Natalie Cahoone was sitting on the terrace of the villa, she was looking at her PDA and searched for her old diary, somehow she wanted to read it again, after all a long time had passed since those events happened. [color=#FF9900]"Sis, what are you doing?" Maria, her half-sister, asked and sat down on the chair next to Natalie. "I wanted to read my old diary."
"Oh, you wrote one of these silly things?" Was her reply and forced both to laugh. "Well, yes. Want to read it?" Natalie asked. "Sure, if you want to share it, I'll keep it to me." Natalie replied with a nod and opened the file. "But keep in mind, I was different back then..."
Entry One
[color=#66FFFF]An old friend of mine once told me to write something like this. It would preserve my own sanity, and I would need it, well, that's what he said. I was working with him for quite some time, and I was the last person who saw him alive. I can still remember when his ship exploded in front of my eyes, it was a sad moment, and I remembered his words when I enlisted in the Liberty Navy. No idea if his words were right, but I guess I'll find that out soon enough.
To be honest, I was surprised to get accepted, given I wasn't one of those super ambitious persons, I was a simple person who had a hard life on Houston. But it also made me happy, finally something useful I could do. Life as a mercenary was dangerous and let's be honest, it was just about the money, and there was nobody who would help you, but there were hundreds who would agree to end my life for a few credits. In the Navy I would still be out in space and shoot pirates et cetera, but at least I wouldn't be alone all the time. Maybe I would find somebody I could call a friend one day, so far I only found people who disappointed me, people who betrayed me.
I got my uniform, it's mostly colored blue, and I like blue. Like everybody I start as Recruit, the lowest rank in the Navy. I lived with the impression that in any Military in this world, the new recruits would always end up getting refered to as trash, how wrong I was. They accepted me as a full member from the beginning, the only difference was that they were allowed to use the better ship, and I was bound to the Executioner. A nice name for a ship, but that was the only good thing about it. Really. I was happy when the first patrol ended and I was still alive. I'd call it a flying coffin, but thankfully the life as a Recruit is short, and usually it takes only few days to get promoted to Ensign. That would grant me the permission to fly a Guardian, or an Avenger. Both fighters are a different story, they are at least useful, the Executioner is not.
So far I haven't got a chance to meet some other recruits, or higher ranked members, so far I only saw them once shortly after getting accepted. I looked into their faces, some of them seemed to be quite motivated for their new job, some others however, seemed pretty helpless, as if they had no other chance in their life. It was a strange feeling, all these persons, I wonder how many would stay, and how many would simply vanish, be it for getting killed in action or for simply leaving the Navy for whatever reason. Hopefully the former won't happen to me, my mother would be sad if she'd get a letter saying her only daughter was killed in action. I'll make sure that won't happen. I promised it to her.
Right now I'm sitting in my apartment on Manhattan. Was lucky that I found that one, quite cheap for its size, I like it, much better than my old home on Houston. Kinda feels like two different worlds, Manhattan is just so rich, everybody here is throwing money around as if there's no tomorrow, and on Houston, people fight for their existences, and that every day, it's a never ending-battle, which sadly seems to last forever. I was forced to go through this as well, it will always follow me, and honestly, I doubt I'll ever be able to get rid of it. These are memories I should always keep with me.
I'll be updating this once I get a chance to do so.
[color=#66FFFF]I was amazed to see how slow the days passed, I've been doing lots of work and to me it seemed already a month passed, but in the end it was just a week. Well, I finally got rid of the Executioner, means I got my promotion and am officially an Ensign now. Took me two days, was actually alright to fly the Executioner, the few times I met a pirate could be easily solved and there was no real danger of blowing up. I always wondered why those pirates even go that far, I mean, their equipment is far worse than ours, and still they try the impossible and then simply throw their life away. Many stories get erased out there in space, whole identities simply get eradicated by force. It's their fault for dying, and I'm the judge who seals their fate. It's my job to kill, but I'll never enjoy it. I wondered myself if the other Navy members think about the ones they shot down on their patrols, I wonder if they care about them or if they show no remorse and simply forget them. I never got around to ask them though, doubt they would answer.
