Wesley Richter

[Zapp]

Wesley Richter was a gangly lad of eighteen, his limbs long and his appearance stork-like. He had a beak of a nose, and had been made fun of at school for the growth spurt that had given it all to him. His mother was extremely protective, and adamant that he would not join the LWB, as they lived on Stuttgart and many a young kid had already joined. So, she took him to the top of a hill overlooking a factory that was churning out smoke, polluting the once beautiful land.

“Now son,” she said, her short plumpness only emphasizing his over-exaggerated features, “you have two choices. You can join that factory that makes meat without any animals and vegetables without growing a thing,” she continued, pointing at the factory, “or you can become a fighter pilot for the Rheinland Military,” she finished, pointing at the small recruitment office next to the factory. “No son of mine is going to be a radical dissident!”

So on that moment, he decided he’d try out the military. Had to beat making food from glop, eh?

He walked down the hill after saying good bye to his mom and hugging her. He pushed open the door to the recruitment office, a small bell going off as the glass door swung open. The wall nearest Wesley, which was made of glass, had a row of chairs propped against it, each and everyone empty. Directly opposite the chairs, and Wesley, was a long counter with a single man sitting behind it, wearing a green uniform. He had a buzz cut and appeared to be in his early forties, hair showing gray at the roots. He snapped to attention as soon as Wesley entered.

“You there! Do you want to lay your life on the line each and every day of your life in the defense of the Fatherland?!” he shouted.

“Umm…” Wesley said, edging back to the door, suddenly thinking that maybe the factory had been the right idea, “Well…”

“OUTSTANDING!” he yelled again, jumping over the desk and grabbing Wesley by both shoulders, bodily forcing him away from the door and towards the desk. “You just need to sign these wavers and then sign up for boot camp! We’ll polish you into a fightin’ machine, son!”

[Zapp]

Wesley was in boot camp for about a year and he had thought gym was pure torture. Once, a long time ago it seemed. He had been physically pushed to the breaking, and then pushed past it, his instructors not allowing him to break. The dormitories were sparsely filled; few new recruits wanted to fly for the military, more and more were joining the pirate legions instead. In that year, his gangly limbs only gained some muscle, refusing to grow more after a certain period.

He was also trained in piloting the Wrath, the mainstay of the Rheinland fighter wings. He was adept for it, and passed almost every test the flight instructors threw at him. When time came for him to be graduated to actual fighting condition, where he could be used in the field of battle, he was recommended for flight status by all his teachers. The notes were much like this:

Hes worse than worthless with a handgun, or any sort of firearm. The lad would more then likely shoot himself in the foot or his buddy in the back than shoot the enemy. I suggest he never be allowed to engage in any firefight.

His endurance levels while running the track are almost nil. He breaks down too easily, and he refuses to grow muscle. If he were to join the infantry, he wouldnt last a single battle. Also, a kindergartener could beat him in hand-to-hand combat. He trips over his own feet most of the time, and the rest of the time hes too busy not hitting anything that he gets beat up.

Of all the men I have ever trained in my life, he is the worst excuse for a soldier I have ever met in my life. I suggest he be put on cook duty, or made a janitor! In torture resistance training, he broke when I pulled the knife! Hes a [censored]

Hes perhaps the best damn fighter pilot Ive ever trained. He flew circles around light fighters in his very heavy fighter, and his aim is phenomenal. It was almost as if he was born in the cockpit. I suggest he be elevated to flight status.

After no little discussion, he was cleared to pilot a Wrath.

[Zapp]

And so he was at the ceremony where he got a medal shaped like a pair of wings pinned to the lapel of his uniform. He was as proud as an under-sized rooster, though he looked like an over-sized flamingo. Then a few of the other graduates lifted him up and put him in his new Wrath, pushing it over to the launch area. Wesley was a little worried, but decided to trust them. The Wrath got on the pad, everyone ran, and the flight deck launched him. How rude, he thought, taking control of the ship and flying it away from the battleship.

What they had failed to tell him was that it was part of the ceremony, and that he was supposed to do a loop around the battleship and dock.

~ ~ ~

Whats that new guy doing? one of the flight deck operators asked, looking at the radar.

I dont know. Didnt anyone tell him that this was part of the ceremony? another replied.

The first man grimaced. I dont think so

~ ~ ~

Eventually they got Wesley back on the battleship, but not before he got a dressing down by the Admiral over the comm line. Attempts to explain that he hadnt been informed of the tradition were overridden by the Admirals raspy voice, carrying all the authority his rank and age brought with it. Eventually, as punishment, he was denied the [RM] prefix to his call-sign that was visible to all, as well as being bumped down a rank. He invented the rank just so Wesley could occupy it. And so Wesley joined the Rheinland Military, the newest screw-up.

