The Milky Way

Sieg leaned back in his chair while the Skyhawk made its way into port. He'd managed to dodge another Alliance patrol, but they had managed to tag the ship before he escaped. "Gotta change the serial again." He sighed, folding his arms across his chest. Being a small fighter, he wasn't held to the same rigorous inspections as the start cruisers that found their way here. The Skyhawk settled in next to a bright green shuttle class vessel that obviously belonged to an elite's kid. "Attention, docking is now prohibited! This station is under lockdown. Repeat: This station is under lockdown, docking is now prohibited" Sieg rolled his eyes, taking the Skyhawk out of its docking space. "Seriously? I come all this way for some-" He was cut off by a small explosion. The explosion came from the very tavern he'd hoped to visit, a small Alliance cruiser caught the blast and fell from the security of the artificial gravity, its crew still inside. He then watched as six individuals ran out from the new hole caused by the explosion. An unmistakable android girl lead the way, followed an extremely unmistakeable Rajako. "Captian Beth..." Sieg said under his breath, watching the Alliance troops follow the fugitives. He chuckled as he flew the Skyhawk from port, around the station and waited just outside the star cruiser bay exit. "This should get interesting. I wonder what kind of goods the ol' Captain is hauling around. Maybe I can pay the Barrage off..."

"This way now, no time to waste!" Captain Beth yelled as he pushed his tentacles into the ground, sending himself flying into the Duchess's open hanger door.

"Wait!" Yuwen yelled as over their heads laser bullets flew. "This is insane, I can't follow you!"

"It's them or me, young tuff," Captain Beth explained as he entered the ship's elevator, in the center of the hanger. "You decide what's wisest." And with that the elevator's doors flung closed. A second later Beth was up in the first floor of the Duchess, the command deck. The walls and ceiling of the deck were made of glass, revealing the chaos on the docking bay beyond. Captain Beth ran up to the pilot's wheel and, from the dashboard, began to power the ship up. "Please work, by Neptune," Beth muttered to himself as he pressed down, hoping that the Duchess could do the impossible and manage to lift off. Suddenly, the ship's engine revved, and it slowly began to raise from the ground.

"Yes!" The Captain roared. "Time to show these Alliance pigs what the Duchess can do!"

Helthax was in awe of the ship Captain Beth piloted. What a wondrous sight to see. It truly was the spitting image of a pirate's ship. Noticing Yuwen's hesitation, Helthax realized the reporter needed some help getting into the ship.

"You're going, now quit complaining!" he shouted.

Slamming his free, covered-up, metallic arm into the alien's back and hoisting him up through the ship's door. These others, they were fugitives now no matter what they thought. The alliance did not show any mercy with crimes and fairness, so there was no way out. A pirate's life for thee...'twoud be. The two would crash onto the floor, and Helthax would roll and jump to his feet to avoid getting too hurt. He turned back to see the gunfire and mayhem outside.

"Insane...?" Brufflin muttered, shaking his head, leaping towards the ship's elevator. "Or just bloody stupid?" Brufflin continued, the elevator taking him up towards the first floor, the only floor it seemed to land on at the moment. "How does this even happen?" Brufflin questioned, watching Beth take the pilot's wheel. As if to tell him that some questions are better left unanswered a piece of the ceiling dropped down toward the Engreint, who swiftly moved to the side to avoid it.

"Er, never mind,"Brufflin began. "I'll take the main guns, if you don't mind. That is if they're still functional."

Panting, Rescha stared wide eyed at the others, her mind still attempting to register the events of the past minutes. The doors were closing behind her and Captain Beth was taking the wheel. Words were being exchanged but she wasn't listening as the sounds of the ruckus below captured her complete attention. From the surrounding by hostile guards to the mad dash to a ship that looked like it would fall apart any second, the events were a blur in which adrenaline and survival were the only conscious thoughts. The ship began to lift itself off the ground and a grin slowly appeared on Rescha's face.

"Well guys, it seems ya'll aren't the useless gibbets I thought you were. You could at least run fast for the trouble you got me in," she said with malice as she cracked her knuckles. "Now I really can't go back to my home. Great, I'm a damn space pirate. And that was sarcasm if that was too difficult to comprehend for your tiny brains."

