraft, numbering the dozens. A veritable David versus Goliath. After that engagement, both sides left with more casualties than i could count. My brand new Maffic was hit in the engine and i was forced to retreat or be killed. As i docked in Java, alongside with the remaining Colonials, another attack was to happen, and the ragged, tired men energized like it was the first fight of the day for them. I could not believe my eyes. Their ships were barely holding together from the hasty repairs, and off they went, merrily even. Like this was their fate in life. Their happiness. I went along with them, with the Mafic engine half repaired, but willing. Was it always like this? A never-ending battle? A place to atone the sin i committed back in Alaska. Seven hundred of them. In that day, i participated in four more sorties. Destroyed a Sarissa cruiser alongside a nameless Colonial that died to its turrets. I fell into my bed tired as i haven't felt in more than a year.
I woke up that morning with payment and a message from the Colonials. They wanted to hire me for a more permanent contract. I replied i wanted a place in their forces. Three months later, i was finally out of Combat School, a full fledged citizen of the Colonials and a Junior Lieutenant. And to top it all of, the proud pilot of one of the very first Nyx to come out of the design table. A prototype, SS-0. And for all accounts, of the twenty made, that one that i still have in my possession is the last one in existence. The Taus, if nothing, are a very unforgiving place.
An unforgiving place to forgive myself.
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RE: Kaze Nelson Reidman Dagon - Kaze - 05-07-2016
![[Image: 3SEDFvZ.png]](http://i.imgur.com/3SEDFvZ.png)
Hell, by the most religious of definitions, should be a place filled with fire, pain and despair. And that what Tau-23 was. I could understand why the Colonials stood in there, it was in their training, it was in their blood. They never backed down and they never gave up. Six months in the 44th battlegroup (the one where the life expectancy was between two weeks and a month) and i was already a Major with a good kill record under my belt. But what separated me from the rest of those brave men and women, was my natural predisposition to think in different ways to win. From using the famous Rubicon colonial capital vessel as bait, to use a Pytho as a battering ram onto the bridge of a Ranseur, my.. you could call them crazy, but then again it was Tau-23 ,.. tactics were slowly allowing us to keep the pace with the outcasts. In the 44th i met fire of my enemies and my own. In it, i met pain as friends died in front of me. In it, i met despair as civilians were caught in the middle of a war that should not exist. I also met my first love, Mirja. I never thought about love, even in my younger age, and that is why i caught off-guard by those feelings back then. And i dove head first. As all first loves, it did not last long, it was furious, it was grand and it was messy. Up until the point where she died, in her Nyx, in Tau-23. It was quite the world shattering event, but it allowed me, after a dark period of self-doubt and rage, to focus even more in my career in the Colonials and what was around us.
Yes. The Colonials were surrounded, have no doubt. Apart from the IMG, the nearest thing to a neutral neighbour the Colonials had was Kusari, but even that fell apart not even three months after joining the 44th. An incident with a goods convoy and its escort, in front of New Tokyo, involving a crazy ship captain called Ame-chan got blown out of proportion that there was even skirmishes in Kyushu against Naval Forces later on. Since then, our backs stood facing each other and any Kusarian sticking their noses in Tau-23 was to be shot or sent back home. Luckily the Blood Dragons never were interested in that war, since they had their own. Yet occasionally, a couple of Navy vessels would squirm their way into Tau-23 and was collectively shot by the outcasts and by colonials, keeping the system effectively cut off from Kusari's grasp.
And then, another old enemy, Bretonia. Due to a very stupid move in the past, allying themselves with Kusari while hitting Bretonian interests, brought the Colonials and the Bretonians against eachother. Needless to say that after the debacle in New Tokyo, we can safely assume that whoever decided to help Kusari hitting Bretonia, found itself in a very poor position. The Bretonian Armed Forces barely reached Tau-23, keeping themselves contained in Leeds or Tau-31. A couple of minor skirmishes and a gigantic battle that took place in Tau-31 was all i ever seen regarding Bretonia that time. The Battle of Tau-31 was still spoken highly when i left the Republic, due to our involvement in stopping the Outcasts that were on their way to provide support to the Bretonian forces against Kusari. Bretonia and Kusari, yet another stupid war that amassed to nothing, and only brought death and pain to the region.
Privateers, however, were a different question. Pirates under the guise of noblemen. Or the other way around. I shot their leader, Fraser, countless times. Exploding the engines of his flagship was a very enjoyable moment in my career, especially because he liked to lead the Privateers to hit the IMG. For that, we already had the Outcasts, not some false nobleman with delusions of grandeur and of battle. Yes, because you never saw any Privateers actually doing their 'supposed' mission inside Kusari, cutting off their supplies. No, it was easier to shoot at miners in the middle of nowhere. I do apologize for my bile regarding this piece of my history, but what appeared to the Bretonian Court was the image of brave men, shooting the enemy behind enemy lines. Not a random pirate with access to military technology.. All to shoot miners that had nothing to do with the war in hand.
But for now, the smaller enemies are out of the way. Time for the grand and gigantic titans of Tau-23.
