- excerpt from the personal notepad of a Blood Dragon Raider -
I have obtained this notepad to keep track of who I once was and how I changed to the person I am now. My name is Hayato Fujihara, son of Minoru and Yuuna, Blood Dragon of Shogun Hideyoshi.
I was born on planet Honshu during my parents' yearly vacation leave to the planet. Life on the Naha was hard for those born planetside, with the gravity generators only ever delivering half of what is considered normal gravity. All the people used to normal gravity were granted periods of leave to their homes on Honshu.
Ever since I started to recognise the world around me, my father always told me that my place was in the cockpit of an Eagle, defending the Gas Miners Guild from lowdown pirates. It was family heritage, one that was served by both my grandfather and my father, both of them recognised aces. "It runs in my blood" I was assured, but that was not where my interests were. I instead put my energy into electronics, attempting to decode what makes the vast control systems on Naha tick. My father tried to sway me, all in vain. I was soon completely aware of everything that ran the station. Rather than completely analysing every little bit of machinery, I spent more and more time delving into the depths of the neural net, discoverying it's secrets.
With knowledge of advantages comes knowledge of vulnerabilities. Analysis was never a problem to me, and I soon realised how easy taking control over bits of information can be. A few colleagues of mine on the station were quite aware, and soon I was talking to one of the higher standing representatives of the GMG. He was asking me to retrieve some information in a way that would not be tracked back to him. I was 18 years old at the time. I had been granted extensive leave periods on Honshu, along with an advanced computer system in an isolated house there so as to work in peace. Ever since then whenever I saw my father, he never asked me to fly an Eagle again, and I can only wonder whether he was asked to do so by someone else.
For three years of my life I was set. No Samura firewall or administrator could stop me in my quests. I never knew the people I was doing these "favours" for, but the representative who set it up for me was very happy, and my family was now recieving grants after grants from the Guild.
Samura... the tyrant. I was informed that it was all for a good cause.
I do not know to this day whether it was my own complacency, or a superior tracker employed by... "the enemy". On September the 3rd, 809; Kusari State Police had surrounded my "home" and I was placed under arrest for corporate espionage. As I was forewarned, the Gas Miners Guild denied any affiliation with me in the hearings. Honour bound to my secrets, I have not said a single word. I didn't want to drag others into this, it was my responsibility. Without substantial evidence of any of my previous actions, I was sentenced to five years in Fuchu prison, the low-security wing.
Fuchu was a hellhole. The warden would deliberately mix foreign criminals with those hated by the Kusari government. Almost three fourths of the entire facility was inhabited by foreigners, like Libertonians captured in Galileo. The guards were used to turning a blind eye to beatings and abuse. In this deadly environment where strength ruled above all, one had to earn his own respect. I earned mine by working the library, more specifically the terminals there. Neural net access was limited for security, and in theory one could only browse the local archives for fiction. I used my skills to bypass the protection and earn the ability to send untracable messages to any destination on the net.
A few days later, something happened that would change everything I stood for. I was approached by several men. The ones who always sat together during meal hours at a table in a corner of the room. The ones who would always walk as a group, and who most wouldn't dare to look at aggressively. These men were not Hogosha, no. Hogosha would never be sentenced to a prison like Fuchu, no matter what public crime they perpetrated. These men were revolutionaries to some and terrorists to others. They were Blood Dragons.
The next day I sat at their table during meal hours. I was not touched by anyone for the rest of my sentence, meanwhile I helped my new friends with their communications. Being the messenger, I slowly learned what the Blood Dragon movement was all about, their principles and goals... their methods. I spent more and more time with them, learning of the common ties between the Dragons and the Guild I was born into. Our common history only drawn me closer to them, as everything they stood for became fascinating to me.
At the end of my sentence they revealed to me the truth about their incarceration. They were to spend their lives in this prison, never to see the light of day or the safe haven of their base ever again. I was told to lie in wait, for I will be called on when the time is right. My release notice came on September the 12th, 814; and I was transported to planet New Tokyo. There I rented an apartment with whatever money I could scrape up from my old accounts, and began doing small jobs.
It took two whole years but the message finally came, disguised as an inconspicuous job notice in Honshu. I arrived in a small freighter, just to be surrounded by four Dragon pilots and escorted deep into the nebula. When we finally emerged through the jump hole, I saw the glimpse of my future home: the legendary Kyoto base. It was there where my doubts were removed, where I learned the final part about my family legacy.
I am Hayato Fujihara, born from a long line of fighter aces; son of Minoru, master trainer in fighter tactics for the Gas Miners Guild; and an honoured sensei of the Blood Dragons. I have pledged my skills and my life to the righteous Shogun Hideyoshi, and to his successors and followers. I will fight for an honourable and truthful Kusari empire, ruled venerably and without corruption. It is my destiny and my future to do so.