She paused, her tone softening for a moment,"But if anything, this whole space pirate business sounds decent. Of course, I'd like to oversee things but if there's anything important to be done, I'll volunteer as long as it ain't dirty work. One of you morons can take that disgusting part."

As the Duchess began to take off, a squadron of Alliance fighters sped for the station, trying to prevent the ship from leaving port. Sieg grinned as he took off for the squadron, opening fire on the unsuspecting fighters. Compared to his new RJX model, the YKS-32's they flew were little more than sitting ducks.

"What is that model?" A solider exclaimed over the open com channel before his ship burst into a silent explosion of light and wreckage. Sieg began to make quick work of the five fighter squadron. The markings indicated that they were a Gamma squad, rookies. "Assigned to protect the station and that's all." Sieg said with a sigh as he rolled around the stream of laser bullets the final fighter had lobbed his way. "Amateur!" He shouted though the blackness of space as he let the missile find its mark, right through the glass canopy of the outflown fighter, leaving the squadron leader to the same fate as his team. "Well, I wasn't really planning on any fights today, but this might be interesting." Sieg said with a chuckle, flipping a few com switches until honing in on the channel that Captain Beth always used, 56.7.4, a substation that only those with proper radio equipment, pirate vessels, could find. Sieg's fighter had been modified after he'd stolen it, he had to keep up on his clients after all. He hesitated before opening a line with the Duchess. "Duchess, this is Siegfried Gearand. Please take off quickly, I will guide you out of the station's airspace. Over."

The Duchess beginning to fly unstably through the Anisary city skyline. "Siegfried!" Captain Beth spat into his communicator. "Listen here, you Humanos scum! I'm never working with the likes of you again, not since you stole the treasure of Taranoboris Two!"

Sieg bit his tongue and shook his head trying to keep calm. They'd already fought about this in the past, no point doing it all over again. "Captain, we've been trough this, the treasure is building an interest and in fact, can be picked up with interest once you get out of here, if you get out of here." He chuckled, following the Duchess closely, now seeing the damage. Sieg let out a low whistle, "What the hell have they been up too?" He muttered, flying along side the ship now, blasting the Alliance shuttles as they screeched to a halt on the streets below. "You realize that we could actually damage this station? I mean I'm sure you don't care or anything, but I do have clients here that I'd rather not lose, although you seem to have done enough damage to the tavern as is..."

Brufflin quickly ran towards the command module for the main turrets, maneuvering past the repair drones and swiftly grabbing onto the controls. "C'mon..." Brufflin began. "Let's see if you've still got that deadly aim, Brufflin..." the Engreint muttered to himself. The ship's cannons, once activated, seemed to charge up twice, before quickly shutting down. Only when Brufflin pounded an elbow into the module did they seem to acknowledge his prior commands, firing heated core-laser rounds at several oncoming Alliance vessels. "Rajako!" Brufflin called. "You may want to take the human's assistance. A few shots from a few Gamma Squad ships, this heap can handle. But if they gather enough reinforcements, it's done for."

The vessel shuddered under the ignition of engines and Tankred reflexively softened his knees as the inertia of the ship overcame him. They were airborne, aloft. That was a start. It remained to be seen if the vessel could handle vacuum with all the holes in it's pressure hull. Based on his diagnostics, Tankred concluded that there was a safe path from his current location to the bridge even in the event of atmospheric venting. Well, safe as far as the hazards already in place were concerned. The complications that any further damage could cause was beyond Tankred's ability to predict. He went about to the next trouble hotspot that had popped up since the firing of the engines.

Tankred easily found his way into the cramped confines of the aft engineering compartment and took a look at the magnetic ramjet that fed superheated reaction mass to the bell nozzles. Although these engines were not fired in atmosphere (such a move would produce a heat and shockwave equal to that of a small nuclear weapon) but would be necessary for sub-light interplanetary travel. Right now the ramjets were malfunctioning on account of disruptions to the electrical system that led to an overload of the control module. If that wasn't fixed, the Duchess (as Tankred had found the ship was so named on account of writing on the bulkheads) would be dead in space. Then they would all be arrested and likely sent before the firing squad. This was the capital of the Galactic Alliance, security was pretty strict here. They could probably avoid the fighter response, but once the patrol cutters and frigates caught up with them they were screwed.

