If, a week ago, someone had me bet five-thousand credits on it, I reckon I'd wager against myself ever writing a journal. Sure is a good thing no one ever did, because I've never been a graceful loser.
This here journal was something Aeris Lashiec insisted I should try. She approached me at a secondhand sale of old literature, stuff from back when they still printed ink on paper as a standard rather than a novelty. She started getting all empathetic on me, prattling off about my pain, the hate I harbored, and whatever other bleeding heart garbage she could think to articulate. I only held back a conniption for the sake of getting what I came for. I ain't ever been one to lie down for nothin', but even I know that sometimes it's better to pretend you still have your composure. Although, for someone who claimed such a sense of empathy, she was sure oblivious to how annoying she was. Maybe that didn't ability equate to reading a room.
Jedi, am I right?
Anyway, I don't figure she reckons I took the advice, but here I am. Nor do I think she'd be too happy with the things I have to say, but she assured me the point of this wasn't for anyone else to read, anyhow. Which is good, because if I ever got the notion that someone else had been reading this, I might have to make sure they ain't never gonna have the ability to read nothin' ever again.
My name's Aldritch. Aldritch Senjak. I was the youngest of nine, yes nine, children. Four brothers, four sisters. I was also the only one that didn't belong to a pair of twins, fraternal or identical. My mother used to say that was her first sign I was trouble. It was also all of my older siblings' favorite thing to tease me about. They'd say I must have ate my twin, say it was why I grew to be so much bigger than everyone else, say it was why I was freak. I used to believe 'em, but as I got older I realized, in hindsight, it was probably because of something much more dubious.
You see, my family were nerf herders. I mean, actual nerf herders. Nerf herders and potato-diggers. They were stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf herders too, but I'll get to that part later. I was born on Anaxes. I came into this world tiny, frail, and sick. No one thought I was gonna make it. Not even the Jedi who came once they saw my blood sample in the database. Said I had one of the highest midi-chlorian counts they'd seen in the sector for decades. I still don't know exactly what that means. Something to do with a sensitivity to that 'Force' thing they're all crazy about. I reckon it would explain a lot of things that I accomplished and experienced later, but I ain't ever really given the spiritual much thought. Anyway, he wanted to take me back to the temple, but decided against it when he saw the state I was in. Gave my family condolences and promptly fethed off just quickly as he came around.
At least, that's how my oldest brother Morrow told it to me. Sometimes my family would tell me he didn't take me because I was some kind of devil-child. That, or because he knew I wasn't worth nothin', not even mourning, once he laid eyes on me. Whatever the truth is, I've chosen to believe my brother. He was the only one who ever treated me like I was part of the family, and his recollection of that visit seems to probable while conveniently being the least disparaging to my character. My sister Lanaya wasn't so bad either, come to think of it. Well, she wasn't when no one was looking. When they were, she had to save face and follow everyone else's example by tormenting me.
What I do know for sure, is that after the Jedi, someone else came. Some smooth-talking city-slicking corpo. I can't for the life of me remember who Morrow said he worked for, but it probably don't matter anyway. Came with some drug claimin' it could make me better. Showed my parents evidence, and made the side-effects sound not-so-bad by misdirecting them, showing 'em some holotape with hopeful music and mushy thanks and testimonials from grateful parents. Only problem was, it was far too expensive for a bunch of Anaxi nerf herders. So what'd my parents go and do? Sold half the land, half the herd, half their things, and drew out of my oldest sister Dorotea's academy fund.
All that effort for the devil-child.
To that Corpo's credit, the stuff did make me better. I guess you could say it saved my life, even. It wasn't without its after-effects, though. None of us really understood it at the time, but that serum was the reason I was taller than my parents by twelve, and was growin' a beard by fifteen. The reason why my hair's been gray for as long as I can remember. The reason why I was such a violent and angry little devil-child. Business never recovered after the liquidation they did to keep me alive. Dorotea never got to go to academy, and ran off with some Imperial boys one year. I guess my family just blamed me for all those problems, channeled their discontent into resentment toward me. I guess they thought if they had just let me die nothing bad would have ever happened to 'em. Maybe they were right, but it's far past too late to find out.
