I remember stepping out into the hangar, still disoriented after my first resurrection. My executioner perched at the ready on the undock. The enormous hangar door was open wide. The red-orange Amarrian sky, tinged purple by the blue electric glow of the pressure shielding, dominated the room. It was at once familiar and alien.

I stared at the sleek ship. My ship. Emotions of freedom, power, panic, fear, terror washed over me. I felt physically detached, as if I was a camera drone hovering above the hangar observing. I could hear a tiny voice calling my name, as if from the bottom of a deep well. It was the commander. He was speaking on comms.

My attention snapped back into my body.

“Keep it together Ghenna. There’s a new pod ready for you on the decanter, get yourself back out here, it’s good for you.”

“Yes sir,” I replied.

I walked around to the right side of the executioner, toward the decanting rig. A fresh, new pod was waiting there, its clamshell doors open wide and welcoming. I climbed up the short stair, disrobed and started to secure myself in the flight harness. My mind wandered, I struggled to keep focus. I took a deep breath and locked the harness in place.

Machine noise all around me. The doors began to close, I felt the cold metal of the helm press itself against my bare back. The harness tightened, shifted me into place. As the doors sealed I could feel the warm pod fluid tickling the bottoms of my feet, rising quickly past my ankles.

The discomfort of total darkeness, the fear of imminent drowning.

The helm came online, a feeling like being stabbed in the brain as the data spikes extended from the ship into the access ports on my body. There was a sudden burst of brilliant light, slowly resolving into a vision of the hangar. I felt heavy as a magnetic deck crane lifted me up and placed me into the cockpit of the executioner. I sat there, still and quiet in the cockpit for a moment. I could feel the combat ship there around me, powerful but useless without a pilot. I embraced it.

The pod swiveled and locked into place, the executioner hull sealed around it. I took a look around the hangar as I felt my systems coming online. I needed to get outside. As my engines came online I lurched forward and leapt the distance from the undocking ring to the bay door in a fraction of a second. The blue-tinged sky suddenly clarified into the familiar red-orange glow of Amarr. I stretched, arced away from the station and back around to the training grounds.

Commander Jun was there in his punisher, hovering above a tiny body.

“You’ve done well,” Jun said, “Come, take a look.”

I eased closer to the scene, and looked out on the wreckage of my pod. A corpse hung there, naked, desecrated. The heat had flash boiled the pod fluid, the body was barely recognizable.

“This was not you,” Jun said, “This was one of your tools.”

“I feel more in control,” I said.

“Yes, that’s normal. Surgery is necessary the first time, but it’s pretty crude. The body you’re in now was grown around the implants. As I said, welcome to the imperial guard, you’ve passed your final tests. I’m going to need you grounded for the next month.”

A moment of panic, “What! I can finally really move freely and you’re grounding me…”

“That ship,” he said calmly, “That is also not you. You need time to let your mind adjust or you’ll be a danger to yourself.”

“Ship empathy,” I said to no one in particular.

“Exactly,” Jun replied, “The ship is just a tool. Don’t make it your coffin.”

I calmed myself and focused. I could feel my arms again, my actual arms floating in the pod fluid. I felt the heavy weight of the ship around me. I set a course for the docking bay.

“Who am I,” I asked.

“That’s what you need to decide,” Jun replied.