Ashes "Nighthawk" Yotaka
Born 793 A.S. Planet Kyushu, Kyushu System, Kusari.
The small screen before you flickers as it turns on and whirrs to life. It is an older model video log, and the scan lines are visable across the screen, which displays the face of a young woman with pale skin and traces of engine grease on her cheeks and thin strands of black hair disgusing her ears and dangling unkempt in front of her face. She appears to be struggling with the recording device, her vivid brown eyes staring passed the camera, and the speakers play a distorted rustling sound. Finally she looks up at the camera and begins to speak.
Umh.. Hello. My name is Ashes Yotaka, which means Nighthawk, by the way. Which is also, by no coincidence my callsign. If you're reading this, then uh, well I'm prob'ly dead and you're looting my wreckage. If not, well then get out of my ship you pervert!
To be honest I have no idea what convinced me to make this video biography. I guess it's because my life is a dangerous one, and I could be killed at any given moment. Some would think it was my own fault for choosing this way of life. Although not everyone is given a choice. I guess I just want people to understand who I am, and why I live the life I do, and so that when I do die at least someone will remember me - maybe. Maybe I'll even inspire someone to follow in my wake, which... wouldn't be very wise considering how this will probably end.
But... I guess I'll start from the very beginning. Well, not the very very beginning, that's kinda icky and bloody.
I was born on a rice farm on Planet Kyushu, so this is a long way from home, huh? That place doesn't even seem like home anymore. There's nothing left on that planet for me, no friends, no family. Oh sorry, I'm rambling again, back to the story huh? All that'll be explained in due time. My father worked hard on the rice farms to feed his family, and my mother was, well, a mother. She had her hands full taking care of us, by that I mean me and my brother. He was a year younger than me, at this time I was only around four years old. The rice farms had started to go down hill ever since Samura took over production, and my father was finding it harder and harder to make money to feed his family.
Meanwhile I was unaware of any finacial difficulties, I was usually off playing pilot with my friends. I guess you could say I was a born fighter pilot, dreaming of flying ever since I could remember. In play I was always the ace pilot who saved the poor transporter from the mean Blood Dragons. But my family was poor, and had no ships to their names, and it was unlikely I would ever see the stars myself. Although in my childhood bliss I never imagined winding up like my mother, but that's what fate would have it.
Even as years passed by and I grew up, I still dreamed of flying through the stars. I even began to work on the rice fields with my father, hoping to one day save for my own ship and leave this place behind. But in an economic down turn, my father was finding it impossible to pay his bills, and the family house was in danger of being forclosed. One day, while playing outside with my friends and my brother, our father approached us with a sad look on his face. He told us he was going away, he had found a job and been given a ship, and was contracted to haul some goods to the Liberty System. Just one trip, he promised, then he would be able to pay off all his debts. As he left, he gave me a present. It was a small, derelict Drake. A ship I could call my own. I remember standing in the rice fields and waving goodbye to my father, with my brother beside me as my mother wept, as he flew out into the stars in his ship.
The Drake I was given was in no working order. The power core had been fryed by something nasty, and all the internal power couplings needed replacing, in short it was nothing but an empty shell. I taught myself mechanics as I worked on the ship, spending days working in the ricefields to help feed my family, and nights fixing the old wreck. I planned to meet my father in space the say he returned from his job. After a couple of months of nothing, I finally managed to breath life into the ship. It was the most exciting day of my life, but still it was not flight, nor space worthy, but at least it still worked. Being poor as we were, replacement parts were hard to come by. And not everything on that ship could be salvaged. I began sneaking into town and pilfering parts from equipment stores and landing pads. They were big, rich city folk and wouldn't notice a few missing parts, right? It's lucky I'm such a small girl, I was able to fit through small windows and hide behind crates unnoticed.