To make matters worse, for them and myself, I never much liked herding nerfs and digging potatoes. I would have rather spent my time reading, sleeping, or getting into scuffles with the first kid that looked at me funny. I can't really blame that damn drug for everything I did wrong. I was a little chit, and I damn well know it. I got some regret about it, but at some point I reckon they had it coming for treating me, their son, their brother, the way they did.
Nerf herders.
Suppose' it wasn't no surprise when I jumped at the opportunity to join the Navy when I was seventeen. Get off Anaxes, see space, visit other worlds, all without ever having to herd a single nerf ever again. Sounded like the sweetest deal ever fethin' conceived to me at the time. Morrow was the only one who even bothered to try and stop me. He didn't take much convincing, though. I think he would've done the same, and deep down he knew it was better for me. Aldritch Senjak, Local Freak and Farmhand became Private Senjak, Eager Marine and Indoctrinated Patriot that day.
My mother cried when I boarded the shuttle off-world. I still don't know if she was lamenting over what she knew would be my permanent departure, of if she was shedding tears of joy for the devil-child's self-imposed exile. Some nights, I lost sleep over it, trying to figure out what she was feeling. Eventually I concluded that both possibilities hurt too much in their own way, and that keeping it a mystery hardly hurt at all.
Needless to say, the Navy was not the dream paradise experience I had pictured in my head. I mean, it sure as hell beat the chit out of life on the pasture, but it came with its own challenges entirely. This time, though, they were challenges I was good at facing. Despite it not being what I thought it was, my time in the Navy was the first time I ever felt any camaraderie, the first time I made any friends, and the first time I ever loved anyone. War was hell, but I was good at it, and I still look back very fondly at the parts in-between the fighting.
When Grayson took over, the boys and I got the bright idea to go into business for ourselves. I was a Lieutenant, then. We disappeared, along with a whole Venerator to ourselves. The, we sold our services to anyone willing to pay. No questions, no morals, just business. Those days came close to everything I thought the Navy would be when I was a naïve farm devil-child in rural Anaxes. That was also when the fighting was at its worst. Mercenaries rarely have the luxury of questioning or considering the moral fabric of every contract. Credits were our only virtue. That don't mean we were oblivious. though.
Call it karma, bad luck, or whatever you want, but it all caught up to us eventually. We got mixed up in somethin'. I still ain't sure what. Even as a Lieutenant I was on a need-to-know about the whole damn thing. It was the end of us, ultimately. I still got me a notion that someone turned on us. Credits being our only virtue really came back to bite us on the rear. Imperium, or maybe Republics authority ambushed out of hyperspace on a contract. They didn't quite like glorified deserters making a name for themselves out there. But, I reckon was too convenient that they somehow got the jump on us. We were more careful than that.
I've killed men, women, Jedi, Sith, the rich, the poor, slaves, and free men. So, I used to think stature didn't matter, because in the end we all die the same. They all sure did.
Except, I didn't.
I went somewhere after that ambush. Not hell, or chaos, or oblivion, or any other chit I've been told happens when you die. But somewhere. Somehow, though, I came back. Woke up in a bacta-tank as nothing but a head, torso, and a leg. What does that make me? I still ain't certain. Millions of credits worth of augmentations later and my benefactors had me walking around like nothing ever happened. Some Sith Lord wasn't quite fond of the way things were being run. Some stuck up, hoity toity, blonde-haired, blue-eyed poof with more money than I knew existed. I gathered he wanted to make me his one-man-super soldier army. Stupidest thing I've ever heard, even if the artificial parts of me could kill platoons all on their own.
He ain't around no more, though. Not my doing.
The lackeys he had hired to keep me on a leash ain't around no more neither. My doing.
I guess you could say I've got a shift in priorities on my hands. I used to take every day as it came, just tried to survive. Now I want revenge, plain and simple. I ain't ever taken no pleasure in killing anyone. It was always just a means to an end that I happened to have knack for. But when I find the man that sold us out, that will very well change. I'll make him suffer like no one has ever suffered.
I reckon, after that, I could settle down, get old, and die in peace. Maybe herd my own nerfs, dig my own potatoes, go full circle with the whole thing.
