The wake up call.

[TheLifeOfAntela]

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It's been so damn long. Everything has changed. Seems like those few people that I knew didn't have the same luck as I did. I feel so lonely.

Last time I made a mistake not managing one of these. Now I have to tell it all from the beginning.

What year is it anyway?

Name: Liam Harris.
Age: 47.
Affiliation: The Order.
Preferred ship: Nephthys VHF.
Last seen: Battle of Toledo. Comatose state caused by a heavy Nomad blast.
Reactivated: Two weeks ago, after a... recovery progress.

I constantly told myself one thing: every day, I think I saw it all, and every day, I prove myself wrong. There's a lot of things to see while freelancing, and every day was different.

The good thing was, there were occasional Liberty ale lovers in all of the Houses. So I kind of got by with... sharing the same enthusiasm with a lot more people than I thought. It was a pretty good time, ''hey could you deliver this food down to that station?'', ''I need a quick escort, I'll pay you nicely'', ''how about I make you my targ--'' - alright that was not a particularly fun moment. The thing is, I could always, always get away from a conflict, with a helping hand from your tasty Liberty ale.

At least I thought I could.

You know, there is a day when no matter how effective your methods are, there are some... things, which they don't work on. And I dare say things because I again proved myself wrong. I was really far away from seeing it all.

Where was I? The uhm... *repeatedly snaps fingers* Honshu! Yeah, Honshu. Came to strike a deal with some guys which needed some optical thingies delivered to California. Or, at least I think it's California. Or was it... Gah, I drifted again! The important thing is, I was at Honshu, right? And this guy told me there was a new secret station in the cloud behind planet Honshu. I wanted to see it all, so we went for it.

Knowing that I have the ale for emergencies, we were half-way through the cloud when it started happening. This voice which I heard, it was unknown at first. Kept repeating itself over and over: ''Eject. Eject. Eject.''. The ship was fine, there was no reason to do it. The radar spotted an unknown object nearby. As it was getting closer, that voice, that damned voice was louder and louder, slowly turning into my own thoughts, my own voice, still repeating ''Eject. Eject. EJECT!''. Thought I was going mental, you know?

It's a damn lucky thing I didn't go mental when I saw the ship. It was glowing, almost burning with light coming out of it. It wasn't like absolutely anything that I have seen in my life. Could you believe that I almost flung myself into space because of that thing? My hand was unknowingly hovering above the ejecting panel. I thought I was a goner.

I wasn't paying attention to anything else but that blob. It came really close to us. And it turned around, so damn fast. Next thing I knew, I heard a voice through the comm: ''Catch it! Get it before it escapes!''. A squad of three fighters came rushing into it. They were of Liberty design. Strange. There was no purpose of Liberty ships in this system. The glower didn't get to live another day.

While those guys took care of the ship, this guy who was taking me to that station just... Disappeared? Ran away while I couldn't figure out what was going on. ''Great'', I thought, ''seems the deal is off.''.

Three ships came to me. ''How are you feeling?'' was the question. Weird that they didn't think ''Scared sh*tless'' was an appropriate answer.

''We need to take you to our medical expert. See that you don't have long term consequences.''
''Wha- where is that?''
''Our far away base. Try to keep up.'' - Was I a hostage now?

Let me tell you, I made some long-ass journeys, but this... This was a whole new deal. They were making me go system through system, jump after jump, and all of those were not mapped in my ship. After a whole lot of jumping, I eventually had to ask them:

''Hey. How many jumps left until we get there?''
''We're here.''
''Where here?''
''Omicron Minor.''
''Omicron wh-''

I couldn't finish my sentence as we exited the cloud and laid eyes upon a planet, guarded by a battleship. A hospitable planet. In the middle of nowhere. And a freakin' battleship! Alright.

''Prepare to dock, the medical team will see you shortly.''

The good thing is, I was fine in the end. While the tests went through, those men told me who they are and what they're up against. And to think I saw just a glimpse of what force is out there... It made me revalue my life goals and to join the defense of humanity. I wouldn't want someone else to go through what I did.

And that is how I joined the Order. Got outfitted with a good ship, the Nephthys, and I was on my way to shoot the glowers.

Flash forward several years, we were in a fight for our lives. All those Bounty Hunters and tiny jellies we had encounters with were no match for a full scale invasion.

It feels like yesterday. Two of them were on my tail. In the meantime I learned a lot about evading shots and using the situation to my advantage, so I told myself ''Why don't I go in the middle of a shootout between four battleships, and use their blasts to get rid of the pesky fighters? What could go wrong?''.

God damn it, everything went wrong! In all that heat I failed to accurately calculate the trajectory of a single Nomad projectile. Looks like he got me. That's the last thing I remember before... waking up. The doctors still don't know what caused me to wake from the coma. I guess that it doesn't matter now. Old faces were gone. I felt like an outsider in my own skin.

''Where am I now?''
''Taba Starbase.''
Where's that?''
''Omicron Mu.''
''Omicron Moo?''
''No. Mu. M-U. We're right next to Omicron Minor.''
''I need to see it!''

I didn't need to see it. Nothing could prepare me for the horror which waited for me there. Hundreds of ships, just... floating. Lifeless. Toledo became a graveyard. And battleship Isis... Lifeless. I had to get out of there.

The moment I came back onto that Taba Starbase, I had to ask.

What other bases do we have?
''Well there's planet Akabat as you already saw. There are also Fort Carthage and the Alexandria in Omicron Epsilon, Cairo station, Dabadoru, battleship Atum, Port S-''
Battleship Atum? Where is it?
''In the Coronado system.''
What the hell is Coronado?!

After a few more questions and pleads, I got relocated. Atum is the only thing I remember from back then. Soon after, I got to meet fleet Colonel Natsumi Hideyoshi, which gave me further orders and a few systems to look out after. Seems like things are gonna be just the way they used to.

I might even apply for the Primary fleet now.

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