While I had become quite good at sneaking and stealing without being noticed, it was only a matter of time until I was caught. I was carrying an expensive power core I had found lying around in the workshop, it was too good to pass up. It was one of my regular places to steal from, I was careless and they obviously baited me into a trap. I think they were surprised to see such a young girl stealing though, I was too young to be incarcerated so I ended up wtih little more than a slap on the wrist.
Rebuilding the ship was exhausting without my supply of fresh parts, meaning I was forced to recycle the ships old parts and parts from the junk yard. But soon it was ready for a test run. Before I began the first test flight, I gave the ship its' name. Painted on the side of the hull were the characters '夜鷹の夢'; or 'Yotaka No Yume' which meant 'Nighthawks' Dream'. It truely was my dream to, to fly in the sky.
Although I had never piloted a ship before, I was still adament I could teach myself. After all, I managed to repair it by teaching myself how, right? How much harder could this be? The ship was a little rocky and a few of the buffers were knocked loose by the turbulance. I quickly learned how to control it enough to stop myself from falling out of the sky. Although I never broke atmo, I flew for about five minutes before the starboard wing snapped off. Landing wasn't anywhere near as easy as taking off, and it set me back a few months work to repair the damage to the wings and underbelly. But still, I was confident enough to keep on going. I continued to work on the Yotaka No Yume, and my father was long over due to return from his trip. There had been no word of his whereabouts, until one day.
I don't know if its' my memory playing tricks on me, but there were ominously dark clouds in the sky that day. Kyushu and the farm I worked on was attacked by a small Outcast raiding party that had slipped passed the defense systems. They must have had inside help to shut it down. I remember being at home when it happened, the Outcasts came to pay us a visit. They were the messengers of terrible news. My father had been smuggling Cardamine for them, in order to pay off the two ships and his debts. But the Liberty Police intercepted him, and destroyed his ship. He was killed on the spot. But unfortunately, my family still had a debt to the Outcasts, and they were here to take us away as slaves to work off the debt. The Outcasts loaded us into the cargobay of a Dromedary and hauled us offworld, and out of Kusari to the Tau-23 system, and to Cali Base.
The journey wasn't much to speak of, me, my mother and my brother spent the trip in the cargobay, which by my guess had been modified to serve as a holding cell. It was old and dirty, and we weren't the only slaves piled into that overcrowded ship. Most of them were old, under fed slaves. My mother tried to protect me as best she could, but the trip was long, and I was a young girl inside a cramped holding cell with dozens of men. I could have just as easily been killed, but I was allowed to live. Violation was the price, and understandably I began to become unstable and shut out the outside world. I kept my thoughts to myself and brooded hatred for the men in my own mind. I was not strong enough to deal with it any other way, I imagined killing each and every one of them before me. It's easy to say that was a defining point in my life.
Things looked a little brighter, if at all possible, once we reached Cali base. No longer stuffed in a holding cell of rotting corpses, I was left to try and recover. Lack of food and hygine had changed my physical appearance, I was skinnier and my bones were visible beneath my skin. My hair had not been washed in months, and my nose was deaf to the lingering smell. I still remembered what it first smelt like stepping aboard the prison Dromedary, and it seemed I had become part of the cause now. I knew we were there to be slaves, but I always assumed that would mean manual labour. I was used to that, having worked in a ricefield from a young age. Although the lack of food and excersize had left my muscles wasted and unfit, I didn't understand why we were just being held prisoner, until I heard rumors from other slaves. It was difficult not to eavesdrop, cells were small and close together, but luckily I was out of reach from groping hands that occasionally gestured through the iron bars. I heard that slaves were being shipped to Planet Malta to work, and they were stored on Cali base until the prison ship would arrive and take them there.
