Screams

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It was too cold for fear. The emptiness of space, and the shattered remnants of my capsule hung spinning in space around me. Those who have never had the experience would have you believe that a quick death is somehow more merciful, less terrifying. In that sense the cold vacuum is a merciful executioner, but quick is subjective. For the executioner the axe is faster than the rack, for the executed all death is the same duration.

Nanoseconds passed like eons. The cold seeped in like fire at first, the pain was momentary and then there was only terror. Memories flashed into my mind, half-formed recollections. I could feel each of them freeze and fade. The cold worked methodically. First the exterior  -memories, intelligence, thought- those things that make us human until only the interior brain -fear, anger, terror-  remained.

A thousand tiny crystals of ice wisped spinning from my frozen lips, within each one a scream of terror that could shatter suns, if nature would allow them to be heard. My vision stopped, I was a point of freezing consciousness in a vast expanse of nothing. I had entered the true void.

And then the cold subsided and was replaced by searing heat. The blackness rushed away in a burst of blinding light. I could feel my heart throbbing in my chest. I was underwater, struggling, my muscles aching.

I was in a clone vat. I was still screaming.

Noisy Neighbors II

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My agent had sent me once again into Yvangier to deal with someone else’s problem. This time he had received some intel on a Mordu operation taking place in a deadspace pocket. My job was to go over and make the whole operation a fused slag heap. I excelled at these sorts of jobs.

My new Harby was performing well, despite some early hiccups. I had fitted it for destruction and, despite my trepidation, fitted it with a flight of Hammerhead drones to deal with smaller ships. My Gallente friends had assured me that I should just focus on the bigger ships, my drones would “Murder any frigate that got close.”

Murder was perhaps not the appropriate word. Annoy, might have been a better term, and after sitting for 10 minutes waiting for a lucky shot from one of my heavy pulse lasers while my drones orbited an elite cartel frigate and made angry noises at it, I decided it best to switch out two of my heavies for mediums, at least until my drone skills were up to Gallente murder standards.

I arrived at the deadspace pocket and surveyed the situation.  There were a lot of ships here, this would take some time, but my scans and checks had assured me that I was alone in the local system, so I went to work making modern art of the ships in range.

Doing anything in Yvangier is an exercise in paying attention. In addition to the steady influx of Mordu, Angel Cartel and Gurista activity it was the home of the Blood Money Boot Camp, a training school for budding pilots on the other side of the law, and nearby Heydelies and Old Man Star were almost always war zones. So I was immediately aware of an Imicus entering the system as I was just finishing the last few Mordu.

“Aura, give me a 360 at maximum range.” Combat probes as suspected, and being that there were only two of us in system I suspected she wasn’t scanning herself. “360 Aura, at 1 AU. I want real-time updates.” It was another five minutes before the probes appeared on my scanner, and shortly after the Imicus. But she hadn’t found me yet, just the edge of my deadspace pocket. I congratulated her on her scanning skills as my ship jumped back to Charmerout.

I docked and the robotic deck crew transferred my pod to my Maller. I had no intention of salvaging the sea of wrecks that I had made, it was more the principle of the matter. “Okay Aura, let’s go shoot at the neighbors.” In a few minutes I was sitting at the first acceleration gate leading into the deadspace pocket. Moments later I was locking the scavenging pirate, now in a rifter, picking over my recent kills.

She was still at 20km, but began to spiral in using her speed as an advantage. A wise tactical move, though I didn’t much care. I had no intention of activating my pulse lasers until she got close, and she would. I commanded my ship to move straight at her. As she got closer I found myself webbed and scrambled, I returned the scramble, but kept my web offline. I wanted her a bit closer, no point in making it take any longer than it had to.

A 3,000 meters I webbed her and we both opened up with our guns. It was a tough little ship, tougher than I had expected. And was outputting very good damage. I was impressed. Had I brought my trusty punisher I would have been concerned, but the Maller was a rock and her ship exploded shortly after her auto-cannons began to scratch my armor. I quickly initiated a lock on her pod, but she made it into warp quickly, a testament to her survival skills and my cruiser class targeting system.

It was a good fight, I commended her on the local com channel for her durability as I rummaged through what was left of her ship. 400mm armor plates, no rep, aux power core to support the guns. Fly reckless, I thought, damn right. I left her wreck alone and headed back to Charmerout. She’d be back, but I didn’t want the loot anyway, and somewhere deep inside I had a vested interest in keeping her rifter supply well stocked.

