A Whore at Dread Harbor Ch. 00 - CYOA Intro 01

As time passed you grew very close to Corani. Your shared experience was such that she often felt like the only person who truly understood what you were going through. You formed a kind of caring codependency with each other, sharing a small flat on Deck C like two shell-shocked soldiers hiding in a foxhole together. You were both slow to trust others, but you trusted each other implicitly.

As time passed, you could no longer handle the pressure. Work piled up, and you found yourself sandwiched between the dueling problems of crippling indecision and rampant paranoia. Left in control of your men's patrol schedules, you turned what should have been simple cycles of on and off-duty into an over complicated patchwork of rolling patrols mixed with random sweeps. The men under your command began to voice concerns to men higher up that you were losing touch with reality.

You lost sleep. Days turned into weeks of monotony and boredom. In those quiet moments, madness lurked. You became moody and irritable, unable to cope with the conflicting feelings raging in your gut. Things came to a head when you were called in for a meeting with the Bastion's resident psychologist, who gave you the frank assessment that you were likely suffering from PTSD.

You needed an outlet for these negative emotions, and unfortunately for you the outlet you chose was unhealthy and self-destructive.

* * *

What coping mechanism did you develop as a result of your trauma?

N. Gambling Addiction

You had always been the kind of soldier who enjoyed the luck of the draw and the roll of the dice during downtime. Now, you took to gambling for the sake of it. The risk was what you chased, not the victory. No sooner had you won a big pot at the table before you were going double or nothing, losing months of military pay in the space of a week as your losses piled up.

Gambling came to be such in integral part of your leisure time that you became a regular at the different dens scattered across the station. You ran up debts, snuck into banned games, and got into heated arguments with dealers unwilling to give you further chances after exhausting all your avenues of credit.

You started showing up home late at night, disheveled and with dwindling resources. If this continued for very much longer you'd be eligible to sell yourself into indentured servitude to a Dwarven Megacorporation for debt forgiveness. Years in the future, you would still be dogged by lingering gambling debts, making enemies and leaving a trail of angry dealers in your wake. None of that mattered, you kept chasing the adrenaline rush.

O. Passive Death Wish

A death wish. That's what the Lieutenant said you had when you clambered without a rope into the collapsing superstructure of one part of the support beams holding up Dread Harbor's upper hab-blocks. An engineer had been trapped while trying to repair the section, and now was mere minutes away from being crushed to death by the faltering structure.

Without waiting for anyone else to act, you sprang into action. You hung like a monkey by your arms as you swung from beam to beam, climbing out to the engineer's location with nothing to save you from falling to your death. You held yourself aloft one-handed from a single support beam as you cut him loose from his tangled tethering. You scaled the sheer wall once more, emerging from the collapsing beam just in time before it collapsed, with nary a scratch on you.

It would be just the first of many such incidents to come.

You began to view life or death situations with a sort of detached indifference. Things that might have once given you pause became as easy to do as brushing your teeth. "Risks" were only risks if you felt like you were wagering something of value, and you no longer cared about the particulars of self-preservation. You would stare death in the face time and again in the years to come, fueled by a morbid curiosity and a subconscious desire to end your suffering.

P. Savior Complex

You couldn't help them, you couldn't save them. Aliens and Humans, young and old, men and women, innocents all. All of them died, all of them your fault, in one way or another.

Faces, names streamed past you over and over in an endless list in your head of all the souls you had failed to rescue from the Goblin's clutches. When you closed your eyes you could see them, staring at you in their final death agonies, reaching out to you from beyond the grave, judging you for your failure.

Never again. You would not fail others like you had in the past. Over time, without you even realizing it, you developed a pathological need to 'save' people: save them from danger, save them from abusive situations, save them from themselves. It was codependency and emotional coping mixed together into an unhealthy cocktail. Despite the number of times you got burned trying to help those who didn't want your help in the years to come, you never quite learned your lesson.

You had to help. You had to save them. Not because they wanted to be saved, but because you needed to be their savior.

* * *

The final straw for your career as a GFP officer came when you were ordered to supervise a deep-station patrol of the inner sections of Dread Harbor. The place had been the location of one of your numerous hiding spots, and you knew the area like the back of your hand. Against the concerns of the officers under your command, you elected to lead the patrol yourself.

It took less than five minutes for everyone to realize the grave mistake you had made in coming back here. Passing beneath a set of loose piping in the ceiling above you, you freaked out at the sound of it thumping against the wall and opened fire with your sidearm. It took several of your men to bring you to the ground and wrestle the gun from your hands, by which point you had nearly shot three servicemen and grazed your second in command with a bullet near his cheek.

Dragged before the desk of your commanding officer, you were given a frank choice: transfer to an administrative desk job far from Dread Harbor, or an honorable discharge. Unable to reconcile with the idea of being unable to protect the station that you had saved, you chose the discharge.

Rudderless, uncertain of your future and unwilling to remain any longer in a place filled with such terrible memories, you bid Corani goodbye and bought a small freighter for yourself. You were no longer a promising officer in the GFP, you were no longer the savior of Dread Harbor, you were just a drifting piece of flotsam in the universe, with no clear future ahead of you.