I spent my days brooding in my small two by two cell, rarely moving, least one of the neighbouring prisoners tried to make a grab for me, and only daring to streach my legs once they had all fallen asleep. I had not seen my family for who knows how long, they were held in different cells somewhere out of reach from me. One of the prisoners next to me had always acted strange, but I remember it suddenly getting worse. His flesh was even more deteriorated than the rest of the prisoners I had seen, his hair had begun falling out and his fingernails breaking away. He constantly scratched and picked at his skin, which became covered in oozing sores. He was constantly up against the bars, yelling to the guards and begging for Cardamine. I didn't know what that way at the time, but I watched that man die. I might have said with a certain satisfaction, but his was a sad and horrible death, curled up in a ball in the corner of his cell, shivering and wimpering as his life faded.
The dead prisoner was removed from the cell eventually, which was good because he was starting to smell. Did you know that dead people fart? I mean it's bad enough when it comes from your ass, let alone a dead person ass. He was replaced by a much fresher looking man, like he had only just been caught and thrown into the brig. He was quite talkative, although at first I didn't speak, not trusting him. I do remember most of his conversations with me quite vividly, he was a very charismatic man. With in the first few minutes of him being in the cell, he attempted to start up a conversation with me, I never understood why. I can't have been very attractive in my state.
"What are you in this place for?" Was the first thing he asked.
"Not much of a talker eh?" He concluded, from my lack of a reply. I didn't even acknowledge him my glancing in his direction.
"Me? My Sabre ran out of ammo, so I thought I'd try 'borrow' some. And here I am." He explained, he was a fighter pilot, a freelancer or a mercenary or some such, from Bertonia. He had been in the Bertonia Armed Forces once, but resigned and took up freelancing. Being from Kusari, it seemed even stranger that he would be talking to me.
The guards came around later that day, dishing out low grade food rations and water to all the prisoners. It had just about all the nutrients of a pile of mud. As I half heartedly stared at my portion of rations, the bars next to me clanged, then out of the corner of my eye I spotted the prisoner placing his rations next to me.
"You look like you could use the extra food." He offered, and for the first time I tilted my head to the side to look at him. I wanted to smile out of cortousy, but I didn't.
Even though it was not much of a meal, the extra food did raise my spirits slightly. After weeks of eating the same gruel, its' tasteless and disgusting texture was barely noticeable. I felt uncomfortable knowing the man was watching me eat, it wasn't uncommon for the other prisoners to stare, but it was somehow different. After finishing, there was an awkward silence until he asked me:
"What's your name?" I stared at the floor for a few moments, trying to quickly decide in my head whether I should answer or not.
"Ashes." I replied, rather reluctantly. The man chuckled slightly, and then asked me:
"I don't suppose you have a last name then?" He asked.
"Not unless you have another bowl of food." My reply surprised me afterwards, I had never really been one to make sarcastic remarks. I didn't even have much of a sense of humor, but he seemed to be in good humor, and chuckled. After that he didn't speak with me the rest of the day.
By the next day, when the meager food rations were delivered, again there was a clang as the man next to me handed over his rations. I glanced up in his direction, he had a wirely grin on his face, aparently proud of his humor, and I replied to his question from the day before.
"Kusarian eh? That makes sense." He nodded, and then asked for the names' meaning.
"Nighthawk" I replied.
"Ah, the Nightjar. It was a beautiful bird." The man said, seeming to reminice. I had never seen a Nighthawk before, they were a bird once back on earth that was.
"Did anyone ever tell you about the story of the Nighthawk?" He asked me. Of course, I hadn't, so he began to tell the story to me.
