A story of a pilot, his life, and his way of looking at the world.

[Zachary.Corfu]

INCOMING TRANSMISSION:
Sender: David Hayes
Encryption: Low


Ever since I became a pilot of some sort, I've had it tough at times. First of all, my parents died from an Outcast fighter crashing into their home. That took a huge blow to the entire family, including my now dead brother Jonathan. At first, we had no idea when our parents died, and how it happened. We didn't even find out for a period of long months, weeks, and maybe even years. When we DID find out, it was too late to cry over our parents, for we already had other important things to deal with. Jonathan was training in the military, Emily was taking her flight school, and I had to keep our only ship, a small Startracker at the time, up and running. We were busy and had almost no time to get together and have fun.
Months, years, and decades passed. We lived through the Nomad War, we found out about the Rheinland and Liberty dispute, and we finally went through hard times. We got supported through our hard times by friends and other caring people. My family was not rich, having only a million to spend on everything they needed, and the youngest sons and daughters (which were me, Emily, and Jonathan), had to work hard to keep the family fed.
It was at this time I looked at the world differently. When I was still a pre-teen, I thought capital ships were epic machines of huge destruction. I still think of them like that, since they are massive engines of death. But now I also thought that a hard working, determined person would get a machine like that. I began to see everything differently. I saw a simple system as a sector of oppurtunity. I saw our simple, ragtag Startracker as a money making machine. I began to find the value in everything. I began to respect others and show more sympathy, empathy, and kindness to everyone, for I knew everyone around me was an equal being, with no person having better rights than others. I also knew anybody could have the same problems as everyone else, and that it's not like "Oh, that'll never happen to me", because you never know, it one day just might happen.
I also had many emotions too. I had the stress of working many hours, the stress of losing my parents. The feeling that one day the entire family will be doomed. I thought about these problems and how to solve them. I knew I had to work very hard in order to feed the family, and I knew I couldn't do anything about my dead parents. But I could prevent the family from being doomed. And I just needed to work hard to for that. So I solved 2 problems with one solution.
We worked, we socialized, and we lived our lives. We were a pretty happy family, since we had enough money for the occasional movie. We were always content of what we got. When one of us was mad about getting low pay, someone else in our family popped in and said, "Be glad you got something out of it. Getting nothing is worse than getting less than you deserved.". We took that lesson to heart, since it would help us through our financial hardships. Since we knew that if you argued with the boss, you'd lose your job.
Then came the day that Jonathan died.

---

A Zoner that is not a zonerzonerzoner
Hi everyone. If this is undefined I am screwed for life.

[Zachary.Corfu]

By the time Jonathan died, we had already gained enough money to buy an Eagle and we had a bit more money than before. But the day Jonathan died, I had to fly the Eagle, and Emily had to fix the Eagle and fly it as well. We took on completely different jobs. Of course it wasn't easy and it definitely didn't make us happy. Who's happy when someone they love dies? No one! It was at this time I looked at Sirius differently again. I also put in the matter that Sirius was a rather wild place. Criminals and Nomads roam the Omicrons, and pirates along the lanes threaten to destroy you if a "donation" wasn't given. I also thought that making money isn't worth it if you or someone gets harmed and the recuperation costs are high enough to erase a week's pay.
It was at this time I met my would-be friends Cong Ling and Allison. The day I met Cong, I had just undocked from Battleship Missouri and I saw him sitting around.
I offered him to come with me on a mission, and he accepted. He decided to call Allison over and I met her too. Of course Emily made fast friends with her. I think Cong found me encouraging, since I pushed him to engage a Sabre in his old Barracuda. Of course he made it out alive, since his Barracuda exploded and I tractored in his escape pod.
Soon after that, Emily and I hung out with Allison a bit more than ever. Allison cared about us and she knew how we felt about losing Jonathan. That led me to think of Allison a little more than just a friend. I finally came to the conclusion that she was a TRUE friend. There was no friend other than Cong that really had that much respect, sympathy, and empathy for us. And that led us to respect them.

