Vincent Pryor. Human male, age twenty-two. A Freelancer in the truest sense of the word. Born under harsh circumstances, escaped under harsh circumstances, continued to live under harsh circumstances. Such was the story of his life.
He'd been chased down, targeted, shot at, cursed at, bountied, and even punched in the stomach. Conversely he'd shot people, shot their ships, smuggled their contraband, hauled their goods, and protected their butts. Story of his life.
His rather short life.
Walking along the hangar decks of Java Station, alone, Vince was partaking in what he referred to as "a good hard think". Under normal circumstances he'd do this sort of thing with some wonderful vista that the universe had provided, like Planet Eris, or the Avlemore Nebula, but out here in the Tau Systems he'd had nothing but rocks. Rocks upon rocks upon rocks. It was oppressive to his tastes; he wondered how the miners here ever managed to settle here let alone work here. But indeed, he was here to work.
The ICMG, in their quest to safeguard their vulnerable transports from the likes of the Outcasts and the nefarious Cartel, had begun hiring mercenaries and Freelancers such as himself in order to bolster their numbers. This was nothing new; even the IMG was getting wary as Outcast vessels grew larger, both in size and number. He was there to work alright: nailing Sabres. While in fact his Outflyer was a Dagger, it had received enough after-market parts to constitute a Sabre, so somewhere in the back of his mind there was always a dread that followed after watching one light up under his cross hairs.
But that was another matter entirely. The matter at hand was that giant blue monster sitting at the ready less than a hundred yards away.
Vince looked over his shoulder at it and grinned slightly, certainly proud of his accomplishment. The Outflyer Four was a masterpiece of haphazard engineering: an Outcast "Tridente" Gunship built using nothing but parts recovered from charred wrecks out there among the rocks. Some of them he'd caused himself. Some of them were the ICMG's form of "payment". But in any case he'd finally got it in working order, hull strengthened, engines humming, armed to the teeth, Battle Razors and everything.
His second baby, after the Outflyer of course. A damn fine job if he thought so himself.
But it was his second baby. True, the Outflyer Two and Three were unforgettable, but those were just transports, and the Three was almost entirely stock DL Series. He now had two brainchild projects, both bought with blood, sweat, tears, and a fistful of credits, tuned by his own hands, operated by the same.
He felt old.
The feeling was unnatural to him. To think, him, Vincent Pryor, "Freelancer Extraordinaire", age Twenty-two. Old!
But there was no escaping it. The feeling had crept up behind him and choked him without any warning.
He felt old.
Why? Had he lived a full life? His rough resume would indicate that; he doubted many other people had gone to the lengths he had. After all, who else was running around with a custom-built Tridente, a custom-built Sabre, and heavily modified transports? Who else owned an entire hangar complex that was foolishly condemned when it had plenty of life left in it, and had turned it into a proverbial fortress of sorts? Who else had battled Outcasts, evaded fleets of bounty hunters, stared down Squids on several occasions? Who else was Vincent Pryor's brand of Freelancer?
How he Hell had he done all that anyway?
He wasn't sure he wanted to remember. "Not by clean livin'," was one of his excuses, afterall.
But this ship, the Outflyer Four, a piece of jury-rigged Outcast technology standing defiant amongst the puny vessels of the local miners... what did it represent? A culmination? An apex? A sign of things to come? Or a sign that things would never be the same again? What would he do with it, in the end? Where would he take it? Where would it take him?
He felt old.
Staring at the floor as he went, his hands shoved deep down into his flight-jacket pockets, Vincent Pryor once again found himself pondering questions that a simple man like he could not possibly hope to answer. Deck crew occasionally bumped into him. Others stared, then looked at the Tridente and gaped. But he'd forgotten they all existed, and continued walking.
The hangar decks were rather extensive; Java served the dual purpose of a mineral depot and as a dwelling for the local miners, so there was plenty of room here to go around. It'd be several minutes before he reached the destination he was seeking. It suited him fine; he needed the time to cool off and have this "think".
Retirement.
What a word. It made him frown on the spot, a bitter taste impressing itself on his tongue. It meant the end-all, the point where one "gave up the ghost", and settled down somewhere to essentially rock in a chair until their time was up. Inactivity.
He feared inactivity.
It wasn't hard to see why, either. What had motivated him to do what he'd done? The feeling of adventure? The drive to shoot the stars? Maybe, but by now the tales he'd heard traveling pilots banter about on Freeport Ames paled in comparison to his own. He felt as if he'd seen everything, or at least seen everything he'd ever want, or could stand, to see. "Adventure" no longer applied.