Once he completed his work on the ramjets, Tankred grabbed a set of ear muffs and took a seat in a cramped corner of the engine room, staying out of sight for the moment. He intended to wait until the Duchess broke free of the atmosphere before making his presence known to the captain and crew. He would know once the ramjets screamed to life. Until then, he planned just how he would make his introduction and manage to not be locked in the brig or shot as a stowaway.

"Gambonian get your ass up off the deck and repair the navigation computer." She raised her right hand to her jaw and spoke across the intercom system. "Tactical coming online." A holographic display on a small circular console display relative distance and sensor data out to two hundred and fifty kilometers on the bridge. "Shields and armor are good in the rear. Don't take any hits to the front or we are done. The only thing keeping us from venting into space is the damage control fields. The navigation computer is fried. Until I can get that online we can not go to warp or use the hyper drive for fear of landing near a gravity well or inside a star. Get your asses to the weapon consuls and give us some time to work down here."

She turned back to where the Gambonian was hiding and spoke again. "There should be some good components there." She pointed to a storage container and then ran over and picked up a large tungsten plate only to slam it against a hole twice the size of the Gambonian she had just addressed. She proceeded to wield the plate to the inside of the ship's hull.

"I don't like the looks of this situation," Captain Beth spat as the Duchess began to soar, the Galactic Alliance ship's right on their tail. "We have to get this thing in full working condition in about naught seconds or I fear we may not be leaving Anisary anytime soon!" Beth exclaimed as the large ship weaved between the thousand story buildings that stood erect from the ground, laser cannon fire just barely missing.

Yuwen worriedly looked out the ship's front window. "Guys!" He called back to the rest of the crew. "We have a problem."

From ahead a large turret tower stood, it's aim carefully adjusting as they approached. "Yes, yes we do. Good observation, portman!" Captain Beth said as he hastily flung his tentacles along the ship's controls, sending it straight up into the blue midday sky. The turret followed the movement of the Duchess until it was successfully locked on. From it's shaft it released a massive energy ball and sent it flying after the pirate vessel.

In the hilariously out of place rear view mirror Captain Beth spotted the energy ball zoom toward them. "...Well gang," Captain Beth said with a sigh. "This might hurt-"

The energy ball smashed into the back of the Duchess, zapped it's energy and sent it spiraling out into the sky engulfed in flame, bits and pieces flying off as it did...

"By Throgvart's tusks!" Brufflin growled as he was tossed about as the ship spun around in the sky. "Someone get this damn thing back in control and out of Alliance space!" Brufflin shouted, managing to locate the com-link as he tumbled about. "Brufflin...what've you gotten yourself into..." he muttered, beginning to feel slight nausea.

"See this is why we don't go into a stranger's ship!" Rescha growled as she clung tightly to the nearest solid object. She could hear the crackle of the fire, the pieces of the ship breaking apart, and the whistling of air rushing past them as they fell to their impending doom. For all of Rescha's bravado and power, this was not a situation where any of that was useful. This angered Rescha beyond belief.

"Dammit, I am not going to end my life with this," Rescha snapped as she continued to hold on tightly, forcing her eyes open to see there was still plenty intact. "Well ain't this a sturdy piece of wreckage. Captain! Dammit, pull this ship up or something!"

Tankred jumped to his feet when he heard the intercom announcement directed at "the Gambonian". The Gambonian who had his ass on the deck. Well the chances of another Gambonian being on this ship were low enough as it was. The probability of one sitting with his ass on the deck while they were being pursed by Alliance forces was close to one half of a Planck constant. That could only mean one thing: the crew had found him. Tankred had figured there would be a surveillance system in the ship.

With his pistol drawn the Gambonian crawled out of his corner ready to confront any threat. The reactions of a soldier. Then his thin eyebrows merged as he thought; if they knew where he was and wanted to kill him they wouldn't have alerted him of their presence. Much less would they ask/demand he fix something on their ship. If they needed his help, Tankred felt he might as well capitalize on it. It was certainly better than a quick trip through the airlock down thousands of feet to the tarmac below. Holstering his weapon the Gambonian followed the mental map of the ship to the navigation subsystems compartment located just fore of the engineering compartment. The security lock was disengaged which meant either they expected him, or this little gig had the worst security protocols imaginable.

Well, then again, Tankred had manged to sneak aboard the ship and get into some critical systems without resistance. Hmm, maybe if he could help with that if they let him join them.

