Category Archives: Aura Log

The public section of Ghenna’s aura-log journal, consisting of recorded impressions of recent events as well as glimpses of recovered memories.

Evolution

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I took another sip of my rum & quafe and continued to browse through the mess of corporate news. Being alone, cut off from the secured corp channels was annoying. Waiting for a bunch of bureaucrats to decide whether or not I was dangerous to the federation was more annoying. The alcohol helped.

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.

The Waiting Game…

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My stint in the militia had been brief before being called back for corporate duty. I sat patiently in an uncomfortable chair, awaiting the approval of a new corporate charter.

“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.”

Generations

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“I wanted you to have these,” he said, handing me the thin wooden box with both hands.

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.

The First Jump…

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“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.

Taking the Bait

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My Incursus sauntered into the docking array at the academy in Couster, it had been a long night moving assets out of Caldari space in preparations for my sabbatical, but everything was now in order. I stepped out into the hangar and gave the order to have the laughably small stock of minerals I had in system contracted to the corporation. Several of our newer pilots were now stepping up into Dominix and every little bit helped.

I took one last look around, jacked back into my pod and gave the command to initiate undock. Moments later I was one dot in the cloud of rookie pilots that typically swarmed around academy stations. New pilots, just having earned their wings, stepping out into the vastness for the first time. Pushing back the nostalgia I visually scanned the scene, and immediately spotted a cargo container.

“Risk Free Ammunition,” it advertised. I sighed deeply.

“Aura who is the owner of that can?”

A Catalyst, sitting 10km off the can flashed in my attention buffer.

“Scan the local area for corp mates,” I said and set my frigate to approach the container.

“Search returned no results,” Aura replied. He was alone, in a destroyer, and looking for a fight.

“Fair enough,” I said to no one in particular as I gave the command for the mover drones to transfer the 100 units of Antimatter Small into my hold. Seconds later my warning systems lit up as the destroyer initiated target lock.

I returned the lock, fired up my afterburner and set the nimble ship on a spiraling approach vector. Win or lose it would be a good test run. I had been flying the tiny ship obsessively for the past few days and it had not failed to impress. Something about it had caught my interest.

It was odd flying a Gallente hull. The flight controls were components of the capsule, not the ship, so aside from the energy weapon hardwiring modifications I’d made, which had no systems to link into on the Gallente ship, they were no different. It just felt different. The ship felt lighter, more agile… and certainly a hell of a lot more fragile, than my stock Punisher. It was an entirely new experience, and I was enjoying it thoroughly.

I leapt across the several kilometer gap rapidly, and at 5k the Catalyst had resolved it’s target lock and unleashed a volley of plasma striping my shields to 50%. Web and scra…

“God Damnit,” I grimaced in my pod. I had been testing the systems out on the local Serpentis population of late, and had regretfully neglected to fit a warp scrambler. I shrugged, I wasn’t looking for a kill anyway, it’d still be a good test. I activated the tracking disruptor for good measure and felt a jolt as my my warp systems went offline and the destroyer’s webbifier came online. It felt like flying through molasses, but I was still maintaing a good pace.

I settled in to a tight 500m orbit and opened up with my blasters. At this range and speed, even with the webbification, the destroyer was struggling to land a hit. Meanwhile my Antimatter rounds were biting heavily into his armor. I pulsed my armor repair unit for good measure and waited. His armor was falling fast.

As his last shred of armor melted away I set my ship to approach and set my guns to overload. He was going to warp out any second, and with no scram I just had to hope the sudden damage spike and a potential bump would suffice. Three volleys later my guns shut down, as his ship entered warp.

“Nice,” came the reply over local com.

“Good fight. Good luck, I hope you find some decent fights,” I replied as my directional scanner came online, but he was already gone.

I waited the mandatory few seconds for the system services monitor to verify that I was not, in fact, a threat, and then set a course for Charmerout to dock up and get some sleep for the night. When I arrived I was greeted by the night shift deck crew.

“We patched up the guns on the Vengeance Madame,” the head tech said as I left my pod, “Focusing matrix was nearly fused to the photonic condenser!”

I nodded like I knew what he was talking about.

“How you liking her madame? She’s a tough little boat.”

“Yeah, she is,” I smiled, “I think I might get her an Ishkur to keep her company.”