After a while, I met Jason. I first saw him around Battleship Schwerin in Omega-15, and we soon became fast friends. He wasn't that much into caring about our problems, but he was still a friend. I thank him for helping me earn money to get out of a Zoner Destroyer that I had regretted purchasing, since it was simply not the best money making device I could ever buy.
So thanks to Jason, I got out of the destroyer and I got a bomber. I thought about Jason a bit more. He cared. He liked to destroy. He was like the guy that liked to earn money. And for that, I consider him one of my best friends.

But it doesn't stop there, since on my way to NY once, I saw a pirate along the trade lanes. I expected him to slap a big fee on me, but he didn't. Instead, he went up to me, looked my ship over, and went back to his post on the trade lane.
So he let me go that day. And that same day, another thought hit me.

I found out that even the most ruthless pirates have respect. Everyone is born with at least one bit of respect, even if it's not shown when you first encounter the pirate. But if you help him or accomplish something he hasn't ever done before, the respect will surface and he will think differently of you. And, some pirates are just naturally more respectful than others.

A few months after I got out of the Zoner destroyer, I decided to go exploring. Now, I also got locations of valuable wrecks somewhere in the area where I was exploring in. So these would obviously be my first waypoint, since it was the easiest money making plan.
But it wasn't as easy as I thought. I was so excited, I forgot to pay attention to where I was shooting. So even after the goodies came out, I was still shooting. But one stray blast hit the goods and it popped, never to be seen again.
I completely blew out. Like literally. I was so mad and so then I cursed myself for being such an idiot. I trashed my ship and I just lost it. Here's some respect to Emily, since she calmed me down and helped me clean up the mess I ended up making. And right here another thought struck me.

Everyone has feelings, and so they can be emotional. But no one can ever avoid getting to the point of anger where you wreak destructive havoc on your surroundings. Bad language comes out, other people get unhappy. Even if you've never experienced this before, there's always a possibility it'll happen. As I said, every human being is equal. We're all born with the same rights, same attitude, same thinking. We change when we do different things. But we still have the same rights, same rules, which allows anything to happen to anyone, since everything is the same.

In about late 819 AS, we went into trouble again. We got Firekiss Mk IIs and used them on our Eagle. Then we went into Liberty. At first, we thought the rule about no Rheinland weapons were nonexistant. But when an LPI came up, we were hailed and told that the weapons were illegal. I went to Newark Station in New York and changed the Eagle's weapons. And yet again, more thoughts struck me.

I saw that even though Sirius was the same, every area of Sirius was different. Each region was owned by a House, and each had their own rules. Rules about weapons, code of conduct, and simple fees for bases built in their space, etc, etc.
And its a good idea to follow those rules, unless you think its absolutely unfair to everyone not void of that rule. But only then can you open fire and rebel against the authorities who have that law. Otherwise, keep your mouth shut and follow the good, equal, and fair rules. Like I said, everybody is equal in terms of rights. If you think something isn't fair, speak up and demand a change.

In other words, stand up for what you believe in. Because if you do, you might change the lives of many people, either by making it happier or more worthwhile. The rules you may have changed were probably just wasting a period of many peoples' lives, since they don't have fair rights.

The lessons in life that are worthwhile are the ones that make you and others' lives better. And that's it. Because lessons like being patient is just going to wreck someone's brain and change their way of thinking about things. I'm not saying being patient is stupid or dumb in all respect, it's just that too much patience may stop you from doing actions that may have made your wait for your demands much shorter. Here's an example:

You go to a shipyard and ask to buy a cloaking device. The dealer says that it'll be ready in 2 weeks. But 2 weeks pass by and you still haven't gotten it yet. You decide to ask what's wrong. They say all the delivery crafts are occupied and one is broken. They say to just be patient and wait. But then you offer to repair the broken craft, since you know how to repair most things.
After you manage to repair it, someone comes along and takes the cloaking device to your ship hangar. So instead of waiting for a craft to come and ship the device to you, you instead repair a broken craft and you get it faster than if you would've just waited.
But one day, a huge turn in events in our family took a drastic hit on all of us, especially me.

EMILY WAS MISSING.

---

A Zoner that is not a zonerzonerzoner
Hi everyone. If this is undefined I am screwed for life.