Had his adoptive father encouraged it? Hardly; though he was a Zoner, Gerald Pryor had entrenched himself on Ames. He'd "retired".
Had his real father encouraged it? Perhaps; that drunken beast from Hell certainly gave him all the reason in the world to run away as far and as fast as he could. But did he need to run anymore? He was dead; the obituaries made that clear. Besides, Papa Gerry had given him another start which should have voided this emotion; he had nothing to fear from ghosts.
One thing was for certain: inactivity, to him, was comparable to mental death. He shivered at the thought of being some bitter old man, sitting alone in some apartment on Denver or Manhattan, watching the Holonet or some other such nonesense, bereft of his wings and his will to soar...
... sitting alone in some apartment on Denver or Manhattan.
Vince shook his head as his boots continued to hammer away at the deck beneath. Alone. He was alone, afraid to be alone, to stay alone. Was that it? Really?
He'd been almost entirely alone this entire time. He had few close friends, if any, to speak of, and a Hell of a lot more enemies. Papa Gerry was still there, but he'd always felt odd going back to Ames after striking out on his own the way he had. Women? He didn't even want to start with that one; a fighter pilot's charm required a taste that was probably extinct along with Old Earth.
The Outflyer sat before him, powered down, running lights off. It sat alone in the corner...
Vince grimaced; damn analogies like that. He didn't need them now.
What did he need?
He ran his hand along the port-side pylon that extended from the lower engine pod to the main wing. It bore the scars of many a laser blast, and many a spit-and-polish repairs. This ship was his pride and joy, his only companion. A faithful steed of sorts, if that didn't seem too absurdly romantic for a man of his profession.
It was his reflection. A beat up, weary, starfighter was a reflection of himself. It had been where he had been, seen what he had seen, been shot at all the same. An old, lonely...
Damn analogies.
But what of the Outflyer Four? It was new, wasn't it? It was, right? He'd built it himself, finally completed it that evening, test flown it too. It was new, right?
Except it was built with charred leftover parts that belonged to a host of other ships, some of which had fallen to the very pilot who now wished to fly that gunship. It was just as old, just as beat up, just as weary...
This psychology stuff was really starting to piss him off. Maybe he was looking too deep into it? Yeah that was a good excuse; save it for the shrinks. He had better things to do, like slag Outcasts and earn some damn money instead of twisted metal. Yeah! He had battles to win, jobs to do!
Again?
More jobs? More shooting? More of the same? More blast scarring on the hull?
The frown from earlier was now cemented on his face. Vince Pryor, Freelancer Extraordinaire.
Old.
Nonsense right? Of course it was.
Of course it was.
Java was settling down for the night. There really was no "day" or "night" here, but the miners ran on a schedule, a kind of double-shift system that mimicked these times. But most of them congregated around the "day" schedule, hence the sudden dispersal of the deck hands nearby.
Vince climbed up one of the service ladders and pulled the primitive but reliable Border Worlds lever that popped the cockpit canopy open. The inside was a mess; not hard to believe given that in some instances he'd actually lived in this ship for several days at a time. The privation would be remarkable for any regular fighter pilot, let alone a cruiser commander, but for him it was all natural, all part of the job. Story of his life.
He hopped in and got comfortable... then heaved a sigh.
What now? Where to go, what to do... more of the same?
Maybe. Maybe not? Maybe he could find other groups to deal with, strike up jobs he hadn't done before?
... Like what? Make balloon animals at birthday parties? He was a fighter pilot, damnit. His venues were limited indeed.
They were limited even moreso by the demands of real life: respect was hard to come by, trust to an even greater extent. It wasn't always easy trying to find jobs he could actually enjoy himself with; he didn't really need them for the money, like your average mercenary would, but while this might have propped him up on some pillar of moral superiority it did not change the fact that he was now being picky in a very fickle universe.
Where to go. What to do.
Sleep.
He didn't mind. Yanking the canopy shut, Vince settled down in the ejection seat and stared out at Java's hangar bay with half-closed eyes. Most of the movement in his area had died down, and sound was entirely blocked by the canopy necessary for surviving the toils of a vacuum.
It was kind of peaceful. But it was missing something.
Vince reached out with his hand and lightly tapped a switch on a side console. Slowly but surely a low humming noise began to make its way through the alloys behind his seat, and a slight rumbling soon followed.
Now it was peaceful. This was his element. This was where he belonged.
Because, in reality, he could not belong anywhere else.