You had no idea where to go next, but you knew that you couldn't bear to stay. Standing together for the last time as a pair on the landing pad, Corani embraced you, whispering between tears that she would miss you terribly. You promised that if she ever needed anything from you, to contact you and would come. You gave her your freighter's communication frequency, and promised to visit as often as you could.

The Catian gave a sad smile in response. Perhaps she knew your future better than you did: it would be the last time you saw each other for nearly a decade.

You set off into the depths of Wild Space, driven by an aimless wanderlust. With no clear goal in mind, you went where your heart led you.

You returned briefly to your adopted home planet of Jai-Na-Yoh, reconnecting with those you had left behind in your adventures. The return was short lived. Compared to the wider galaxy that awaited you, returning to the sleepy colony of your youth felt like returning to your favorite sandbox as a grown man. Everything felt out of proportion, small and insignificant. You bid your homeworld goodbye and moved on.

You headed deeper into Wild Space, into the farthest reaches of the frontier. This was the truly feral part of the galaxy: where colony worlds might spend years if not decades out of contact from their home systems. You had a life of mystery and danger, of cutthroat pirate bands and amoral mercenary companies. Law did not exist here, save that which emerged from the barrel of a gun.

You lived lean, moving from place to place in your modified freighter: the Deliverance. You worked odd jobs to make ends meet, keeping mostly to yourself.

Life on the frontier was hard but bearable. Criminal organizations and unscrupulous Dwarven Megacorporations dominated the space lanes, and Colonies often suffered violent turf wars between the numerous competing interests. You needed quick wits and an even quicker trigger finger if you wanted to survive long in Wild Space, especially as a freelancer. You not only managed to survive, you thrived.

Distance helped to harden your heart towards your unhappy past. The awful memories of Dread Harbor hounded your sleep even in these far flung regions, but more as a distant echo than the booming thunder it had once been. Distance and time helped to turn that particular gaping wound into thick scar tissue.

For the next ten years or so you crisscrossed the vast void of uncharted space between colonies. You tangled with unknown species, explored distant star systems, and even at one point repelled an attempted boarding by a pirate ship. You were a one-man outfit, rarely working with others.

Near the end of your wandering years, you were forced to land on an arid world called Tasitov. Tasitov had only recently been colonized by the Loupian Alpha State, and was in a state of near anarchy.

Out of funds and low on starship fuel, you put down roots in the glorified frontier town that served as its planetary capital. The locals were friendly, but corrupt. Megacorporations had their tendrils in most of the business of the region, competing with each other for turf, markets and real estate. They fought proxy wars by aligning themselves with the numerous rival criminal and mercenary factions of the region.

Tasitov never quite warmed to you, nor you to it. It was too cramped, too crooked, too easy for personal grudges to turn into blood on the pavement. Had you any other options available you would have left and never looked back. As it was, you had to pinch your nose and bear it. If you were going to survive, you'd need steady work.

* * *

What was your temporary career during your time on Tasitov?

Q. Mercenary

Selling your gun to the highest bidder might not have been a particularly glamorous way to earn a living, but it paid the bills. It didn't hurt that you were damn good at it. You signed up at the local branch of a popular mercenary company called the 'Wellion Crusaders.'

A brief, perfunctory 'training session' followed, after which you were assigned a set of gaudy blue body armor with the company logo stamped on the front. A rifle was thrust into your hands, and you were told to report to your commanding officer, who was busy getting drunk in the local bar.

And just like that, you were a mercenary.

The work was often tedious: protecting shipments, running security, acting as muscle or bodyguard to this or that 'esteemed' executive of such-and-such Megacorporation. Sometimes you got into scraps with rival mercenary companies, or with the Loupian Mafia attempting to muscle in on your turf. Compared to Dread Harbor this was child's play. In the months that followed you proved yourself to be a cut above the average recruit.

Everything changed a year or so into your employment, when you and your squad were gathered together and informed bluntly that the company was going to war. The delicate ceasefire that had been brokered between the two largest Megacorporations on Tasitov was breaking down. Seeing as the Wellion Crusaders were in the employ of one of those Megacorporations, the resumption of economic warfare between the competing business interests meant the resumption of actual warfare on the ground.

Forces on both sides began to concentrate large quantities of men and weapons in preparation for a fight. The colony was descending into a civil war before your very eyes, and you were being asked to walk directly into the fire with the rest of them.

By now you had made enough money to leave Tasitov three times over. You had only stayed in the Wellion Crusaders because of a nostalgic feeling of camaraderie with the men. You missed the abundance of company that military life had brought you... despite the fact most of your colleagues were pirates, thieves and killers.

But this was not your fight, and you told your Captain so in no uncertain terms. You told him that you weren't interested in dying for a Megacorporation's squabble.

He didn't take it well. You were arrested and thrown in the brig, awaiting summary execution. Left with little choice in the matter, you began to plan an escape.

With the help of a few "sympathetic" (ie: easily bribed) guards, you staged a daring breakout. You constructed a makeshift bomb in your cell from the supplies they smuggled in for you. Using many of the skills of subterfuge that had kept you alive at Dread Harbor, you timed your escape to the exact moment at which it would have the maximum effect.