As I said before, I got rid of the Executioner and was allowed to fly a Guardian or an Avenger. I decided myself for the former and got a shiny Guardian. I loved it from the beginning, it's much better than the Executioner and I feel myself safe when I fly it. And I had the chances to test it of course, against pirates and also against the Rheinland Military, now that was something interesting. My first encounter with them since I joined the Navy and it was a scary moment, I'll call them fanatics, because all of them were yelling they'd only fight for their Kanzler, felt as if they were sort of brainwashed. It was hard to believe, but there was no time to think about it when I saw their fighter swarm already closing in. We were outnumbering them, but they were quite skilled and that made the battle difficult. Can't really remember how we killed them, but it surely was a hard stunt to pull off. Such close stories can't be avoided I guess, and sooner or later I'll run into more of them.
After a patrol the pilots usually hang out in the nearest bar they could find, a chance to know them better, but somehow I don't want that. I see nearly no reason for it, what if I become close friends with one of them, and said person gets killed on a patrol? It would create unnecessary sadness and probably anger, all of this would affect my decisions. I am tempted to call it a distraction that could become my downfall. Not sure if I want that, would be sort of stupid if I'd let that happen. But on the other hand, it would be a bad idea to isolate myself, I'd have nobody to go to in case I'd need somebody. I have never really thought that much about those scenarios, but there's one question I always ask myself. Do I really need the others? I spent some sleepless nights with just thinking about that question and I failed to find an answer. Maybe time will help me to find one.
I realized on the patrols that there's no place for being uncautious, for a moment I was almost hit by some battleship missiles, launched by an ally. They were aimed at an Outcast, who was just a nuisance, however, I was in the way of the missiles, but luckily I was getting yelled at to dodge, pretty much saved my life. The Outcast however...was wiped out. There was nothing left from his ship, no scrap metal, no escape pod, simply nothing. That brings me back to my question. Was that really necessary? I mean sure, Outcasts simply don't deserve a right to live in this world, they are the reason for the countless cardamine addicts. They create suffering and in return they'll suffer by themselves. But a situation like this, was it really necessary? Battles, wars, are they really necessary? Funny to ask something like that, when I'm a soldier by myself, but I guess it will stay one unanswered question...one of many.
There are many enemies out there, all of them won't hesitate to kill me, but sometimes I can be my own enemy, and with that I can be the reason for my own death. I admit that I'm not used to the strict atmosphere in the Navy. At times I ended up not respectful enough, depending on my superiors I get yelled at in order to tell me what I was doing wrong, others, like Vice-Admiral Defmir shoot at me. No kidding, for a moment I believed I would die, but Admiral Hale managed to calm her down and pretty much saved me. I'm not blaming her, in fact, I appreciate her action. It opened my eyes, I realized that I was involved in something serious. This was not my old Mercenary life, where I could do whatever I wanted. Now if I'm trying to do so I'll get shot. I won't repeat that mistake.
I stopped counting the patrols I flew for the Navy, I wonder myself why I even started to count. It's a miracle if a day passed and I haven't shot down a pirate or a terrorist, it has become a serious part of my life, and as much as I cared for those I shot down at the beginning of my career, right now I don't give a single damn about them. They simply don't deserve a right to live, and there was a situation, which only strengthened that thought. It was a simple patrol and I found a pirate, who was attacking a liner. The liner was already damaged and before I could fire a shot at the pirate it already exploded, but before it did I could hear the screams of all the passengers. I heard children crying, I heard people suffering before they died. And I wasn't able to protect them, I shot the pirate down and located his escape pod. I looked at it for a minute and remembered the voices of the now dead passengers, then...I shot it. There was no reason for me to capture the pod, the pirate simply didn't deserve it. I didn't talk with any other person that day, I kept it to myself and the voices followed me, I heard them again in my dreams. All those pirates, be it Liberty Rogues or the Lane Hackers, or just some independent pirates, all of them will suffer for their crimes. And there's nobody who will stop me from doing so.
