A little education goes a long way

[Zapp]

A young child sat on the lap of his father. They both started our of the port hole to the purple, hellish darkness that is the Badlands. An occasional positive cluster of dust striking a negative one would set off a miasma of lightning, illuminating the surrounding space which was crowded with splinter-shaped asteroids. Altogether not a place someone would be by choice, however, the criminal underbelly of Liberty had come here for a safe haven, and they had found it. The Badlands made moving anything bigger than a gunboat impossible, and blocked scanners from detecting them.

The child had not been born here – his mother had never even set foot on the base. He had been born on Trafalgar, his mother being a Molly. His father, once again unraveling a tale of heroes and anti-heroes (which are heroes that are basically bad, but are still well-liked by the reader, much like drug dealers and smugglers), of smuggling and constant danger, of bar fights and space fights – all to the backdrop of the Badlands purple-black dust. The child, Jarod Mellows, ate it up like he would candy.

“Tell me the one when you met Mommy!” he cried, demanding the tale he had heard – from both perspectives – perhaps thousands of times.

“Nay, lad. You’ll make me miss ‘er too much if I recite it as much as you’d like.” He was a Liberty Rogue, and though they were technically allies, they had little interaction.

“Off to bed with you.” Hoisting Jarod off his lap, the child scampered off to avoid sleep or bed, much like any other child his age.

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