Awaking, without memories, in a strange place, Justus Lynn found himself born again at the age of 24.
Justus woke fully dressed in the back of a Stargazer. He was wrapped in a crude blanket, with a pillow under his head, and an ancient video was playing on an old television which had been jerry-rigged to function using the ship's internal electrical system. It droned in the corner of his small living space -- he did not pay it any special attention, but in the back of his mind he recognized the voices. The machine, Landrew, had taken the lives and minds of an entire planet, handing them everything they wanted: peace, tranquility, and contentment... there was no fighting, unless Landrew willed it. Having stumbled onto this planet in their roaming, the crew of the Star Ship Enterprise was now subject to Landrew's devices; Kirk and Spock were moving to save the day. Later in the episode, Kirk would demonstrate to Landrew that by removing the necessary struggle from the people of his planet, Landrew had taken away their creativity, and was depriving them of life. Landrew, in order to correct the situation, would be forced to self destruct.
With the exception of some dim memories in the back of his mind, Justus was immediately aware that his surroundings were unfamiliar. He panicked at first, and thought he'd been kidnapped, but the keys to the Stargazer were in the ignition, the doors were locked, and nobody else was in the ship besides Justus. He opened every unlocked compartment he could find, looking for a clue, and found nothing. There was little food; only some clothing, and necessary hygienic amenities. Justus took the keys and stepped outside.
He was in a city inside of an asteroid. The city looked like a trash heap, but had a certain business about it. Every person in the city moved with purpose, as if towards a common goal. The Stargazer was battered, but not in need of repair. Justus thought to himself: Where am I?. After some walking around, he came across a bar: Maybe I can clear my head and learn something about this place.
Justus sat down at the bar and asked for a drink. The bartender asked to see his's ID, to open a tab. My ID! Justus hadn't even thought to check his back pocket. He reached in and pulled out an old fashioned, "Touch Screen" style wallet. The device was a model specifically built for durability. Justus resisted the urge to carefully examine it, and just opened up the ID application then handed it over to the bartender.
"I haven't seen you around here before. Are you new?" the bartender asked.
"Yeah," Justus replied.
"Well, welcome to Monterrey Bar. What'll you have?"
Monterrey?! What am I doing here?! "Vodka Tonic, easy ice. Thanks." Justus kept his cool, and waited nervously for his wallet to be returned to him. He knew enough about the Vespucci system to want to avoid it, and he hoped the bartender wouldn't see anything he didn't like in the ID.
"Coming right up." The bartender's tone of voice was reassuringly unchanged.
The bar was small, and had few patrons. The bartender returned Justus his wallet, and carried on a certain level of small talk to keep Justus interested while he was waiting for his drink. From the conversaion, he learned that the Legion was trying to expand out from their typical asteroid hideouts. The bartender also mentioned that the parts of the former Phoenix Shipyard had been moved to a new location and reassembled.
Justus's first impulse was to rush to Liberty Navy and tell them the rumor, but then he remembered where he was. Anyway, he thought, LiN probably has this information already. They know lots of things they don't share with the public.. He took a moment to examine his wallet while he sipped his drink.
On receiving the wallet, he glanced at the ID. It read, Hellfire Legion. Justus was terrified. He felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck, and he started to sweat. The bartender looked at him, and said "Are you ok? You look pale all of the sudden."
Justus turned his head toward the bartender. He attempted a smile, but stopped when his face began to twitch. He opened his mouth to speak, but had nothing to say. He turned to his vodka tonic and took a long draw from the glass, and then said with a deep breath, "I'm fine." His mind raced, and he struggled to remember how he got there, but he could not remember.
He tapped the wallet to open his bank account -- 2,000,000 credits had been recently transferred in, and there was a message associated with the transfer. The contents of the message were partially corrupted: "Justus, I'm sending you this [noise] was running from a group of bounty [noise] jump holes they chased me through. I thought I had escaped them in a nebula, but [noise] what system I [noise] as soon as I got to the other side, my ship [noise] heavy radiation, and I [noise] completely out of fuel. [noise] this money. It's all I have left. Thanks for [noise]..." The message was from Boxcartenant. Boxcartenant... Why does that name sound so familiar...?
Justus sat and thought, trying to remember where he had come from, to no avail. He drank four more vodka tonics before paying his tab and stumbling out of the bar. Slowly he made his way back to the launch pad where his ship was hovering idly, tied to the docking module. As he approached, he saw written on the side of the ship, "Boxcartenant", in bold letters. It was the name of his ship! Why is my ship named after that person? Justus's mind was at its limits. He climbed into the Stargazer and crawled into the back of the ship. The old television was now showing static; Justus turned it off and lay down, tired from the stress of his situation and from the alcohol. He fell back asleep.
