The name is Captain Robert Edward Lincoln. Not sure why exactly I'm starting this log, but God knows I need someone or something to talk to after the first day following my discharge. Suppose I should mention that I'm former Alliance military. Emphasis very much so on the "former". I'll explain that in a bit. Right now my concern is getting this day over with and quick. Hopefully putting these thoughts into words will help with that.
So...where do I start? Well, I suppose I should start a few years back. Like I said, I serve...served...in the Alliance navy. Started out on a boat that made its way through the Core on patrol every so often to make sure people remembered who was in charge around those parts. It worked fairly well until the signal showed up on every gorram screen, monitor, and light fixture on damn near every world in the Verse. It was of a frantic woman looking as though Satan himself had come to her doorstep looking to drag her back into the Ninth Circle with him. Given that this apparently had something to do with Reavers, might be she wasn't too far off.
How that recording got on the Cortex is anyone's guess, but rumor has it that some upstart smuggler aired it. Depends on what you hear and who you listen to, I suppose. Anyhow, who sent the signal isn't important. What's important is what the signal told everyone, and what that information did to the Verse at large. Let's just say that old hatreds die harder than old habits.
That's what all my CO's would say at least, at the beginning of and all throughout the Independence War that raged all the way from Londinium to Higgins' Moon on the Rim. Apparently all those young cadets I met in the academy who said the Independent Faction was dead and gone were proved wrong right quick. Some of the older officers knew better, though, and geared up for a whole new round of fighting. They found out that to some folks fighting is like riding a bike. You just never forget how.
These new Independents sure knew how to fight, I'll admit, and let me tell you, war ain't pretty and clean the way they make it out to be in the history books. It's a brutal business. People die. People are blown apart. Sometimes people blow apart and then die. Sometimes they don't. Bright side is I came out of the fighting in one piece and able to handle myself in a scuffle. Bad news is what was good for the body wasn't so good for the mind. Some of what I saw both sides do to each other sticks with me to this day, and makes itself known often when I'm not looking.
Anyhow, the Independence War caused even more devastation than the Unification War did, mainly because the side I thought were the good guys turned out to be almost as sadistic as one Adelai Niska, only without the logical reasoning behind the torture and maiming. They made a good show of it, the new Independent Faction fought hard to throw the yoke of the Alliance off of them, and might even have done it if my former comrades had played by the same rules as the other side. For a long time, I thought they were. Turns out, I was wrong.
I'm not going to get into what I saw the "noble" fighters in the Alliance do, or what rumors I'd heard that had been even worse than that, or what some gorram fool crew mate did to make me a Captain near the close of the war. What I will say is that when my discharge came up, I didn't do what career military usually does, and instead decided to strike off on my own, taking jobs as they come while wandering the black. Seemed like a good idea at the time. All I needed was a ship, a crew, and a job. Seemed simple, right? Well, that's when things started getting interesting.
It started innocently enough. I went into a ship dealer looking for a boat to fly, and fortunately this one happened to be owned by someone whose life I saved during the war, so I was ready to pay dirt cheap prices for something that could get me from planet to planet without falling apart. Still, whatever I could get for 10,000 creds didn't seem to be all that promising. So imagine my surprise when the man who owes me his life gives me the best piece of hardware on his lot, muttering something about freeing up space. Not one to look a gift ship in the intake, I gave him his money and set about finding myself some officers and general crew. Fortunately I already had an old friend of mine, my XO from the service came with, so all I really needed was an engineer and a half-decent pilot.
The engineer I found (or did he find me?) was the first indication that things weren't going to be cut and dry, the way they were in the service. For starters, the gorram dimwit starts talking to me as if he already knows me, demanding a cut of an as-yet-non-existent take from future jobs in exchange for his services. Before I can say "Unification" this guy decides he's already hired, hacks my comm system, and sets himself up with a room. Crew member number one found, apparently, whether I wanted him or not.
Crewman number 2, a fellow calls himself Nathan, was a bit more difficult to get on board. Apparently he has a bit of a problem with Purple Bellies. Telling him I wasn't one of them anymore didn't seem to get his attention. Seems a might twitchy, come to think on it. Better watch how I act around him. Bright side, he's about as good as anyone could possibly get in the cockpit. If he hadn't been so gorram anxious to violate Alliance airspace laws I might not have any reason to be annoyed at him.
Chris, The Engineer, whose last name I don't know, and he hasn't had a mind to tell me, has his own brand of magic, apparently. His ruttin' attitude pisses me off to no end, but I can't deny that ever since he's been aboard the ship purrs like a kitten. He keeps this up and he might earn his cut.
Hmm. Seems I'm forgetting the reason I'm doing this in the first place. Well, to put it bluntly, we're outlaws, the lot of us. Why? Well, that'd have something to do with my XO's itchy trigger finger. See, we landed a job same day I hired my new crew members, delivering some sealed containers to Dyton. I tried to find out what was in them, but the benefactor wouldn't have it. Still, everything went smooth up until landing. In a word? Ambush. The ones we were delivering to were ambushed by what we later learned were Feds. Course we didn't learn that little bit of info till after he fell dead from a laser pistol shot and the badge he was wearing fell out of the place on his person where it was hidng.
Panic isn't the smartest of reactions to do when something like this occurs. If I had it to do over again, I'd have sat tight and explained the mix up. As it was, I ordered everyone on board and got the hell out of dodge, headed out for Higgins' Moon. Maybe we can pretend to be Mudders for a while, take jobs on the rim instead of the core to keep flying.
Still need a seasoned medic to round out the crew. The XO's talents are adequate, but I always like having at least two people around who can patch me up, in case one of them goes down. God only knows where I'll find a decent doctor this far out, though. To say nothing about needing a Companion to land on certain other worlds. The odds of that happening any time soon, though, are not great.
Wish I had a reset button.
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