“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust”

I bowed my head with the rest of the gathered, though I found it somewhat difficult to relate my father to ash or dust. His composition was of sterner things. Stone, metal, jagged obsidian.

“I hadn’t expected to see you again.” I recognized the voice. I put my hands into my cloak pockets.

“I hadn’t expected anyone to recognize me,” I replied turning to face my old theology teacher. “It’s good to see you Leto.”

He smiled. “Last I heard you were dead. Then there were rumors. Rumors that you were still alive. That you were flying for the Federation.” He spoke softly as we walked together out of the rain, into the shelter of the temple. “Your father insisted they were lies.”

“Better dead than a traitor,” I finished his thought. “I didn’t come here to be lectured on my choices.”

“Perhaps not,” he frowned. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a small contingent of imperial marines begin to make their way toward us. “I am sorry child. We will all be judged for our transgressions.”

I slipped my right hand out of my cloak, drawing the worn golden knife. In my periphery the marines broke into a sprint. “I came to give this back,” I said calmly, dropping the weapon on the marble floor of the temple. “My conscience is clear, my friend. I have no fear of judgement.” My left thumb rubbed the raised button on my neocom. “Regardless, I have to die first.” I pressed the button.

Armored hands gripped my arms, threw me to the ground. My cheek impacted the smooth damp floor. A moment of pain, then the dampness intensified covering my body.

I sat up and rubbed my cheek instinctively but the pain was gone. I retrieved the wrist neocom from the nearby table and jacked in as I climbed out of the clone vat.

“Welcome back to Villore madame,” said the familiar voice. “I hope that your business planet side has gone well. Shall I have your hangar unsealed?”

“Yes Aura,” I replied. “It’s time to get back to work.”

As is patently obvious it has been some time since I did anything with this blog. The short leave of absence I’d planned turned into a long leave of absence from the blog and from EVE. These things happen.

Fortunately RL has become less randomly unstable, if not less stressful, so I’m back flying and writing about internet spaceships.

Buggy patch, player rage, forum drama. Business as usual.

I’ve missed you New Eden.

—

As a short aside to anyone who randomly ends up here. The Blog has moved domains and hosts… to be honest I’m actually amazed that I was able to locate the old backups to begin with. As a consequence of all this things are still a bit out of whack right now, so it might be a week or so before everything gets back to where it belongs. Need to do something about that useless graphic on the top of the page, for starters *grumble, grumble*.

Anyhow, if you do end up here feel free to browse the archives/harass me on twitter/in game to keep yourself entertained until things get back in order.

“Did you manage to get out,” I asked over the fleet channel.

“Yeah, I’m fine, bouncing between safes.”

“Okay, I got a new ship, I’m in Lad. Going to power down for a bit till things cool off and then go have a look around.”

I moved the comm to the periphery, brought up the black box recording of the recent fight, and initiated playback.

[recording]

I am in a Punisher, cutting a curved trajectory toward a caldari state cruiser at 2km per second. My fleet-mate trails behind in an Ishkur. We have joined up with an allied fleet of Federal Defense Union pilots in a Caldari stronghold. Things seem to be going well. I check the progress of the capture drones. 5 minutes on the clock.

A harbinger appears on scan, Aura identifies him as an outlaw. Beyond Divinity corporation. My alert systems come into the foreground. He is disrupting one of the allied pilots.

The Punisher turns on a dime, I set a straight approach vector at the battlecruiser, and leap the distance quickly. My pulse lasers begin to cycle, as does my warp scrambler. His armor is failing.

Alarm systems assault my attention buffer. One, three, four, more… the battlecruisers flood into the complex. System check reveals them all to be Beyond Divinity pilots. I clear my alert buffer and initiate warp… The harby was bait.

The ship jolts as my warp engines are disrupted. A quick systems check reveals I’ve also been webbed. I am flying through molasses, but still making over 700m/s. I think, “there is a chance, I can still get out of range”.

Shields fail, I overheat my microwarp drive, armor fails.

[/recording]

“I shouldn’t have pulled away so hard, my transversal must have dropped hard,” I said to no one in particular. I perused the rest of the kill report, my mind catching on one line.

The line read: Damage taken: 20

I brought the fleet comm back into attention, “So I just lost a trimarked, plated punisher to 20 damage. That was the biggest 20 damage I’ve ever taken,” I couldn’t hold back the laughter.

