A Whore at Dread Harbor Ch. 00 - CYOA Intro 02

Author's Note:

This is a brief synopsis of the choices made in the prologue of the CYOA. As such, parts of the character's background have been clarified and expanded upon for the sake of the narrative. Enjoy!

His name was Deckard Pryce, savior of Dread Harbor.

Deckard Pryce was born an infant refugee on a transport freighter, spending the first years of his life traveling from place to place throughout Wild Space.

Deckard's parents died young, He was adopted by a caring Catian Pryde.

Deckard's family eventually settled on the Catian-owned colony world of Jai-Na-Yoh, selling off what little they had left to share a cramped flat with several large Catian Prydes. Within a year, both of his parents were dead, and he was left stranded as an orphan on an alien planet.

However, one Catian Pryde living in his flat had grown fond of Deckard. One of the family's Catian mothers, Senara, had just lost a child, and in their shared grief she grew quite close to the young orphan. The two formed an inseparable emotional bond. Even as an adult Deckard would refer to Senara as his 'mom.'

Lacking any blood-related relatives within ten thousand light-years, Deckard was adopted by the alien family. Most of Deckard's earliest memories were fond ones. Neither his eight parents nor his seventeen Catian siblings ever judged him for being different. He lived in a distinctly Catian environment, developing Catian quirks and speaking the Catian language with a fluency few humans were capable of. He still learned the common tongue of Humanity, but even at this early stage of his life he often struggled to connect with his own species.

Once he was old enough to join, Deckard signed up for the Jai-Nah-Yoh Colony militia. After a few years as a recruit, he was discharged for insubordination. Out of options and with no real opportunities remaining on his adopted homeworld, Deckard joined the GFP: the Goblin Frontier Patrol.

His large Catian family bid him an emotional goodbye on the tarmac of the starport. Senara clung to her adopted son with tears in her eyes. She told him he was bound for great things, that she knew in her heart he had a great destiny ahead of him, and how immensely proud she was of who he was and everything he would become. It would be several years before Deckard saw his family again, though he would vid-call often.

Once enlisted in the GFP, Deckard went through months of extensive training on a starbase light-years from his home system. It was the farthest away he'd ever been from home before. Most of the recruits at his base were Human, and his alien upbringing became a point of ridicule. He soon earned a derisive nickname: 'Simba,' an old slang term from Earth that had translated into a racist insult of Catians in the modern era.

Deckard took Medicine as his secondary specialization

After proving himself to be a model recruit, Deckard entered officer's training in the GFP's Marine Assault Corps. It was a difficult challenge joining the elite of the elite, but he passed with flying colors, earning the rank of Second Lieutenant.

Over the course of his studies, Deckard became drawn to medicine and anatomy, learning how to heal wounds and tend to soldiers in battlefield conditions. His natural empathy towards others and studious attention to detail with regards to the subtle differences between Human, Catian and Loupian physiology made him a perfect fit as a battlefield medic. He excelled in his medical training, becoming a trusted frontline medic, with an acknowledged ability to improvise when the situation called for it.

Several years passed, and aside from a few boarding actions against small Goblin pirate bands Deckard saw little action. He spent most of his career stationed aboard the GDF Bastion, patrolling the space lanes running between the numerous scattered outposts, colonies and starbases of northern Wild Space. All of that changed when the GDF Bastion received a Priority 1 distress call from a remote, Dwarven-built starbase, a place called Dread Harbor.

Deckard was among the first Marines to enter the superstructure of the station, where he and his men found a massive Goblin force occupying the station. Before they could coordinate an attack, his squad was wiped out by the cloned slaver's horrifying experiments. He was the only survivor of the first wave, his men dying around him as he fought for his life in the gore-soaked halls of the space station.

The GDF Bastion was forced to retreat, stranding Deckard on the station with no hope of rescue. Desperate, low on ammunition and surrounded on all sides by psychotic gene splicers, he began a one-man mission to liberate the station.

Deckard chose to focus on saving lives while stuck on Dread Harbor

Military protocol demanded that Deckard stay true to his soldier's instinct and focus on survival first, and saving lives second. He ignored protocol. He was a human being, and the suffering he saw on the part of the innocents on the station was inhuman in the extreme. Taking such a selfless course meant taking risks and giving up on huge opportunities, but Deckard slept better (when he could find time to sleep).

