Belle Star, Confessions of an Ark Hunter: Episode 2 - The Crash of the ERS New Freedom

Belle Star, Confessions of an Ark Hunter: Episode 2 - The Crash of the ERS New Freedom

The ERP Reporter had a puzzled look on his face and pushed a button on his cam-visor, turning the camera off. He took the visor off, wiping the sweat off his brow with a handkerchief. Although he had arranged with Varus to have the interview with Ms. Starr on the patio of the Crater, it was still sticky hot in the Bay Area sun. It had always been ten to twenty degrees hotter inland than on the ocean in the west coast even before the Pale Wars, and the reporter wondered, not for the first time, why would a bar be built here in Marin rather than on the coast.

The attractive young woman who sat across the table from him was staring at him expectantly with her wide blue eyes, her rose petal lips in a pretty pout. The reporter was distracted from her gaze because there was an angry murmur from the assembling group of miners, ranchers, and ark hunters behind the make-shift barricade set up by Varus’ guards. One of the guards, a large Sensoth, put a hairy hand on his holstered pistol and a finger to his lips with another, and the crowd turned silent. Evidently, happy hour began early at The Crater.

The reporter’s attention returned to the shapely but athletic woman as she impatiently crossed and then re-crossed her long legs. The Liberty Trooper armor she wears must be amazingly flexible to let her move like that with such ease, he thought to himself. However, there was still a consistency question that nagged at him, although off topic, so he had to ask her, albeit off the record.

“One thing I don’t understand,” The sweating reporter began,” Your uncle is a high ranking VBI executive and you began working at VBI at age sixteen, that’s on the record, but you just said your were working on at steam boat at age thirteen… so how does that gibe?”

Belle Starr sighed and frowned, not really wanting to go that far back in her history. She had been born in Houston, Texas, and lived there until the age of three, when the aliens had dropped terra form bombs on that city. Although her parents were fatally sick from the nanites and toxins released by the bombs, they managed to get her to a family friend in N’Awlins, who she later called Papa Boudreaux. N’Awlins, once called New Orleans, was a small thriving port city on the Mississippi river, but the only living and working areas today were the old French Quarter and Uptown areas, since the Pale War fighting broke all the levies and everything else was underwater. Because of that, everybody had to work and pull their weight, even the children, so Papa Boudreaux got her a job as a cabin girl at the age of thirteen with his friend Captain Lovejoy on the steamboat Sincerely Yours, which took necessary goods up and down the Mississippi River. Belle proved she had a knack with machines, so soon became the apprentice mechanic.

At sixteen, she had just got off the ship for a much needed shore leave and was looking forward to a big steaming bowl of Papa Boudreau’s POW gumbo. Mr. Lewis, who owned a used bookstore next to Papa Boudreux’ restaurant and bordello in the French Quarter, and who always allowed her to borrow books to feed her voracious reading habit, was standing on the dock with a small balding man in an expensive suit. Mr.Lewis, looking sad and uncomfortable, told her that Papa Boudreaux had died mysteriously in a grease fire that burnt down his restaurant and that this man was her long lost uncle, Mr. Greenstreet, a VBI executive and who evidently had been looking for her since the terra forming disaster in Houston. Belle had thought the fire was unusual because Papa Boudreaux was meticulous about keeping his grease traps clean, but was ecstatic to find she had an uncle, and who later opened so many doors at VBI for her.

Belle thought this was her private history that she didn’t really want to share with anyone. In many ways, it was the last time she was truly happy, and Papa Boudreaux was the last person who made her feel truly loved, as Mr. Greenstreet was always very aloof, and even drew away if she ever tried to hug him.

No, this is something I don’t want to share with you or your public, thought Belle, so she replied to the reporter, “It’s really none of your bee’s wax, so y'all just edit that out about the steamboat, please! Now let’s get on with what your viewers really want to know about – what happened after the ERS New Freedom crashed!”

