A young child sat on the lap of his father. They both started our of the port hole to the purple, hellish darkness that is the Badlands. An occasional positive cluster of dust striking a negative one would set off a miasma of lightning, illuminating the surrounding space which was crowded with splinter-shaped asteroids. Altogether not a place someone would be by choice, however, the criminal underbelly of Liberty had come here for a safe haven, and they had found it. The Badlands made moving anything bigger than a gunboat impossible, and blocked scanners from detecting them.
The child had not been born here – his mother had never even set foot on the base. He had been born on Trafalgar, his mother being a Molly. His father, once again unraveling a tale of heroes and anti-heroes (which are heroes that are basically bad, but are still well-liked by the reader, much like drug dealers and smugglers), of smuggling and constant danger, of bar fights and space fights – all to the backdrop of the Badlands purple-black dust. The child, Jarod Mellows, ate it up like he would candy.
“Tell me the one when you met Mommy!” he cried, demanding the tale he had heard – from both perspectives – perhaps thousands of times.
“Nay, lad. You’ll make me miss ‘er too much if I recite it as much as you’d like.” He was a Liberty Rogue, and though they were technically allies, they had little interaction.
“Off to bed with you.” Hoisting Jarod off his lap, the child scampered off to avoid sleep or bed, much like any other child his age.
As all children do, Jarod grew up at an exponential rate. Soon he was old enough to be sitting the seat of a fighter, namely, the Bloodhound: mainstay of the Rogue fighter wings. He showed some aptitude, but no enthusiasm for it. When he asked for extra education instead of piloting lessons, his father checked for a fever. Then he agreed. Jarod practically ate the text books, and he wanted more. More than the Rogues could give, even with a few hacks on the Manhattan Public Library that the Lane Hackers had been so kind to give them for their children (the adults rarely used it). So, Jarod decided to leave the comforts of the Rogue base he had spent half of his young life on (the other base being Arranmore with his mother, they switched, every-other-year) and go to Manhattan for education.
If his father hadnt minded him forgoing fighter training for an intellectual education, he sure as hell minded this. He forbade it even to the point of denying him access to the launch deck. However, Jarod was smart. He crawled through the ventilation ducting, bypassing the quaint electronic security measures in place to stop him with a few hacks he had learned. He was by no means even close to the Lane Hackers, but he did know his way around a computer. He stowed aboard a Mule bound for Rochester, and once there paid a Junker to take him to Manhattan. There he did a few computer tricks, which was more difficult here where the security was up-to-date, and made himself a birth certificate, a social security number, and a bank account with a phantom million credits. He went off to find a school, deciding hed try to become a lawyer first.
He got into high school, missing his aim of college by a fair margin. He took his SATs as fast as he could, scoring in the 99 percentile range both for his age and compared to everyone. Instantly, he got several letters in the mail that advertised all the best colleges. He sat in his shabby apartment he had rented reading them over, giddy with excitement. He immediately accepted the full scholarship to Manhattan Harvard College, the most prestigious one in all of Liberty. He signed up for classes to be a lawyer, which he majored in, and he also minored in business and economics. Things were going quite well for you Jarod Mellows until he got a message from his father.
Jarod, your brother went to jail and didnt come back.
Immediately Jarod took the first Junker ship he could back to Buffalo, not caring who saw him board it. A reporter who had met Jarod at the college took a picture, and then hired a Rhino to follow it at a distance. The CSV went straight to the old Ithaca station via trade lanes, and then set in for the trip to Buffalo. The Rhino wouldnt follow past Ithaca, but it was enough. There was no question where he was going now.
Once Jarod got onto the base, his father met him at the landing deck. All anger at Jarods defiance and his leaving home were forgotten as they shared grief over their brothers fate.
Son I just want you to know Im sorry. The words grated, but they came. I was stupid, and now I see how youve done for yourself. You make me proud, boy.
Jarod could barely contain the tears he knew were coming in all his life, he couldnt remember ever hearing that. His father hadnt been proud of a son that couldnt fly, he hadnt been proud of a son that had wanted knowledge rather than to pillage.
Weve learned some things since I sent the first message. Apparently Joe, his brothers name, fell in with the wrong crowd. The Xeno crowd.
Jarod gasped. Joe may not have been the smartest person, but he wasnt that dumb.
Lad, youve never been to jail, so you dont know, but when the Xenos go to jail to recruit, they send the most charismatic sons-of-bitches youve ever met. Hypnotize you just by talking. But this is no way to spend our first time together in years. Come, lets go get a drink. His father clasped him on the shoulder, and they went off to talk of old and new times.
It was on the TV that was mounted at the corner of two walls and the ceiling when they entered the bar. A reporter was standing to the backdrop of a Rhino, microphone in hand talking.
Jarod Mellows, a recent graduate of Manhattan Harvard College, was seen boarding a Junker-owned CSV, which took him towards the Badlands. We were unable to pursue any further, but theres no doubt that he was heading for the rumored Rogue base, which is purported to be deep within the cloud. His ties to the Liberty Rogues are as-yet unknown, but law enforcement are on the look out for this man.
