I was born in Pittsburgh as a child of mine workers, my parents were poor and I had bearly enough to eat to survive. When I was 10 years old my father decided to take me to my aunt, who lived on Manhatten, so I could have a better life. He made deal with a trader and a few days later I was sitting in a cargo hold of a Rhino heading from Pittsburgh to Manhatten. We just about docked with the trade lane when Rogue ships attacked the freighter. The freighter didn't have a chance. We borded the escape pots and launched, leaving the exploding freighter behind us. Shortly after my escape pod was tracktored in a ship and for the first time in my life I faced a Rogue. I was scared to death. The escape pod of the freighter captain was tracktored in as well and opened with force while I was staring in the dark lifeless eyes of the rogue. The next thing I heard was screaming and the dead body of the freighter captain hitting the floor. The rogues rolled him on his back and I saw the reflection of the light on the blade of the knife sticking in his throat.
The rogue standing in front of me grabbed me and lifted me up. Our eyes met on the same level and he grined like a Cheshire cat. He carried me to the cargo hold and threw me in it. My head banged against the steel wall of the ship, which knocked me out.
When I woke up I saw 2 characterless men sitting at a table talking to each other. I couldn't make out who they were at first, my sight was still blurry and my head hurt. Once my sight cleared I recognized the rogue. I the wan light I saw money changing hands. The rogue got up and left. He had sold me to a man, a Junker, the man who became my father and raised me.
This was a long time ago. Since then I got educated to be a Junker and trained on how to fly a ship and salvage goods of any kind.
And today is the day that I took over my fathers ship, a Collector, which I'm very proud of.
My first day in space was very dramatic, I took a mission from our commander to fight some Xenos, which I successfully mastered. On my way to the Ames resource station I encountered many more of them and at the end 61 of them ended up in my cargo hold. I still don't know how the 3 bounty hunters got in there. Anyway, my first longer trip led me to the Ames Research Station in the Kepler system. I sold the Xenos there and hope they will get their punishment. By the way, the bar tender mixes a mean Brakesh, kind of sweetish bitter taste, but very good. You need to try it if you're in the neighborhood. Time to me to go for today. Be well!
Today I went to see the Outcasts on Malta. I have heard so much about them. On my way there I encountered the Xenos again and quite a few ended up in my cargo hold - again. I docked at Ames and sold them. I undocked and got attacked again by the Xenos - what did I do to them?!
I followed the last one and discovered a jump hole to the Galileo system. Curious as I am I jumped and found the Leiden Base - Lane Hackers - cool. Bought some Light Arms there and was on my way to Malta. At planet Honshu I had to take a leak. While there I filled my cargo hold with Engine Components and flew to Malta. Wow I have to say the Omicron Alpha system is awesome. And even better are the women on Malta in their thigh-high leather boots -woot. I think I found me a girlfriend - hehe. I accepted a mission against the bounty hunters, I don't like them much anyway, which I completed successfully. Back at Malta I loaded Cardamine which I flew back to Manhatten where the [SA] tried to stop me. Needless to say that they suck and I unloaded 100 units of Cardamine at Manhatten. LOL - The LPI, LSF and SA are all drugged up now. HAHAHAHA. I'm having way to much fun. Back to Rochester, home sweet home, nice!
Well I laughted a little to early. After dropping of my contraband, undocking with an empty cargo hold, the SA tried to stop me and I got mowed down by a BH called Ace_of_Spades. From this day on the BH are my declared enemy and I ask all Junkers to kill this BH on sight. I went on a rampage and killed 214 Bounty Hunters yesterday. After that I felt a lot better. Still don't understand how a BH can gun down a Junker and the officials --> [SA] are just watching, I would say they are more unlawful than the Junkers.
If this continue and the fact that I have a Outcast girlfriend now might drive me closer and closer to the unlawful site. Maybe I will be an Outcast some day. If occurances like the one pictured above continue, the I will for sure be a Outcast sooner than thought.