The navigation computer itself was untouched, which was good because suspended in all that coolant Tankred had no chance of reaching it alive. The power supply looked like the real source of whatever problem ailed the Duchess. Tankred whipped out his tools again and was in the middle of his diagnostics when the entire ship arced skyward. The sudden change in inertia nearly threw him to the deck, but Tankred managed to grab a hold of one of the hand rails that ringed the cylindrical computer frame. He clamped a carabiner to said rail and went back to his analysis only to be interrupted again by a violent and shuddering explosion coming from the aft.

They were hit. They were going down, Tankred could feel it in the deck even though he couldn't see on account of there being no light.

Screw the navigation computer, they needed altitude. Tankred detached the karabiner and fought his way through the bucking ship in the dim emergency lighting back to aft engineering compartment. Every vessel of modern construction had short-duration, high-intensity solid fuel back up rockets for situations like this that were meant to stabilize the vessel enough to make either a soft descent, or buy time for repairs. In most cases these rockets were not automatically slaved into the helm's controls, they had to be activated before the helm could use them. Tankred intended to find that command switch before they all died. It was simple enough, they always did put them in easy to find places. The glowing orange 'RETRO THRUSTER OVERRIDE' button shown beautifully from the middle of the engineering console covered by safety glass and ringed in yellow and black checker warning tape. Tankred slammed a hammerfist into the glass and pressed the button.

The bridge would have to do the rest.

From afar the Patriarch's boosters cooled as it glided onto the wide docking bay that sat atop a white tower, several other Alliance cruisers landing beside it. Inside the top of the line ship's bridge the dark blue uniformed Officer's watched as on their screen a playback of the Duchess flaming descent out of view into the sea of buildings that lay scattered across the planet's surface.

"So they've downed..." The Patriach's first-mate muttered as they watched the footage. "Goodbye Captain Beth. We'll be sure to find and pick up your ships remains from whatever alley they've fallen."

***

Far from the surface of Anisary Eight the Duchess appeared, it's invisibility dropping now that it was clear Alliance gaze. In the bridge of the Duchess the lights flickered weakly as the crew stood. "Well gang, I think we've made it out of that one... somehow," Captain Beth breathed heavily as he fell back into the large Captain's chair. "Gearand... Gearand," He muttered into the intercom linking the Duchess to the much smaller fighter which had generated the invisibility shield upon their exit of the planet. "Thank you... If you must you can come aboard, and perhaps we'll discuss things."

Yuwen looked out the window of the ship desperately as Anisary Eight gently glided past them. "What just happened..." He muttered to himself, shaking his head. "How have we even survived that, how did the ship have enough energy to escape the planet, after being shot out of the sky!"

"Well, partially Siegfried Gearand... he's a no good chump but he's helped us here, though his help always has a price..." Captain Beth explained as he spun his chair gently. "Secondly is an element I do not know... A miracle was performed in the engine room, that Gambonian Stata had yelled at may be our miracle maker. Who knows, the point is we are home free."

"Home free on a ship we don't want to be home free on!" Yuwen spat as he grabbed a spare pistol that lay on one of the bridge's wooden arched railings and aimed it at Stata Facta's head. "You tricked us all onto here, now I want to be let off!"

"If you want off boy, you'll certainly have to wait a while," Brufflin began, joining the others and taking a seat on the floor, exhausted. "This ship lands in Anisary once more and you can be sure that a security detail will be on us in an instant. And thanks to the good Captain's...meanderings, they'll think we're all a part of his crew and have us arrested on the spot."

"So if you that eager to leave, you'll have to wait 'till we've reached the Rajako's next destination. Wherever that may be..." Brufflin sighed.

"I wont force you to join my crew," Beth began, not just to Yuwen but to all the those he had shanghaied into joining him on the voyage. "I won't keep you here by gun. None of you... but I need a crew, because I've discovered something greater than any man or woman in this galaxy could yet imagine..."

Yuwen glanced over to the Rajako in curiosity, still keeping his aim strong on the robotic first-mate...

"Then tell us, what is this great thing? Treasure? Ruins? It better be something of value and I don't mean like the value of friendship," Rescha spat as she stood a bit away from the others. "Tell us, Captain, what is worth us being labeled as criminals and enduring all of this injustice? Should it truly prove to be worth the future useless, and inevitable struggles, I will gladly join you. If not, then drop me off at the nearest exit."

