Leon ad Astra "Once mapped the quiet places between stars… now I make sure others get home."
I used to think space was a museum: tiptoe through wormholes, brush dust off relics, leave no fingerprints. Signal Cartel taught me that discipline and I wore it like armor. We left rescue caches, marked safe routes, and waved at hunters as they passed. Sometimes they waved back. Sometimes they didn’t.
The turn wasn’t a grand betrayal — just a pile of small, ugly moments:
• A rookie’s Heron blooming into scrap five kilometers off my bow. I had bookmarks, not guns.
• A rescue cache burned for sport. The can was still warm.
• A hole collapsed with three explorers on the wrong side and a gang waiting on the right.
Neutrality is elegant until it’s a muzzle. “Observe. Explore. Do not intervene.” - I obeyed it long enough to learn something cruel: wolves don’t read credos.
So I made a new one. I’ll still chart Anoikis but now I carry ships that bite; the Jackdaw Skypiercer and the Tengu Nightshade. I’m not crossing the line to become a raider; I’m crossing it to contest those who mistake “unarmed” for “permission”.
To Signal Cartel: Thank you for the map. I’m keeping the stars; I’m just adding teeth.