Much of my early life was spent drifting from station to station throughout the Border Worlds and Edge Worlds. When I was very young my father who worked aboard a BMM mining ship ‘The Celestial Spirit’ was killed in an Outcast raid. With very little in the way of credits and no compensation from the BMM after the attack my mother was left to raise me on her own with virtually nothing to support. Much of my youth was spent scampering around the decks of Freeport 7 with the other children who inhabited the station. At a very young age I found that I had an affinity for anything to do with mechanics and engineering. Often I would hang around the docking bays of the Freeport picking up small maintenance and repair jobs on the ships that docked in an effort to earn some extra credits. As soon as I turned 16 in order to support my mother further I secured a position on a convey headed for planet Kurile and left the Freeport. That’s how I spent the next 6 years, going from convoy to convoy just trying to find at least semi-permanent work.

When Freeport 7 was destroyed, my mother along with it, I slowly slipped into a drunken depression. I don’t know how much time between then and when I met the Captain, must have been a year at least. There I was a drunken wreck lying in an alley outside a hole of a bar in the lower levels of some forgotten station somewhere in the Tau’s. I don’t know what he saw in me, must have been some potential or I wouldn’t have been signed up. His name was Lyons Vaughn, an ex-Kruger Minerals miner turned independent. He was as wise as he was experienced while also being stern but fair. To put it simply he was my mentor an eventually my best friend. He got me on my feet again and before I knew it I was standing outside an obscure docking bay on some level of the station. His ship the ‘Fortune’s Prospect’ was the grandest and the oldest ship I had ever laid eyes upon. An old DU5-7Y mining vessel its hull was weathered with age and plasma and laser scoring pock-marked the structure.

The next 10 years from then on would be the best and most defining years of my life. After so many years of wandering I had found a home Lyons had not just selected me to be just another crew member but to be his protégé as well. Lyons was my guide and teacher. He taught me the art of navigation, when a smuggler would be offended If you offered him too little for his services and whether a pirate would pose a real threat or just be microwave ready cannon fodder. After 7 years aboard the Prospect I had become an established and trusted member of the crew and the captain’s second in command. Around this time though Lyons had become increasingly ill, often retreating to his cabin not to emerge for days at a time. With this occurring the crew looked to me more and more for guidance and my position of command became more prominent and demanding. The next 3 years were a repeating cycle, of highs and lows and struggles to pull through. Lyons eventually passed away though he left me with one more surprise, this would prove to be one of his greatest gifts of all. He had given me the ‘Fortune’s Prospect’ itself.