I've never been to Earth.
I was born on Vesta, in the Nyutten underwater colony. It was fairly normal to me, but I guess whenever I've mentioned it to others they've always asked how everything worked, or if I had gills, things like that. We didn't breathe water, it was a self-contained city habitat. I stayed there for my entire childhood and most of my teen years, my few friends and I being fairly content, especially since getting to the surface required permission, a long slow trip and then a two hour decompression.
But the war came, and things changed. The Outsiders ignored Nyutten for the most part, we had no real industry and the only scientific outpost was not directly connected to us. But they did destroy it, and that caused a subterranean quake that caused a section of the colony to fall into a newly opened trench. I don't think many people died, but it made the colony panic, and most of us had no choice but to abandon it.
The surface was strange to me. No safe ceilings above your head at all times, no bulkheads to protect you from danger. The sky scared me for a long time, and that was part of why I decided to train to become a pilot after the rebellion succeeded. Back in Nyutten we had always been taught to face your fear. My fear was the open air and space, so I decided to fight back and go there. It took me almost five years to prove I was capable enough, and several people told me that I probably wasn't cut out for the civilian pilot life, but I did it.
I'm fairly easygoing, but I tend to notice details. Living in a self-contained habitat where the wrong noise or a dent in the wrong place could be an emergency means you had to know when something was out of place. I suppose it's like a space station in that regard? I've always been fairly mature for my age, I never really liked to be too silly even with friends, but I don't think I'm really that aloof. I know the licence agreement made me promise to defend the League from threats, but I've never raised a hand in anger so that kind of worries me, will I be up to the task? Can I be the type of person who can shoot at something when I need to? Another fear I need to best.
Space still terrifies me, but now I use the fear to give me strength. Outsiders and pirates? They're nothing compared to the vast emptiness of space, and if I can fight against that, they're no problem. I'm not the most streetwise of people, and I admit I'm fairly naive, but I'm working on it, and I know that the rest of the pilot league has my back.
I've never been to Earth. But it's time to change that.