I calmed myself and set my arbitrator to undock and rendevous with my wing-mate.

We spent the rest of the evening in low sec, without seeing another soul, capturing complexes for the Federation.

Meanwhile, in Villore, a staff of techs looked over the black box recorders in the rest of my ships.

“Found another way out, if it comes to that,” I reported on the comms, “says it leads to high-sec, gonna check it out.” I willed my engines into life and eased my anathema closer to the quivering tear in reality, dropped my cloak momentarily and slipped through.

On the other side the sky looked very familiar… familiar.

“Son of a bitch,” I activated the cloaking device as my alarms began to bleat warnings. I was deep in Amarr high security, I was in the Gallente militia, and the navy was on its way.

“Cloaking device has failed Madame, something is jamming us,” Aura said in her usual calm tone as an apocalypse exited warp 40km in front of me. I made a feeble attempt to get back into the wormhole, but it seems that this was also out of the question. I needed to get to low sec, and fast, but wasn’t entirely sure how to get there. I aligned to the only station in system, initiated my warp systems, then closed my eyes, sat back and took a deep breath.

The flimsy anathema pulled itself into warp just as the last of its armor evaporated into space. Moments later my ship was docked and a repair crew was busy putting its armor back on. While the navy may not have liked me, Carthum still owed me some favors.

“Aura dump everything but the cloak and propulsion systems, I’ll have someone come pick them up later. Let’s just see if we can get the ship out of here in one piece.” I remained in my pod, watching with camera drones as the various analysis modules were carefully removed from the hull and stored. Finally, a robotic crane removed the crate from my cargo hold, full of materials and information looted from the sleepers.

I had considered having someone come to pick up the ship as well, but decided against the idea. Without it’s probing systems or analysis modules, and with an empty cargo hold, the anathema was relatively cheap. Most importantly it was fast to align and very fast in warp, and while the navy wouldn’t shoot at my bare capsule, any enemy militia would. I checked my navigation computer, I’d be in low sec in 5 jumps. I could make 5 jumps.

“Bring us out of dock, Aura. Then get us aligned and in warp immediately. I’m locking the first leg of the trip into the autopilot now.”

As I undocked I got the standard message from the navy, they were on their way, but I’d be long gone by the time they arrived. My ship swung around toward the outgoing jumpgate, it’s speed increasing rapidly toward the warp threshold.

And then I hit the station.

I rapidly cancled warp, fired  up the microwarp drive and manuvered manually around the random bit of protrusion in my way, then punched warp again. As my covert ops frigate sublimated around me, I couldn’t stop laughing.

God damn station got me.

I redocked, had my pod loaded into the complmentary imparior,  and made the entire trip back to Gallente space without incident in a rookie ship.

Moments later I was again safely under the veil of my cloaking device, in warp to my monitoring post while the rest of the team decided which of the locations to explore first.

“Aura, give me a readout of the system properites,” I sighed as the results were posted into my attention buffer. 24 AU in diameter, far too big to monitor with my onboard scanner.

The cloak pulsed, the fragile hull shimmering into visibility for a brief moment, expelling a probe and then vanishing again. Melting into the alien sky.

“Move that probe on top of the raiding group, tightest scan diameter and give me a ping,” I sat back and waited the several seconds for the scan to complete. 4 ships registered, only the ones that belonged there.

“Scanning complete.”

“Good Aura, set the system to ignore those signatures, set the probe on a 64AU wide scan and pull it back out of the system, off axis,” I watched the scanner as the combat probe warped off into the intertellar void. A few moments later the probe came online, nearly 40AU from any marked location in system but still close enough to scan everything important.

“Excellent ping that every few seconds and wake me up if the scan comes up as anything but clean,” I checked the locations of my other probes, “and move the offline combat probes out there as well, keeping formation.”

“Yes Madame, probes in transit” came the reply seconds later.

I kept the system scanner, and comms in my attention, but forgot the rest of the ship systems to free up cortical memory. It would take a few seconds to have remembered if I needed to perform any serious manuvers, but my ship had no weapons and no chance of being located.

I relaxed in my pod harness, took full control of the camera drones and set about enjoying the view.

