My name is ……… well, that is not important at this point in time, suffice to say that for the last few years I have been known as ‘The Parrot’. You may ask why, but that will become apparent as my story progresses. Since I have plumbed the depths of depravity over the last few years and have but recently come to understand just how low I have descended, I feel the need to relate my story. If only to come to terms with how I allowed myself to end up in this state.
I was not always a criminal, nor am I the product of a broken home. I was not born into poverty and I do not come from an underprivileged background, nor did I have the misfortune to have associated with the criminal fraternity or be corrupted by them at an early age. I was in fact born to a comfortably well off, middle class family who saw to it that I was well educated and brought up to be a law abiding, respectable member of society. My family has always been employed in the Liberty Civil Service and can trace its service to Liberty right back to the original refugees who travelled here to Sirius from old Earth. The family may not be considered aristocratic, but has been consistent in ascending the social ladder by dedicated service to the government, making the right contacts with the ‘right people’ and carefully planning it’s marriages only to those eligible young people from the ‘right’ social strata.
After I had completed my private education, my father decided that rather than following my elder brother into the civil service, I should pursue a different path in life. It was decided that I should marry an eligible young lady from a merchant family and that I should therefore join her father’s shipping concern to learn the ‘trade’ with the intent of ‘inheriting’ the business on her behalf, since it unthinkable that a female at her social level should own a business. Everything progressed very well at first, despite some resentment that a complete newcomer should be ordering around men who had been running the business for years. It was also fortunate that the young lady was not only reasonably pretty, but had a quiet, undemanding demeanour and so was quite easy to live with.
Eventually, as I proved myself to have an aptitude for the business, the grumbling and resentment faded and vanished, especially as the profits increased and the business went from strength to strength. As I continued to branch out into new areas, I started to come into conflict with other small shipping concerns and although my business practices were completely legal, they were considered to be very sharp and earned me some enemies. Including enemies inside certain law enforcement agencies who were taking bribes and back-handers from certain other shipper and resented the fact that I did not engage in such practices and offer them bribes as well. It was this ‘honesty’ combined with my financial success that brought about my eventual downfall.
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Up to this point in time, my company had conducting business transporting small, low cost cargoes using a few Dromedary freighters, relying on a quick turnover for a steady profit. I decided that we had accumulated sufficient finances to be able to progress to a transporter and be able to carry larger, more expensive cargoes to farther destinations and increase our profits enormously. The only real question that I had was which model of transporter did I wish to invest in? I decided to seek advice on this subject and started to enquire from certain knowledgeable persons about this matter. It was at this point that my competitors devised a way of ‘dealing with me and ‘persuaded’ certain individuals in the Liberty Customs and Excise Service to offer advice to me.
The advice that they offered to me seemed to be excellent and I was persuaded that rather than investing in the Liberty ‘Mammoth’ with its 2200 tonnes capacity, I would be far better arranging credit and investing in the Rhineland ‘Behemoth’ with its 3000 tonnes capacity and would be able to pay back the amount of the loan in just a couple of trips. Accordingly, I sold off my Dromedary freighters, took advantage of the credit available to me and took passage to planet New Berlin to purchase my new Behemoth and arrange for my first large transporter cargo. Having bought and equipped my new ship, I filled my hold to capacity with Synth Paste from Planet Stuttgart, which I sold in Okinawa for a profit of 4.3 million credits. I then bought H-Fuel from the Fujisawa Mining Facility to transport to New London, which would bring me another 4.9 million credits in profit in New London and when I purchased gold in Dublin to transport back to Fort Bush, the profits would not only pay off my outstanding loan, but would provide sufficient finances to ensure that my company would never again have to rely on small profits and quick turnovers. We were set for life!
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It was as I exited the transport lane at planet Manhattan on my way to New London that the trap was sprung on me. I was halted by a Liberty Navy Gunboat whose captain demanded to know what a Rhinelander was doing in Liberty space. I replied that I was a Liberty citizen going about my lawful business, transporting H-Fuel to New London, but he refused to accept this, having apparently received a tip-off about a Rhineland Spy using a Behemoth to carry out unlawful actions in Liberty space. Of course I denied knowledge of any such person, but he persisted in his accusations that I was this spy. I provided documentary proof of who I was and my permits to transport my cargo. After being held at the transfer point for a number of hours, the Gunboat was joined by a heavily armoured ‘Grizzly’ shuttle transporting administrators from the Liberty Customs and Excise Service, people who had been instrumental in influencing me to buy my Behemoth. People who now accused me of having offered them bribes to betray Liberty by selling confidential information to me. It also appeared that my documents and permits were illegal, forgeries!