Some time later, Justus woke with a small hangover.
He opened his eyes and sat up quickly, startled by his still-unfamiliar surroundings, then lay back down, feeling sick.. He was hungry, and had to use the restroom. He rummaged through the cabinets in his Stargazer, The Boxcartenant, and ate what little food he found there. He could see through the windows of the cockpit that the lights of the Monterrey base were still lit. I wonder if they ever turn those off... He finished his food, unsatisfied, and resolved to look for a commodity trader to pick up some food rations. Monterrey being a small base, it didn't take long to find the trader.
"Welcome to Monterrey! I haven't seen you around. Are you looking for H-Fuel? I hear people in New London are really looking to trade for it." the trader said, grinning. Justus disliked the man instantly. He hated the thought of swindling people; arguing for a low price on something you know is valuable, then pressuring potential buyers into making the purchase on impulse.
"I just need some food, water, and oxygen," Justus said, and handed over his ID.
"Great, we'll have the oxygen sent to your ship immediately. What are you flying?"
"It's the Stargazer in dock 2."
"A Legionnaire in a Stargazer? You must be a brand new recruit. I'd bet you aren't even officially a member of the Legion yet. Where'd you get that ID?"
Justus glared at the man.
The trader shrugged and said, "Fine fine. But you won't make it very far in that thing. You should look into buying a new ship at the yard."
As much as Justus hated to admit it, the trader was right. He went to the yard to see what was available, but he didn't have enough money for any of the ships there. Besides that, all of the ships were very large, and he preferred light fighters. He would need to make some more money before moving on to bigger things. He headed back to the bar to look for work, only to find that there were no jobs on the job board. That's odd, he thought, but he kept moving. He asked around at the bar to see if anyone knew of a way he could make money, but nobody did. He asked them if they knew of any nearby stations where he could get work, but the bartender said there were likely none.
Left with no options, but a definite need to generate cash flow, he went back to the trader to talk about trade routs. The walk to the Trader was unbearable, and Justus frequently hesitated en rout, trying to think of a better way. He couldn't fly back to Liberty territory with his Hellfire ID on board, and he couldn't ditch the ID -- because flying without ID would only make him a target. He could fly to the Rhineland, but he didn't know the area, and wasn't sure he could find someone to hack his reputation with the Rhineland Lawfuls, much less make it there without being shot-down by bounty hunters.
The trader looked at his card and seemed to consider various possible routs; he finally suggested a weak rout, designed to make a small amount of money quickly, so that Justus could afford to buy a freighter, and then start looking at better trade routs. The rout he suggested was:
1. Consumer goods from Monterrey to Freeport 4.
2. Mining machinery from Freeport 4 to America Base.
3. Light Arms from America Base to Monterrey.
As soon as the rout was described to him, Justus was overcome with distaste for the situation, and left. He flew directly for America Base, where he hoped to find some work, despite what he'd heard from the bartender already.
The first thing Justus noticed when he left Monterrey was that his ship lacked artificial gravity. It was not uncommon for light fighters to be without gravity, but he hadn't prepared his supplies for it, and they were floating in the cargo bay. This meant that he could not engage his cruise engines, or the acceleration would force everything in the cargo bay to the back, and his cargo might be damaged. Justus put the Boxcartenant on auto pilot at a slow speed, and floated to the back of the ship so he could strap everything down. While he was working on it, he took advantage of the opportunity to examine the contents of his living space and cargo more carefully.
The ship was mostly empty, save the television with a few ancient shows on analog media, the supplies he bought at Monterrey, and his other basic necessities. After a significant time looking through his things, he resolved that there were no clues to be found which might tell him about his past, and gave up looking. He took a canned beverage from his food supplies and brought it to the cockpit with him.
Drinking pressurized beverages in zero gravity was not an easy thing to do, but Justus prided himself on his ability to catch the flying drops without making a mess. He carefully opened the can and aimed the top towards his open mouth, but his grip on the can was just slightly too loose, and the can rocketed down to the foot-space of the cockpit, where it spun and sprayed liquid in every direction. He tried to minimize the mess by stepping on the can and then accelerating the ship quickly, to force the liquid to the back, but it only made the mess worse.