[Zapp]

Flight control on Battleship Karlsruhe, stationed in Stuttgart, was having an ordinary day as far as directing traffic, scanning for contraband smugglers, and repulsing the occasional LWB attack was concerned. The brisk movement of a well-oiled machine that knew what to do and how to do it filled the bridge, as well as the low babble of speech that was present in most gatherings of people.

A small *blip* went off on the radar display, which brought the officer responsible for watching it to attention. Something wasn't right about that ship. Moments later, the communications officer looked up from his station across the bridge, and spoke directly to the Admiral who had landed the command.

"Sir, we're receiving a transmission from an incoming Military patrol. He says his name is Wesley Richter, and that he has taken heavy damage."

"Where's that boy been?" was all the Admiral said, gruff voice in a face that had seen it all.

"He wouldn't say, sir. All he said was that his hull was buckling, and that he could give his report only to an Admiral or the Kanzler himself.

The Admiral nodded to himself slowly. He had seen it all, after all. "Clearance to dock approve. If his ship is beat up that bad, have med-teams standing by. And a company of marines -- let's not take any chances."

[Zapp]

Admiral Albrecht Hoffman looked over the report once more. It was a little frightening to think about. He had been the person that Wesley Richter had deemed it to give his report, once he had been treated for the burns and various injuries he had accrued. Literally giving it from a medical bed, his voice a faint whisper, Wesley had conveyed the fear quite well nonetheless. Whats worse is that the sensors from the ship confirm the story, and that thing in his cargo bay was emitting the weirdest energy readings he or anyone else had ever seen. Now he was pondering what to do with the report, as if there was any question. This one would go straight to the Kanzler himself.

He glanced down, once more. Nothing had changed.

Report: April 12, 816 AS, Wesley Richter

I was patrolling the Omega 11 Jump Gate when I received a distress call from Solarius. It was pretty garbled; all I could make out was that they were under attack and taking some heavy hits. I plotted a course to help, figuring it for the odd Hessian sortie. Boy was I wrong. A dozen Das Wilde ships were firing on the station, destroying any ships that came too close. As soon as I arrived, they started shooting at me, almost as if it was a choreographed by some sort of puppeteer. They drifted the fight away from the station, careful, oh so careful, to not destroy me. Then there was the jump hole. One-by-one, they jumped. I dont know what I was thinking, in the heat of the moment I wasnt thinking at all, but I jumped after them.

On the other side was a lone, solitary ship. We fought; fight drifting farther and farther once again through an asteroid field devoid of other life. We passed beyond the boundaries of the asteroid field, and then it happened. The Wild ships pounced, I reckon because now I couldnt just run back to the jump hole. There must have been two dozen or so it was insane, I wasnt counting. I ran; I didnt even bother getting bearings, just away. I ran the wrong way, getting further and further from the jump hole to safety. Eventually I came upon a planet, with a pair of fighter wrecks orbiting it. I had heard of such things carrying advanced weaponry, so I tried salvaging. Something beckoned me to do it, I cant say why or how. I found something, a weapon. Then the Wild found me. It was run or die, and I chose to run, away again. To the north-east, where I found another jump hole.

It was a way out, anything was better than this system, this damned blight on the face of Sirius. Only, I was wrong. There was something worse.

On jumping, stronger Wild ships pounded at me.



I dodged and managed to live, but only just. And there, in front of me, was this behemoth I cant even describe it; you just have to look for yourself.





Something called me again towards it. There I found something. Its in my cargo hold, and heres a scan of it at the moment.



I took quite a lot of damage, but luckily my nanobots and shield batteries saved me. That thing was heavily guarded.



Then I saw something new a stronger ship, a gunboat. Something kept my scans from getting more than a skin-deep view, but this is what I got.



Something odd, something no one would expect a Freelancer weapons platform, there? Just though I would mention it.



My sanity was cracking some. Im a little afraid of Nomads, and the Wild. A phobia, you could call it.



I knew you must get the scans I collected, as some imminent danger could be visible in them, some intel that could turn the tide of something. Not sure what.

[Zapp]

The containment teams onboard the Karlsruhe stood around Wesleys Wrath, Hazmat suits on, with various implements designed to safely remove and dispose of hazardous materials on a trolley between two of them. The leader of the six-man team, face covered completely by a white material that could resist radiation up to a thousand times more than a human could survive, gave a hand signal that told the two men with the trolley to proceed first. They nodded and began moving up the ramp to the cargo hold, where they saw immediately what they had been told to remove. To one side of the bay was an escape pod of a Das Wilde, scored from some near-misses. Next to it was a scarred Nomad gun, which would go for examination. And in the far side of the bay was a blue sphere a few inches in circumference, glowing brightly.