On my patrols I had an interesting and difficult encounter with the Hellfire Legion, a group of which I haven't heard about before. All I knew before was that they were hostile and they showed their hostility of course, wasn't an easy battle, their pilots are quite skilled but there was something fascinating about them. They never gave up, even though they were outnumbered, hell, they even managed to destroy some ships of the secondary fleet, while they were under attack by countless Navy ships. There even was a Dreadnought on our side, and after some time I realized the Legion was only out to get that target. Out of nowhere they brought in one of their cap ships and quickly obliterated the dreadnought. It was amazing and cruel, and once they were done they vanished and we were the ones with the heavier losses. I don't know how many died out there, and to be honest, I didn't really care about it at that time. I wanted to know what the Legion was, but when I asked I only got the typical answers, telling me they were my enemies et cetera, nobody was able to tell me the truth about the Legion, maybe I just asked the wrong persons.
Even though it was a rather sad day I decided to spend the evening in a bar, somehow I felt like I needed some other environment, which was not my apartment for once. I sat down in one of the isolated corners and just looked around in the bar, the usual visitors, some Navy members I've seen somewhere before, but nobody I really knew. After some time a woman sat down next to me, and greeted me with my name. I was confused, from where did she know me? Her name was Cristina Valeria Hunter, and she told me she used to be the Second-in-Command of the Hellfire Legion and left the Legion in order to find her right place. Apparently the Legion knows a lot about the Navy and its members, but when I asked her something about the Legion I never got a clear answer, only more confusing stuff. She was an interesting person and I actually liked her, she wasn't born in Liberty, I heard that from her accent, it was similar to the accent I heard from the Outcasts, but she was not one of them, in fact, she was the opposite. She was born deep in the Omicrons, on a planet known as Crete, the home of the Corsairs. Some events had led her and her mother to Libery where she stayed. And that was all she told me about herself, then she told me I shouldn't believe everything 'they' tell me and then she left the bar. Who did she mean with 'they'? At first I didn't know the answer, but slowly I began to feel that she meant my superiors. Exactly. Were they always telling me the truth? They ordered our wing to shoot down targets, according to them they were terrorists, but, were they really terrorists? What if they were simple civlians who were somehow a danger for the higher ups? But what if it was just a trick the Legion used to confuse me?
Again so many questions I asked myself, and the circumstances made sure I wasn't able to spend a lot of time thinking about the answers. Right now I'm writing this from the hospital, some accident happened during a patrol with Captain Ashfield. We were ambushed in California by some Outcasts, I think it were like five Sabres, not exactly sure. And it was a bad day from the beginning, in the past days I was plagued by nightmares and could only get few hours of sleep, and as result I wasn't really focused on my patrols. That day it was even worse and it nearly got me killed. I wasn't paying attention and one of those Outcast hit my ship with a torpedo, the impact blew the console in front of me up. I only remember that I was hit by some metal pieces, and there was pain...indescribable pain. And I saw my own blood on the cockpit glass, then I heard Ashfield yelling at me and it was the last thing I heard before I passed out.
I was dreaming in that time, but it wasn't a regular dream, it felt as if it was real. In the dream I saw my mother, she was holding me, when I was still a little baby, in her arms. It was our old home on Houston, but there was some other person in that room, he had the same accent like those Outcasts and he told my mother he had to leave her and their daughter, if he would stay we both would get into trouble. I have never met my father and mom never told me about him, she actually refused to do so. The person I saw in that dream, was that really my father? If yes, who was he and why did he leave us? I have to find out, once I'm able to leave the hospital I'll ask my mother, and this time she has to tell me the truth, I'll no longer accept lies. But yes, once I can leave, right now my injuries still need to cure. Thank god there are painkillers, else I'd turn insane.
I was able to leave the hospital after one week, I expected my stay would last longer, but I won't complain. They gave me another week to recover at home, it was actually a good thing, even though I didn't know at the beginning what I should do in that time, since most of my time was spent for my job. I knew I wanted to visit my mother, there was still something I had to find out, but I decided that I should first relax for at least two or three days. I needed a real bed, those hostpital beds were not good for my back. It was a good feeling when I entered my apartment, finally I could enjoy some silence. I slept for nearly fourteen hours, I needed it, badly.
