Water dripped drop by drop, onto the young girl's face, slowly she sat up and looked around, yawning softly before wiping the water from her face, and looking up to the ceiling with a soft sigh. The ceiling wasn't really much of a ceiling at all, but rather a beaten up concrete and metal slab with a mess of rusted brown pipes running along it, the kind of pipes which ran through most of the area where she lived. They were the sewage and water pipes that brought water from the reservoirs below the slums of Manhattan, to the upper-class lofts and flats of the rich and powerful in the towering buildings that hid the sky from view. This was the life her family was destined to, living in the slums in order to preserve their old Earth traditions and culture away from prying eyes, since after all nobody cared about the slum rats.
That, was eight years ago, and one of many normal nights for the girl's family living in the slums of Manhattan.
Katya was now sixteen years old. She was walking home from a nearby shop, carrying a bag of groceries and humming a soft, happy sounding tune, she had been enjoying her day as best she could. She wasn't more than half a block away when she noticed her father, lying face first on the pavement in front of their hovel with his hands behind his back with three militant looking Security Force operatives standing over him. Katya was frozen there at the intersection, watching silently in a mix of fear and confusion, wondering what her father could possibly have done wrong.
It was then that it happened, Katya watched as her mother leaned out from the doorway of their house and started shooting at the soldiers with some sort of small projectile pistol, missing every shot. The soldiers had scattered quickly and recovered just as fast, they then lifted their blaster rifles and each fired a short burst of plasma into her upper body. Katya's mother cried out before she fell silent and limp against the door-frame. Katya's father screamed angrily in a language that even Katya didn't recognize, though the tears coming from his eyes said everything.
Katya simply stood there frozen in horror, she had dropped the grocery bag on the ground and she was staring, eyes wide at the scene before her. Tears begun to flow from her eyes and every fiber of her being told her to scream, to run away, but she couldn't move, all she could do was stand there and stare in disbelief through her tears.
As she opened her mouth to scream, she felt a strong hand cover her mouth, her screams were muffled and she struggled against the man's grip, he had also put an arm around her waist, pulling her into a nearby alley and turning her around so that her face was against his chest, he began to whisper softly.
"Shh Shh...it's okay...It's okay girl! I'm trying to help you! I'm a friend of your father!"
He was hugging her softly, though still in a controlling manner and he kept her face pressed to his chest so that she wouldn't be heard by the agents. She was sobbing silently, now clinging desperately to this man she didn't even know, his shirt soaked with her tears. The man began to softly pat her back.
"It's going to be alright, At least you will be safe now...You're Katya, right?"
She looked up to the man slowly, tears still streaming down her face as she whispered.
"I-I'm..Yes, W-Who are you?.."
The man smiled sadly as he looked down at her.
"My name is Jakob...I'm what they call a Junker...we can give you a safe home..someplace where those men can't hurt you.."
She nodded softly to him before hugging herself tightly to him.
Six weeks later it was in the local Newspapers and vids, Her father, Gregori Vaschenko had been put to death for "Crimes of Treason and allegedly collaborating with Terrorists"
"This is Junkers Green, Seventeen to Rochester...I've got that shipment of Scrapmetal for you boys! hope you appreciate it, I worked my tail off to get this for ya"
"Roger that, Junkers Green 17, you can bring 'er in to Dock." Came the reply from the controller.
Little did Katya know, that within that very same week, she would leave behind the life of a Junker, after meeting with a pilot named Yue Fei, learning more about her heritage through this woman, and learning that there were other people in Sirius that shared the ideals her family had raised her to believe in, as well as their cultural background.
After a long and tiring flight from Liberty out to a Deep-Space system called Omega-52, she was given a new ship, and a uniform, and she was united together with people that were, just like her, she had found a real home.
To Katya, these people were those that wished to right the wrongs committed against so many, by the House Governments of Sirius, They were People who wished to tear down the walls of Corruption and destroy the forces of Greed and Oppression. These were people that would ultimately give Katya the chance to exact revenge on those who destroyed her family and had forever changed her.
These people, were the Sirius Coalition Revolutionary Army...her new family.
Katya made a vow then and there, A Promise to herself, that she would defend the lives of her new Comrades and the ideals that they believed in, until the day her final breath was drawn.
In perhaps a devastating twist of fate, within months of Katya being absorbed into the Coalition, the woman who brought her there, mentored her, and turned her into a proud soldier of the Coalition, would take part in a rebellion against that very cause.
However, even more painful for Katya was that she remained loyal to The Coalition, even when Yue Fei, Katya's closest 'Tovarisch' turned against them.