"An old man travelling one day in spring time sat down to rest on a big, round stone. He rested for a while, but the stone was cold, so he said: 'stone, yoiu seem cold today. You may have my robe. I have many robes back at my camp, so I don't need this one.' But that was a lie, that was the only robe the old man had. He spread the robe over the stone and walked down the hill naked, for it was a fine day. But storm clouds loomed in the hills. Soon it began to snow, and the strong wind blew in. 'I guess I do need the robe myself after all. That stone never did anything for me anyhow. I'll just go back and get my robe.' Back he went and found the stone. Then he pulled the robe away, and wrapped it around himself. But that made the stone angry, and it chased the old man down the hill, until he stubbed his toe on a big sage bush and fell. 'Now I have you!' The stone cried 'Now I'll kill you too! Now I will teach you to give presents and then take them away.' The stone rolled right on top of the old man and sat on his back. It was a big stone and the old man couldn't move at all, and he began to call: 'Help! Help! Help!' but nobody heard him except the Nighthawk, and he told the old man he would help him all he could; so he flew away up in the air, so far that he looked like just a black speck. Then he came down straight and struck that rock an awful blow, and broke it in two pieces. The blow was so great that it spoiled the Nighthawks bill, forever made it queer in shape, and jammed his head, so that it is queer too. 'Thank you, Brother Nighthawk.' said the old man 'Now I will do something for you. I am going to make you different from other birds, so people will always notice you.' The old man took some of the fine powdered stone and shook it on the Nighthawks' wings in spots and stripes, made the great white stripes you have seen on his wings, and told him that no other bird could have such marks on his clothes."
After that day I began to speak more and more with the strange Bretonian in the cell next to me. His name was Joseph. He was completely different from all the other men I had met, kind and selfless even. It's a shame I never learned what happened to him. You see, one day while we were conversing, the prisoner on the other side of me would not stop bantering and gesturing for me to get closer. I became frustraited, and kicked out angrily at his arm. There was a painful sounding crunch, but the man grabbed my ankle with his hand and dragged my leg through the bars. I started screaming and flailing my free leg, until he grabbed that one too. I felt Joseph grab my arms from behind, at first I thought he was trying to restrain me, and I cursed ever trusting him. But he was trying to pull me away from the crude man in the cell. The other prisoners started causing a ruckass, which attracted the guards. I didn't see it coming, but the man that had grabbed me, his grip suddenly fell limp and he slumped to the side. I looked up, a guard was standing there with his firearm still smoking. Next the guard moved over to Josephs' cell, and opened the door. Joseph dropped my arms, and I screamed out in protest, but the outcast shot him. He then proceeded to open my cell door, and pointed the gun at me. What a crappy way to go, huh? But luckily for me, Joseph was still alive. He had got to his feet and tackled the guard aside.
"Get out of here!" He yelled at me. I got slowly to my feet, uncertain. My muscles felt weak, I had not walked at all in a long time, and I had no idea what to do. But Joseph kept yelling at me to run as he pinned the guard, until my legs finally responded.
I ran through the prison deck, glancing from side to side, searching for my family. I was adamant I would not leave this place with out them. It seemed endless, and I did not even know if I was running the right way. Most of the prisoners seemed to be hanging out of the bars, watching me run in curiosity. Some begged for me to let them out, but I ignored them. They all deserved to suffer in there anyway. I have no idea how, but by some divine guidance I found my mothers cell. I looked through the bars at her, huddled and withered in the corner, hugging her knees and wimpering. I had seen this before, in that man that died from Cardamine starvation. I whispered to her in kusarian:
"Mother?"
Her eyes snapped open when she heard my voice, and she replied:
"Ashes?" I smiled to her, and could feel tears welling in my eyes. I could see she didn't have long left, even if I did not want to believe it. She pushed herself up of the ground and hobbled over to the bars.
"Mother, I've come to set you free." I explained to her. She smiled lovingly and reached through the bars, and clasped the sides of my head, and pulled it closer. She kissed my forehead and then said:
"You're too late. I'm already free." Before hobbling back to her corner, and laying down in the fetal position. It was clear from there that she would not be leaving that cell alive.
From there I ran without looking back. I didn't know where I was running too, and as I think back it is surprising I didn't run into any Outcasts to stop me. I ran through the prison deck until I reached a dead end. Panting and breathless, I sat down against the wall to rest. In the end cell against the wall, a prisoner leaned through the bars and stared down at me.
"Looking for a way out?" He assumed. As usual I didn't respond to filth like him, but he could obviously tell I was looking for a way out.