Ironic, ain't it?
This here journal was something Aeris Lashiec insisted I should try. She approached me at a secondhand sale of old literature, stuff from back when they still printed ink on paper as a standard rather than a novelty. She started getting all empathetic on me, prattling off about my pain, the hate I harbored, and whatever other bleeding heart garbage she could think to articulate. I only held back a conniption for the sake of getting what I came for. I ain't ever been one to lie down for nothin', but even I know that sometimes it's better to pretend you still have your composure. Although, for someone who claimed such a sense of empathy, she was sure oblivious to how annoying she was. Maybe that didn't ability equate to reading a room.
Jedi, am I right?
Anyway, I don't figure she reckons I took the advice, but here I am. Nor do I think she'd be too happy with the things I have to say, but she assured me the point of this wasn't for anyone else to read, anyhow. Which is good, because if I ever got the notion that someone else had been reading this, I might have to make sure they ain't never gonna have the ability to read nothin' ever again.
My name's Aldritch. Aldritch Senjak. I was the youngest of nine, yes nine, children. Four brothers, four sisters. I was also the only one that didn't belong to a pair of twins, fraternal or identical. My mother used to say that was her first sign I was trouble. It was also all of my older siblings' favorite thing to tease me about. They'd say I must have ate my twin, say it was why I grew to be so much bigger than everyone else, say it was why I was freak. I used to believe 'em, but as I got older I realized, in hindsight, it was probably because of something much more dubious.
You see, my family were nerf herders. I mean, actual nerf herders. Nerf herders and potato-diggers. They were stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf herders too, but I'll get to that part later. I was born on Anaxes. I came into this world tiny, frail, and sick. No one thought I was gonna make it. Not even the Jedi who came once they saw my blood sample in the database. Said I had one of the highest midi-chlorian counts they'd seen in the sector for decades. I still don't know exactly what that means. Something to do with a sensitivity to that 'Force' thing they're all crazy about. I reckon it would explain a lot of things that I accomplished and experienced later, but I ain't ever really given the spiritual much thought. Anyway, he wanted to take me back to the temple, but decided against it when he saw the state I was in. Gave my family condolences and promptly fethed off just quickly as he came around.
At least, that's how my oldest brother Morrow told it to me. Sometimes my family would tell me he didn't take me because I was some kind of devil-child. That, or because he knew I wasn't worth nothin', not even mourning, once he laid eyes on me. Whatever the truth is, I've chosen to believe my brother. He was the only one who ever treated me like I was part of the family, and his recollection of that visit seems to probable while conveniently being the least disparaging to my character. My sister Lanaya wasn't so bad either, come to think of it. Well, she wasn't when no one was looking. When they were, she had to save face and follow everyone else's example by tormenting me.
What I do know for sure, is that after the Jedi, someone else came. Some smooth-talking city-slicking corpo. I can't for the life of me remember who Morrow said he worked for, but it probably don't matter anyway. Came with some drug claimin' it could make me better. Showed my parents evidence, and made the side-effects sound not-so-bad by misdirecting them, showing 'em some holotape with hopeful music and mushy thanks and testimonials from grateful parents. Only problem was, it was far too expensive for a bunch of Anaxi nerf herders. So what'd my parents go and do? Sold half the land, half the herd, half their things, and drew out of my oldest sister Dorotea's academy fund.
All that effort for the devil-child.
To that Corpo's credit, the stuff did make me better. I guess you could say it saved my life, even. It wasn't without its after-effects, though. None of us really understood it at the time, but that serum was the reason I was taller than my parents by twelve, and was growin' a beard by fifteen. The reason why my hair's been gray for as long as I can remember. The reason why I was such a violent and angry little devil-child. Business never recovered after the liquidation they did to keep me alive. Dorotea never got to go to academy, and ran off with some Imperial boys one year. I guess my family just blamed me for all those problems, channeled their discontent into resentment toward me. I guess they thought if they had just let me die nothing bad would have ever happened to 'em. Maybe they were right, but it's far past too late to find out.