It has been a while since my last post, but my life is currently very troubled. LSF, LPI and other lawfuls make life almost unbareable. It is hard to do business if you're chased out of New York without any reason. A LSF even attacked my while docking at Manhatten. The harassment in the New York system got way out of hand. Police and Military think they can do whatever they please. A couple of weeks ago I was ordered to stay away from Manhatten and shouldn't even thinking about docking there. This is not right. Even unmarked fighters started gunning down smugglers even though they could not identified as police or military. Xenos are docking at Norfolk Shipyard, seen one yesterday after I fought him, the situation in New York has become rediciolous. Police and military just sitting around in front of Manhatten with their bounty hunter friends, doing nothing. All other Liberty systems like Colorado, California, etc. are pretty much unguarded. Are the officials affraid of a fight? I have seen a Junkers freighter being gunned down by Lane Hackers in California, and what did the police and LSF do? - NOTHING. They just sat there. What a wailful picture they present to the rest of Sirius. That sums up my observations of the past 4 to 5 weeks. Other than that, life is good. The bars at Malta are great and the 'Bounty Hunter' steak is awesome. I like it bloody. Hehehe.
That's it for today. Take care folks.
Packing My Belongings
My friends and I were sitting in our favorite bar at Rochester. Nobody was in the mood of talking, we were all staring at our glasses. The drinks were on me. Drink as much as you can, was what I told my friends. It's going to be a while until we see each other again.
The occured events during this day lead me to my decision. After a long discussion with my friends my decision was final. I will be moving to Malta.
It all started when I left New York in the afternoon with the intention to see my girlfriend at Malta. I was hailed by a police vessal pointing out that my ident was showing a Gainans tag. I docked at Freeport 2 in the Bering system. I checked my systems, ran several diagnostics and finally rebooted the ships main computer. I continued my journey through Hamburg and the Frankfurt jumphole. Wow, computer malfunction, what is happening??? I was broadcasting a Kishiro tag, a view trade lanes later a KNF tag, then a Blood Dragon tag. Now that's just not right, I thought to myself. I checked the systems again, come to find out that my Junkers ID switched to a Pirate ID. Lucky me my rep sheet didn't look to bad. I entered Sigma 13 and headed to the Yanagi Depot, seeking for some help.
After several hours of trying to find the problem the ship maintenance crew gave up. They were clueless about what's happening with my board computer. They had replaced the board panels, the main board, and almost all core components, no luck. Everytime they turned it on, it started broadcasting a different tag. The conclusion was that I must have a virus somewhere embedded in one or the peripheral systems. Problem was the none of them had the expertise to find and eliminate it. One of the electronics specialists came up with a proposition, he knows a software genius, only problem is he lives on Kyoto, the Blood Dragon head quarters in Chugoku.
I'm on my way to the Chugoku jumphole when ship popped up on my radar. Unidentified at that moment. I follow a conversation on the open comm channel and it turns out that the ship is a Corsair pirate. A pirate got added to all my troubles. I checked my rep sheet and, of course, my tag showed Blood Dragons. Perfect I thought, let's just get through this without a confrontation. Too good to be true. The Corsair noticed me and was after me within seconds. I managed to jump into Chugoku and thought I lost him. About to dock at Kyoto the computer showed the Corsair ship again. I got docking clearance after explaining what my intentions are. The docking sequence kicked in and when I saw the Corsair closing in on me, I tried to break out of it, but no luck. The computer was frozen. He was at Kyoto a few seconds later and opened fire. My shields were gone in no time and he started pounding at my hull. I already saw me in my escape pod floating through space, but not this time. This time the luck was on my side and I docked at Kyoto, crippled but alive.
Packing My Belongings - continued
The ship was pulled in a holding bay in the docking bay, the armor was almost gone and shiny metal showed, sparkling in thousand colors caused by the neon lights in the bay. Mechanics surrounded the ship, shaking their heads wondering how I made it in.
I pulled on of the mechanics aside and asked him for Larko, the software specialist. Of course I had to bribe him to get Larkos intercom id. I went back on board while the mechanics started repairing what was left of my armor and hull. I contacted Larko, who showed up about an hour and serveral drinks later. At least my Brandy made it. I explained the problem to him and then we negotiated the price over a couple more drinks. I ended up paying 2 million credits. It took him about 2 hours to isolate the problem. He uploaded a piece of code, which will, as he told me, adjust my tags to the original ones after a view system jumps. For now I was stuck with the Blood Dragon tag and the pirate ID. What a combination a Junker pilot flying a Hacker Gunboat with a Blood Dragon tag and a Pirate ID - wow. I contacted my girlfriend at Malta and called my visit off, I had to get this mess cleaned up first. My intentions were to fly back to Rochester and see if the Larkos fix worked.