"I can tell you how, if you do do me a small favour." He said with a grin. All of these prisoners were the same, I wasn't going to say anything until I saw an object on the ground. It looked like a fragment broken off of the wall or floor. But it was sharp. I took the shard and concealed it in my hand, then got to my feet. I asked him:
"What do you want?"
"Come closer." He beckoned. I could feel my arm shaking as I took a step closer and gazed at the man. He reached out eagerly to grab me, but first I asked him:
"How do I know you are telling the truth? Give me the information first." He seemed to chuckle, then pointed to an air duct in the roof.
"That air vent leads all over this base. Crawl through it and you will reach the hangar, from there you'll need to steal a ship to get out." He explained, and then grabbed at me and pulled me up against the bars. I reached through the cell with my arm, and stabbed the shard into the back of his head. I could feel the blood spew out onto my hand, and knew straight away I had hit a good spot. The man fell backwards to bleed out on the floor.
"Thanks for the tip, hun." I said mockingly to him as his life ebbed away.
The small crawl space through the air duct was cramped and smelled strange. I was lucky to be small enough to fit through the vent, or I probably never would have made it out of there. I spent quite a while scurrying through the airways, but I wasn't in any need to hurry. They wouldn't find me up there. I finally stumbled across the section of air vent that went over top of the hangar. There seemed to be quite a lot of Outcasts mingling in the hangar around their ships, so I knew it would be difficult to escape. I found a vent to climb out of and dropped to the ground when I was certain no one was looking in my direction. I stayed hidden and listened, to see if I had been spotted yet. With my back against the wall, I looked out across the hangar. There were many ships all in a line, kinds I had never seen before. They were nothing like the designs we had in Kusari, but rather pointy and angular. I just hoped the control scheme was similar, or I doubted if I could even start the ship. Satisfied there was no one paying attention, I made a dash from my hiding spot across the hangar, and to the first ship I could get to. It was a Sabre. I slid the canopy open and dropped inside, despite the seemingly slim fuselage, the cockpit was rather roomy.
I thought things were going well, but I couldn't have been more wrong. While boarding the Sabre I attracted a lot of attention. Acting quickly I reached for the power, and started the ignition. The Sabres' console lit up like nothing I had seen before, not even my wreck of a Drake did this. I wasted a second or two looking in awe before I realised there were Outcasts crawling up the sides of the Sabre. I slid the canopy shut and locked it from the inside, then grabbed the flight controls. This was the part I was not used to, the ship shook slightly as it lifted from the ground. Hovering in the air, it drifted uncontrollably sideways, and knocked over a few neighbouring ships before I got a grip on the controls and finally started moving the right way. As I flew the ship into the airlock, the Outcasts made an attempt to lock it down. The doors behind me sealed off the airlock, and the air pressure stabalized to match outside. The doors in front of me slid halfway open before they started to close again. I threw the throttle forward, and the Sabre shot forward suddenly, its' wings clipped the airlock doors. As my ship drifted out into space, all I could do was stare wide-eyed with awe at the vast darkness and the distant stars. It's a feeling I sometimes long for now when I look at the stars.
Any hopes I had of escaping were dashed, due to the fact there was a large Outcast Destroyer parked right outside the base. Once alerted, the Destroyers' Sabre wing broke off and quickly disabled my engines. I had no hope of fighting them from the start, barely knowing how to fly, let alone fight. My Sabre was towed into the Destroyer and I was dragged out of the cockpit by armed guards. The Destroyers' captain seemed surprised to see me as the culprit who broke free from the prison cell, killed a man and stole a Sabre, and despite having no experience, flying it out into space. He asked who I was, and didn't seemed convinced that a rice farmer from Kusari was capeable of all that. I was expecting to be killed, but instead he made me an offer:
"You don't seem like a candidate to work in the orange fields. There is another way you can repay your familys' debt."
