Let me tell you a story --
My name is Lori Schumann. I am Araxian – desert born. My parents work determined that they left Araxes when I was but a babe in arms and they took me with them. In order that I receive an education I was 'fostered' to offworlder friends of my parents in the township of Colfax on the planet of Hera in the Georgia system. I grew up with two heritages and four parents. My blood parents spent as much time with me as their work allowed and taught me all they could of the ways of my people while my surrogate parents saw to my general education. As I said, I grew up with two heritages, with both sand and fire in my veins – the sand of my true home, Araxes, that I knew little of other than the histories and tales told by my parents – and the fire that raises the downtrodden to stand against their oppressors and fight or die, the fire that not even defeat and death can quench, the fire of righteousness and of truth.
You see, when I was 19 years of age Colfax formed an Independent militia unit to stand and face the Union of Allied Planets at a place called Serenity Valley. I marched proudly with my fellow townsfolk and watched many of them fall in battle. Some ran – not many – but those who stayed and died did so with pride and in the belief that they fought for what was right, a belief that I still hold true today back on Araxes. After the battle which lasted for seven long, bloody weeks the Independent army leaders capitulated and ordered us to lay down our arms. The Alliance left our wounded in that wet, muddy, rat-infested Valley without food or medical aid for a week after the cease fire and many more died unnecessarily – and my blood runs cold with the remembrance of that inhumanity. But it runs colder when I remember the sight that greeted myself and the other eight survivors of the 5th Colfax Militia on our eventual return home. The buildings were still smoking from the fires and the bodies were still recognizable where they lay in pools of blood. The entire township, everyone in it man, woman, and child, had been butchered and the buildings razed to the ground by the Alliance – in retribution, no doubt, for having sent us to fight in the Battle.
Two of our nine survivors left together, perhaps to seek vengeance, and six scattered in grief and fear to live out their lives wherever they could and finding whatever peace they could. And me? I bought myself a ship and flaunted the Alliance's laws as I transported anything that people wanted so badly that the Alliance tried to withhold from them. I was also a Bounty Hunter and I'd work for anyone who paid a high enough reward -- with the exception of the Alliance, those I refused to work for. In short, I became a thorn in the side of the Alliance for six years until, landing at a place called Colchester, I was greeted by none other than my parents who, had I but known it, had been searching for me for those six long years. They were loyal to their people – our people – and put their grief on hold as they worked, searching for me during their down-time. It was a subdued reunion, but a joyous one nevertheless, and I followed them home. Yes, home – I am back in the sands of Araxes where my life began.
But I will never forget my other life, nor the friends I had that died for a belief. Hatred runs deep and my hatred for the Alliance runs deeper but I am home now and I shall make the difference here that I was unable to make out there in the Black.
My parents are living in honorable retirement now and I – well, my story continues...
I have not been back very long and
my reintegration with my people is slow. My parents have retired and
live the comfortable life that they have earned for services rendered to
Araxes and I – I must make my own way, a stranger in my own land.
Well, it appears that my way has been made for me by the very sand that makes us Araxian.
One
beautifully placid morning I left Highport in Al Raqis to explore, to
get a feel for my world. I should have heeded the weather reports and
respected the desert but I was arrogant – even though I am desert born I
still had a lot of the offworlder in me. I was flying far south of Al
Raqis when the storm hit. The beauty of its destructive violence took my
breath away. The red, yellow and brown grains of sand blasted the paint
from my hull and I could hear the frantic scratching and clawing of it
as it tried to gain entry, intent upon sucking me dry of everything that
gives me life. It was almost as if it had sentience, it knew I
was inside the ship and it wanted me. The wind buffeted and flung my
ship hither and yon before slamming it into the ground, half-burying it,
and me along with it, in the drifting sands. For what seemed like days,
a lifetime of days, but was probably only several hours I sat in
darkness listening to the storm as its anger rose, listening as it sent
its army of sand grains to assault the citadel of my ship. I must have
dozed because I woke suddenly to hear the sound of silence. Oh, you
can't hear silence you may remark but you can – oh yes, you can.
It is not an absence of sound, I could still hear my heart beat, my
pulse throb, my blood course through my veins … I could hear the creaks
and groans of my ship as the now placid sand settled around it … I could
hear the small pings of cooling metal and the gentle hum of the ships
life support without which I would have been as dead as if the sand had
gained entry … oh, I woke to that wonderful silence, the absence of the
roar of an angry wind and an assailing army.
Befuddled
I stood and tried to see out of the windshield – but all was darkness.
Nighttime? No, there were no stars. I needed light so I bent to examine
the control panels. All seemed to be in order and I pressed
buttons here and there bringing systems back online … interior lights,
exterior lights, a glance at the windshield to show – darkness, still.
Generators online. Engine? No, not yet. If I am buried, as I appear to
me, then igniting the engines could be catastrophic. Best to find out
just how bad things are first.
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