Colony 10: an unassuming, yet-unnamed town on an unassuming rock known as Hephaestus. It would seem odd that, given its reputation (or lack thereof), that Colony 10 would become the stuff of legend, a beacon of hope to the entire Verse. And it all began with one man's apparent refusal to die.
Cord Elwood, a man of forty-two years, sat at his dinner table, alone, as he did every night. Candles lit the modest shack which he called home; in Colony 10, power was a luxury reserved for those who owned the mines and Alliance brass who came to check in on the place. Of course, none of them had come in quite some time. That was something Cord welcomed earnestly.
Twenty-five years serving in the Alliance military, and here he was, the unsung hero. Cord was happy once, with a wife and child, but the last colony he inhabited – whose name comes and goes in his memory – was attacked by Reavers, leaving Cord the sole survivor. That alone should have been enough for Cord to send him packing to the Core Planets, but he knew that his place was out here, in the sticks. There certainly wasn't anything left for him under the boot-heel of the Alliance.
Cord ate his barely edible dinner in complete silence, the flicker of the candles throwing shadows all about the shack. Outside, in the night, the other inhabitants of Colony 10 were milling about, all trying to get home before true darkness fell, when outside would become pitch-black and visibility would become a thing of the past. Another thing Cord liked about the sticks: they always kept you guessing.
Once finished with his dinner, Cord went to the washroom to brush his teeth. He looked in the mirror, and marveled at how old he was starting to look. He traced the lines on his face, the gray starting to come in in his dusty blonde hair, the shine leaving his once-bright green eyes. His body was starting to slow down, after all its use during the war. His military figure was starting to go here and there. Cord sighed as he turned away from the mirror and extinguished the candle, heading to bed.
Cord didn't have dreams; those were yet another luxury he could not afford. Cord suffered with endless nightmares, replays of the night his family was brutally slaughtered. Every night he had these same nightmares; every night, he awoke at the same time: 2:13 A.M. The exact time that his child drew her last breath. Cord sat up in his bed, and swung his feet over the side. He got up and walked to his bedside table, picking up a photograph of his late family. His wife with her ginger hair and blue eyes, his daughter with the button nose and everlasting smile. Cord tried to save them; but his wife locked him in the basement, behind a steel door. It was the last thing he saw before the Reavers left. He would never forget her face, the way that she told him "I love you", as though it were the most important thing she'd ever said in her life. He would never forget the screams, his daughter's cries. Then, everything stopped. Alliance personnel called in after the attack found him in the basement and quickly evacuated him for questioning. One year later, he was out in the Verse again.
Cord went back to bed, extinguishing what candles were left around the house.