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RE: Kaze Nelson Reidman Dagon - Kaze - 05-10-2016
![[Image: NpFsiC5.png]](http://i.imgur.com/NpFsiC5.png)
For some, the titans i will be mentioning will be unknown names. For me, these titans were persons or even a force to be reckoned with, capable of shaping a whole system with their actions alone. First ones, of course, are the Outcasts. But not as a whole. It was their leadership that instilled respect, even when they were our enemies. The 101st Ghosts of Razgriz. At the time, their Administrator was a scientist by the name of Jameson. D.Jameson, a half computer, half bionic, half something that no one could clearly identify, ruled the 101st with an iron fist and Malta as well. The interactions i had with him at the time was normally facing one of his drones, a remote controlled Bayonette. Yet he treated me with respect in every battle. And he forced the same behavior on the outcasts whenever it was present. After all, his voice was command and absolute. Mostly due to the body of the very 101st. Zavala, Ishida, D'Ortona and Garrison are just some of the names that comprised the 101st. Veterans without peer of the Taus, each one of them capable of turning the tide of any battle, and an absolute nightmare to face if together. Although each and any one of them would stand as true soldiers of Malta, their approach to the nomad worshiping that is in vogue in Malta was if nothing else, practical. They knew that the wars and battles in front of them would not be won by prayers to the 'spirits' as it were. They knew what won the fiery confrontations were their ships, their weapons, their talent and their experience. And in most of those battles, i was there. I could feel the fear, the anticipation in my fellow pilots, just by standing in front of these names. It was like the cold space around us found a way to caress our spines and give us the collective shivers. The electricity of these moments were, for me, something i craved. Some of these fights were won. Some were lost. Either way, they always achieved immense victories with so few, and for that and for the belief they carried in themselves and in their home, these names will always have my respect and each bout, a treasured memory.
Later on i had dealings with Jameson, where our battles were remembered with nostalgia, like two old enemies reliving the past. But that is for a later part of my life.
I could write a whole chapter on the Jameson's 101st, but there were more titans in the Tau systems that could stand shoulder to shoulder with any of the names i just wrote. One of them was Esther Carson. A bounty hunter of the Guild and later on as an independent mercenary, a hound that was on my trail several times in Tau-23 as well, later on in Liberty. Being the one responsible for shooting down the Dagobaz does that. Unrelenting and with an attention to details when investigating that surprised me at the time, and later on i learned, this woman would stop at nothing until reaching her target. Luckily for me at the time, the first time she got hold up by none other than Arsenio Zavala of the 101st Ghosts of Razgriz and the second time i was already somewhat experienced and informed about her, prepared a trap alongside a pirate that frequented the Taus. Needless to say, her Templar could not withstand the abuse caused by two well placed battle razors from the pirate's gunboat. To be honest, it is the only way to deal with dogs that do not forego a bone. You make them think the bone is not worth the hassle. Ever since then, her name disappeared, although i knew she was alive at the time. The pirate was costly, but alas, one can always count on the greed of man. And money cannot replace your own life.
Greed. If we want to set standards on greed, then another titan of Tau-23, the Sirius Cartel, managed to set the bar pretty high. Pirates, smugglers and slavers, they did it all. And the Tau systems were the stomping grounds of election. The highway of choice for cardamine and slaves from and to Malta went through Tau-23, coupled with the very profitable trade of pirating the niobium miners and the support that they offered to the Maltese war machine that was more than welcomed. So you can imagine their presence there. Every day we either were forced to engaged a very secured cardamine/slave convoy or as an initiation or just plain dare they engaged us on every turn they could. "Mad" Monty and Nexx were some of the names that were very frequent to roam the asteroids of Tau-23, and very frequently we faced each other. Another men of greed that were not based in the Tau systems, were the Vagrant Raiders. With Petrucci at the helm, they were a very successful enterprise by being the top sellers of cardamine in Liberty, so i have been told at the time. Yet from time to time, their Bayonettes were seen trans-versing Tau-23, and more than once, a convoy of slaves was on tow. Luckily, i only met Xavier Fierceshot once, their top ace when it came to dogfighting, as he proved his mettle to be the same as of Arsenio Zavala. The Colonial forces were lucky that Fierceshot was alone, stalling us from engaging the convoy, because that man managed to down two fighters before falling to Skalski's mine.
Now, there were men and women capable of fantastic feats on our side as well. My first CO, Major Jack Skalski, a veteran of the 44th Battlegroup. As rugged as one of the asteroids and more rough than one, that man was always on a mission. To destroy every outcast he laid eyes on, and by the hells of the Taus, he was good at it. I saw him in an one on one against Garrison, and got the victory. I do not know if by pure luck or just because he wanted it more, but not even ten seconds later of the end of that duel, he was after another one. Colonel Naia Meiers, CO of the Nemesis, a beast of a machine that scorched more outcast vessels than one could count, was a tactician without peer and as tenacious as Skalski. The Nemesis was a sight for sore eyes for us, and a nightmare for our enemies. And enemies were always by the dozen.
With so many foes, mercenaries didn't lacked work in the Tau systems. Escort jobs to pure and simple hunting jobs. Both sides employed them, and both sides used them to their utmost value. A lot of them saw their careers ending in a smoking husk of a ship or in a broken pod, smashed against one of the asteroids. But there were a few, like Esther Carson, that truly made a killing both in credits as in targets. Jordy Meller was one of those. Proficient, professional, solemn and with a silent charisma that made a lot of women quiver.
And i was one of them.
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