After some days I finally visited my mother, and I was amazed to see how a single moment in my life could destroy so much. It was comparable to the situation when two battleship missiles wipe out a single fighter, the destruction that gets unleashed in seconds, something like that happened to me, but in a different way. On my visit I asked my mother about my father, I wanted to know the truth, and I told her that there's no reason to hide anything, I was old enough to know it, I'm her daughter after all and there shouldn't be secrets between the two of us. She told me everything I wanted to know, my father was indeed a Maltese, that's how she called him, that's how they name themselves, but we only know them as Outcasts. They had met long ago and fell in love, but it never came to a marriage. After my birth my father thought that he would bring us into trouble and decided to leave, according to my mother he wanted us to be happy, and he imagined that wouldn't be possible if he stayed. That was all she told me that day, she had no idea where he was at the moment, or if he even was still alive.
To be honest, at first I was shocked, but managed to hide it in front of my mother. It felt as if the world, in which I lived, suddenly got destroyed. I've began to hate the Outcasts long ago, I think it started in my Mercenary life. To me they were monsters, who only brought suffering to Liberty and its citizens. My hatred grew and I hunted them down whenever I got a chance to do so. The truth hurts sometimes I guess. Sort of hard to accept that one of them is my father, I felt myself extremely uncomfortable in my own skin. When I got home I collapsed and spent the next hours lying on the floor...and just cried. It was a frustrating day for me, and I remembered all the situations in which I cursed at Outcasts. I cursed at parts of my family and at parts of myself, I saw myself as my own enemy.
I wanted to be alone, whenever I got the chance to fly patrols alone, I took that chance. I wanted to run away from my past, I wanted to run away from myself. It was a cage, and there was no exit. Battles every day, some were easy, others could be classified as suicide, but I didn't care about it. Killing was something that helped me to forget things for a while, but it had a negative side effect, all these voices of the ones I shot down, be it pirates or smugglers, all these voices, they followed me. I heard them in my dreams, or better said, nightmares. There was nothing I could do, whatever I did, it was always bad for myself. I changed my behaviour and I noticed it, but I couldn't stop it. I was either fighting with myself, or I'd fly patrols and do the thing I'd never enjoy...killing. Both options only cause suffering for me, and there's no real joy in my life.
Not even my promotion from Ensign to Lieutenant could cheer me up, people said I should be proud of myself, after all I even skipped the Junior-Lieutenant rank. Of course it was tradition to celebrate a promotion, and it would look stupid if I wouldn't attend to such an event. It was annoying, sitting between all these persons, I only knew their names, Lewis, Clark, Sanders or Hartman to name a few. But I knew nothing about them, nor did I want to. I really hated that evening, I had to be the person I didn't want to be. I was faking emotions, I was faking smiles, that was the least I could do, after all they wanted to enjoy their evening and I didn't want to destroy it. Getting drunk was also a welcome help to escape, I was just happy when I finally got home, back into my reality.
Right now I'm writing this in the cockpit of my Guardian, the next patrol starts in like fifteen minutes or so. The injuries I had from the accident in California still require painkillers and since I couldn't sleep due to various nightmares again, I can say that I run on coffee and medication. That's...frustrating to say the least. They said we would patrol Bering and Hudson today, should be fun, considering quite a lot patrols were shot down there in the recent days. I guess it can't get better than that.
Hatred has become something important in my life, sometimes I think I couldn't exist without it. I began to hate almost everything around me, be it my wingmen or the place, where I live. It's sort of interesting, whenever somebody is talking with me I only wish that said person just shuts up, and with every passing second I get angrier, sometimes I even play with the idea to just beat them up, but that would just get me into more trouble, and I already have enough of that. Every morning when I wake up I feel pain, they never told me that the injuries from the California accident would last that long, I start to believe it'll be a permanent situation. Sometimes I manage to ignore the pain, but most of the time I'm dependent on painkillers, the doctors know about it, not sure if my superiors do. So far it wasn't really a problem, but it makes me sad that a moment of being uncautious has caused this. All this comes together and my mood is completely destroyed, and that in the morning, in the evenings it's even worse. And I go through all this hassle every single day, it's exhausting and sadly I don't see things changing anytime soon.