The leader approached slowly, as if rapid movements might set it off. Nobody knew what it did or what its purpose was, but it was obviously of Nomad origin, given where this ship was rumored to have been. Rheinlanders had a fear of Nomads since the Nomad fear possessed a large portion of their fleet, transforming them into Das Wilde. He pulled an implement off the trolley, what appeared to be a tong, though the end closed into an anti-radiation box that was fully enclosed.

He reached forward, stretching his body almost parallel to the ground in an effort to keep his distance while doing his job. Right as the tong-like apparatus was about to enclose the Nomad device, it shook and darted away, sliding across the deck to another side of the cargo bay. This made him jump, and call in the rest of the team. They clamored in; loathe sharing the ship with an obviously active Nomad device. They approached it from all sides, cutting it off from escape. Just as their tools were about to ensnare it, it melded with the ship, simply melting in.

The team, suffice to say, was cowed. They all but ran out of the cargo bay, assured that they were dealing with a Nomad-infested ship. A marine lounging nearby all but jumped into the air when the Hazmat team ran up, telling what had happened and expecting him to do something about it. He called in the Admiral.

[Zapp]

Admiral Hoffman, with ceremonial grandeur, sent the report to the Kanzler on the best secured communication frequency he could. He sat there for a moment, staring at something unseen beyond the computer monitor that was now displaying the Message Sent message in a box of dark green, text as black as midnight in the wilderness. Just then the communicator beeped, and the computer, sensing the call, redirected it from his belt-holstered device to the screen.

Lacking a video feed, the box on the screen was filled with undulating bars that changed with the type of waves it was receiving. A rather frightened marine reported what had happened second-hand from the Hazmat team, and the Admiral was out of his chair and on the next lift to the flight deck he could catch.

~ ~ ~

Niklaus Reinhardt, Kanzler of Rheinland, got the report from Admiral Hoffman. It would normally have been put on hold behind a couple dozen other matters of state that preoccupied Reinhardts time, but the urgency was underwritten on the channel it was used on. Misuse of this channel had been punishable by extreme consequences, including stripping of rank or privileges, for as long as anyone could remember, and that wasnt about to change. Dropping the matter he was on, he opened the message and read the report from Wesley Richter. The name rang a bell something about a screw up that had made it in on his flying skills alone, and he believed it by the report. Reinhardt, who had thought he had seen it all in his years in his office, was shocked by the report. His eyebrows rose more and more, and on seeing the scans of not only the Nomad Power Cell but the Scorpion gunboats, and the weaponry outfitted on the Wild elite fighters. And that that thing

He hit the communicator button, which sent a communication to his secretary.

I want Admiral Hoffman on the line, and tell him I want Wesley Richter in here yesterday.

~ ~ ~

Meanwhile, Hoffman was staring at an unremarkable Wrath sitting on a landing pad like any other. It wasnt moving, twitching, shaking, glowing blue, or doing anything mischievous. It didnt look like it had just been possessed by an unknown Nomad entity, and Hoffman was looking at it dubiously, as if he didnt entirely believe the man who was still fully suited in Hazmat gear.

No, no, Hoffman said, holding his hands up to forestall the stout man, I believe you. Its just...

He couldnt finish his sentence, as at that moment his communicator beeped. He picked it up, and listened, eyes growing wider, nodding his head. Turning his attention away from the communicator for a second, he gave the Hazmat team leader a gesture that said he really had to go, and he left.

~ ~ ~

Up five levels, towards the forward section of the ship was the medical ward. In a bed, the healing Wesley Richter thrashed slightly, as if of an epileptic seizure. The doctors looked puzzled the charts said nothing was out of the norm; his heart-rate and breath-rate were both stable. All attempts at stabilization were for naught. Then, after about five minutes, he stopped of his own accord. The lead doctor made a note in the days log, but the mystery wasnt pursued further.

[Zapp]

Wesley had been summoned to the Kanzler, something few pilots of his rank (because he was the only pilot of his rank) had ever had. He now stood uncertainly on the threshold to his chambers, two guards decked out in marine gear with fully automatic and state-of-the-art rifles at their sides. They seemed poised to jump in any direction at once, whip up their guns, and face down a charging army, all at the same time. They made Wesley nervous, but he didnt have much choice.

Ever since the other day, Wesley had had a throbbing ache in the back of his head, more of a minor nuisance than any real pain. He felt drawn to someplace outside the building but nearby, the hangar deck, he though. Regardless, he strode forward to open the double-doors. The first guard, to his left, moved forward and stopped him with a hand to his chest. He then frisked Wesley rather thoroughly, while the second guard watched complacently, seeming ready to raise his gun and fire in about two seconds. Once he got the OK from the first guard, Wesley went in.

