I am currently sitting at my desk horribly hung over. I celebrated my 30th birthday on Friday and when setting out for the night it felt exactly like being 29. Today, however, I do feel as if I am a year closer to death. Thanks to everyone who came out and made my bar tab so small.

When I woke up I was still wearing a dress. I was, in fact, still wearing my boots. I surveyed the small but adequate corporate quarters that I had been assigned and the first thought that went through my mind was that the station had been attacked. Datasheets were scattered about the floor, mingled with a nearly empty bottle of spiced wine and, nearby, part of the contents of that bottle. I sat up, realized my mistake as the room began to spin and then put my head back down on the pillow. Good, I thought, I was just drunk. The station was fine… probably.

I rolled over, a datasheet crumpling under my body. Retrieving it, I opened my eyes for a moment, passing them over the digital ink quickly. It was recruitment adverisment for the Federal Defense Union. I remembered then. Arco had come to visit. I rolled over onto my other side, as the left side wasn’t helping settle my stomach, then rolled onto my back again. Finally I just said, “Piss it!,” to no one in particular, sat up, retrieved my wrist neocom from the floor and jacked in.

“Good morning madame,” Aura’s voice boomed into my mind, “it appears you are full of toxins. I will initiate a nanite cleansing procedure…”

“No, no,” I mumbled, “I paid a lot for those toxins, just let them run their course. Also, try and keep the volume down.”

“Yes madame, adjusting my auditory cortex inputs.”

I stood up, pulled my dress over my head and took a long hot shower, washing the scent of sweat and cigarettes from my body and the sticky residue of congealed Gallente wine from my neocom screen. An hour later I was in my pod, being loaded into my travel executioner.

“Aura chart me a course to Charmerout, we’re going to talk with some of the corporate brass,” I said as my external cameras came online. I surveyed the full personal hangar I had been allocated upon arival in Pimebeka. “Have the deck crews load my combat essentials into a Sigil for when I get back,” I thought for a moment, “and have them fit the Aby for travel, we might be moving back to Gallente space for a while.”

I watched the smooth curves of the Amarr station shrink to a vanishing point as my ship entered warp. My unusual therapist had been correct again. It had taken a trip home to The Empire for me to realize where I was meant to be.

I savored the irony as I made the long return trip to the edge of policed Federation space.