At first I assumed that it was some sick and twisted work, but the Captain wanted me to join his crew, and train to be a pilot for the Outcasts. Said he saw potential that he hadn't seen in years. I had little choice but to accept, but first I made the Captain promise that the crew would respect me, and not treat me like some whore. But I wasn't the only female crew member aboard the Destroyer, so I had no need to worry about that anymore.
I spent the next few months aboard the Destroyer training in a simulation pod. I didn't understand why they were having me train in an artifical simulation instead of getting real experience. The simulations just can't compare to real space flight anyways. I hated it, and just wanted to fly for real. Aboard the destroyer, I learned more about the substance, Cardamine, that killed my mother, and how the Outcasts home planet was responsable for turning them all this way. I became terrified of visiting that planet. There was no way I ever wanted to become dependant on Cardamine, after seeing my mother die that way. I knew though it was just a matter of time before I was put in space. Probably into combat to. Something I used to ask myself when I was onboard that ship was what was my purpose there? The Captain had claimed he saw potential in me. I was never any good at those simulations, though. Bots were easy, but against other people, I always seemed to lose. Maybe my purpose was just another drone in their army. I might survive the first battle, even the second, but in then end I was just cannon fodda.
In all honesty I don't remember much about my life on board the Destroyer was not an interesting one. I don't remember much at all about it, no memorable conversations or anything. Prob'ly a good thing for you, since it was quite boring living the same routing day in day out. I woke up early in the mornings for breakfast. The cafeteria actually served Cardamine along side the food. Despite being amongst the crowds, I was really just sitting by myself. I never really spoke to anyone aboard the ship, or made any friends. Then we, the pilot wing, had training practice in the simulation pods pretty much the rest of the day. If you could call day different from night in space. After training, we showered. You wouldn't think sitting in a sim pod would make you sweat, but it does. The showers were communal, but there were seperate showers for men and women. Although, some of the women in the shower were almost as bad as the men in the prison. But they at least kept their distance, and it was only their eyes that disturbed me. The last thing in our schedualed day was dinner, and after that we could do as we pleased until lights out. For quite a while I oblivious to the fact that when we went to sleep, the other half of the crew woke up and took over control of the ship. It makes sense, it's not like the ship stops moving at night, or that the crew never sleeps.
Finally the day came of my first real flight into space. This was certainly a memorable day, not because I was going to fly, but because of what the captain said to me before hand:
"Are you ready to start paying off your familys' debt?" He asked me. At the time I thought this was going to be a short term thing. My father had only borrowed a little money for two ships and some cargo, right? Wrong. I hadn't known back then, but my father had borrowed money from the Outcasts to pay off all his debts. When he couldn't pay the Outcasts back either, they forced him to smuggle their Cardamine into Liberty, where he was caught and had his ship destroyed. The flight its' self was just a small recon mission. I wasn't very good at aiming my weapons, but I was very good at running away. Once I start running, I haven't found anyone yet that can catch me. We were deep in the Omicron systems, and the long range scanners had detected Corsairs with in the system. I launched on this mission with two others. We followed the co-ordinates uploaded to us to a Jumphole, and make sure it was all clear before the Destroyer moved in to jump.
We came across the jump hole, and it all appeared to be clear. The hole was a frightening thing the first time I saw one, don't even think about it twice now days. A jump hole to me is safer than a jump gate. The corsair wing appeared on the edges of our scanners, approaching fast. It was a bomber wing that out numbered us, and would easily be capeable of taking down the Destroyer before any fighters could launch. We turned tail and ran, but they were on top of us too fast. A cruise disruptor stopped all of us and lmost straight away the ship next to me blew up. I broke from the formation and started evasive manuvers. My other wingman blew up shortly after, and all the Corsairs turned their guns to me. Their shots were flying passed as I did my best to evade. I didn't get off completely unscathed, their weapons could quickly drain my shields when they hit. I contacted the destroyer and told them of the situation. They responded, ordering me not to lead the Corsairs back to the Destroyer, and lead them away from the jump hole. I couldn't believe it, they were sacrificing me so that they could get by unscathed. I lost concentration in those few seconds, and the Corsairs drained my shield and blew off my starboard wing. The warning lights and buzzing inside the cockpit brought me back into reality, and I began to evade again. I was alone, and had no way to fight off all of these Corsairs on my own.
