"When I was just a little brat, my old baba used to tell me about some relative of ours from way back. A guy named Jesse James. Supposed to have been some kind of famous outlaw, and goddam if the old man wasn't proud to tell everyone who would listen about this. Who knows if the story’s true. I know I sure as hell was one though – an outlaw. A predator.

I stole from people. Shit, I took everything. I took their property, their dignity, and their lives, 'cause if you can’t keep it, it ain’t yours to begin with.

Even after they caught me, sent me away to that freezing fucking shithole Callisto, I was an animal. Cross me, and you paid the price. Undisciplined, living day to day. All those god-awful mines did was make me harder, more ruthless.

When the De’rem showed up with the Free Fleet in pursuit, and Earth vanished, we went wild. Maddox Khan and Akari Lane - fellow prisoners - busted us out and we had some fun making the guards sing, but the Fleet showed up, and they got us like rats in a trap.

Funny thing is, best goddam thing ever happened to me. Yeah, I feel bad sometimes ‘bout all my people back on Earth - who knows what happened to the poor bastards when it blinked out - but fuck it! This…is….livin’!!

I mean, you have any idea the kind of tech we got? Hoooollllly shit! You fire one of those Proton Rippers or a Starhammer and you tell me that isn’t the most goddam beautiful sight you ever seen. Better 'n sex. Better 'n anything.

It could'a gone real real bad though. When Commander Mezer Juul and the Fleet grabbed us off Callisto, we didn't know what hit us. All 1600 of us, man and woman both, were scared shitless, 'cept maybe Cap'n Maddox - nothing seems to get to that man.

Stuck in that stinking room on some alien ship, surrounded by Tukkav and Ry'nari and Amaians and all that, beings we'd never dreamed of, well, that's bad enough, but we got the idea we were basically cattle to be sold to the highest bidder. We couldn't decide whether they were gonna sell us for grub to some meat-eating race or to be exhibits in some kinda sick alien zoo or fuck knows what.

Three hundred were dragged out one time and we never saw 'em again. Found out later they were sold to the Vonikin Krel and the rumors we hear about what the Krel do with aliens....Well, hope it ended quick.

Then the Vendal hit the ship we were on, and hit it hard. Boarded it and started in with the murderin'. Just like on Callisto, Maddox and Akari break us out in the chaos, and as the Vendal didn't seem to mind killing us just as easy as anyone else, we fought back.

Now, understand, Cap'n Maddox is many things. One thing he ain't though is the kind of guy you'd see on the street and think much of his chances in a brawl.

But, you ever see a dogfight? I loved 'em back on Earth. Thing with a dogfight is that it ain't the biggest dog that wins - it's the dog that wants it most, and Cap'n Maddox has a will in him like nothing you ever saw.

So we survived against that Vendal attack. The soldiers of the Fleet won, but we fought like the cornered rats we were, alongside our captors, and courage under fire is somethin' that I guess they just like in all armies, everywhere.

But then again, there we were, having broken out of our shipborn prison and 'liberated' some good gear from the dead. Prisoners with weapons. They could'a just shot us dead right there, or we could'a shot first and then we end up just as dead.

Somehow the Cap'n got through to them, and to us, before it all went to hell, so Commander Juul gave us a choice - join up with the Fleet on a 20 year contract, or get dumped out into space with the next load of garbage. Sometimes life seems really clear, and that was one of those moments. Crystal fucking clear. Probably no surprise which way we went.

An Omega Company scout team.

We thought we were tough guys and women, because all of us were killers, but the Fleet taught us that we didn't know shit about killin'. They sure wanted to make sure we knew it too. Every day, we lost at least one of us in training, whether to some squathead trying to show his dick's bigger in the sparring ring, or just accidents playing with tech they thought it was funny to give us without telling us how the hell to use it. Nobody said life in the Fleet was gonna be safe!

Those of us who made it, we're Omega Company, 'cause there ain't no humans but us. We're the last. We built ourselves quite a reputation too, these 10 years.

And Cap'n Maddox? Well with all respect to Commander Juul, bless his hairy hide, Cap'n Maddox is god. Wouldn't be standing here today without 'im. Saved us all multiple times... and if he's god, then Akari's his angel of death.

If he tells me to rip a new asshole in a planet, I ask how many clicks wide he wants it, and then I shove my foot so far up that rock's new shitter that folks on the other side are choking on my toejam.

If he says a flagship needs taking down, I ask how many pieces he'd like it blown into, and then I and the good men and women of Omega Company make the enemy on that ship wish their parents never screwed (or whatever damn way the freakier ones like the Decheerans or Grensuhlians get their business handled). And then we really go to work on them.

Cap'n Maddox made us who we are - the most goddam dangerous fighting force in the whole sorry history of mankind, and pretty damn renowned in Starmourn Sector too. He taught us duty, and honor, and discipline, and even with all the shit we've had to eat since being sent off to the Callisto colony, I wouldn't trade it.

I was born to fight among the stars with my brothers and sisters in motherfucking arms.

Omega Company! Semper Primus!