2009.05.04 01:05:00

Victim: Jeneral Jane

Corp: Blood Money Bootcamp

Alliance: Blood Money Cartel

Faction: NONE

Destroyed: Rifter

System: Yvangier

Security: 0.4

Damage Taken: 2454

Involved parties:

Name: Ghenna (laid the final blow)

Security: 0.9

Corp: Endland

Alliance: NONE

Faction: NONE

Ship: Maller

Weapon: Medium Pulse Laser I

Damage Done: 2454

Destroyed items:

Barrage S, Qty: 146 (Cargo)

Republic Fleet EMP S, Qty: 708 (Cargo)

Damage Control II

Small Nosferatu I (Cargo)

Foxfire Rocket, Qty: 440 (Cargo)

250mm Railgun I (Cargo)

Micro Auxiliary Power Core I

Medium Proton Smartbomb I (Cargo)

125mm Gatling AutoCannon II, Qty: 2

Barrage S, Qty: 96

Lead Charge M, Qty: 100 (Cargo)

J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I

1MN Afterburner II

Dropped items:

Beta Reactor Control: Shield Flux I (Cargo)

‘Langour’ Drive Disruptor I

125mm Gatling AutoCannon II

OE-5200 Rocket Launcher

Barrage S, Qty: 48

400mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I

A real job…

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After returning to the sky several weeks ago I had spent a lot of time considering my place in New Eden. I was free, I suppose, something my new Gallente employers seemed to think was the best thing in the universe, but I had to disagree. In the military I was certainly not free, but I never really had a problem with that. Actually it was quite comforting.

Freedom at this juncture meant that I could come and go as I pleased, which was welcome given my somewhat shaky state. It also meant that whatever I decided to do, the responsibility, and ultimately the bill, was on me. So it was not without some hesitation that I undocked from the Oursulaert federal navy testing facilities in a shiny new fitted and rigged Harbinger and set a course back to the corporate hanger in Charmerout.

Don’t fly what you can’t afford to lose. That was the advice I’d received in my welcome pamphlet when my planetary shuttle dropped me off at the station, and a thousand times since. That was stupid advice. Don’t pay for what you can’t afford to lose. That was better, get someone else to foot the bill then fly reckless. Wars are won and lost on that very principle.

In this particular case it wasn’t quite that bad. I could technically afford to lose and replace my new battlecruiser several times, though I really didn’t want to have to do that. But the state of the federation, at least of my neck of the woods, was somewhat dire and my trusted Maller could no longer handle the sorts of situations my employers were putting me in. It was time for a change.

I docked at the corporate hangar and felt my pod jolt as the hull of the massive battlecruiser opened and the robotic deck crane extracted my pod from within the its thick armored heart.

“What the hell is that?” It was one of my corp mates, a young minmatar. She was staring up at the Harbinger.

“It’s a brick. A brick with guns on it. We’ll see how it flies tomorrow,” and I headed back to my quarters to relax – and notify my insurance agent – before the next job came in.

Hello to the Community

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CrazyKinux over at CrazyKinux’s Musings has added Ripe Lacunae to the Eve Player Blogroll and offered me hearty welcome to the EVE blogging community. The community is what I love most about EVE. Coming back after several years of playing other MMOs has really driven that point home for me.

Thank you CrazyKinux for your welcome to the blogging community, and everyone else who has made my re-entry into the EVE culture rewarding and exciting.

-G

Past & Future (Eve Blog Banter 7)

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This is a very new blog, so this will be my first installment in the monthly extravaganza that is EVE Blog Banter. Hopefully the first of many to come.

Welcome to the seventh installment of the EVE Blog Banter , the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month’s topic comes to us from CrazyKinux himself, and he asks: “What 3 things haven’t you done in EVE and why? Would you be willing to try one day? Why so? Why not?”

The furrier sat in a red velvet chair next the the fireplace. It was smoking an old-fashioned tobacco pipe, and wearing an evening jacket. As I approached it looked up at me, and adjusted it’s monacle, “Ahh, Ghenna I’ve been expecting you. Sorry we had to move the place, hope it wasn’t too much trouble to find. It’s those damned Gallente script kiddies…” As he droned on I remembered how much I hated the hypernet.

Everyone knew him as fuzzy, but whatever he was, he wasn’t a furrier. Most thought he was some rogue AI, others that he was just a bored Gallente scientist somewhere in the universe. All that mattered is that he was a master of infomorph psychology, and was very good at his job.

“So, still having memory troubles are we? Yes, well that’s normal given the state of you. Let’s go easy today, yes? Just an easy exercise, yes? Let’s you tell me three things that you’ve never done. Go on,” and he sat back in the chair. I was receiving psychotherapy from a furrier with a monacle, I thought. I swallowed the irony and began.

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