Even though I had pretty much resided myself to my fate, there was no way I was going to let these guys kill me. There was no way I could beat them, so I just had to out run them. But in open space with no Asteroids to hide behind or Nebula to block their radar signal. So I just kept running off into empty space. I figured they'd run out of fuel or something and have to return eventually. Never figured the same would happen to me though. After possibly a few hours of these Corsairs' shooting wildly at me, and my ship somehow hanging in there, the Corsairs' suddenly stopped shooting at me. I had to look back behind me to see if they were still following. They were still chasing my tail, but not shooting. As I pondered the reason, a communication patched through to my line from the Corsairs:
"Attention Outcast pilot. You're headed towards Nomad space." They explained. I had no idea what the Nomads were at the time.
"Turn back now and we will see to it you recieve a quick and painless death, which is a mercy compared to what will happen if you continue forward." They continued their transmission. The Corsair fighters stopped dead in their tracks, leaving me to fly off on my own. There really was no decision for me to make, certain death lay behind me, and unknown dangers ahead. I engaged my ships cruise engines and flew straight forward.
My scanners' picked up another gravitational anomoly; a jump hole. I glanced back at the Corsairs, they were all lined up watching me drift towards the jump hole. It made me wonder what was on the other side that made these guys so scared, it had to be something big. The Corsairs' warned me this was my last chance. After making the jump, there would be no turning back. I didn't allow myself time to think it over, least I hesitated, and initiated the docking sequence. Behind me, I saw the Corsairs turn and fly away as my ship drifted into the gaping jump hole and warped away. The way my ship was shaking I thought it was going to fall apart before it reached the other side. Sometimes I wonder if the engineers' don't just make the ship shake on purpose to give the jump a more dramatic effect.
The other side was much darker than the other parts of space I had visited. I couldn't see any stars in the distance. Just endless blackness. I had heard stories of men who had travelled to the edges of space and stared out into the black. I figured this must be it, and it certainly was entrancing. The inside of my cockpit suddenly felt cold. I was in the middle of nowhere in a ship without a port. I figured I probably had a couple days at most before my ship ran out of power or air, and I froze to death. All my life I had wanted to sail out into the stars, and here I was on the edge of space, shivering and wimpering like a child. It's awful scarey and lonely out there, not a place I'd like to visit again any time soon. It's safe to say I probably would have been driven mad if I had spent any more time out there than I did. I may have been lost, cold and probably soon to be starving, but I did have one thing going for me. My freedom. I was finally free from a life of servitude, whether it be a rice field on Kyushu, Cardamine fields on Malta or an Outcast Destroyer, I was finally free from it all. Free to live my life as it should be. These thoughts kept me strong in this time. They gave me hope, something that was nearly lost entirely when I first encountered the Nomads.
For a moment the gigantic Nomad ship did nothing but hover a few feet from my own. I was awestruck by its' size and glowing appearance, I didn't know something like that existed. Apparently they viewed me as some sort of threat, my shields were downed in a second and it clipped one of my wings before I managed to pull my ship around and get out of its' firing range. As if the battleship wasn't enough, a swarm of fighters came at me with their guns blazing. My ship was already damaged from the corsairs, this must have been what they had meant by a fate worse than death. Their weapons were powerful enough to cut through my shields in only a few shots, and so I stood no chance of escaping at all. I dodged around as much as I could before an aimed shot breached my hull. The Sabre automatically ejected me out into an escape pod, and floating out into space. I could see through the canopy, the large battleship looming closer, as if it were going to devour me. The corsairs words of warning played on my mind, what exactly were these nomads going to do to me?