Sieg chuckled to himself before opening the income channel. "Than you Captain Beth. We will discuss my fee when I'm aboard. I'll be taking my usual docking port if that's alright with you." Before he closed the com channel he thought back to his time aboard the Duchess, his rise to first mate, then his eventual fall over the missing of some treasure that he and Beth had acquired together, but each had their own plans for. "Please have the crew with you, I'm interested to see them all again." With that he closed the com link and set the small fighter into docking procedures.

"What the hell?" He growled seeing that the first bay was in ruins. The second and third weren't much better. Finally he settled on the rear port, shaking his head in frustration. "If we're attacked from the front, I'll never be able to help the ship in time...first thing I'm doing is making sure my bay is cleaned and repaired." He muttered to himself before landing the fighter in the safety of the bay and using a laser link to close the air lock. During his mission to steal the fighter from the Alliance, he hadn't had time to find a space suit, and no one wanted to be caught in a bay with the air lock open without one. That, and it would conceal the fighter's signature, which would help him evade those who were searching for him, and weren't far behind. He hopped from the cockpit and made his way along the corridors, all of them in the same shape as the exterior of the ship. "What happened here...Beth isn't normally one to let the Duchess get into such bad shape." He scratched his chin, other hand on his pistol, the air had changed on the Duchess, and he didn't like the eerie feeling that followed him. "Its as if this ship is haunted." He sighed as he approached a lift, but it was out of order and forced him to take the stairs that lead to the level with the bridge. "I know I said I wanted to see the crew again, but there is no way everyone could have gathered in the bridge at the same time..." Instinct told him to draw his pistol as he pressed the door release for the bridge, and shock followed as he saw only Captain Beth standing there. "Hello old friend, it seems you've run into very hard times." His voice was grave, and begged the question, of what had happened, and who was responsible.

(OOC - Hello all! Sorry I've been very absent. I have been extremely busy with work and school. I'm going to try to make sure I don't get too sidetracked again. ON WITH THE RP)

Helthax twisted his torso to the right in order to crack the bones in his back. The human felt somewhat alone, not because he was away from home once again, but because he was the only human aboard this pirate ship.

"Captain..." Helthax announced. "I don't care what your plans are. The reasons behind this little mishap mean nothing to me. All I care about is rebelling against the Zerak Empire."

Memories floated back to Helthax's attention of his guardian that raised him. The empire took the retired war veteran away from Helthax once he was of age (well, of age to Zerakodians) and left him alone. This was because the Zerak Empire wanted any and all able bodied soldiers to help take over the galaxy. Unfortunately, able bodied was not something he was.

"What is our next move?"

The blue-white light of Tankred’s harness mounted torch caused the back panel walls of the nav computer maintenance duct to dazzle with shadows and highlights. The cramped confines of the duct caused even Tankred to bruise his shoulders and he found himself wondering what the manufacturer was thinking designing the ship in such a way that even a Gambonian could not fit in the maintenance shafts. Then again maybe this was a remodel done after commission which would make the ship owner at the time particularly dense for the same reasons. Whatever the reason getting to the positronic power supply had been a task in it of itself. Repairing it in these confines proved to be a whole different level of difficult, not to mention hazardous.

Tankred was rejoining the last of the local sensor feeds after dealing with the power supply. He decided that was the last thing he was going to do before making his intentions clear to the captain, or captains, or however this ship was run! From what he had seen in his very brief time aboard the Duchess so far it was more of what was referred to as a ‘freakship’ in the Gambonian Royal Space Forces. A ship formed of the spares, cast-offs and likely stolen parts of a number of other vessels built around a single core frame. ‘Freakships’ were not constructed as such, parts are added and removed over time as new supplies become available at yards that had some very lax laws, and workers with empty bank accounts. Freakships were hard to do work on because not every system agreed with one another and managing the pure volume of sensor feed from conflicting systems induced what was called “information paralysis”. With so much information being output from every sensor of every system and no thread handler to filter out the “noise” there is no way to know what’s going on with the ship. No biological based being, no collection of them, not even a slaved control system could handle that kind of data overflow and manage to streamline it down into useful output. Only the multi-tasking, adaptive machine-mind of an artificial intelligence could control the most basic functions of complicated ‘freakships’ let alone reduce its copious emissions, manage the impulse and run damage control.