The two guards followed him in and stationed themselves to either side of the door, eyes seeing potential enemies behind the drapes, in the shadow of a bookcase, inside the Kanzlers desk. The Kanzler himself was a sight. He was in his late-thirties, early-forties, about six feet tall and anywhere from 150 to 170 pounds, though appearing closer to 170. His hair was jet black with smatterings of gray, his eyes a piercing blue. His face was hard as rock and as forgiving, though beneath the gruff exterior was a gentle kindness, which appeared slightly repressed due to having held the office of Kanzler for a few years.

Wesley Richter. Please, have a seat, he said, motioning to a simple chair in front of a large desk. The Kanzler, who had been looking at a book cover at the book case to Wesleys left, moved behind the desk and sat down. Wesley emulated him.

Now, I have here a report of your actions, he continued, glancing at his computer screen on the desk, which was on the right side (Wesleys left) of the desk, tilted for easy viewing. And I have, in fact, read this particular report many times. Quite interesting. I thought it would give something extra to hear it from the man who gave it.

And so Wesley spun his tale, telling it simply and without embossment as he had the first time. The Kanzler showed no sign of surprise, not even a twitching eyelid. When Wesley was done, the Kanzler regarded him for a moment, just staring. Then he spoke:

Do you know what this is? He pushed over a printout of the scanning records, showing Wesley bringing aboard a strange Nomad item. Wesley just shook his head; he had no idea.

If you hadnt passed the Nomad detection test with flying colors, you would be dead right now. Apparently, this thing, whatever it is, was generating enough radiation and power to run our entire fleet. And, when the Hazmat team went to remove it from your ship, it moved of its own accord and then finally melded with your ship. Is there a problem?

Genuine concern was in that question, as Wesleys right hand was pressing to the side of his skull, trying in some vain effort to stop the blinding pain that had blossomed from the ache when he had mentioned that it had melded with his ship.

Yeah, I was all Wesley managed. He took a deep breath the pain was beginning to diminish. Sir, if you dont mind me asking, whats going to happen to my ship?

First were going to study it, and then were going to have to destroy it. Dont worry; youll get a new one. And maybe a promotion. Dismissed.

Wesley stood to attention, mind only half on saluting and walking out the room.

[Zapp]

The Wrath rocketed through the space of New Berlin, alarms and warnings blaring over the radio, several voices in several conversations making everything but the panic unintelligible. But the panic of the first guards and scientists had seeped into the Wrath pilots after Wesley after all, if the people guarding it were terrified, shouldnt they be too? as they were flying extremely defensively and with much foot dragging. Wesley dodged pot shots and kept flying. They didnt even attempt to disrupt his cruise engines as he ran for where he remembered the Junker base Kreuzberg was.

They seemed unwilling to let a RM Wrath dock; that is, until they started listening to the comm chatter. Then they were all too happy to let a turncoat land. There Wesley sat in his ship, considering what to do, and more importantly, what he had done. He had made himself a fugitive for his ship, which was infected by some weird Nomad thing. It didnt make sense. Until his mind dwelt on what he had been feeling before he had hijacked his ship out of the hangar. A need to be with his ship, stronger than anything else he had ever felt before. And how had he handled those guards? He couldnt fight like that. He looked at his arms, and noticed new muscles where before there had been nothing. Not even his time in the RM training grueling as it was had been able to get him any muscle.

It was all too much. It was almost as if the ship had controlled him somehow, though that was just plain silly. Or was it? Was anything just plain silly as far as a Nomad was concerned? All of the sudden Wesley had a strong feeling to be somewhere else, so he left the ship and wandered the station. After about an hour, he found himself back in the Wrath, as if some desire, unbeknownst to him, had forced him back. As if there was no escaping.

Wesley sat there with his head in both hands, denying and planning at the same time.

[Zapp]

About an hour later Wesley managed to tear himself away from the Wrath, and decided to go to the bar to try and drink his problems away. Instead, what he found was a crowd that ostracized him for what he was wearing a Rheinland Military uniform. A drink was placed in front of him, though, and that was all he needed. For a while he sat there in silent contemplation, a second, third, fourth, and fifth drink placed in front of them. He only sipped, but over time that amounted to entire mugs. Pirates and scum came and went, and he began to look like he was taking root.

Eventually a man in what Wesley took to be some sort of pirate uniform sat down at the bar next to Wesley and ordered whatever was on tap. He turned to Wesley as if he was going to start up a conversation, and he did. He started out hesitantly, obviously put off by the uniform.

Hello, my good man you appear to be of Stuttgart origin, correct?

Wesley made a noncommittal grunt that he took for affirmation of his deduction. Emboldened, he plowed on.

I represent the LWB, and you l think you look like you might be reaching a turning point in your life, correct?

Wesley picked up on the sales pitch, and decided to snub him, when a little something in the back of his mind told him to reserve judgment for a little longer.

About an hour later, Wesley boards his Wrath, new LWB identifications reserved for him on the LWB base, which he was about to be guided to.