Gunfire in the distance outside your cell alerted you to the resumption of hostilities on Tasitov. You detonated the bomb, blowing a hole in your cell and escaping in the ensuing chaos. Caught off guard by the combination of the enemy's attack and an explosion in their own compound, the Wellion Crusaders suffered a heavy defeat. Unbeknownst to you at the time, the Crusaders blamed you for their loss, earning you their permanent enmity and lasting hostility.

But none of that mattered to you now. You slipped free of the combat and escaped the planet on your starship, promising yourself that you'd never be stupid enough to put down roots like that again.

R. Colony Sheriff

Fighting against crime and corruption in a place like Tasitov was like trying to push a boulder uphill in mud. You had no expectations when you took the job as the town's Sheriff, save a determination to make the best of an awful situation.

You remained aloof from the numerous Megacorporations and criminal syndicates that attempted to bribe you into their good graces. A few failed assassination attempts later, and most settled themselves to the idea of an 'incorruptible' town sheriff... provided he was equally hard to their competition when information about their illegal activities were 'conveniently' delivered to his doorstep.

You earned a reputation as a just but merciless lawman. More than a few crooks preferred a bullet to a pair of handcuffs, and often you found yourself having to test the speed of your reflexes. You took no chances, preferring to shoot first and ask questions later rather than risk a double-cross. It kept you alive and made you popular amongst the colonists, but it didn't do much for your reputation with the Megacorporations.

Things began to take a turn for the worse after about a year or so on the job. Word through the criminal grapevine was that tensions were building between the planet's two biggest Megacorporations, and that their proxy-mercenaries and criminal fronts were gearing up for war. Determined to keep the peace, you intervened, raiding weapons supply caches and arresting criminals on flimsy pretexts to get them off the streets.

In the course of your efforts to stamp out the conflict before it could explode into violence, you stumbled upon something much worse. Whilst raiding what you thought was another weapons cache for the upcoming conflict, you encountered a false panel hidden behind a heavy cabinet.

Behind the panel, you found a room full of chained and enslaved locals. While long term indentured servitude was legal on Tasitov, the mercenary company whose storehouse you had raided was in the business of something much worse: outright abduction and enslavement of colonists.

Slaves fetched a high price in the uncharted depths into Wild Space. The reason for the exorbitant pricing was simple, as only one species in the galaxy needed to buy slaves in these massive quantities.

After all, the Goblins always needed new flesh for their ongoing experiments.

Something primal in you snapped. You shifted gears immediately, changing your focus from preventing the turf war into eradicating the slaver ring almost overnight. You peeled back the web of deceit, uncovering clues like roaches in the underbelly of Tasitov. You were merciless in your pursuit of justice, carving a bloody path through the underworld in search of the ones responsible for this travesty.

Your investigation uncovered a faux-mercenary outfit acting as a shell company for the slaving operation. You eventually tracked the money and the corpses back to Goverian Conglomerate, the second largest Megacorporation operating on Tasitov.

Slaving - even for Megacorporations - was strictly forbidden by Dwarven custom and law. While the Dwarven High King might turn a blind eye to questionably legal actions done by his staggeringly profitable mercantile empire, he wouldn't ignore a scandal of this magnitude. The information you had found could send ripples across the galaxy if it came to light. And you would make damn sure it would come to light.

You cornered the CEO of the shell company: an effeminate Catian male named Ararat, in his office. After a blunt interrogation that included you gunning down his bodyguards and putting your loaded revolver to his head, you arrested Ararat and brought him in for questioning.

You never made it back to the station. Apparently the slaver ring's inner circle went far higher up the corporate food chain than you had imagined. They would stop at nothing to protect their company's credibility, and as a result you soon became just another well-intentioned victim of the system.

In the space of a few minutes you went from jubilation to utter defeat. Your investigation was attacked on all fronts by an elite Megacorp Executive strike team. Ararat was freed, the city police station was raided and burned, and your hovercar was shot down.

For a few brief hours, your life descended once more into a cat and mouse game of survival as you dodged the Goverian Megacorporation's paid muscle in a desperate escape to your ship. With a heavy heart, you abandoned both Tasitov and the law business for good. You left the planet with a two thousand credit bounty on your head issued by the Goverian Conglomerate, an insulting irony given your brief tenure as the planet's only honest lawman.

* * *

Having learned your lesson on Tasitov, you elected to resume your drifter lifestyle. Deciding to avoid extended forays on colony worlds from now on, you took up work as a courier and delivery man for long range colonies out on the fringes. There was always work for a man willing to spend long weeks of travel between destinations, and you took to the solitary work well.

Three more years passed, and you found yourself settling into a sort of comfortable lethargy. You made modest money, but you were content with what you had. You had few friends and no love interests, only a number of brief flings and one night stands over the years as you drifted from place to place. You'd grown complacent, though you were as quick as ever with a gun.

Enough time had passed for you to reflect upon your experiences on Dread Harbor. You came to terms with where you'd come from, and where you were headed. You'd forgotten some of the worst memories, and what ones you couldn't forget often could be managed with the help of a stiff drink at the bar.