To make matters worse, for them and myself, I never much liked herding nerfs and digging potatoes. I would have rather spent my time reading, sleeping, or getting into scuffles with the first kid that looked at me funny. I can't really blame that damn drug for everything I did wrong. I was a little chit, and I damn well know it. I got some regret about it, but at some point I reckon they had it coming for treating me, their son, their brother, the way they did.
Nerf herders.
Suppose' it wasn't no surprise when I jumped at the opportunity to join the Navy when I was seventeen. Get off Anaxes, see space, visit other worlds, all without ever having to herd a single nerf ever again. Sounded like the sweetest deal ever fethin' conceived to me at the time. Morrow was the only one who even bothered to try and stop me. He didn't take much convincing, though. I think he would've done the same, and deep down he knew it was better for me. Aldritch Senjak, Local Freak and Farmhand became Private Senjak, Eager Marine and Indoctrinated Patriot that day.
My mother cried when I boarded the shuttle off-world. I still don't know if she was lamenting over what she knew would be my permanent departure, of if she was shedding tears of joy for the devil-child's self-imposed exile. Some nights, I lost sleep over it, trying to figure out what she was feeling. Eventually I concluded that both possibilities hurt too much in their own way, and that keeping it a mystery hardly hurt at all.
Needless to say, the Navy was not the dream paradise experience I had pictured in my head. I mean, it sure as hell beat the chit out of life on the pasture, but it came with its own challenges entirely. This time, though, they were challenges I was good at facing. Despite it not being what I thought it was, my time in the Navy was the first time I ever felt any camaraderie, the first time I made any friends, and the first time I ever loved anyone. War was hell, but I was good at it, and I still look back very fondly at the parts in-between the fighting.
When Grayson took over, the boys and I got the bright idea to go into business for ourselves. I was a Lieutenant, then. We disappeared, along with a whole Venerator to ourselves. The, we sold our services to anyone willing to pay. No questions, no morals, just business. Those days came close to everything I thought the Navy would be when I was a naïve farm devil-child in rural Anaxes. That was also when the fighting was at its worst. Mercenaries rarely have the luxury of questioning or considering the moral fabric of every contract. Credits were our only virtue. That don't mean we were oblivious. though.
Call it karma, bad luck, or whatever you want, but it all caught up to us eventually. We got mixed up in somethin'. I still ain't sure what. Even as a Lieutenant I was on a need-to-know about the whole damn thing. It was the end of us, ultimately. I still got me a notion that someone turned on us. Credits being our only virtue really came back to bite us on the rear. Imperium, or maybe Republics authority ambushed out of hyperspace on a contract. They didn't quite like glorified deserters making a name for themselves out there. But, I reckon was too convenient that they somehow got the jump on us. We were more careful than that.
I've killed men, women, Jedi, Sith, the rich, the poor, slaves, and free men. So, I used to think stature didn't matter, because in the end we all die the same. They all sure did.
Except, I didn't.
I went somewhere after that ambush. Not hell, or chaos, or oblivion, or any other chit I've been told happens when you die. But somewhere. Somehow, though, I came back. Woke up in a bacta-tank as nothing but a head, torso, and a leg. What does that make me? I still ain't certain. Millions of credits worth of augmentations later and my benefactors had me walking around like nothing ever happened. Some Sith Lord wasn't quite fond of the way things were being run. Some stuck up, hoity toity, blonde-haired, blue-eyed poof with more money than I knew existed. I gathered he wanted to make me his one-man-super soldier army. Stupidest thing I've ever heard, even if the artificial parts of me could kill platoons all on their own.
He ain't around no more, though. Not my doing.
The lackeys he had hired to keep me on a leash ain't around no more neither. My doing.
I guess you could say I've got a shift in priorities on my hands. I used to take every day as it came, just tried to survive. Now I want revenge, plain and simple. I ain't ever taken no pleasure in killing anyone. It was always just a means to an end that I happened to have knack for. But when I find the man that sold us out, that will very well change. I'll make him suffer like no one has ever suffered.
I reckon, after that, I could settle down, get old, and die in peace. Maybe herd my own nerfs, dig my own potatoes, go full circle with the whole thing.
Ironic, ain't it?