The reporter realized he wasn’t going to get any more from her on that topic, so he shrugged and put his cam-visor back in place, turning it on to record the following:         

“When I landed, I was dizzy from a whirlwind of sensations – everything looked so alien and I saw a holographic girl who claimed to be my EGO. I know now that that was in my head, but I wasn’t really thinking right then because I was surrounded with strange colored plants and dog sized crab like bugs with big teeth and vicious ugly mutated humans with guns, all of which are trying to kill me, and all I want is a weapon to kill them before they kill me and this EGO gal wants me to pick an EGO power and teach me how to use it and I’m thinking this really probably is NOT the right time but I pick decoy because I think, maybe, I can send the decoy out and all those hostile entities will attack it instead of me. And it works. I get away.

I wander for a bit in what I later find out is the Mount Tam area. Captain Grant is yelling in my earpiece radio that all us Ark hunters need to regroup at the Earth Republic base at the crash site, but I want to explore – and I’m more than a little bit mad at him for getting us crashed! So I wander a bit for the better part of a day, fighting mutants and hellbugs until I run into him. I say him, because he told me later his name was XOXOXOX, but I don’t think it was his real name. Anyway, some mutants with knives and cleavers are giving him a hard time, so I weigh in with a pistol I had found and give him a helping hand. We make short work of them, and he then turns to me, looks me up and down, and says, ‘Wow!,’ like this skinny little runt of a blond freckled teenage girl in the big bulky machinist uniform was really something! I didn’t know what to say so I didn’t say anything.

He wore the same machinist uniform that I did, but on him it looked good! *smile* As it started to get dark, he said he wanted to take me to a special place he knew of, so I followed him to a destroyed two story house infested with hellbugs, which we promptly evicted from the premises if you know what I mean. *giggle* We then spent the rest of the night talking about stuff and watching the falling stars, which I later learned was ark fall. We had my first kiss and I fell asleep in his arms, but he was gone in the morning. *blush* Nothing else went on – get your mind out of the gutter – I was only nineteen… I think! Hard to tell for sure being an orphan. But he was my first boyfriend, even though I never saw him again! *giggle*

That morning I found my way to the Earth Republic Camp. Unfortunately, I also found that my boss, Mr. Von Bach, was missing since the crash – insert guilt trip here! I had met an interesting Irathiant named Cass Ducot who knew the area when I first landed, so Captain Grant gave us permission – or did he order us, hard to tell with Captain Grant – to go look for my boss. Did I mention my boss was dreamy? I thought I had! After several violent encounters with the native life, we found him in a bunker hiding in a locker from the mutants, which I thought was pretty smart all things considered. *big smile* Cass just thought he was an asshole, as she put it. *small frown*

Cass and I had a lot of adventures together, with paid missions given us by Captain Grant or the local Sheriff Cooper, but always looking for the ark tech that Mr. Von Bach was searching for. With them and often without them, I fought mutants, cyborgs, hellbugs, raiders, and a renegade Casti group of warriors called Dark Matter. I don’t think they ever quit fighting the war. I ultimately ended up fighting and killing their leader Nim, *frightened look* but it was a close call, and I won – more out of dumb luck and my ego device than anything else. But the search for Mr. Von Bach’s missing ark tech didn’t end well. Mr. Von Bach, Sherriff Copper, and I thought we had it at one point on the Golden Gate Bridge, but the Ark tech and Mr. Von Bach both went over the side. I tried but I couldn’t get to Karl in time. *a tear falls down her cheek* I REALLY did try! I guess Mr. Von Bach won’t be able to put the world back to normal with the ark tech like he wanted to do. *wipes away the tear* Not that I’d know what normal is anymore.”*nervous giggle* I hear now that Mr. Von Bach is back but I don’t see how that is really possible”

At that point, the recording ends, as a thirsty patron of The Crater threw a rock, hitting the reporter in the head and knocking the visor-cam to the ground breaking it.