The next thing I knew I was suddenly hit from the side with great force, and my field of view went black. I had just been sucked inside a ship, evidently with a gravity drive inside as the impact shook me around violently inside the escape pod. My helmet cracked against the side and cut my forehead, although at the time I didn't even notice with my vision blurred from the impact. My escape pod was forced open from the outside and I colapsed onto the floor of a cargo bay. In a daze I could barely understand the words being said to me by the people standing over my head before I passed out.
I woke a few hours later inside an infrimary. There was a doctor there keeping watch over me. I had expected to be sucked inside an alien war ship, but that was aparantly not my fate. A trader ship that had conveniently been in the area noticed my distress and came to my aid. Being a transporter they were no good for a fight, but they swallowed up my escape pod and fled from the nomads in one piece. Other than the knock to the head, I was otherwise fine, but the doctor wouldn't let me get out of bed straight away. I tried to ignore him and get to my feet, but felt a sudden rush and had to sit back down. That was when the captain of the ship appeared at the doorway.
"You best do as the doctor says. Be a terrible way to thank us for saving you if you went and got yourself hurt again." She said. She introduced herself as Captain Moonbay, her ship was a firefly class transport called the Gustav.
"Strange name for an Outcast." She replied when I introduced myself. It took me a second to realise she recognised the uniform I wore. This captain had obviously well informed, she even asked me if I needed Cardamine. It's a good thing I don't. It was another day before the doctor would clear me to leave the infirmary, though. But a few of the crew members came to introduce themselves, and keep me company. There was Francis, the engineer. He was a rogue from Liberty and a real tough guy, he was onboard the Gustav to hide from the law. Karla was the ships' gunner, she was the most friendly but strangely enough never told me anything about herself. Moonbay said that everyone got onboard the Gustav for their own reasons, most of them were running from something or other, some liked to talk, others didn't. They all called her mother though. She took them all in and gave them a home and a job. For the next while, the Gustav would be my home, too.
Recovering quickly, I was back on my feet with in a few days. The Gustav was a big ship, though relatively small in comparison with the Destroyer I had lived on prior to this. Funnily enough, my room onboard the Firefly was larger than the one on the Destroyer. The Fireflys' cargo bay was large enough that a Stiletto, a ship similar to my Sabre, hung from the cieling. It belonged to Mariel, a mercenary who lived onboard the Gustav as a kind of escort. She was also laying low from the law, after collecting a few bounties placed on the Liberty Navy. There were occasionally a few conflicts on the ship. Francis was a Rogue, while Gavin was a Xenos. We all know that spells bad news, but Moonbay usually slapped them into place. Hers was a ship of sanctuary, and the crew respected that, mostly. Moonbay had replaced my old Outcast clothing with a few of her old outfits. It was nice to have a change in clothes, I didn't want to be an Outcast anymore.
We, onboard the Gustav, were headed for Liberty in the center of the sector. The cargo of the ship seemed innocent enough, gold and alien organisms and such normal commodities one would expect. But hidden in the Fireflys' cargo bay was a large shipment of the Cardamine drug and Artifacts, bound for Rochester. The crew were not exactly smugglers, just drifters living on the edge of space. They took what jobs they could to survive, usually barely enough to keep themselves afloat. But they were free, and thats' all they cared about. And now I was free too.
The trip to Liberty would be a long one, particularly since we were taking the senic route to avoid police patrols. But I was greatful they had, or I may have ended up the victim of the Nomads. The crew were cheerful and light hearted, so the journey its' self was not in the least bit unenjoyable. Sometimes I wished I could have stayed onboard the Gustav with them, but my destination was Liberty. I was told it was a place where many started their lives over, where people went to seek out a new beginning. Moonbay promised she would introduce me to some of her contacts in Liberty, and they would look after me. It would be tough being on my own again, but if I were to be truly free I would have to learn to make my own way in the world again. Sometimes at night I would lay awake a think of what Liberty would be like. To me it was the promised land, even its' name spoke of freedom.