He rescued prisoners, freed slaves and attacked Goblin raiding parties who were scouring the dark corners of Dread Harbor for any lingering survivors. He helped the hidden groups he found whenever he could, providing them with food and making supply runs when he could manage. He never stayed in one place, but he kept the flicker of hope alive for the citizens of the station, and the survivors would remember his selfless actions for years afterward.

Deckard was hit hard by those he couldn't save, the near-misses and desperate choices he was forced to make while stuck in the bleak halls of Dread Harbor. It came as an immense relief when he finally found someone who he could honestly say he'd rescued from certain death: Corani.

He stumbled across her while traversing a horrific Goblin 'nursery.' Deckard just managed to save the surgically-modified Catian from a chemically-induced mental reprogramming by the pitiless scientists. He escaped with her in his arms, carrying her to safety. He promised to find her a quiet place to hide until GDF reinforcements arrived, but Corani protested.

Deckard decided to take Corani with him on his mission.

With some reluctance, Deckard decided to keep Corani with him. He knew he couldn't afford to spare his ever-dwindling resources on a risky extraction mission, despite his worries about her safety. He realized that he had no choice: he would just have to trust that her.

Deckard did his best to show Corani the ropes: how to hide, where to go if cornered, how to stay calm in a life or death situation. Deckard could tell Corani was intimidated by his curt orders and frank assessment of the dire situation on Dread Harbor, but she did a good job of hiding her fear.

Deckard came to count on the morphed Catian, sleeping just a little sounder when she took watch. They grew close - as close companions often do in life or death situations. Deckard told her about his family back on his adopted homeworld, and Corani told him about her (now deceased) Pryde-mates. It was a bittersweet way to learn more about one another, but they found comfort in each other's empathy. Deckard enjoyed speaking to her in her native Catian in the few quiet moments they got between dodging Goblin patrols and crawling through air ducts.

A week passed. Deckard and Corani moved from place to place, their food and ammunition dwindling. Things took a turn for the worse the longer they stayed: Goblin patrols became more numerous, scavenging trips grew more harrowing and less fruitful. The two made a broad circuit around the superstructure of the station, learning the Goblins' patrol routes, gathering valuable intelligence on their strengths and weaknesses.

It was growing harder and harder to feed both of them. More than once Deckard surreptitiously skipped a meal and gave it to Corani. She never said anything, but he saw her knowing eyes staring at him when he handed her his food. Finally, she broached the unavoidable subject:

Was there any help coming?

They wouldn't last much longer, even working together. It became apparent that they had to find a way to get back in contact with the Bastion, or they would both perish in this terrible place. Zeroing in on a particular section where external communications systems still existed, Deckard and Corani made their move.

While Deckard made a dangerous spacewalk in a pilfered spacesuit, Corani kept watch from the airlock. After disposing of the guards, Deckard hacked the systems and put out an open call on secure GFP channels. A short discussion with his commanding officer later, and he was coordinating with the GDF Bastion for an outright invasion of Dread Harbor.

Deckard chose to attack Dread Harbor immediately.

Upon hearing that the fleet would not arrive for more than a week, Deckard made a hard decision. He knew neither he, nor Corani, nor any of the other survivors would make it that long. The situation was desperate, and by now his only remaining goal was to save the lives he could. It was a huge risk to have the GDF Bastion attack without backup or support, but there was no alternative.

Reuniting with Corani, the pair made their way to the rendezvous point: an abandoned, depressurized hangar bay only a few hundred yards away from the control center of Dread Harbor's defense grid. As the shuttle landed, Deckard and Corani cheered from the other side of the viewing glass. They embraced, and Corani broke down into tears, realizing that her ordeal was finally coming to an end.

Deckard reunited with his fellow soldiers, and directed Corani to leave with the shuttle before the attack began. She protested, refusing to abandon her savior after they had come this far together, but this time Deckard would not be moved. Staying together because they were stuck on the station was one thing, but he had no illusions about the danger of the mission he and his fellow soldiers were taking on. He joined the Marines in the attack, secure in the knowledge that even if he fell, his friend would survive.

The attack on the control room turned into a waking nightmare. For six hours straight Deckard fought for his life as his fellow Marines died around him. The Goblins were defeated, but just barely. Deckard suffered severe injuries, but the scars of what he'd witnessed would remain for far longer.

Due to the haphazard nature of the attack and the lack of manpower available to the GDF Bastion, over a hundred Assault Marines would die in the coming days, each one weighing more heavily than the last upon Deckard's conscience as the casualty lists rolled in. He did take solace in learning that the troops had managed to locate dozens of survivors. It might have been a tragedy, but at least he'd managed to complete his objective.

