“Have you ever been to the planet they call Utopia…” he asked me giving me a look I could not quite place. His little beady eyes were so encased by rolls of fat one could imagine them finally disappearing, if he gained just one more extra pound. “Nope” I answered letting him scan the barcode on my neck and then ultimately the Braga chip in my wrist. His stare unnerved me especially because I was trying to conceal the bold faced lie I had just told him. Take a 30% tip I told him planting a little ennui in my voice, hoping that it and the credits he pulled from the Braga would distract him from asking any more questions. Finn would kill me if I did not make it to the rendezvous point on Regis 3, and we all knew if they detected where I was born that I wasn't going anywhere.
While Finn had paid a ton for gene grafting it was not 100% fool proof. Utopians are the lepers of the Alliance. If you’re born on Utopia you die there, pure and simple. Well, unless one of your parents are alliance or both. I had no such luck, I was a run of the mill flea ridden street rat from Lagu central. There where thousands of us, scouring streets for scraps, stealing supplies, tools and jewellery and the odd utopian coin. Yup you heard me right, as Utopians are excluded from citizenship only Alliance personnel and their families have Bragas the rest live like 20th century barbarians.
Utopia, dreaded lifeless rock in space, one could also call her the mother of all pandemics or death trap. It was not always that way, legend has it that Utopia was once considered the crown jewel of the Nandic Empire. Lush vegetation in soft purple hues, rich soil and ample natural resources like metals and quartz made Utopia an investors dream as soon as it was discovered. The colonists came in droves. Thousands of ships flooded the hemisphere, in their bellies immigrants and investors dreaming of wealth and new beginnings. And at first it seemed that the planet was going to live up to its name, things were going great. Cities were sprouting in record time, trade was blooming, everyday more and more people joined the workforce. Then disaster stuck in form of a string of fast spreading highly infectious viral and bacterial strains. People started dying like flies and the illnesses where spreading to other star systems imported by travellers and goods.
The era of plagues is part of alliance history it reshaped the face of the universe. Governments collapsed planets lost huge amounts of their population. A hit to known civilisation that took hundreds of years to recover from and branded Utopians with an everlasting mark of the unclean. Ships full of scientist were sent to Utopia to find the reason for this horrendous accumulation and surfacing of deadly plagues. Then a breakthrough, it became clear that enzymes in the unique flora and fauna on Utopia offered never before seen breeding ground for bacteria and viruses to thrive and mutate on. We all know what happened next. Utopia was put under strict quarantine anyone on it, including everyone sent to evaluate the situation, was to remain ship locked and planet bound. That did not sit well with the population, riots broke out, ships were hijacked as people desperately tried to flee their hostile planet. It did not end well for the refugees, Alliance ships were waiting too shoot and pulverise any vessel trying to break atmosphere. Utopians across the universe were banned and deported from alliance planets. There were horror stories of entreatment camps and mass executions. People were fleeing persecution with nowhere to go. Some eventually found refuge on worlds on the outer rim, others became travellers of the great expanse who banded together into space faring caravans that eventually evolved into the tribe of the Sha’ Dur.
Back on Utopia the landlocked scientists, in a desperate attempt to survive planetside, decided to develop agents that targeted any life that originated on Utopia. Within three months every domestic plant, bug and animal or any other organism was dead. The planet was now safe, but completely lifeless aside from the settlers and the occasional imported plant or animal. Utopia was sterile, even the soil was completely void of life. Nothing would grow here at least not for a very long time. For 130 years Utopians were completely cut off from the rest of the universe, except for the rations and supplies that were shot onto the surface. No one was allowed in and no one out , communication was limited to a few people in charge of the government. Then the planet was opened for limited development. Alliance built 3 space ports, one in every surviving city on the planet, Lagu being the largest. Corporations moved in next, sending crews to build factories which were manned by Utopias sole commodity, cheap local workforce. This was the Utopia I was born into I never knew it any other way. 200 years after reindustrialisation life for native Utopians was still the same. landlocked and basically exploited as slave labour they toiled away with all the responsibilities but none of the perks of alliance citizens.
I was born in Lagu the month of Jarl 3075. I don’t know who my parents are nor do I care, as they saw it fit to dump me on the street when I was just hours old. The first 5 years of my joyless childhood I was a ward of the Zerifian Order in one of their orphanages. The sisters are strict, the meals are crappy, but you do have healthcare, cloths and a bed to sleep in. From the age of 3 you work for them, they teach you a trade, how to read and write and at the end of the day you get your bowl of grey industry slop to keep you going. There is no leisure time or day off, you wake up, take your dust shower, work, eat then ultimately fall straight to bed out of utter exhaustion. Sad little lives orphans have, but they do not know better; as they are kept isolated until their 16th year, where they either become part of the order or are spit out int oa hellhole of a world they were never prepared for.