Justus grabbed some napkins from the cargo bay and then came back up front to wipe down the cockpit, and while he was stooped down with his head below the dash, he saw a piece of string hanging from the edge of one of the panels. The string didn't look like it was a component of his Stargazer, so he pulled on it, to see if it was attached to anything. With a light tug on the string, a panel on the underside of the dash came loose, and a small box drifted out of it. The box appeared to be made from an expensive assortment of materials; It was primarily tarnished silver with carefully cut amethyst adorning corners. It had gold and copper plate on the lid, with the writing, "Un malheur ne vient jamais seul" etched onto it in an elegant cursive.
The box contained: a simple dagger, with a sharp edge, a cloth grip, and no meaningful markings; a dead laser pistol battery with burn marks on the leads; a small grappling electromagnet, such as one might use to assail a ship when your own is no longer viable; an old book, written in french, titled "La Bible Du Semeur"; a fragment of orange cloth with the letter A adjacent to a torn edge; and a vial containing a black powder which Justus could not identify, warm to the touch, with a blood stain on the lid.
Justus considered carefully the meaning of those items, but they brought to mind brief images and incoherent memories at best. A heavily damaged space station; a destroyed light fighter; an asteroid field against a red nebula... Nothing made sense.
Just before arriving at America base, Justus' communicator lit up and a freelancer's face appeared on screen. The man said, "Hellfire! 5,000,000 credits if you take me to Leniex."
Justus wondered, Leniex? Where is that? He took some time to carefully consider his answer -- if he could get a lead from the Freelancer without letting on that he didn't know where it was, he might be able to get the money. "How did you find out about Leniex?". Justus had never heard of the base before, and so he assumed it was secret. This could be the money I've been looking for...
"I learned about it from a Freeport trader in a nearby system. He told me I could make good money there, and that it was near G4, but he couldn't be specific." The freelancer spoke quickly.
I've got the sector. How hard could finding the station be? "I'll help you look for it." Justus said absent-mindedly, "follow me." Justus had no idea where to start, so he littered his map with waypoints in G4, and began to zig-zag across the map searching for this mystery base. It didn't take long for the Freelancer to catch on, and he left -- sputtering something angry through comm channel. The transmission was blurred by the thick interference in the electrically charged Leniex cloud.
Justus moved along his waypoints anyway, thinking the location may be commodious for him in the future, whether by selling it to another curious traveller, or by giving it to the law in exchange for a clean slate. When he was satisfied that he had scoured everything along the astral plane, he first dove "below" the plane, and spent a long time searching there, and then went back above. He had plenty of food and supplies, and nothing better to do, so although it took a very long time, Justus considered the time well spent.
Having searched almost the entire cloud within G4, Justus was about to decide that the Freelancer had been mistaken, but lightning streaked across the cloud, and Fort Leniex was illuminated in the distance like some massive and powerful creature, peering soullessly at him through muddy water. The starbase struck fear in Justus' heart, so that he was tempted to flee it at first. But the time during which he was stunned by the sight of it was just long enough for him to become aware of its nature. This was Fort Leniex: The Home of the Hellfire Legion.
As Justus approached Fort Leniex, he took notice of the ghostly ruins of Battleship Fate's Hand, still emitting the dim energy of a live vessel. Justus imagined the struggle which the Hellfire Legion must have endured to reach this place, and felt a profound respect for them.
To his unmerited surprise, the station acknowledge and accepted his request to dock. He pulled his ship into the bay, taking in every moment with apprehension. The inside of the base was much cleaner than Monterrey -- most things could be bought near the docks. The dining facilities were well equipped and aesthetically modern. Despite this, it took some time before Justus was comfortable walking around freely. He kept expecting someone to recognize him and point out that he was not a Legionnaire, or potentially worse, recognize him and point out that he was.
Nobody recognized him, and most of the people he spoke to were courteous, if not a little rough around the edges. Justus spent considerable time talking to people at the bar, trying to learn everything he could about the Legion and the surrounding area. These people were from every walk of life, but nobody would be specific about what it was they did for the Legion as individuals. They did, however, speak proudly about how the Legion had assembled Leniex using parts of the Phoenix Shipyard . Justus thought, so this is what they were talking about at Monterrey. It was possible, then, that the LiN did not know about the base at all -- or if they did, it must have been highly classified.
