Freeport Eleven, a remote station that serves as a temporary stop for some who curse their luck whenever they need to stop there, and for a certain few, the one place they really can call home, for despite all it's flaws and the hardships that come with life in Omicron Delta, this is the one place where they truly feel free, from the ones who simply choose to distance themselves from the monotony of working under the corporations thumb and choose to live on the knives edge, to those who are hiding from their past, be it warrants, war or some other dark memory that haunts them still.
Jason Harper was one of the latter, finding refuge far from the madness that had engulfed Bretonia during the Gallic War and pushed him from a simple student to resistance fighter and then finally to an outlaw. He had just returned from a lengthy discussion with a Colonel in the Order Overwatch, who had just informed him that her predecessor and one of the few people in the Edge that Harper considered a friend had been killed in action.
Retiring to his quarters aboard the Freeport with the bottle of rum the Colonel had given him, Jason quickly ended up seated at the small table he ate his meals at and had just finished downing his second shot of rum, his mind still playing back the moment the Colonel had broken the news. While he had figured that anyone who went missing for an entire year in the Omicrons was by all odds not going to be coming back, the confirmation still hurt, the last little glimmer of hope having been crushed by reality.
By the third shot he was now thinking what he had achieved ever since he choose to abandon the resistance back in Leeds, of course since he managed to get off planet through one of the blind spots the resistance managed to punch through the Gallic air defense network, he had been spared the fate that had awaited his former comrades and even what remained of his family in what was supposed to be their day of glory.
"But to what end?" Was the question that haunted him as he reminisced on the violence the path of the outlaw pirate brought him down, all the violence, threats and the general disregard for anything but himself hadn't bought him any peace or the fulfillment he thought he'd might find by breaking the cycle that most in Leeds were born into.
Instead he found himself out on the edge of the universe stuck in the middle of a three way war between alien lifeforms who the very concept of mercy was foreign to, a corporation that made BMM look like a champion of human rights that was backed up by a paramilitary that fancied itself conquerors of the one place he felt at home and last but not least, the group that some called terrorist and others called heroes, who had been fighting the former two for more than a decade now despite the massive losses they had occurred over the years and yet here he remained without doing much more than harassing the odd transport he caught unguarded for a few credits out of the millions, if not billions of profit that the corporation who sought to exploit his adopted home generated.
It was as he was about to pour his fourth shot Jason remembered something the Colonel had mentioned earlier, regarding how being closer to Toledo, the ruins of their past, had made it easier for them to reflect on their choices. It was this that stuck with him and whether it was the rum beginning to have an effect, the tiredness of a long day or just a general lack of care anymore, by the time Jason decided to get some sleep, he had committed to the idea of returning to Leeds, to reflect on his past and decide on what he would do next.
The former freedom fighter turned pirate would awaken the next morning with a new found sense of focus and just maybe, if he was lucky, a new purpose.
Planet Leeds, once the industrial backbone of Her Majesty's Kingdom. It had been two years since Harper had been here. Two years since he'd heard the place he once called home, the place he had once fought and killed for had been rendered worthless. In one final moment of desperation, while the rest of the system was being consumed by the final battle of the Gallic war, the sacrifices of those who had fought and bled on the surface were wiped away for naught.
Harper wound up staying on Halifax Freeport while he was revisiting his past. Halifax was a haphazard mess quickly thrown together by the few survivors who had nowhere else to go and opportunists, most of whom came from less than reputable backgrounds, dealing in the age-old trades of piracy and smuggling. As a result, Harper didn't feel all that much out of place.
During his stay, he had taken the time to talk to a few of the station's occupants. Among the familiar tales of the war on the surface, he had also heard stories about more recent developments in the Kingdom. Mainly regarding Sprague in the Omega-3 system. BMM was well on its way to repeating its mistakes with Leeds, following the same pattern of disregard for the workers they employed and the conditions they had been put through at Leeds before the invasion.
While such news was hardly surprising to Harper, it did remind just why he felt that he had to leave the resistance so strongly at the time, and his views on life out in the Edge Worlds felt validated once more. Of course, that wouldn't last unless the two most immediate threats to that way of life were defeated.
Alas, it seemed that the Colonel was right, Harper realized he would again have to fight for the place he called home. However, there was one main difference, it was a home worth fighting for this time, and even better this time the cause was pure, the freedom he'd fight for would have some truth to it as opposed to the lie that it was on Leeds.
As such his business here was coming to an end, he knew what he needed to do, and first on that list involved a conversation with the very same person who started this chain of events. They'd be found back home, out in the Edge Worlds.