I didn’t make it to 16, 2 months into my fifth year The preverbal shit hit the fan. Petja my bunk mate had once again stolen my pillow and I wanted it back. He was 3 heads taller then me holding my pillow high in the air taunting me. I jumped, I cried, he just kept laughing and holding it higher. I have always had a temper but this time it was different. It had been a bad day overall, I had been late for my shift at the assembly line so I was not to be fed that day. Already grumpy all I wanted to do was sleep, but Petja stood between me and my desired slumber. Rage burned through me, wild burning explosive rage. I looked at him, I remember I was shaking and the next minute it was not only my rage that was burning Petja was too. Burning and howling and running like a human torch through the dorm setting everything he passed to flame. Amidst the chaos that ensued I remember deep dark dread filling my soul. I had committed the cardinal sin of all cardinal sins, I had shown psionic ability. It wasn’t just shit hitting that fan, it was an extinction level load of shit flying my way.
In the Alliance people with abilities have it made. Psicore claims you and takes you in their scary red clad cult like embrace. Don’t get me wrong, their life seems pretty sweet compared to most, especially in contrast to life in the lower echelons of Alliance society. They have the best of everything, food, sex, living space, entertainment, priority transport; but there is something spooky about them, chilling even, something that fills most on the outside with a sense of primal fear. They are beautiful to look at. Move with exceptional grace, their voices are polished and melodic, yet something in their eyes immediately makes you feel like prey and it is deeply unsettling. Still a life in the core looks like paradise to a kid trying to survive in the streets of Lagu. Thing was there is no core on Utopia and anyone with abilities is shunned as devils spawn. I was lucky the sisters did not try to drown me, there are stories of them doing that you know, but I guess the shish kebab that was Petja put enough fear into them to grant me safe passage to the back alleys of the city that was now to become my home.
I will not bore you with the details of my childhood struggle you have heard all the sob stories, mine is just another variation. My life would have fallen along the lines of most street kids and ended in just another statistic in the logs of Alliance headquarters had it not been for Finn. I was thirteen when she caught me trying to steal a titanium plate of the hull of her shuttle. Beautiful, scary, magical Finn. I knew nothing of her then, nor of the legends around her and how she had escaped the core. All I knew was that a short exceptionally pale female, with asian features that screamed Callisto prime, was holding me 6 feet in the air by pure force of her mind. The world went silent as my gaze hit those large pale grey eyes of hers, that mock the usual conformity of Callistan DNA. I knew right then and there that she had stolen my heart I was irrevocably eternally hers.
In those few seconds of first eye contact an unspoken contract was designed and agreed on. I went from half starving lone street urchin to being a well fed part of a family in mere days. Of course I knew that it inevitably was going to end when she and her crew left Utopia, and I mentally prepared myself for the world of hurt that would follow in the wake of their departure. When she offered to smuggle me off world and take me with them as permanent member of the crew I did not waste a second thought. There was nothing holding me on Utopia, I never looked back.
Even though I shave the fur at the base of my neck and on my spine, and wear nano lenses to conceal my Utopian heritage, even though my genes now show me as half-breed offspring of fair Finn herself ( thanks to the miracles of modern medicine) checkpoints always make me nervous. Obviously a first class passenger with his entourage of pleasure boys is about as likely to be thought Utopian as a Frellian sea cow, but a part of me is still waiting for the other shoe to drop even after 40 years. Not today it seems though “Fatty” takes a deep bow and points to the awaiting shuttle and a standard RH 7 droid ready to pilot it. “this way sir “ he says “the droid will shuttle you and your party to the ship where you will be shown to your suite upon arrival”. I nod, then me and the boys make our way down the pathway. My gaze lingers on the delicious backsides of Alec and Damian which is enough to help me shake off the last air of dread. “This will be a pleasant trip “ I think, smiling to myself, imagining the fun I would have sampling these boys during our four day trip. Just in that moment I feel her, her mental touch light as a butterfly sending goosebumps down my vertebral column. “ You only live once Raja” I hear her whisper “ make good use of it”. “ I shall love “ I reply “I shall “…
There is a story I have been carrying around with me for years that I am now just slowly working on getting out it is about the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar of which Raja Arcadian is an integral member. Imagine if you will the best dressed version of David Bowie with fine tastes, expensive vices. He is a poet and art lover with a fabled collection. Raja is a lover of men but he is known to sample the occasional woman if they intrigue him. Until now he did not have an origin story I must thank @calluna for supplying a prompt that immediately broke it open to me :)