Felicia sits down in a chair at a desk, and lets out a small sigh. She unties the ribbon she uses to hold back her pale blonde hair and lets it fall to her shoulders. Running her fingers through her hair, she looks at the screen before her wistfully, and begins typing.
It has been several weeks now since we left the Omicrons. I had intended to start writing this journal earlier, but, business and procrastination have interfered with it constantly. I write this log to organize my thoughts. They are too jumbled in my head as they are. If nothing else, this will serve as a point of reference for me to look back to, should I need to.
We, my crew and I, fled from the Omicrons on the 26th of May, 818 AS. I still do not know why we have been persecuted, why we were cast out from the Order...nevertheless, we have been branded as traitors. I am determined to get to the bottom of this, and find out exactly why this has happened, but for now, I have no leads to go on. Even being almost a month ago, I can still place the sequence of events clearly in my mind.
Our gunboat, at the time carrying the call sign OCV Sanguis, was ordered to stop in Omicron Delta by high command. A wing arrived shortly to intercept us, and we were ordered to stand down and be destroyed.
She forms a small, but pained smile.
It has never been my policy to allow myself to come to harm if I can avoid it. The whole situation reeked of suspicion...it still reeks of suspicion. So, we fled. They fired upon us. Sanguis sustained heavy damage, but we escaped.
We ran the gauntlet of Omicron Gamma and docked at Freeport 9 to catch our breath and get our bearings, but we didn’t stay there long. The zoners on the station had no idea of our predicament, but with the Order on our tail, and potentially Corsairs furious with our trespass as well, we had to think quickly, and leave as soon as possible. My navigator, Luke Heyman, recommended that we cut through the Omegas and make our way to Bretonia, and I tentatively agreed. Bretonia is one of the few houses that does not consider the Order to be a criminal element, so at the very least, we thought that we might be able to seek amnesty there. With a little work, we dropped the OCV title from Sanguis’s name and went to Bretonia.
We met mixed results.
She stops her tapping of the keyboard for a moment, and looks at the screen, reading over her sentence again.
It was not ideal. Even if we were not criminals in Bretonia’s eyes, we were certainly not trustworthy. Even if we could somehow wipe our records clean, Sanguis was a beacon that broadcast a message to all who could see. A Hathor class gunboat is not typically associated with anyone that serves the best interests of the people, even if that is the Order’s ultimate mission. There are connotations that cannot be simply erased.
Sanguis is a vessel that takes at least four crew members to run efficiently, myself included. Other than Luke serving as navigator, my other crew members were and continue to be Corinne Everill, the engineer, and Harlan Winter, the tactical officer. We had worked together as a crew on Sanguis for several months before this, so we had had time to develop a bond...though perhaps that bond was not so strong as it could have been.
Sanguis operated at less than full capacity. On top of having only a bare minimum of crew, she had been heavily damaged in our flight from the edge worlds, and there was only so much Corinne could do for her alone. Without a team of engineers from the Order to look at her, Sanguis’s reactor core only operated at partial efficiency. Harlan wanted us to abandon Sanguis and find a new vessel, or go our separate ways, but I would have none of it.
She takes a breath as she pauses in her writing.
Sanguis was not just a ship. She was my constant companion, and my home. She was the only thing I had left from before this crescendo of misfortune. She was the only thing that stood between my assailants and my life, and by extension, the lives of my crew as well. So, I could not part with her. Perhaps I was stubborn in doing so, and perhaps it was unwise.
Her hands hover over the keyboard as she starts to add more, but she taps return instead.
I managed to convince Harlan that there were other routes we could take, other means of survival, and he backed off. There were a few long nights on Planet New London where I feared he had decided not to come back to the ship after going out, but my anxiety was misplaced. Despite his unease and dissent, he still seemed to feel that he should come back. Maybe he reconsidered, and thought that in the end, it would be more difficult to make it on his own. Perhaps he did feel there was still something for him with me, and with Sanguis. I do not know certainly.
Regardless, we did not stay in Bretonia more than two weeks, and we made our way to the independent worlds between Bretonia and Liberty. Deep in the Barrier Rim, we stopped at the Gate Station in Coronado. It was there that a new era began.
Taking a Hathor to a station full of freelancers, mercenaries, bounty hunters and criminals alike without drawing attention is nigh impossible. It was only a matter of time before some deduced that I was the captain of the vessel.
Our first encounter was short and violent. Two bounty hunters on the station figured that they could score some credits if they brought in the body of an Order gunboat captain. I had the fortune of foresight, and when they decided to ambush me, Corinne was not far away. Station security arrived not long after, but we had already killed both our assailants. Cramped corridors do not make good terrain for firefights. Despite our victory, I sustained a severe wound as well, and security swiftly relocated me to the station’s medical bay, posting guards outside my ward.
Our second encounter occurred when I had a visitor. He came quietly during the night, and spoke sensibly to my guards. Corinne tensed at his arrival, and I cannot help but admit I was also on edge. The man was tall and fit; boasted several scars; and maintained long, dirty blonde hair, with matching stubble. He was a pirate, and an independent one at that.
He told us he had heard about the attack, and wished to get to us “before anyone else did.” He had one goal in mind, and that was a deal that he presented to us: he wished for us to act as an escort for his bomber in Liberty while he held up the trade lane, in exchange for financial compensation, and his own guarantee that we would get a word in the ears of “those who mattered.”
