Chapter Text
You, know I should have guessed my luck would run out eventually. I mean, I know it sounds cliché, but I ought to have guessed things were going too swimmingly. One may rightfully ask, hey Thrakan, what the hell do you mean? Well I’ll tell you. I just died. I was happily minding my own business when suddenly I tripped, fell down some stairs and managed to snap my neck. So, my name is now Thrakan Dericote and I am a nineteen year old stuck in the body of an infant.
First things first, I’m having trouble remembering who I used to be. I remember broad strokes, but certain specifics are lost. I remember it was the year 2023, I remember being nineteen living in Germany, speaking the language, but I don’t think I was from there. I don’t remember any names, I don’t remember any achievements I may have had. All I remember is my age a language and a bunch of historical events. Weirdly all of them appear to be about revolutions. I remember the Slave revolts of Rome, the peasant uprisings during the reformation. Though all I remember about the reformation was it being a religious dispute.
I remember the Glorious revolution and the English Civil War. I remember the American Revolution and the French Revolution. I remember the Haitian Revolution and the many Polish revolts. I remember the rebellions throughout Europe and the resistance against the Nazi regime. I remember them all of those and a couple more.
It seems weird to remember such political and military history alongside random bits and pieces of culture, but not my name, or my mom’s smile. It’s weird that I remember my second language, but not my first. This whole thing is weird.
Now as I’ve said, I’m stuck here a baby in some sci-fi world. I can’t read the letters, I can’t understand anyone, and my nanny is a robot. Now, don’t get me wrong this weird trash can on two stilts with it’s truncated cone for a head and single ‘eye’ is quite endearing and much more attentive than either of my parents. My old man, whenever I see him is talking to some tiny blue smudge of a hologram and whenever I see my mother she looks … tired.
Now you may assume that this is because she is caring for an infant, however you would be mistaken. My dearest nanny bot, or as I later learned R4-K3, is doing most of that. Mother seems to work late into the night and doesn’t seem to sleep much the rest of the time either.
So my status quo began. Let me tell you being a baby is kinda boring. The most entertainment I ever got was when my dearest nanny bot whistled some thing or another, or when she, in her infinite mercy decided to play me some music. Though I was given a bunch of holo-books to read. They were pretty simple but I think I started to understand them after a while.
This continued for about half a year. I am uncertain how I had managed to remain sane, but somehow I did. I started to understand a couple of words and whistles. As well as how to crawl. Now this was apparently nothing worth noticing for my parents. Dear god, I think they will probably ignore me until I leave the house at this rate. How they managed to have me with all the work they do is beyond me.
Finally, fucking finally, they notice me. What did it take you ask? Was it saying ma or pa in this brand spanking new language? Nope. Was it taking my first steps? Also nope, did that at eight months, keep up people. Ah, you shout, you hurt yourself. No, sorry to disappoint. Now stop guessing, it was by looking over some random paperwork. Let me say, at about a year old, I had finally started figuring out the language and its alphabet. I could kinda read now. So I started reading whatever I could. Mostly ‘paperwork’ mother brought home. I say paperwork, but it was all on her tablet. This is how I learned the name of the place my mom worked at. The Ministerial Office of Fondor. How did I read this at a measly one year old? Well boredom is a powerful tool, and my little brain has been soaking up knowledge like a dry sponge.
Now, how does this have anything to do with my parental units finally giving me some attention? Well I started drawing on it with the stylus of the tablet. Apparently this finally caught my Mothers’ attention as when she saw me doodling on her official document she freaked out and started yammering on and on about something or another. I could maybe understand every sixth word due to a mix of big words and her panic.
But hey, now booth mother and father, whose names I learned were Owen and Naomi respectively, paid attention to me more often. This may not be a good lesson to learn normally, but damn it I’m already twenty years old now, this shouldn’t affect me.
Things didn’t really change much to be honest after that though. Mother was still always tired, father was still always busy. Time finally started to fly a bit once I stopped being a toddler. I got to go to school, which was alright. I mainly enjoyed learning History. It was just so different from old Earth. So alien and fantastical. Space monks leading wars and fighting against evil space monks. Apparently Fondor used to be green and lush instead of a dustball mixed with industrial cities.
As I grew up I also learned about my family. So ma’ was First Secretary to the First Minister, who is basically the head honcho of the entire world and father is a desk jockey in the Planetary defense force. This explained quite a bit to me. Why mother was always tired or why dad seemed to be in endless conference calls with his superiors and inferiors. Meanwhile pa’ was the descendant of some kind of ex-aristocracy. Not to say Fondor wasn’t ruled by an oligarchy, it was. Just that pa’s family, alongside some nine thousand others, had been thrown out of government due to some political shenanigans. Could’ve been worse I suppose. We were alive at least, that couldn’t be said for some two thousand other old families. I feel kinda sorry for them, bad luck’s a real bitch.
