I am the 'Bearbarian' and I have been called an animal, a savage, a barbarian, an inhuman killer, a blight on society and other, less complimentary things. But I don't care what people call me, I have a calling in life and that is to hunt down and kill people. I am good at it and I enjoy doing it, It is my only reason for being, but it was not always so.
My name was once Theodore Orson and loved hearing my mother call me her 'little Teddy Bear' (Orson means 'Bear' in one of the old Earth languages). I had loving parents and annoying little sisters just like normal people. I was born in space, onboard the Independent Merchant Ship 'Kernowek', which was owned and crewed by my extended family. My uncle Ewen was the captain, my father was the navigator, my mother was the medic and my other uncles, aunts and cousins were the crew. We were a reasonably happy little community and although we knew we would never be rich, we made a decent living as we travelled from system to system, trading commodities that the large corporations did not concern themselves with. The only fly in my ointment was that as a 12 year old, I was considered old enough to be assigned duties, but these included supervising the crèche, which I hated! After all I was 12, nearly 13, so I should have been training for my adult career rather than watching a load of babies playing, shouldn't I? Especially since 2 of those babies were my 6 year old twin sisters, whose favourite saying was, 'Can't tell us what do, you just our brotha!' God, how I wish I could go back to those days!
It was while we were travelling to the Texas system that I had the accident. My sisters had managed to open an access plate that had not been screwed down properly and were poking at the wiring to see the coloured sparks spitting out, God knows why. I managed to push then away from the wiring, but got hit with a massive discharge which killed me. The last thing I remember as everything went dark was a voice that I had never heard before saying not to be afraid, because I still had work to do.
I regained consciousness in sick bay and was told that my heart was destroyed and that I had been dead for 17 minutes and that only prompt action in getting me to the ancient emergency equipment brought me back, but that the help I needed was beyond what was available on the ship. So after our scheduled stop on Planet Houston, the ship continued on its way without me, while I recuperated from my artificial heart transplant and waited for my family to return for me. They never came and I never saw any of them again. Alive that is.
The gutted wreck of the 'Kernowek' was found drifting close to the West Point -> Pennsylvania trade lane 7 months later. The cargo was gone and she had been stripped of a lot of her internal equipment, but the worst part was that there were no bodies, just blood splashed everywhere. A Captain from the Liberty Navy, who came to inform me of the findings said that there was no clue to who had done it or why, but allowed me to reclaim any pictures of my family, etc from the wreck that I could as it was classed as salvage and now belonged to a salvage company. It was while I was doing this that I found that the internal CCTV recordings were still there. Internal CCTV is almost unheard of on spaceships so nobody thought to check for it, but my uncle had installed it because of the young children living aboard. When we played back the recording we found out what had happened alright!
The 'Kernowek' had been ambushed by Liberty Rogues, they fired without warning or demanding either credits or dropping of cargo. Uncle Ewen, informed them that there were children on board and that he would hand over both money and credits if they stopped shooting. Following their instructions, he cut his engines and allowed some of the Rogues on board to check the cargo and take whatever they wanted. It was the last mistake he ever made.
I will never know what happened to my parents or the rest of the adults, but the record clearly shows what went on in the crèche. I saw the Rogues walk in to a room full of babies, the oldest being my 6 year old sisters.
Watched them laughing as one of them went out and came back with a chainsaw.
Heard the screams of the children rivalling the scream of the chainsaw.
Watched the fountains of blood and bits of flesh splattering all over the walls and children's toys.
Watched how they killed the youngest first, so that they older ones had a good look at what was going to happen to them.
At the last, saw my sisters faces as they were held down and as the chainsaw bit into their bodies.
And always throughout the whole ordeal, heard the laughter of the Rogues as they enjoyed their 'entertainment'.
I stole my first spaceship when I was still only 14, a Starflier with pretty useless armament, but when the Liberty Rogue attacked me, it was good enough to Kamikaze his ship and I was lucky enough to be able to shatter his cockpit and let the b*****d breathe vacuum. As a juvenile, I got 2 years due to the extenuating circumstances of what had happened to my family.
When I got out I managed to steal a Patriot, which was well enough armed that I was able to kill 4 Rogues before the Navy caught up with me. Since I was only just 17 now and obviously 'disturbed' by what had happened to my family, I was sent for 'Psych Readjustment'. After 11 months of 'reconditioning' I was pronounced as ready to integrate into society. I stole another Patriot and managed to kill 13 more Rogues before I was caught. This time by a Bounty Hunter who called himself 'Snuff'. I was sentenced to another 3 years, with the warning that next time I would be a juvenile no longer and would be treated as a '3-time-loser'.
When I got out, 'Snuff' was waiting for me. He told me that I was fething idiot who was wasting my life looking for revenge. That if I had any sense I would put it behind me and try to make a life for myself. That he admired my spunk and that I deserved a chance. And that I was going about it all wrong!
He took me under his wing and taught me how to be a better pilot rather than a suicidal idiot. How to fight intelligently rather than in a berserk fury. How to use my advantages and how to take advantage of my enemy's weaknesses. Lastly he taught me how to kill while staying within the law and get paid for doing it. In short, how to be a Bounty Hunter, not a vigilante.
He said that he had never accepted the bounty for bringing me in, but had invested it and that it was now enough for a basic, 2nd hand Starflier equipped with a pair of Bluebell Chain Guns, which he had bought and was now giving to me. Then he told me to get out there and prove that I could go straight, that he was not mistaken about me and that I deserved to be a Bounty Hunter. A year later he proudly helped me obtain my Bounty Hunter ID, just 6 weeks before he was killed in a furball with some Blood Dragons.
In the years since, I have improved and earned enough as a Bounty Hunter to upgrade from that humble Starflier through a Defender, a Barracuda, a Hammerhead, to where I now fly a Manta. And thanks to 'Snuff' I have found my true calling in life, not as a vigilante seeking personal revenge which poisoned my soul, but as a Bounty Hunter, helping to prevent the type of scum who killed my family from blighting other innocent people's lives. That young 'Teddy Bear' is now old enough and grizzly enough to defend himself and others from the real animals out there.
And to you poor deluded liberals who say that we are a civilized society and should be above such primitive behaviour, I say;
'Your civilization can only exist because people like me go down into the gutter and deal with the garbage to stop it overflowing into your 'civilized' areas. So go back to your comfortable delusions and let the rest of who are capable of dealing with reality do so!'