I remember that I was drawing a lot in the past, it was the only real hobby I had, I had my fun with it, just spending some hours drawing random things that came into my mind. I still have some of my pictures stored somewhere, but I don't feel like searching for them. Shortly before my accident happened I stopped drawing, I remember I was being frustrated with the result of it, most of my pictures only ended up with showing things that were somehow connected with war or suffering in general. Since I see stuff like that almost every day, I decided to give it a break for some time. During a night, when a nightmare woke me up yet again, I decided to draw, there were some hours I had to kill before my shift started, and I doubt I'd be able to sleep. Was actually nice to draw again, but the result frightened me a bit. I drew a lone girl, who was standing next to a tree, normally that's nothing special. But the emotions she expressed with her face, she looked so sad, as if she was on a search for somebody, but so far she failed to find that person. I think I stared at the picture for like thirty minutes, then I smiled, I can't explain why, but I was happy. It was a feeling I had lost for so long, of course I didn't know for how long it would stay, but I enjoyed every second of it.
I hoped it would stay for some time, but sadly it didn't. As soon as I was back out there in space, I felt the same emptiness, and I began to ask myself if this job really was the best for me, it was hard to explain, but all my suffering, both physically and mentally, was caused by the Navy, at least I thought it was. But what if it was me, who is not suited for the job? What if I'm just a weak individual who can't live with the daily pressure such a job creates? I don't want to be weak, but if I'd leave I would look like I was indeed a weakling, did I want that? No. That day I said to myself that I was strong enough for this life, and I kept repeating it whenever I felt myself insecure. I think I remember one Ensign who once said that there was no place for weaklings in the Navy. I liked his attitude, but he was just one of many, I think a lot of them think that way. However, I doubt they are as strong as they claim to be.
There are some places that somehow attract me, there are the Badlands, usually an area where one should be careful due to the high pirate activity, but call me crazy or something like that, when I'm alone on a patrol, I sometimes fly into that area and deactivate my ship engines and just idle in space for half an hour. It's a nice place, beautiful colors, and most important, it's silent. I love that place, but there's some other place I enjoy, the Ontario system. It's rather isolated and only few patrols lead to that place, hell, not even pirates visit that place regularly. While it's not as beautiful as the Badlands, it's somehow calm. I felt how I calmed down a little when I flew around in that system, sometimes it helps me a lot to forget the things around me. But it's a shame that I only rarely get the chance to visit these areas, I hate those moments when people ask me why I was spending so much time with patroling a system like Ontario.
Now I need to prepare myself for some photo shooting. The recruitment guys asked me if I wanted to be part of it, basically something that involved the fine ladies of the Liberty Navy, they didn't want to tell me more, but it sounded like fun and I was curious. Should be fun, and that was something I needed.
I have to admit, those recruitment guys really try everything to attract new recruits. I wrote about that photo shooting I was invited to, it was indeed fun and the result was even better. It was a collection of pictures about some female pilots of the Navy and they were used for a commercial. It was broadcasted past midnight, since the photos were...not ordinary ones, well, nothing for little kids I guess. My picture was beautiful, I loved it from the beginning, and I have my own copy at home. It sort of cheers me up sometimes. On it, people could see one of my tattoos, a skull with a rose in its mouth, tattooed around my waist. Captain Ashfield asked me about that one, no idea why he found it interesting, but since he's sort of the only one in the Navy I really like I told him the story about. I got that tattoo some years ago, the skull symbolizes my home, Houston. For me it's just a dead place, a place where there's no joy, only pain. The rose symbolizes my mother, the only person who has the strength to fight this desert, the only person who raised me in that dead place. To honor her I decided myself for that tattoo. Over the years many more followed, since I really love tattoos.
