The story of the Free Enterprise ( [scanner_anomaly] ) begins with the tale of a young boy, Anselm Holscher.
Anselm was born on Planet Nuremberg in 780 AS. He lived with his parents Hans and Frieda just outside of the equatorial region. They knew the atmosphere was dangerous here, but Hans and Frieda were not well to do and the cost of living was less and the pay was better. They hoped to save up enough to move to New Berlin and get an education for Anselm. Anselm was mostly a happy child. His parents loved him very much.
One day when Anselm was eight the atmospheric filter of the Holscher's house malfunctioned. Frieda rushed to get a breath mask to Anselm but he was exposed. The doctors said he was fine and that there was no permanent damage but Anselm was always different after that day, he was quieter and more subdued. After that the Holschers decided that Nuremberg was no place to raise Anslem.
After looking for almost a year Hans still couldn't find any other work in Rheinland. In a move of desperation he took a job from the ALG on Helgoland Station. This was arguably a less suitable environment for Anselm but the pay was much better and there was a job for Frieda as well so Hans thought this would just get them somewhere better faster. The Holscher's packed up all of their precious belongings and took a transport to Helgoland.
Life aboard the station was hard but overall good. Hans mostly performed maintenance duties on the station and Frieda cooked in the mess. The Stationmaster, Bruno Hasenkamp, was a kind man and unlike most of the other employees of ALG believed in education. Once a week Anselm would go to Mr. Hasenkamp’s office and learn about the history of Sirius. The rest of his education was from his mother and Neural Net records. Anselm would occasionally go to work with his father, this was where he first learned about the hardware that allows habitation in space. As the only child on the station Anslem didn't really have any friends but he got by. In his free time he started repairing station components his father brought to their quarters.
A year went by like this. The Holschers made due and looked forward to the near future when they could leave Helgoland and have a more normal life. One typical afternoon after Frieda had just finished up her lunch shift she packed a meal for Hans and went to the outer hull where he was upgrading the power couplings of one of the stations defensive turrets. As soon as he saw her a big smile appeared on his face and they sat and ate together. What they didn't know was that one week earlier a GMG pilot had been horsing around in the debris field and getting in the way of the ALG salvage ships. He had flown his ship in between two large hull fragments and just at that moment an ALG CSV engaged its engines to push the fragments together and caused serious damage to his ship. The ship lost cabin pressure and he died, but he managed to get off one short transmission first:
SHIP DAMAGED BY ALG, LOSING PRESSURE...
The ALG workers, wishing to keep their jobs covered it up, which was easy for them to do as salvage experts. Angered by the fact the ALG admitted no guilt or even acknowledged anything had happened several GMG pilots took it upon themselves to exact revenge. The defensive turrets were the first thing they hit, Hans and Frieda died instantly.