The screen switched back to the anchorwoman, who introduced another reporter, but Jarod didnt hear or notice a word of it.
You gotta get out of here, lad. It isnt safe in Liberty for you any more.
Jarod nodded, and decided to go to his mother in Bretonia. His father secured him a seat in a Mule bound for Montezuma in Cortez, and from there it was just a short jaunt to Trafalgar.
The Mule landed on Montezuma with little incident, and Jarod disembarked onto the dirty landing deck. He wasnt overjoyed to be ran out of Liberty by some reporter who had happened to see him board a semi-lawful ship, and fly towards an unlawful base, but he didnt have much of a choice. From Montezuma, he hitched a ride with a Lane Hacker patrol down to Mactan, where he was fortunate enough to land as a Molly gold-smuggling ship was preparing to leave for Arranmore. He boarded quickly and handed over a few credits, telling the good captain of the Mule that he was the son of Kelly Rodin, his mother.
The Molly smiled and nodded, taking the money graciously and agreeing to take him to Arranmore. Through the Leeds jump hole, he went to the Dublin jump hole and on to Arranmore. He radioed ahead that he needed Kelly to meet him at the flight deck, and when Jarod walked down the loading ramp, she ran forward and hugged him hard.
Paul, referring to his father, called to say you were coming, and you were running from some sort of trouble. Is everything alright?
Yeah, some reporter just saw me in a Junker ship heading to Buffalo is all. No big deal.
So, tell me all about what youve been up to. Your father said you ran away, but he wouldnt say anything else.
And so he unfolded his tale, while they walked down the cramped halls towards her room.
He laid low for quite some time, running goods between the pirate bases in a Mule his mother had acquired for him. He made no flashing return to Liberty, however, he yearned to return. Eventually he amassed a sum of credits, and switched the Mule out for a slightly less conspicuous ship, a beat-up Crusader probably pulled out of Tau 31. He made his way back to Liberty, and was quickly taken in for questioning. Apparently the law had a long memory.
Here is what happens when you detain a lawyer. Jarod freed himself by pointing out that they did not have sufficient evidence to hold him, telling them that they had no proof that he was going to an alleged pirate base, as well as pointing out that under the Constitution they couldnt hold him. The two cops in the interrogation room laughed at his face, but they were called out, undoubtedly to speak to the DA (District Attorney). A few minutes later he was released, but from then on Jarod knew theyd be watching him.
Expelling a huge breath that he had not been aware of holding, he walked out and took transport from where he was being held (Manhattan) to a place where he could buy a transport and start raking in some cash. He wanted to be a legitimate businessman, and it appeared that whatever gods there may be were smiling on him thus far.
The transport Miranu, a random name that the ship had been given on construction, was cruising through space, seeing the sights. So far, Jarod had done a whole lot of nothing with his new ship. He was still trying to get a grip on trading, as he had yet to find any good, reliable routes. Currently he was in the Cambridge system, and was scouting around for any low-cost goods, along with hints as to where they could be sold for fat stacks of cash. He found what he was looking for a load of VIPs looking to head to distant and exotic locations. The leader of the group hinted at paying a lot to see Planet Kurile, in Sigma 17 as well. Jarod smiled, as it seemed that fortune was smiling on him! A quick perusing of some maps showed a fast trip through Omega 5 and 41, Omicron Theta, and finally to Sigma 17. Putting in a call with the port authority of Kurile showed an excess in Alien Organisms, a perishable good. Cambridge Research Institute just happened to have a need for such organisms.
Things were starting to look up.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Jarod heaved a sigh of relief as a battered transport set down on one of Kuriles landing pads. The Corsairs had taken an interest in his passengers, most likely for kidnap and ransom purposes, and as such had decided the best way to them was to shoot up the Miranu. Luck had been on his side more than anything, and he had managed to marginally evade the pursuers. A random patrol of Hessians slamming into the Corsairs had helped, too.
Now the VIPs disembarked on shaky legs, knowing just how close they had come to biting the big one. They thanked him profusely for keeping them alive, and paid a little more than they promised. Jarod just took the money and loaded up on Alien Organisms, preparing to reface the same gauntlet over again.
It wasnt long before his dads friends in the Rogues found out what junior was up to, and saw a potential way to make money. So on the side he started running Cardamine for the Rogues, straight from the source at Malta. It was rough work, but he was never caught. Soon he caught the interest of certain groups, especially the Blue Lotus Syndicate. On Malta, he quickly befriended then-henchman Zacarias Poncho, gaining a more than lucrative arrangement with them. Soon he got an Advanced Train, and came under the full sway of the BLS, gaining the rank of chief smuggler. Everything was going great, he got rich, and financed the BLS Destroyer Onassis.
Soon he gained a legal arms dealer, and got even more money. Though the police kept a close eye on him, they could not prove his ties to organized crime, and the money kept coming in faster and faster.