One day Ashfield brought me some blood diamonds, they are classified as contraband in Liberty, but I didn't ask from where he got them. In fact, I didn't care, he said they were a little gift, and he had more than enough anyway, so sharing some wouldn't be a problem. I never possessed jewelry, and I realized that I missed something beautiful. I loved those diamonds, and I couldn't get enough from them, I always carried one of them with me, and I didn't care if somebody would say something against it. But I even started to collect more, I began to search around, I needed a place where I could buy more, didn't even have to be blood diamonds, normal ones would have been fine as well. Found a nice gentleman on Curacao, was actually quite expensive, so I was sort of forced to pick the cheapest diamonds he had. Jewelry had a nice effect on me, finally I had something I could only dream of when I was a little girl. My youth wasn't something special, it was actually horrible, we nearly had no money. I was jealous, I heard stories about the rich people, how they waste money every day. Was frustrating when I compared my life to theirs, and I only wished that one day I could do something similar. But they couldn't solve my other problems, and they won't in the future.
I wanted to finally get rid of those painkillers, once my reserve was depleted I'd normally go to the doctors and they'd give me more, since they actually wanted me to take them. They never expected my injuries would cause so many problems, and they said it will probably last forever, a permanent problem so to say. And it really was a problem, but I underestimated it. My reserve was again depleted and I didn't bother to get more, I was sick of them, and believed the doctors were lying to me. It was a stupid thing to do, I challenged it, and with that I only made it worse. My injuries, from the outside seen as some scars around my left shoulder and my belly, were kept secret by myself, I think only Ashfield knew about them, but he didn't know that I was dependent on medicine. It was living hell without the painkillers, and I created that hell by myself, every day it got worse. After waking up it felt as if I was run over by a car. It was hard enough to get to work, flying patrols however, was nearly impossible. Thank god I was patroling with Ashfield in these days, he has been very careful, I think he was giving himself the fault for that accident in California and wanted to make sure that such things won't happen again. Truth is that he saved my life quite often in these days, and I think I made him angry. He asked me what was wrong with me, and I tried to create some excuses, but I don't think he believed me. It would become worse the next day. We were walking through the hallways of Battleship Missouri, well, I tried to follow him but my pain was slowing me down. I wasn't even able to listen to what he said about our patrol, after a moment I stopped and leaned myself against the wall, it was just too much for me. I tried to ignore it for so long and now it had reached the point where it was no longer possible. I collapsed in the next minute and only felt the cold metallic floor. I think I heard Ashfield yelling at me, not exactly sure though, could have been any other person who passed the area. It was the last thing I witnessed before I blacked out.
Woke up in the medical station, Ashfield was there and he was talking with one of the doctors. I felt dizzy, they must have given me some really strong painkiller or something similar. Can say it was at least working. I remember they tried to talk with me, but I must have fallen asleep again. To be honest, I expected that my Navy career would end after that incident, surprisingly it did not. They sent me home after some days, of course they gave me some painkillers and they warned me. I'd better make sure that such a story won't repeat itself. I wrote all of this down to remind myself of the mistakes I did. I shouldn't joke around with my health, yes, I may be sort of handicapped, but I shouldn't make it worse. I think Ashfield deserved my apologies, I caused so much trouble all the time, I feel bad for it, he didn't deserve it. I'll talk to him in the next days.
Well, Ashfield took it better than expected. It was funny, well, a bit at least. It more seemed as if his mind was focused on something else, either way, he accepted my apologies, which made me happy. I sort of felt stupid for getting him into so many unpleasant situations. It didn't take me long until I had found out what distracted him. He told me about his girlfriend, a certain Aleesha Cooper, a name I remembered, she had been one of the new Ensigns, though I didn't fly a patrol with her yet. From his voice I could tell that he really liked her and somehow it made me happy to see him like this. Aleesha was an interesting girl, one could say that she wasn't the right person to be in the Navy, but somehow she actually managed to prove the opposite. I'd call her a bit crazy, but I guess that made her interesting for both me and Ashfield, and I hoped I'd get around to fly some patrols with her.