All in all though, it didn’t really matter to me. My parents were kinda important to me, but their and their families’ past weren’t really something I cared about. I thought I might go to Uni, get a degree in history and write papers on how stupid the Rusaan reformations were, maybe adopt a kid or two later on for propriety’s sake and live my life as a scholar.. I finally told my pa’ about that plan when I was fifteen, but my dreams were shattered when my father informed me I would join the Planetary Defense Force of Fondor and be happy about it.
Now I wasn’t happy about this, I didn’t want to be some grunt dying to a pirate raid, or some schmuck who gets do do Janitorial duty on some defense station. So in my infinite wisdom, I started rebelling. First it was getting into fights with bullies at school again. I had dropped the habit a couple years back to focus on my studies, but now it came back with a vengeance.
However father commended me on my fighting spirit instead of admonishing me. Then I started smoking and drinking whatever I could get my hands on. It certainly wasn’t healthy, but I got to meet my brother in all but name during that time. I eventually even decided to quit smoking after he, his girlfriend and another friend of mine kept complaining about it. I wish Charley would nag me about something again … I miss the bastard.
This kind of events went fine until at seventeen I got black out drunk and my pa’ found me in a puddle of my own sick out on the street, just before a sandstorm. My pa’ personally went to every bar, store and neighbor and told them, with me standing next to him, that if I was even seen near the alcohol they were to get me out of there no matter what.
After that I finally accepted my lot in life. Good thing too, because on my eighteenth birthday in the year 7947 C.R.C. I enlisted into the Fondor Naval Academy.
The Naval Academy was quite fun in hindsight. Lots of exercise, stupid levels of discipline and a nice bit of education to top it all off. My family managed to get me into the officer corps through the Academy and I could still have a mastery in History at the end of it too. I guess pa’ was right in the end.
So my family connections got me into the officer corps, which meant even more discipline and some extra lessons. Mostly on commanding troops, naval tactics, logistics and anti-pirate operations. This was of course mixed with the standard naval arms and basic navigation training. I was still slightly isolationist in getting friends and the only people I really spent time with were my professors and my trio of almost family. That was until my second year at the academy.
So it was my second year and I got introduced to Luis Sicato. Now he was a pretty shy fellow. He apparently thought the Fondor Planetary Defense Force would be a good career choice and through a nice level of intelligence he managed to get into the officer corps as well. We quickly hit it off at a party we were booth were peer pressured into and stayed in contact after that. I told him I was thinking of getting a doctorate in History while continuing the naval tradition by going to the Carida Republic Officer Academy. He told me he was thinking of joining the Republic Judiciary corps also, though without getting a doctorate. That was entirely understandable, it would be a lot of work.
We shared a couple classes in my final year at Fondor Naval Academy, because I had put them off until my fifth semester. I got to see a bit more of him there and learned he was the perfect example of a silent workhorse. Diligent, hard working and happy with results, no matter who gets the credit. We decided to keep in touch.
I somehow convinced my ma’ to let me continue my naval education. My pa’ was all too happy to see me actually have some motivation for my career and supported my decision to apply to the Republic Officer Academy on Carida. It still took about a month until my mother permitted it. I had been following the news on and off during this time and was slightly concerned about the rising tensions between Core and Rim. I blew it off. They would all get over themselves soon enough, the Core needed the Rim as much as they needed the Core after all.
I wasn’t exactly happy with the Republic, the corruption was kinda obvious at my level. I remember father complaining again and again about attempted bribery and mother being happy no one was subverting the First Minister of Fondor for once, a year or two ago. But I still believed it could be reformed into something better. With some of my pre-rebirth knowledge I had some ideas on how it could be reformed. However to get that far I had to first get out of the shadow of my parents. The best way I saw at the moment was to get into the Judiciary Corps and get enough support from them and my parents to join the senate and begin expending political favors to try and reform the Republic. Ma’ had offered an alternative path involving a stint in the defense force, followed by joining her at the office, but I was set in my own plan.
Anyway, a jump into politics was far off, probably over three decades into the future. I graduated from Fondor with a good score and a history mastery. I immediately applied to Carida Republic Officer Academy and was accepted on a history scholarship. I was overjoyed.
I’ll be honest, Carida flew by me. Don’t get me wrong it was very interesting to learn about further fleet tactics and to get my History doctorate, but a lot of the lectures were very boring and focused on regulations or repeating things I had already learned on Fondor. So those three years flew by. It felt like one moment I was happily getting on a transport to the academy and the next I was graduating.
My parents were very proud. It felt nice that they were actually happy with me. I think that they finally truly realized they had an actual son by this stage instead of some kind of burden. It was quite late, but I was still happy about it. They even officially gifted me R4-K3, my old nanny bot, as a graduation gift. I was over the moon.
During the Graduation ceremony of class 7955 C.R.C. I was officially given my first assignment. Jr. Captain of a Light Assault cruiser. Now despite the name the ship was essentially a glorified corvette and personnel transport. However I was still very happy about being given command over my own ship. I even was allowed to bring R4 with me.
At the end of my first twenty six years of life I was finally free of my parents and could see the greater galaxy. I had a good feeling about this.