Half an hour later I was on my way, I decided to take the route through Hokkaido using the Kyushu jump hole there, and from Kyushu the jumphole to Shikoku and then home through Galileo and Colorado. The less possibilities of confrontation the better I thought. The trip was pieceful, not a lot of ships around. An hour later I started closing in on the planet Kyushu, which I intended to pass. My radar suddenly detected a KNF ship. Well I just dive underneath the planet and be on my way, a quick gun test maybe. I pressed the fire button and nothing, I pressed it again, only 2 guns fired. Oh ......... ......., lots of not so nice words came out of my mouth. And additionally the KNF vessel had no intentions of letting me pass. He was after me within the blink of an eye and a second later my cruise speed was disrupted by a missile. We started fighting but my all messed up fire button made it impossible. God thanks it's just a fighter, so I might get away, I thought. Just finishing this thought a bunch of Kusari Navy ships showed up and a KNF gunboat. That was the end. I tried to explain what was happening to me but there was no time to finish my transmission. My shields failed and I saw the armor disappearing again.
Time to get into the escape pod. The .... with that ship, it's all screwed up anyway. I jumped in my escape pod and ejected. The KNF didn't see my escape pod because of the explosion which followed milliseconds after I ejected. I was drifting in space.
Wow, nice blue sky here in Kyushu. I have to come back here when I get a chance. I activated my emergency transponder. The little red light started to blink periodically indicating that the Junkers ID signal is sent out through Serious space. Oh darned, I forgot my Brandy on board. Now that really annoyed me. I used my thrusters to navigate to the Shikoku jumphole in the hope that help would come through here once they located my transponder signal.
It took hours, but finally a Junkers vessel appeared at the jumphole. I was about to be saved, lucky me. The vessel closed in on my position. Minutes later I was able to identify the markings. Oh yes, it was Miranda's Collector. It's good to have friends. She tractored me on board and when she opened the escape pod I jumped out and gave her a big hug. She's one of my oldest friends. We went together through flight training and a lot of nonsense we did when we were younger.
On the way back to Rochester I told her what my plans were. I had plenty of time to think about it when I was floating through space waiting for my rescue. We willl discuss it when we're back at Rochester, she told me. And we did discuss it. Lots of words were spoken, good ones and bad ones. None of my friends agreed with my decision, and now we are sitting here at the table in our favorite bar, having some drinks together before I go get my savings, buy another ship, pack my belongings and then be on my way to Malta. I'm sick and tired of Liberty, the lawfuls. Being a Junker means being mistreated by everybody around you.
It's payback time folks. I'll see you all in space.
In-prisoned!!! - Am I going to make it???
Undocked from Malta. Course set for Omicron 90 jumphole. Cruise mode engaged. I'm on my way to explore the Omicron systems, that should be fun.
A little later and about to jump into the Omicron 90 system - a huge abount of Nomad ships appear on my radar - radioactivity must have blinded my sensors - shiels are failing - shield battery replenishment offline. Oh my, oh my - that's not good, that's not good at all. This Hackers Gunboat doesn't maneouver good either. The ship is rattled from the pounding on my hull. The indicator of the ship hull strength almost down to zero, will be gone in a view seconds. I have to eject, now - ejecting - oh yes, I made it.
No i didn't. A tractor beam logs on to my escape pod. Nomads everywhere, feels like I'm sitting in the middle of a bee hive. My escape pod is pulled into a cargo hold. I was not able to make out the ship. It's dark in the cargo hold, I cannot see a thing. Waiting what happens, two minutes, five minutes, nothing. Hmmm, let's see what's going on, I open the hatch and climb out. I'm slowly moving towards a side of the hold when I hear this whistling sound, then I smell something, bitter sweat, followed by my vision turning blury looking like a blue white fog. Wow, I'm used to orange. That's the second time in my life that I got kidnapped, just hoping it doesn't develop a pattern, my body hits the steel plating of the cargo holds floor. That's the last thing I remember before I passed out.
Oh wow, my head hurts, it hurts bad. I feel it with my fingers noticing a ragged wound on the left side of my forehead, covered by crusted blood. My eyes try to adjust to the bright glistering white light flooding from the ceiling. Thoughts shooting through my head. Where am I, did the Nomads get me, oh please NO. How long was I passed out. What will happen. Once my vision was back I figured that I must be in a holding cell. Well nothing I can do, let's see what happens.