It had been a good day thus far. The militia had captured every site it could in Heydelies, repelling Caldari and Pirate alike. I’d nearly lost a punisher to a rupture earlier in the day, but had managed to escape. No losses, but no kills. I now sat in my trusty vengeance, 100M kilometers off to the side of the gate, watching the lone punisher on scan.

“He’s probably baiting,” I said to myself, “what the hell.” I urged my ship into action and dropped out of warp 20km from the target. Seconds later his propulsion systems were locked down and my guns were biting hard into his thick armor. Meanwhile the superior resistances on my tech II hull were mitigating most of his damage. The fight was over, it was only a matter of time.

“Two targets on grid,” Aura’s voice drew my attention to the local scan as a brutix and a hurricane dropped out of warp on top of me. I checked my own systems. The punisher had me scrambled, there was no escape for me, but his armor was nearly gone.

“Aura overheat everything that does damage,” I shouted as I manually manipulated the power hungry armor repair unit but I found my capacitor reserves dropping much faster than I had expected. Neuts. This was going to go poorly.

I sighed and sat back in my command chair, let the guns run, maybe it’d be enough.

It wasn’t, and in moments I found myself in my pod, looking down at the explosion that was once my ship. I sat in space, hesitating, and one by one the Caldari pilots locked and fired upon my pod. I needed this, I thought to myself, let it go.

A moment of chill ran down my spine.

I gasped for air and sat up in the clone vat, as if awaking from a nightmare.

“Where am I?,” I asked. No one was in the room. I strapped a new neocom onto my wrist.

“Aura, where are we?”

“Mies, Madame. Pend Insurance wishes to inform you that they regret the loss of your ship, and have transferred the agreed upon…”

“Thank you Aura, is the Arbitrator assembled and ready?” I was already in elevator from the medical sector heading to the flight deck.

“Yes Madame.”

“Good, have it prepped for flight. I want to be in space in 5 minutes, and authorize another clone.”

I stood in the elevator in my white clone robe and fuzzy slippers as it silently moved through the station. I brought my left hand up and steadied it. I was shivering with adrenaline, sent coursing through my veins by my confused new body.

The fear was gone. I felt warm.

I perused the recent news. A smile spreading across my face.

Corp Pilot was assaulted while on a federation mission in the system of Yvangier. Pilot escaped the situation and returned in a destroyer seeking retaliation.

My lips mouthed the words as I read. My smile growing.

Corp mining operation interrupted by thieves. Mining foreman left operation and returned in a combat craft. Pilot destroyed one potential threat, no losses recorded.

I put the datapad down and took another drink. I remembered the old days, as a mercenary. We protected our fair share of fat weak industrialists. It was a decent living. My work since coming back to the sky had been different. I had been living amongst the industrialists, training, advising… learning.

Times had changed, at least here. These were the industrialists I recognized. They spent far too many hours pouring over ore reports for my tastes, spent far too long training to blast asteroids, melt rocks. But they were different. They were not fat and weak, they were lean and becoming progressively more dangerous.

“You possess only that which you have the capacity to defend,” I mumbled, a quote from somewhere long forgotten. Industrialists certainly, but they understood this.

They were beginning to bare their teeth.

“Yes, everything looks in order.” The Gallente official looked up from behind the pile of paperwork and smiled. “The federation now recognizes you as the CEO of your new corporation. Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” I said, somewhat agitated. “I presume this corporation, being that I’m in charge, will be in good standing with the federation.”

“Uhh, yes, of course,” he said, nervously, “we’ll need to do some background checks first though, standard procedure.”

“Background checks! You can’t be serious,” I stood up angrily. “After all the crap I’ve done for the Federation…”

“It’s standard procedure,” he interrupted, his hands gesturing either for me to sit down or in an attempt to protect his face, I couldn’t tell which. “It takes about a week, there’s nothing I can do madame.”

“A week? Do you not have computers,” I took a deep breath, “fine, do your checks.”

I left the room, still trying to calm myself down, and activated the private channel on my neocom.

“It’s going to be a week before things are ready to go. Background checks or some nonsense. Is everything ready to go?”

“Hmm… well that’s ridiculous. Yeah, things are ready. We’ve negotiated the charters for anchoring and purchased a month’s worth of fuel… Damn, a week… what are you going to do with yourself for a week?”

I walked down the corridor toward the station center, a pink neon sign offered half price drinks after 7.

“What time is it?” I asked Rhys over the com.

