Douglas Hayes III had always been a trouble-maker. As a child at the Winterberry Grove Residential Complex in Rexford on Planet Los Angeles, all the neighbors knew him as the noisy kid who was always up to no good, but he did have a somewhat bright head on his shoulders. Bright enough to get him into college, where he studied Arts. As a college student, he got heavily involved in L.A.'s neo-punk scene, where he booked gigs and connected people. He fell in with the wrong crowd, Rogues and Junkers, and started peddling drugs. In the busy nightlife of L.A. there always someone who wanted to score a hit of Cardamine, and Douglas bought it from the Rogues and sold it on for a small profit. He started using the stuff himself, and made wild plans with one of his college mates to go to Malta and pick it up straight at the source. That should prove to be a mistake.
During the summer break, the two of them rented a freighter and made their way to Omicron Alpha with relative ease. They stayed on Planet Malta for three weeks, sucking in the atmosphere and enjoying the exotic surroundings. Neither of them were adapted to the level of Cardamine in the atmosphere, so they were in a constant rush. They filled the freighter with the Orange Dream and set off back to Liberty, but traversing the Barrier withdrawal started to kick in for them both. With the cargo hold full of Cardamine they had an easy fix, and they both started diving into the seemingly endless supply of grass, getting higher and higher until passing out. That was the last he ever saw of his friend.
Unfortunately it was an LPI patrol that intercepted their ship drifting around near the Liberty borders. The officers transferred over the cargo and the two friends before destroying the freighter, leaving no proof of it ever having been there. Douglas didn't register any of this, he only came to his senses when they were on solid ground. He woke up in a dirty bunk bed and realized that he had shackles on. The damn LPI had sold him into slavery on Planet Pittsburgh, and there was nothing he could do about it as they had taken his ID. The slavers weren't exactly interested in his story either.
He was only at Pittsburgh for a few hours before he and 500 other slaves were herded into a Pilgrim Liner and shipped off. A Junker had bought them, intending to sell them on at Planet Malta for a huge profit. There was no point in objecting. Douglas had seen what the Junkers did to the other slaves that complained. Even at Malta he suffered his fate quietly, working hard in the Cardamine fields without any prospect of change.
7 years later, by a stroke of luck, one of his former Liberty Rogue acquaintances recognized him when visiting the Cardamine plantation Douglas worked on, and bought his freedom. With a lack of legal status in Liberty, nowhere to go and a heavy Cardamine addiction, Douglas applied for a Maltese citizenship. He had to endure three years as cannon fodder in the Maltese Navy, but he survived it, and it made him into a decent fighter pilot. As soon as he earned his citizenship, he used the credits he had saved up to purchase a brand new CQV-Gen 1 "Rapier" Maltese Very Heavy Fighter and set off to Liberty to make a life for himself, putting his skills to use as a free Maltese.
Douglas Hayes III had always been a trouble-maker. As a child at the Winterberry Grove Residential Complex in Rexford on Planet Los Angeles, all the neighbors knew him as the noisy kid who was always up to no good, but he did have a somewhat bright head on his shoulders. Bright enough to get him into college, where he studied Arts. As a college student, he got heavily involved in L.A.'s neo-punk scene, where he booked gigs and connected people. He fell in with the wrong crowd, Rogues and Junkers, and started peddling drugs. In the busy nightlife of L.A. there always someone who wanted to score a hit of Cardamine, and Douglas bought it from the Rogues and sold it on for a small profit. He started using the stuff himself, and made wild plans with one of his college mates to go to Malta and pick it up straight at the source. That should prove to be a mistake.
7 years later, by a stroke of luck, one of his former Liberty Rogue acquaintances recognized him when visiting the Cardamine plantation Douglas worked on, and bought his freedom. With a lack of legal status in Liberty, nowhere to go and a heavy Cardamine addiction, Douglas applied for a Maltese citizenship. He had to endure three years as cannon fodder in the Maltese Navy, but he survived it, and it made him into a decent fighter pilot. As soon as he earned his citizenship, he used the credits he had saved up to purchase a brand new CQV-Gen 1 "Rapier" Maltese Very Heavy Fighter and set off to Liberty to make a life for himself, putting his skills to use as a free Maltese.![[Image: 120px-BhgLogo.png]](https://discoverygc.com/wiki/images/thumb/7/7c/BhgLogo.png/120px-BhgLogo.png)
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