Personnel files. "Drake Averos"

[Taiko]

*Kicking back in his cockpit, Drake picks up the data pad and begins typing. Slowly at first, then swifter as he gets into things, he records his memories as best in can. Just in case.*

"I started OUT as a normal kid. Lots of traders have their families aboard their ships, especially the larger ones, and my father was no exception.

He'd started out poor, and worked his way up to his own ship. "Realized Dreams" was NOT a pretty ship, not by any standards. I mean, really a Rhino? Who'd call it pretty? The fact that she'd been heavily modified with extra living spaces didn't help.

My father always preferred safer, slower (thus less lucrative) trade routes, but he always paid the bills. My mother and he were married on Manhattan but only really lived in the 'Lanes. I was born, with the ships engineer for a midwife, somewhere around the Colorado system. We never really pinpointed where.

I had fallen quite ill, and been hospitalized on Manhattan when my father made his last run. According to the last records of the " 'Dreams", there had been a pitched battle between the Liberty Navy and the Outcasts. With the Trade lane down, my father fell into a furball, and took a broadside from a Liberty battleship.

My mother, who'd been with me in the hospital, took the news the worst, and within a few week, wasted away to nearly nothing. She was committed to a mental home on Manhattan, and as far as I know she's still there.

Naturally, with my mother not able to take care of me, I was passed of into the hands of some distant relatives. They took care of me until I was 18 and able to sign up for a pilots ticket. Luckily, I had some mechanical inclinations, and landed an opportunity to salvage my fathers ship.

Towing the "Realized Dreams" from the scrap heap she'd fallen into, I struck a deal with some Junkers, and managed to get her (barely) running again. I ran the same routes as my father did for a time, but once the debts had been paid, I found myself wanting more. Tossing my fate to the fortunes, I traded wildly, all over Liberty space, and beyond. I upgraded the 'Dreams several times, most notably, her sensors until she was too beat up to run anymore.

After trading her in for a barely used Dromedary (The Retribution, using the same upgrades.) , I scored a lucky gig, running with a miner. I gear the Ret with the best guns she could handle, and we set course for a place called Kansas.

Unfortunately the Fates had different plans then I'd had for myself.

We'd only just filled our holds with valuable Iridium ore, when we were set upon by pirates. Having had avoided them most of my career I was naturally just as disgusted with these criminal scum as ANY red blooded Libertonian SHOULD be. So you can imagine my surprise when they turned out to be not only polite, but reasonable.

As it turns out, they were not Pirates at all. They were merely Disillusioned former LSF pilots and Citizens who'd sought a quieter, safer place to live. Calling themselves the Neo-Terran Front, they quickly figured out that I had no real attachment to Liberty myself. Finding myself drawn to their desire to leave sirius, I decided to tag along. My more adventurous side kicking in again I guess.

Having fought alongside these folks has given me a new perspective on things though. Turns out that the Liberty armed forces are even more corrupt then I'd first know. Amazingly more like the Rheinlanders they seemed so quick to judge then they realized!

So, here I sit, in the cockpit of my Stinger, Vengence, that new ship smell long gone and a cramp from sitting too long during a patrol. Ironically, I've never been happier in my life.

Long Live the NTF.

Here to seeing you in a Galaxy far, far away I guess!"

*Stretching, Drake shrugs, and saves the file, tossing the pad back into his napsack. Belting back into his seat, he checks the scopes one more time for hostiles, and makes for Home..*

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