Corani came to see Deckard the minute he was well enough to have visitors. After an emotional reunion, she told him about her medical diagnosis. After a thorough examination, the doctors concluded that the physical changes that had been inflicted on her body by her captors were likely permanent. "This" was who she was now.

Deckard pulled her into a quiet hug, her tears staining the chest of his hospital gown. Corani whispered to him that she had no one left, nowhere to go, no one else to turn to. Deckard promised she could stay with him. Her brilliant smile in the aftermath was payment enough for the trouble.

Deckard developed a Passive Death Wish as a coping mechanism for his trauma.

Though he was unaware of it at first, over time the seasoned Marine became increasingly disturbed by the memories of his ill-fated mission on the station. The trauma Deckard suffered as a survivor of Dread Harbor would manifest itself as a kind of indolent self-destruction.

While he was not outright suicidal, he grew apathetic to the concept of self-preservation. People looking in from the outside saw his actions through the lens of bravery and fearlessness, but Deckard was neither of these things. He was just a man seeking a fitting end for himself.

Over the coming months to follow Deckard grew even more unstable. He was promoted, given awards and accolades and returned to active duty... but he was never the same soldier he once was. The awful memories of things he'd seen, and the men he'd ordered to die on the station lingered in his mind. He lost sleep, he became moody and irritable, and eventually, he suffered a nervous breakdown while on patrol. He was discharged from the GFP.

Rudderless, uncertain of his future and unwilling to remain any longer in a place filled with such terrible memories, Deckard bid Corani goodbye, leaving his flat on the station to her. He purchased a small freighter and departed Dread Harbor, intending never to return. Corani bid him a tearful goodbye in the hangar bay, holding him tight for over a minute as she whispered things to him that he'd remember for the decade they were apart.

He returned briefly to his old home planet, and was embraced by his large Catian family. His adopted mother Senara, now elderly, recognized that her adopted son had been traumatized by what had happened out on the frontier. She had heard of his heroics on Dread Harbor through Galactic News, though he refused to speak of it to the family. In private, he confided in her that he felt broken by what had happened. She told him she was proud beyond words of the good he had done, and that he had nothing to be ashamed of.

Though his familial Pryde begged him to remain, Deckard knew he couldn't stay. The peaceful, idyllic life of his old Colony World did not suit him, not after what he'd seen and done. A second, equally emotional goodbye occurred, wherein the entire Pryde embraced him as one.

And then he set off into the unknown.

Deckard spent his time on Tasitov as the Colony Sheriff

Deckard drifted for nearly a decade, becoming a hardened explorer and deadly frontier gunslinger. Eventually, circumstances forced him to stop for a year upon the recently-colonized world of Tasitov. He took on the unenviable job of acting as the Colony's Sheriff. With gangs, criminal syndicates and Megacorporations vying for power in a corrupt political system, Deckard proved to be the one man in the system who could not be bought, threatened, or beaten into submission.

His focus on saving civilian lives and protecting the innocent made him an upstanding lawman. And while his methods were often extreme, they were informed by the circumstances he found himself in. Eventually, he uncovered a Slaving Ring in the midst of a budding civil war on the planet. Enraged by the knowledge that most of these slaves were being shipped directly to the Goblins, Deckard began a ruthless quest to root out the ringleaders.

Three months and several bodies later, Deckard cornered the CEO of the shell company running the slaving ring, a Catian man called Ararat, and took him in for questioning. The Megacorporation known as the Goverian Conglomerate - the ultimate paymasters for the lucrative but unethical busines - intervened, freeing Ararat and nearly killing Deckard in the process. He only just managed to escape the planet with his life.

Deckard chose to abandon the sedentary life altogether. Three years passed, and the former soldier spent most of his time alone on his ship, the Deliverance, acting as a courier for the most remote Colonies in Wild Space. It was a hard life, but a good one. He had settled with himself, and in turn come to terms with his past. He thought he was done, he thought he had finished the 'adventure.'

And then a ghost from his past sent him a message.

"Please Deckard, return to Dread Harbor. You are the only one who can help me. You're the only person in this galaxy that I trust."

Deckard never could quite help himself. Saving people and helping others was ingrained in his DNA. When his old friend Corani called, he couldn't help but answer.

He set a direct course for Dread Harbor.