That or the captain, officers and crew wouldn’t have any idea what was going on inside their ship which was dangerous in the best of cases and suicidal for most.

Using his shoulders to shimmy his way through the opposite half-torus of the maintenance shaft that circled the navcom station, Tankred made his way back towards the access hatch. After ten minutes of shoulder scraping, the Gambonian emerged head first from the hatch and somersaulted out, landing feet first on the deck. He stood up and cracked his back and neck; those cramped confines would give anybody, even a Ridikan, the back ache of a lifetime.

Best keep this part of the ship in good shape if I don’t want to be stuck in that duct tighter than the Princess of Ilekia. Tankred snickered mischievously at that last thought. But who could blame him, he was a sailor after all.

Making his way toward the bridge, Tankred clasped the barrel of his pistol in his right fist and held it high above his head and his left hand did so as well. His steps were slow and deliberate, he didn’t want to give anybody who had a case of the shakes given their near death experience a reason to twitch on the trigger finger. He was surprised to find the airlock open and could hear voices issuing from inside some in an escalated tone of voice that indicated argument. He also heard reference to ‘treasure’. That gave the Gambonian pause. Figuring it to be advantageous if armed with the best information possible before entering an unknown scenario, Tankred waited until the voices calmed. Once everything appeared quiet, Tankred took a deep breath and walked through the door and saw maybe seven people of probably an equal number of races before him. He didn’t really bother to count or assume any one of them had authority on this ship so he just spoke to the group.

“I hear at least one of you is looking for me. I also know that one of you is in charge here. Seeing as how I nearly singlehandedly kept us aloft, I’d say I deserve to know who’s who up here.” The Gambonian demanded as he scanned the odd and no doubt dangerous group amassed here.

Sieg shook his head as another unfamiliar face wondered on to the Bridge. "A Gambonian, and a smart one at that it seems. Siegfried, well met." He extended a hand to the Gambonian. His smile was polite but not in the least way genuine. How could he afford to be genuine with anyone he'd never met before? After shaking the Gambonian's hand he moved to the only other Human on board, at least the only other human that had shown themselves. "Well met, pleasure to see a familiar species aboard this hunk of metal."

Sieg's mind couldn't help returning to the issue of all of these were new faces, where were the men and women he'd fought with before? The one's who'd risk their neck at his command, to steal from a lone Alliance freighter on its way to a highly classified base? It seemed they had all vanished, and Sieg was going to get to the bottom of their disappearance, and why Beth was still around.

"Alright, anyone else want to pop up in this little meeting of mushy sentimental crap?" Rescha spat, uneasy with the arrival of Sieg and the Gambonian. It had been bad enough when she had been lumped in with Brufflin and that other guy, and it hadn't been that bad when they met up with Captain Beth, but this is where she drew the line. She had no idea where any of them came from or what they even did or had done. If Captain Beth was any good indication, the authorities were surely after one of the idiots that stood in front of her.

The idea of authorities chasing her because she associated with criminals was not appealing to her. Admittedly, she was not an innocent Zerakodian. No Zerakodian was really. Of course she would prefer to lie low rather than be strolling about with a known criminal. After all, Sieg had identified Captain Beth easily and so had those men in the bar. He was a target and joining him would lead to more trouble than Rescha thought was worth it.

"Captain Beth, I think your term has ended," Rescha announced as she took out a pistol, outfitted with gears and other such improvements, and aimed it at the captain. Before anyone could respond or retort, she fired off several rounds...

In an instant Sieg's pistol was in hand. It was to late for Beth, but he let the rounds fly, hitting Rescha in the chest. He was a trained marksmen, trained by the very people that were hunting them. He knew she wasn't going to make it though, or even if she did, she'd be little more than an unresponsive vegetable. "A first-mate's duties are never forgotten." He muttered as he stepped to Beth's unmoving form. "You really did it this time, Captain." He said, kneeling to take Beth's pulse. He looked around at the stunned crew. "Well, this isn't going to undo itself. You are all wanted, I suggest you pick a station and man it. Now!" His eyes were calm as the Duchess sailed into space, the port long behind them. Their worlds had all changed in an instant, and someone would have to guide them through until they died, or found an empty part of space beyond the Alliance's reach to start their lives over.