From one of his newfound acquaintances, Justus obtained permission to stay in an open barrack at Leniex for a time not exceeding 300 hours. During his time at Leniex, Justus thought carefully about his new situation and began to even feel comfortable with it. This group had a unique identity which they were proud of. They had freedom to act as they pleased, but they still had justice within their ranks -- they respected the rights of the common people, civilians. The Hellfire Legion represented power under control; freedom not lacking discipline; complete ascendancy despite their low repute. Justus began to recall ...stories?... about men being mistreated in Texas penal colonies at the hands of greedy Liberty officials. He even found himself tempted to scoff at the though of a lawful governance -- "Liberty" ...yeah right.
Justus prepared to leave the base just short of 220 hours into his stay. He had met some good people there, but made no friends. He nonetheless determined to remain Hellfire for at least a little while. Looking back on the week, he was slightly surprised by how quickly he'd become comfortable with being an outlaw. The more he thought about it, the more the status seemed familiar to him.
He still had problems, though. He had nowhere to go and nothing to do, and he didn't know where he came from. Nobody in Leniex would provide him with work. Considering his next move, he thought he may just fly around until he got attacked, and then make his money by defending himself and selling the spoils. This would enable him to avoid political incident, and for the most part stay under the radar until he had more direction.
He cleaned up his barrack and walked back to the Stargazer. On arriving in the dock, he found that the stargazer had been left unlocked. Justus took up his sidearm, a destructor, and slowly opened the cargo door of his ship. It wasn't half way open when a man fell out amidst a pile of black market munitions!
The man stumbled to his feet, trying to catch whatever small boxes of ammo he could, and then shouted angrily at Justus in a thick Scottish/Orkney accent. "Stay yer dilderin, whalp! Thir nearabouts sprett me bruck wit yer bulderin!"
Justus was lost for words, and completely stopped by the man's chatter. He didn't even remember to aim his sidearm at the man. "Noo git back in the froont! Ah'll tak cheust a peedie taem tae roo hid baek intae yer rookle," the man barked at Justus, and pointed at to the cockpit. Justus didn't move, but looked blankly at the man, his mind struggling to keep up with the dialect. The man scoffed and turned back to the ship, and to piling munitions back into the cargo bay.
"Wait, wait, wait," Justus came partially to his senses and said, "What are you doing in my ship?"
The man continued his work, "Ah'm movin me happ in yer skip. Whit dae ye get ah'm doon?" he answered without turning to face Justus.
Justus was intrigued by the man's audacity. He sized up the man and considered him nonthreatening, so he put his weapon aside and leaned up against the side of the ship. "Where do you plan on taking these?" he asked.
"In bonny taem, beuy. Gir en ye heus en ah'll finna ye thaer."
Justus laughed under his breath and, to the man's apparent dismay, waited for the man to finish strapping down the munitions and close the hatch. Then Justus opened the cockpit and jumped in, followed by the man, who braced himself behind the seat and called out. "Wir geen to Freeport 10!"
"I hope you know the way," Justus said as he pulled out of Leniex.
"Ah'll clipe yer vegri." the man said as he began to climb gracelessly over Justus to reach the navigation system. Justus protested and pushed at the man to get him off, but the man grabbed the steering handles to brace himself within reach of the navigation screen, shouting back , "Stop thoor wheeskin!" and "Dinna skreck soo laud, whelp!"
A full set of waypoints at the ready, Justus steered his ship for the Magellan jump hole. As much as Justus hated the thought of playing the market, he had already taken the strange man and a load of weapons into his vehicle, and besides that the thought of smuggling added a certain touch of intrigue to the situation, making it seem more desirable overall. Plus, Justus needed the money and something to do. It came to him that he hadn't been guaranteed a cut of the profits; he considered this only briefly. The man had no ship, so as long as Justus was providing transport for his goods, the ship would have food in it and Justus would eat well. Worst case scenario, he thought, I end up looking for jobs at Freeport 10.
The man must have been in his late 50s to mid 60s, but he seemed to be strong and healthy for his age. He had deep wrinkles on his forehead and cheeks, beetled eyebrows, a thin nose, and ears that stuck straight out. He had a full, white beard with streaks of gray on the sides, and the top of his head was bald, leaving a wide halo of thin hair around the top of his head.
"What's your name?" Justus asked.
"Vindicateus," the man growled. "Mah mither wer italian an na lifer ob auld Room. Hit meens fargiveness."
"Vince, then."
"Haeb it yer bonny weah."
Justus thought better of pursuing further conversation, and resolved to enjoy the silence of space, the soft breeze from his ship's air recirculation, and the perfect view of the stars.