None of this did anything to ease me, nor did it help Corinne’s anxiety, but I told him that we would consider it. After all, our options were very thin at the moment. I could, at that time, count three organizations that conclusively wished for us dead: the Order hunted us for reasons unknown, having arbitrarily branded us traitors; the Corsairs had no love for our brief, but violent trespass in their territory, and for that reason likely wished us dead; and now the Bounty Hunters Guild was likely to post a price on our heads, for killing their own members, and for the simple virtue that we were members of the Order. Even if that was no longer the case in our eyes, a Hathor is an Order vessel no matter what way you look at it, and bounty hunters were more than eager to apply that label to us if it meant extra credits.
She pauses again.
We were no strangers to the lawful assets of Liberty as our enemies. The Alaska system directly connects the heart of Liberty to the Edge worlds, right at Omicron Minor, what was once the stronghold of the Order. Even so, the context of our actions changed everything. It was one thing to fight Liberty because they opposed our cause, but it was entirely another to side with petty criminals and hold up civilians to deprive them of their hard-earned cargo and credits.
She lets out a soft sigh.
We did agree, in the end. We had no choice. If we had not accepted his generous offer, we would have only found ourselves hunted in an unforgiving Sirius. At least this way, we created some leads that could potentially lead to allies.
So, we took point, and flew as his escort.
Afterward, he led us to Rochester Base in the New York system, paid us generously, and told us that “certain parties” would like be quite happy with what we had done. It did not help the acidic taste in my mouth, nor did it much please my crew. It provided us with money, though, and that was a resource we had run dangerously low on. There is only so much you can pawn off before you find that it has become a choice between eating a proper meal and flying the next day.
So, we stayed in Liberty. We continue to stay in Liberty. We continue to fly with the freelancer banner, and we have hired ourselves out to the Liberty Rogues on more than one occasion. Relations have improved enough that we have even signed on their personal bounty board...their kill list that gives us a license to hunt the Liberty Navy and anyone else that the Rogues call foes.
She stops typing and sits in her chair for a long while. She closes her eyes, then leans forward and begins typing again.
Harlan and Corinne particularly have questioned my actions of late. They both feel as though I have changed; as though I have come to embrace our new line of work, and as though I may even enjoy it. They feel that I have become cold and callous.
I do not know if I can justify myself, but I can at least say this. It is not new for us to fight the Liberty Navy. We simply do so on different terms now, and for a different party. The results, however, are the same. The Navy is diminished, and their enemies benefit from it, no matter whom they may be.
To work as a mercenary for a faction such as the Rogues, you cannot hold a conscience while you do what you do. You cannot let yourself think. You cannot let yourself be human while you end the lives of others. It is no different than ending lives when you fight for any other cause. If you allow yourself to think about the repercussions, then you will fail.
I do not do this because I necessarily want to. I do not do this because I take sadistic pleasure in the pain and suffering of others. I do this because I have to.
I suppose there are some who cannot tell the difference. I hope I do not become one of them.
Felicia slumps down in her chair with a groan, and brings up the log on her screen.
My relationship with my crew is strained. Harlan still believes that we are not doing the “right” thing...though he could not give me an answer when I asked him if there was anything better that we could do. Corinne is uncomfortable, and it shows, though she does not talk about it as much. She trusts my judgment, even if this is not what she wishes we were doing.
Luke seems to be the only one that actively supports what we are doing at the moment. If it were not for that, then it is possible that I would not have a crew for this vessel at all. I do not particularly want to have to replace anyone, especially not with random criminals. It is not an ideal situation.
She pauses and looks over the paragraph, then grits her teeth and taps return.
Luke is supportive, though. He understands the necessity, and does not question it. I doubt he held much love for the forces of Liberty before, either. He seems to have history with them, though I do not know anything specific. It is not my place to pry into his life story unless he wishes to share it with me.
We all had an argument barely half an hour ago. While we were hunting in the New York system today, we got cornered by a force of the Liberty Navy primary fleet. I decided to cooperate with them, and fortunately, they did not attack. They escorted us out of Liberty, to the Cortez system, after they were satisfied with their line of questioning. They may have came to the conclusion that I would not cause any more trouble in Liberty, though I did not take it for granted. It was difficult to read them.
Harlan is convinced that I abused their trust. He believes that I implied to the Navy that we would not continue to work against them. He, and Corinne to an extent, both believe that we should have gone about it differently, but what can they expect me to do? Do they want me to tell the Navy that we will be back and we will continue to act in defiance of the law? There is no easy way out of this, and the way I took means that we live another day.
She begins to type “It is possible...” but she hesitates. She backspaces and deletes it.
I did imply to the navy that we would not be back, and that we would not cause further trouble. It was the only way we could have survived that. Morality and ethics cannot get in the way when your life is on the line. When you are cornered with your back against the wall, you must say whatever you can to ensure that you live. Why can Harlan and Corinne not understand that I am trying to protect them?
She sighs as she reads over her last line again.
We need to find out more about why we are being hunted, and how to repair Sanguis and bring her back to full functional capacity. Perhaps if we do not spend so much time hunting the forces of Liberty, there will not be so much unrest. I do not know where to begin, though. There are no Order engineers anywhere near here, and even if there were, there is no possibility that they would help us. We are still traitors to them, and I feel more and more as though that is unlikely to change. I do not even know who might be able to find a contact for us in the Order to find out more.
We have the Liberty Rogues available to us, that much is certain. Our relationship with them has only improved over time, particularly because we work with them so closely on so many occasions. Perhaps there is someone among them that we could speak with, but I do not know if Moka would want to speak with me directly.
She stops writing for several moments, lost in thought.
The only way to find out is to try. Perhaps they will be able to help us. Perhaps they will have a contact of some nature, or their engineers will be willing to work with us, or anything else.
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