[101st] Recruitment Department

[John Keel]

**Incoming Transmission**
**CommID: Angel Baraja**
**TargetID: Commander Mia Bonello, 101st Ghosts of Razgriz**
**Subject: Application**

My name is Angel Baraja, and I'm Maltese at heart. Well, you see 4 years ago I was still a 15 year old teenager living in the run down Manhatten the tourists don't see. How did I get to Malta? Well, as I guess you'll want to hear it, here's my story.

19 years ago I was born. 8 months before that I was concieved. I don't know who my father was. My mother, Eva Baraja, has never said. My mothers family had been living in Manhatten for generations, since my great great grandfather, Ramon Baraja, packed up and left Malta to come here. I don't know much about why Ramon left Malta. My mother doesn't speak about him much or any of her family. Ramon died before long on Manhatten, but not before fathering two children with a Libertonian. From there, my family has been watered down generation to generation from it's Hispanic descent.

My mother used to call me 'her little angel'. I was nothing of the sort. Growing up in Manhatten I got in a lot of trouble. An education wasn't too important to me, I've always thought I can get by with just my common sense. Who needs more? Instead of learning I'd be running the streets with my friends. There was a group of us always getting into fights and wars with groups of kids from other areas of the run down Manhatten. Kids ages 8 upwards would join in, and our little gang was one of the toughest. We were just children, but maybe we wanted to be something more. Or maybe we just wanted to smash each other's faces in. Either way, before I'd even reached my mid teens I'd been in more tight spots and had more near death experiences than most LPI pilots get in a life of service. I still carry scars, but they're just part of me now.

It wasn't just physical scars that I carried. My mother's health was worsening. She was frail and fragile and it took all of my 14 year old selfs effort to keep her fed and with a roof over her head. No kid should have to look after their own mother at that age, it's not right. I had to make money anyway I could, and that often meant resorting to stealing. For months I pickpockted, swiped and even broke in and robbed places just to keep myself and my mother from starvation. It was a dark time, and it was then, at my lowest point that I turned to the Orange Dream. Friends of mine had started on the new thing amongst teenagers, this cardamine craze. I think it must have been my heritage that lured me toward to stuff. I was hooked immediatly, couldn't get enough of it. It seemed to open a doorway in my life that I couldn't stop myself from going through. It was ecstacy, uncomparable to any other feeling possibly imaginable. Heavenly...

My world was brought crashing around me a week after my 15th birthday. Coming home early morning, heavily drugged and on a high, I found her upstairs. At first I thought she was asleep, and I tried to wake her, as I'd brought home food (that I'd stolen from the transport), and we hadn't eaten in days. The image of her face when I turned her over will haunt me for the rest of my life. Her eyes, dull, staring into space behind me, mouth slightly open, almost in surprise. I don't know why I didn't cry, I haven't done so since that day. I don't know what's wrong with me, but at that point I just couldn't get it out. Closing her eyes, I got up and slowly packed my bags. There was nothing left for me here. I had felt the pull of my ancestorial homeland for some time, ever since I came into contact with cardamine, but my mother had been the force tethering me to my Manhatten home. Now I was cut loose, and with nothing to lose I packed up, sold everything of value in the house and bought myself the cheapest ship I could afford, leaving Manhatten, New York and Liberty behind, en route to a new life in the cardamine fields of Malta.

It's hard to compare the feeling I had first stepping out onto the Malta landing pad. Awe, fascination, admiration, curiosity are all words you could use to describe it, but none of them do it justice. Living in the dark dreary parts of Manhatten, the contrast here on Malta was startling. After finding cheap lodgings I set myself up in my new adopted homeland.

For four years I have lived here, working mainly as a maintenance man on the landing pads, servicing the Outcast sabres and falcattas as they came back, regaleing of battles won and heroic acts. I'd never had any experiences with ships prior to arriving on Malta, but I learnt quickly, and now I know the ins and outs of them all. I may not be an experienced pilot, even piloting that starflier to Malta was hard, but I've learnt since. I've been practicing for years in that starflier, I know I could come good.

Since coming to Malta I've been further intoxicated with the Orange Dream, and now I think it's time I did something more than repair ships to defend it. It's time I got out there and started acting, spreading the Dream to the far reaches of Sirius. This is why I want to join the 101st. You are the spearpoint of the Dream and I want to be a part of it. My ancestorial homeland needs me, and I won't stand by and watch.

Yours,
Angel Baraja

**End of Transmission**

//OOC

1) Why the 101st Outcast Guard?
I've always had an affinity with the Outcast, they're usually the faction I play as and enjoy playing as the most. Why specifically the 101st? I thought it looked like a well organised, mature and fairly active group, and that sounds perfect.


2) What are two things that you enjoy doing in real-life besides playing freelancer?
I play a lot of sports, namely tennis and football (that's soccer, not American football), but the main thing I enjoy is hanging around with my friends whenever I can.


3) What would the last sentence of your autobiography be?
To be continued...


4) If you could be a fictional character (from a film, book, comic, etc...), who would it be, and why?
Havelock Vetinari, from the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. How can you not want to be someone that suave, intellectual and all knowing?

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A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.
~H. L. Mencken

Levi Ripley // [Civilian]