In the next days something unexpected happened. I was promoted to Lieutenant Commander, that was just awesome. It came out of nowhere and in that moment I was thinking that I was dreaming and everything was just an illusion. Of course, something like that had to be celebrated accordingly. I spent most of the day with other Navy members in the bar, some of them had been promoted as well, and even those who didn't, had their fun. It was just epic, and it actually was the first time when I was really happy, all my other problems were not-existent in that moment, a shame such a feeling couldn't exist all the time in my life.
I woke up in the cockpit of my Guardian, I couldn't remember what happened the day before, only real thing I felt was this annoying hangover. But there was no time to mourn about it, as one of my superiors already yelled at me to get on the patrol I was assigned to. Well, I wasn't even in a good condition to patrol, but it was the first day as Lieutenant Commander, so it would've been a bad idea to refuse to follow the orders I was given. At least I wasn't forced to patrol with random idiots I've never met before, instead I had the pleasure with Aleesha. Patrols had never been any fun, well sometimes they were, but they couldn't top that one. Having Aleesha as wingman was just funny, she was just a careless person. If you didn't pay attention you ended up in a Rogue ambush and were surrounded by countless Werewolves and Barghests. That was Aleesha, she made sure the boring Navy life became something interesting. I love it to fly patrols with her, not only because of that, it was also because she was sort of human, and somehow she did what others never did before, she cared about me. On our first patrol we met a random Rogue, normally I'd have shot him, but Aleesha had a nice ability, thanks to her we received information about some rogue Navy vessels. Aleesha even made sure that the Rogue sent us the information with some flowers, it was funny how easy it was for her to corrupt certain people. Either way, the flowers were nice, and the information was useful.
So far it had been rare that I enjoyed the days in the Navy, Aleesha made everything different. She made sure that this job could indeed be fun, and I really started to like her. She somehow felt like the sister I always wanted, I shared my secrets with her and she shared hers with me. In the next days I talked with some people to make sure that I'd get the chance to patrol again with Aleesha. It surely was better than patrolling with the other Navy members. Hopefully they'd respect my wish...
Normally I shoot every single pirate, but there are so many ways to have fun with them. Aleesha always had some ideas, it was really interesting. Usually they were forced to drop all their ammo, nanobots and shield batteries. Then we let them run, well...sometimes. It's funny to see how they try everything to survive. Pathetic creatures. A shame the fight against them is a never ending battle, you kill one bug and two more are spawning, I wish that it'd be the same on my side, but sadly it isn't. The never ending battle has to be fought with a limited amount of reinforcements. But what can I say? I love challenges, even the most difficult ones. It's not possible for me to run away from them, they magically attract me, sometimes I think they're some sort of drug and I like that drug.
One of those challenges nearly forced me to become a mass murderer. Some idiotic OS&C liner captain thought it was funny to insult Aleesha and me. Calling us incompetent Navy officers and stuff like that. This called for us to make sure his day would get really bad, once we've ordered him to stop the ship, Aleesha began with that mission. Asking him annoying questions, making sure he got really angry at us, which resulted with him insulting us even more. And that made his situation even worse, Aleesha requested information about all his passengers, and he refused to supply us with said information, that was something we couldn't accept. The situation sort of escalated, the captain tried to run away from us and normally we would've shot him down, but there was a problem, or better said, many problems: The two thousand passengers on his ship. We were forced to attack the liner, and risked their lives. We were actually quite angry and to be honest, I didn't really care about those passengers, but it'd be really bad for us if we had actually killed them. We couldn't do it, since the LSF was in the area as well, so we focused on the engines, but after a minute the captain realized his own stupidity and stopped the ship. What followed was yet another long useless talk with the same result, this time with the LSF involved. Of course it was impossible to get the captain to follow our request.
