Jack was a Strafinder.
Such fact should be obvious to anyone who knew him, but he insisted those be the first words.
I met Jack the day he became a Star finder and the day he became Jack.
I was a junior medic at the time, providing support to teams of agents delving into some ruins on a hollow world in the vast. Sivv, or so they said. Above my pay grade. Somebody a lot worse than us must have known about them because where we sent a dozen agents, they sent Jack.
Medical had been on light duty, just the usual disturbing the ruins of an ancient civilization cuts and scrapes and one guy who caught something that made him swamp bodies with an alternate version of himself. Wasn’t that bad except everyone liked the other guy better and I could see how you would resent that.
All a sudden, there’s explosions from the ruins. Pop, pop, pop. Comms light up, people don’t check in, we start prepping and five later and one of the field teams drags themselves in. Everyone wounded, two unconscious, plus an Android none of us had ever seen. Field commander asked what happened, they just pointed at the Android.
Whistler, a Triunite priest who was in charge of medical took one look at the Android and said, and I quote, “No. No, no, no. That is not to be done.” Way he explained it someone had put something inside the Android that overrode parts of his brain. Nasty piece of tech with some magic dead people bits inside it stuck straight in the back of the brainstem. Sometimes this job makes you learn about things you wish you didn’t know.
I drew the short straw on being there when the Android woke up. There were also two large and heavily armed agents standing behind me, but I was the one in reach. Only thing we new about him other than that he was very good at shooting people was that he had “JK-4762” etched into his skin.
If it weren’t for med school, I’m not sure I would have noticed him wake up. I got the impression he had read the whole room before deciding what to do. I went through the usual questions. He knew where he was but seemed surprised that he knew. He knew that had attacked the team but not why. Talking to him was hard. I’ve known Androids and yeah, narrow range of emotion, sure but Jack was flat. Like there weren’t any emotions underneath. I asked him at one point if JK-4762 was his name and I was so flustered I read the first part as a word, not two letters.
“No.” he said, looking straight through me. “Not 4762 and more. Just Jack.”
So, he was Jack. Just Jack. Under guard, he helped the teams delve into the ruins. They pulled out whatever they were looking for and Jack got glowing reviews from everybody he hadn’t shot.
Two weeks of being studied back at Lorespire they sent him out with a field team for the first time. A month after that, the Scoured Stars happened. The second time. Jack went. I think if he hadn’t been assigned, he would have gone anyway. They tell me he talked down a homicidal planetary AI. Apparently, he found common ground with it. Wasn’t sure at the time whether I found that reassuring.
I don’t think Jack ever had any hobbies. He did Starfinder field work at a burnout pace. When he wasn’t on missions he did investigative work. The way he explained it to me, someone took a lot of time to make him very good at getting into places he wasn’t allowed and removing things he wasn’t supposed to so he might as well use those skills to do some good.
Jack did a lot of good.
It was years before anybody found out that the one hobby he did have was tracking other Starfinder teams. Sometimes when a team of rookies was sent somewhere over their heads Jack would tag along, usually without the team knowing he was there. Sometimes the field teams would find something that was going to attack them stunned, a trap disabled, a door open or a system disabled. Always, it was done in a way that minimized the risk to the team.
After a while some of the team leaders worked out what was happening, but we never really reported it up channels. I remember one time we’re in a ruin on Eox, dealing with some ghouls between us and our I believe still classified objective. Shot out of nowhere blows a square meter out of the ground next to me. Heavy weapons fire from somewhere on high. We hunker down as much as a ghoul swarm will let you and thirty seconds later, we hear a crash. Post ghouls, we make our way to the base of some bombed-out tower. At the base of it there was a broken anti-vehicle sniper rifle with a corpse fleet insignia and a side of gore. One of the rookie agents asks what the hell that is. The field leader looks at him, looks at me and says, “That’s just Jack.”
Jack went back to the Scoured Stars two weeks ago. Something about Jadnura and Kadrical that I am happy to say is still above my pay grade. Word is something very bad went down and might be going down again. They took volunteers to stay and try to stop it. Didn’t sound like a thing you come back from. I can’t imagine there was much of a delay between the question and the answer.
So, Jack is gone, but I think he’s still a Starfinder.
He made backups. Of everything he remembered about all his missions. Not just the ones he was assigned to but everything where he just tagged along and what he could remember from before he was Jack. From the days of JK-4762. Copies went out to several of us, Starfinder leadership and some of us that I guess he considered friends.
Some of it is rough to read, and not just the things from before. Jack was always clear that he believed in the Society as a force for good. The rest of us aren’t always so sure.
I fell asleep reading through mission reports the other night. Missed the usual meditation and spiritual blah blah that puts me in touch with whatever claims to be the divine this week. I was just too damned tired of it all. So, I’m half asleep and I see it. Four numbers floating in a square.
4 7
6 2
First divine epiphany I’ve ever had, let me tell you. Not sure if I was the only one but I know it for what it was. Jack didn’t die. He bloody ascended and he left us to keep up the fight.
So that’s why I’m talking to you. This isn’t a eulogy, it’s a recruitment pitch. We’re calling ourselves The Watch. Trying to do what Jack would have done. Be where we’re needed. Do good, even if you break the rules and the bad guys to get it done. Protect the innocent, fade back into the shadows. No fame, no glory. Just a better universe.
If you’re in, you know how to find me.
-Copernicus Welin, Priest of 4762. Friend of Jack.