My trial was televised all over Liberty and in the months leading up to it the news services relished the headlines of 'CORRUPTION!’, ’ESPIONAGE!’ and ‘SCANDAL!’. My family disowned me for bringing shame on their good name, my former friends refused to acknowledge that they had ever known me and my wife divorced me and refused to allow me access to my baby son. My business was found to be bankrupt and in debt to people that I had never even heard of, my Behemoth was impounded by the Liberty Customs and Excise Service, while the cargo and credits accrued from my recent voyage mysteriously disappeared. I was found guilty of every crime I had ever heard of as well as quite a few that I never even knew existed and was ‘mercifully’ sentenced to life imprisonment.
As I sat dejectedly in chains being transported to the prison liner which would take me to a prison cell where I would spend the rest of my life, the transport was mobbed by the ‘good’ citizens of Liberty and I was dragged out onto the road where they proceeded to beat and stamp upon my helpless body in a frenzy, while they hurled vile epithets at me and screamed ‘Kill the Traitor’. Mercifully, I lost consciousness and when I final came to, I found myself strapped to a table and heard voices arguing about why they should bother to try and save ‘scum like him!’. Then everything went black again as someone stabbed a needle into my neck.
It took years before I learned to use artificial limbs and get used to the exoskeleton that I needed to be able to move. The treatment necessary to repair the damage caused to my body by the mob included amputating both legs at the hip and most of my right arm. My spine needed multiple plates bolted to it to hold it together and would never be able to support my body without the use of the exoskeleton. My larynx had been crushed and had to be replaced with an artificial one, while my facial structure had to be rebuilt and three steel plates were required to replace lost bone from my skull and hold my brain in place. The doctors had worked miracles in saving my life, but reconstructive surgery had not been included in their efforts and it was fortunate that I was so drugged with painkillers that by the time I was able to realise that I no longer even looked like a human being, I had become accustomed to my new appearance. That did not mean that I accepted my appearance, or what had happened to me. All that I was able to feel was hate, rage and a desire to be avenged on the whole of Liberty for what it had done to me!
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I had been imprisoned in LPI Sugarland in the Texas system for six years when the Xenos attacked and managed liberate a number of their compatriots. It was sheer dumb luck that I was freed along with them and that the ship I was aboard was badly damaged in the escape, so badly damaged that everyone abandoned ship shortly after emerging from the warphole into Pennsylvania. Everyone except for me that is, since I was not a Xeno and they never intended to rescue me, so I was abandoned to die with the ship. But I didn’t die and nor did the ship, I nursed that wreck as I would have my baby son and I managed to limp to the only port where I might be accepted, Allentown the Junker’s station.
Although I was not trusted by them at first, the Junkers at least accepted me as they laughingly said I was literally made out of junk anyway. They asked my name, but when I tried to answer, my artificial larynx failed me and just produced an explosive squawk. So they called me ‘The Parrot’ and I have answered to that name ever since. A couple of them helped me to repair the ship and once it was spaceworthy again, I renamed her ‘The Drunken Parrot’ and took her on her maiden voyage as a pirate.
My first victim was a Liberty registered Rhino and after making sure that there were no survivors, I salvaged any equipment that was worth anything and the most valuable parts of the cargo. I used the profit from my little venture to pay for new cybernetic legs for myself. Other attacks helped to pay for a new arm, reconstructive surgery on my spine, reconstructive surgery on my face and head and finally, a new artificial larynx, while still other attacks helped me buy bigger ships and more powerful guns.
Throughout those years, I only ever attacked Liberty ships and always made sure that there were never any survivors.
That is until the day I finally made friends with a Liberty Rogue, who convinced me of the profit to be made by selling the passengers and crew into slavery. Somehow that seemed more fitting even than killing them and I derived considerable pleasure speculating on the humiliations they would endure and the hard labour they would be forced to perform in their new lives as slaves. It was by capturing an Orbital Spa and Cruise liner that I acquired my first cargo of slaves and found the parrot. One of the VIPs had it in a gilded cage and I somehow felt it appropriate that I should adopt it. After all I had been named after it and it came to be my trademark that each of my attacks was proceeded by the parrot squawking over the airwaves.
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It was nearly twenty years to the day since my trial that I captured the Universal Shipping ‘Enterprise’ liner and found my ex-wife and her new husband on board. To add insult to injury, she had married one of the administrators who had helped trap me and had lied to get me convicted. I took great pleasure telling them who I really was and then I disembowelled him in front of her. After she had watched him die, I dragged her screaming to the airlock and threw her inside. I watched her through the porthole for a long time as she cried and begged for mercy, before I cycled the lock and watched her body drift off into space. Strangely, rather than feeling pleasure at my revenge on her, all I felt was tiredness and sadness.
I no longer hunger for revenge on all of Liberty, or take pleasure in selling people into slavery. It is no longer personal, just business and if there is one thing I am good at, it is attending to business. So if you should hear “Squawk ….. Polly wants a cracker” over your comms unit and you are captured and sold into slavery by a cyborg in a pirate transport. Take comfort in the fact that it is nothing personal ………. just business.