“About half eight,” he replied, “why?”

“No reason,” I replied as I opened the door to the bar. “I’ll figure out something to do with myself. Talk to you in a couple days.”

I received it with both hands, bowing my head. I felt the grain of the polished oak touch my fingertips. Despite my mixed feelings toward my father, I was honored by the gesture. I was careful not to drop it. Wood containers were for precious things.

“Open it,” he said, gesturing as if to a child.

I did as I was told.

The box opened smoothly and silently. The hinges nearly invisible, the dimensions exact. Craftsmanship that only a machine – or an artisan slave – could provide. Inside was plush black velvet, a soft cushion for the serious contents. I placed the box on a nearby table and removed the pair of daggers.

“Only soldiers of God carried these daggers,” he said, “centuries ago, in the land wars. Ceremonial to be sure, but the symbol is still relevant. We are so proud of you.”

I withdrew the daggers, the cold golden hilts seeming to conform to the shape of my palms as if the weapons had been crafted specifically for me. They were beautiful, masterfully crafted, the stories of the ages inlaid in intricate detail in their gold and silver hilts.

I examined them both. Both identical in weight, in shape, in purpose. Identical shards of zydrine in the pommel, identical designs in the golden hilt, and identical curved tungsten carbide blades – cold, harsh, undecorated – extending outward from the artistry of the hilt.

Murder only tolerates a certain degree of beauty.

“Thank you,” I said, putting the pen down on the table and standing up. 

“Welcome to the Federal Defense Union soldier, you’ll receive your assignment soon,” the recruitment officer smiled and gestured for the next in line to come over.

I stepped out of the office, the green insignia of the federation weaving itself into the nano-patch on the shoulder of my flight suit.

I rubbed my thumb down the worn hilt of the old dagger on my belt and began the trek back to my hangar.

And then the corporate feed went black. I was officially a freelance capsuleer now, for a few hours anyway, before I put in my application for the Federal Defense Union.

I considered logging into the Endland public channel, just to see if it was working, but then realized that I was stalling and disconnected the wrist-jack from my neocom, placed it in the crate containing my clothing and jewelry next to me, and then lay back in the glass tube that I was sitting in, feeling the clear viscous fluid cover my hair and the back of my head.

This had to be done, better get it over with.

“Okay, Aura… let’s get this over with,” the tube began to seal, I could feel the level of the cool fluid rising. Now touching the back of my neck, now the sides of my cheeks. “I’ll see you in a few minutes or so,” I said as the fluid reached my lips, began to flow into my nostrils.

The sudden fear of drowning.

I sat up in the glass tube, covered in clone fluid and coughed reflexively, but my lungs had been cleared of fluid milliseconds ago. I reached over for my neocom, but the crate was gone. The room was different. The bay window looking out of the station displayed a different sky.

“I fucking hate clone jumps,” I said to no one in particular as I climbed out of the vat, looking for a towel but finding only a white robe and some slippers.

I took the robe and began to towel the fluid off of my skin only to find that I was already dry. The door to the medical facility opened and a man in a lab coat entered as I continued to towel the non-existent clone fluid from my body.

“Been a long time since you were cloned huh? We’ve got nanites in the fluid, won’t let the fluid leave the tube. Saves on the cost of lost fluid and towels,” he said.

I looked up at him and nodded, “Hmm… that’s a good innovation. I won’t miss waking up covered in goo.”

He placed a small crate down on a table near the door and smiled, “here’s your new neocom. We took the liberty to just implant your current body with the requested implants while it was dormant. Welcome to Halle,” and he left without an odd glance.

I suppose when you work with clones all day you get used to seeing naked people, and as a capsuleer I was used to not caring.

I put on the slippers and robe, strapped the neocom around my wrist and jacked in. “Welcome back Madame,” came Aura’s familiar voice.

“Aura upload the station map to my memory implant, I need to find my quarters,” I said drawing a few strange looks from passersby in the medical wing.

“I’m sorry Madame,” came the reply, audible only to me, “Your current memory implant has insufficient buffer to upload the full schematics.”

I sighed, “Okay, just get me to some clothes and then to my pod, and check to make sure my expensive body is stored properly.”

An hour later I opened the door to the federation navy recruitment center, drawing wayward glances from the assembled Gallente enlisters in the waiting room.

I took my number, sat down, and collected my thoughts.