On passing through Magellan, the pair spotted a group of Hellfire fighters battling a group of bounty hunters, and avoided the conflict. Vince had placed his waypoints skillfully within 1 k of the Leeds jump hole, even though it wasn't on the map. Their journey was otherwise uneventful until half-way through Leeds, where Justus noticed that their next waypoint was on top of a hostile jump gate. They had been avoiding stations thus far, but Justus found himself unable to imagine surviving the gate in their current ship, which was only equipped with the most basic shields.
Justus stopped about 13K short of Glasgow outpost and the gate, and Vince paused a few seconds to note that they'd definitely stopped before saying. "Whitna doon, beuy? Gir en tha dyrr!"
Justus hesitated.
"Ackh, ye fleg babby! Dinna thee gin throo ah gaet afor?!" complained Vince.
"There's no way we can get through that in this ship," Justus said. He tried to think of a way to pass through the gate alive, and froze.
Vince noticed Justus's state and said with a frustrated tone, "Doo at ah tell thee an ahl gin na throo hit." In any other circumstance Justus might have refused to continue, but he had nothing to lose. His body began to pump adrenaline. He gripped the steering handles on his ship controls and engaged his cruise engines again. "Na git yin skip tae outopilot en dack, then whin the dyr be shoot'n, git'n stiltr an drap yer cruise."
The small stargazer careened toward certain destruction, and as soon as the gate began to fire at their ship (about 6K away), Vince shouted, "Noo drap hit!", and pointed over Justus's shoulder at the red 'kill engines' button on the dash. Justus pressed the button and the engines stopped. They drifted toward the jump gate, and the gate and neraby outpost's auto-targeting seemed unable to predict their trajectory well, greatly reducing the number of direct hits sustained by the Stargazer. Even so, the ship's shields were heavily depleted by the time they drew close to the jump gate. The docking autopilot had perfectly aligned their trajectory with the front center of the gate, and Justus quickly caught-on to Vince's strategy.
Jump gates typically have their IFF and defense systems intrinsically isolated from their docking systems, due to the EMF generated when the gate's massive inductors drain their current to produce warp conditions. This doubles as a safety net for friendly ships, so that a friendly target can dock even while enemies are nearby, however it means that a skilled pilot can dock with any hostile gate.
As soon as their ship was directly in front of the gate, Vincent braced himself and shouted, "Dock!", and Justus fired a docking request to the gate. The ship's autopilot took over and stopped the ship in place. The gate powered up, and the Stargazer Boxcartenant was sucked sideways into the space/time warp amid a flurry of enemy fire, before the giant arms of the gate could even open completely. The Stargazer was not perfectly centered, though, and its tail-fin struck one of the arms of the gate, causing its shields to be completely depleted.
Justus had not anticipated that the other side of the gate would also fire at him, so when they arrived in Tau 31 and the gate landed a few successful hits, he panicked and attempted to deploy his shield batteries while his cruise engines were charging. But when he struck the button to deploy shield batteries, instead of the shields being recharged, there was an explosion on the side of the ship, and the ship intercom came on loudly saying, "*HULL BREACH IMMINENT*".
The inside of the cockpit flashed with red light, and Vince shouted at Justus, "Whit na ye thinkin beuy! Ye'll git us booth kelled!"
Justus was appalled, "You replaced my shield batteries with munitions?!" he shouted back amid heightening chaos.
Justus flew his ship in a corkscrew to avoid hits from the station while his engines charged, but just as his cruise engines came online three Outcasts appeared on radar, and he heard over comms, "I've got an easy target in my sights". Vince had not braced himself for the sudden acceleration by the cruise engines, and was thrown against the back of the ship and knocked unconscious. A whirl of particle shots followed the ship, and the ship intercom blared, "*INCOMING MISSILE*". Justus turned the ship 90 degrees, diving below the plane; the missile could not turn fast enough, and exploded against a nearby ice crystal. After a few more seconds of frantic evasion, the ship's shields came back online and the outcasts were soon well out of range.
Justus set course for an empty spot in Tau-31 near G3 and gripped his steering handles tightly for several minutes. When he had calmed down sufficiently, he went to the back of the ship to check his nanobot storage and make sure it it was safe to repair the ship. The nanobot storage was very small, so it was unlikely that they had been replaced, but he didn't want to take any chances. As he suspected, they were untouched.
After he'd deployed almost all of his nanobots, Justus strapped Vince's unconscious body down in the cargo bay so that he wouldn't be injured during flight. The next waypoint was another hostile jump gate, so he took some time to prepare himself. It would go more smoothly this time. It has to. Justus hoped the next system would have a friendly station where he could repair and restock.