I fell asleep and when I woke up everything around me was wet, just like somebody gave the whole cell a shower. I was still wondering what happend when a iron plate in the ceiling moved and a hose, at least 10 inches in diameter, became visible and started spitting water. Oh man how do I catch it, I was very thursty, so I formed my hands to a bowl and caught as much as I could. About half a minute later the hose went dry and disappeared in the ceiling. All my clothes were wet and it was pretty warm in the cell, producing this damp smell, which made me wanting to throw up. I crouched in a corner of the cell, hoping for some food next.
That turned out to be an illusion. I twitched when the cell door suddenly opened. I must have dozed off, since I didn't hear the three men come in, which stood in front of me. The one in the middle was huge, at least 6'8" if ont 7' tall and a minimum weight of 350 pounds. Man, who is breading guys like him? He grabed me and lifted me up, it was a kind of funny giving the situation. I seemed to be floating in the air and yet staring in this huge guys eyes, where the 2 pairs of eyes are level.
'Where am I?', and by my all good spirits another black out followed, initiated by a enormeous pain appearing on the back of my had. While gliding into the darkness, I heard the words, 'Don't talk!'.
The Waking Up
was not as nice as one would hope. Hammering in my head and another dark room, and when I say dark I mean dark. My head felt like a ice cream ball, frozen on the outside, mushy on the inside. Man, being knocked out seems to stick with me. And suddenly there is this inner voice telling me that everything is going to be fine. Where did that come from, I didn't think that, am I going crazy now??!! I got up, my hands straight in front of me making careful steps to find a wall and then perhaps a door. After a while, a long while I finally touched a wall. It felt cold and moist. I followed the wall and reached a corner, and another corner and one more and finally my count came up to five. Now that's something a room without a door, if it was a room. Well there are only two possibilities how I got in here, either through the ceiling or the floor. Let's see, I jumped, holding my arms up as far as I could, jumped again, higher this time, still no ceiling, must be a high, I thought, and there it was again, this voice, telling me, 'No, it's not that high'. So I thought, 'well it must be, since I cannot reach it'. And again the answer, 'Not that high, trust me, I know'.
O. k., it's official, I'm. Here I am, thinking, the crazy ex Junker - now Outcast guy talking to himself, or even better, somebody talking to him from the inside of his head.
'No, you're not crazy.', my second inner voice talking and I started talking back. 'So, if I'm not crazy, who are you? And where am I?'
I didn't like the explanation I was given.
'I'm you now, the new you, the new Vizioso. I know everything you know and a lot more. You were kidnapped by the Wild'. Oh my god, panic, a whole wave of panic attacks. This can't be true, why me, that's not fair!'
'Yes it is fair' was the answer of the inner voice. 'It is fair to me!'.
I yelled, 'who the hell are you?'
'I'm Vizioso' was the answer. 'And this are your last moments as the Vizioso everyone knows'. Prepare to be wiped out.
And everything went dark, -again.
Waking Up - Part II
Thoughts tried to find their way through my brain. Electrical impulses started stimulating certain areas of my brain more and more. It was a very refreshing feeling I never experienced before. The thoughts tried to get to the survice using different ways of the nerv system, which visiualized itself as a kind of maze made out of millions of connections and nerv strings, and many dead ends.
There it was, this one thought, 'You need to wake up', parallel to a voice becoming louder starting at a whispering volume. 'Honey are you there, talk to me!'. The voice was transformed in an electrical impluse racing through my nerv system trying to find this one thought I had. And it finally cought the thought, enclosed it in a electrified hull and dragged it to the surface of my brain.
I slowly opened my eyes. The face in front of me was blury at first, gradually clearing up. It was her, my girlfriend. I looked in the eyes of an angel. Oh my god, I was never happier in my whole life than at this moment.
She exlained to me what happend. I was missing for months, nobody knew what happend to me. A view search parties were sent to my last know location.
A outcast destroyer had a contact with a nomad gunboat, on which I was serving as the weapons officer. The outcast destroyer destroyed the gunboat and trackored all the escape pods in. Lucky me, I was in one of them. My outcast tatoo caught the crew of the destroyers attention. I was taken to Malta for surgery attempting to remove that thing from me. The surgery was not successful, but one thing was, the 'Orange Dream'. Breathing it unconciously for over 2 weeks killed the parasite in me. And now I'm back.
I survived.
I was give the honor to cary the 'Outcast Guard' from now on.