He again tried to run and jumped into the Pennsylvania system. Aleesha and I were forced again to shoot the liner, it was badly damaged when it finally stopped. What nobody from us knew was that there were some terrorists aboard the liner. I think they had become quite nervous about that mess and took control of the ship. Funny how fast things change, now we had to get those two thousand hostages back into safety. Since talking wasn't a great help we called in the LLS with a marine squad to take the liner back with force. Of course it was a risky move, we had no information about the terrorists, so we had to act fast. Twenty deaths are better than two thousand, it may sound a bit cruel, but sometimes we're forced to take such measures. Aleesha and I observed the whole story, the marines did a good job and took control of most parts of the ship, while they somehow managed to damage the power core, which would slowly destroy the ship. So we had to hurry to get all the hostages transferred over to one of our transport ships. Once that was done, all the marines were picked up again, and left the terrorists alone on the ship. They were trapped, and it was sure that they'd die sooner or later. The terrorists didn't intend to surrender and even used the liner's weaponry to attack us, a desperate move in order to save something that can't be saved. They found their graves in the eternity of space.
Somehow we were celebrated as heroes, god, I hate that. Attention is something I always wanted to avoid. But somehow it's funny as well, I mean, we were so damn close to killing all those passengers and now we're celebrated as heroes. I wonder what other surprises I'll encounter in my life. Aleesha invited me to spend the night at her house, of course I accepted, because it's way better than spending my time alone. She's a talented cook, can't say I've recently eaten such good food. Funniest part was when she allowed me to sleep in her bed and poor Ashfield was forced to sleep on the couch. Aleesha is like the sister I never had, almost like an angel. I was really happy that I've met her.
"Huh, why did you delete that entry?" Maria began to ask. "Hmmmmm, I can't even remember when I deleted it, but I do know what the content was, and...it was something I wanted to erase from my memories..." Natalie said with a rather sad voice. "Were they bad memories?" Maria asked, even though she could already guess the answer. "Yes, let's move on to the rest..."
I've lost everything that made me happy. My family is gone, well, they are far away from Liberty and I don't want to go to them. My mother was the only person I'd call a part of my family, she left Liberty in order to find my father, it was a good idea and I only wished her the best. But it just turned into a depressing situation for me. I only received a text message from her, its content simply shocked me. She had found my father and the rest of his family...on Planet Malta. And she decided to stay with them, so yes, she had become one of those cardamine slaves, and she told me that I could always follow her. She even gave me detailed information about the rest of my new family, but that wasn't important in that moment. It really pissed me off that my mother simply decided to leave me alone, I felt as if I was thrown away like garbage. It took quite some time in order to calm down, and the thought of living on Malta flooded my mind. If it wasn't Malta I'd have left Liberty already, but I don't know if it's really worth to become addicted to Cardamine, as much as I'd love to have a family, I just can't decide. For now I was alone...
Aleesha simply vanished, which made me really sad. Now I was left alone in the Navy, with wingmen I simply hated, and not a single soul was there that could cheer me up, not even Josh is around, I have no idea where he is at the moment, but it looks bad for me without him or Aleesha in the Navy. Wow, I remember how happy I was months ago, and now? Just a shadow of myself, everything was destroyed and I wonder why I didn't give up already, there's something that keeps me running, something that...keeps me alive, even though I no longer feel happiness. Weeks ago I was really happy, I found out that I was pregnant, really, such an epic moment in my life, but then...everything was destroyed. Thanks to that California incident I was still dependent on medicine, and the doctors told me that if I take the painkillers I'd risk the life of my unborn child. If I don't take the painkillers I could risk my own life. I didn't want to accept this and refused to take the medicine, the consequences were just terrible for me. Rarely have I felt so much pain in my life, and I gave up after some time. There was no hope for a good ending, I was forced to abort the pregnancy. A sad day in my life and I haven't smiled ever since that happened. I curse that day when I survived in California, why didn't I just die back then? I only survived to get into more problems. There no longer is place for happiness in my life, only sadness and anger is left.
Not even the father stayed with me after the abortion. He dumped me like my mother did, and I'll never forgive him. I can't believe I fell for him, all those hours I spent with him were wasted time, all the emotions were just illusions. In my eyes he has lost the right to live, if I ever meet him again, may god have mercy with him, because I won't. I remember his face, I remember his voice, I'll find him, and then he'll die, and if it's the last thing I do in my life.