“Your office is packed up Madame,” came the voice of the corporate hangar manager over my portable neocom, “good luck out there.”

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.