A Memoir from Space

“I’m afraid she just isn’t ready yet, Captain. If you would just give me a few more days I co-”. That was all my newly hired mechanic was able to get out. He would quickly learn my typical anticipation in such situations. I wasn’t trying to be rude, I just didn’t give a damn.

A quick scan of my credentials and the doors to my personal hangar opened in their usual fashion: Painfully slow. There lay my Harbinger, the sister Apocalypses, the Vengeance, standing out with her beautiful dark toned armor, and my massive Armageddon. But none of these where what I was interested in. No, my prize was waiting for me in the shadows, tantalizing me still even when in my possesion, sitting in the corner of my hangar under a massive cover.

No bigger than any other frigate, and no more impressive looking while under its sheet.

I spied a lone member of my crew dozing off, most likely on break, but I left my patience at home that day. “Hey, you there. Get the rest of the crew back in here and take that cover off my ship!”. He promptly woke up with such a shock that he nearly knocked himself out again by hitting his head on a rail. With a confused “Y-yes… sir!”, he dragged himself away to round up a few more people.

I had waited for quite a while to go through with buying her. Even under cover, I couldn’t help but marvel at her dealy curves. The glint of her armor was even shining bright enough to see through the fabric covering. This ship was special, no doubt about it. It had taken me 2 weeks of pulling strings with the Amarr navy to even get a deal put on the table for her, and quite a few negotiations on contracts to aquire the appropriate modules to bring her to her full potential.

Faster than I expected, my crew arrived and set to unveiling the beauty. I could already see part of her claw like points. My heart rate quickened with my growing anticipation.

The cover fell to the hangar floor. My Amarr Navy Slicer stodd before me in all her menacing glory. The fact that she was still under construction with plates missing and wires hanging about did not detract from her looks at all.

I couldn’t wait to take her for a spin.

Very rarely have I ever had the feeling that I was somewhere I shouldn’t be. I was always in the presence of my friends, them ready to back me up, or relaxing and enjoying my free time, even when in the far reaches of the universe.

Today, I felt out of place.

Very rarely do I get nervous. I was always well prepared for a situation, ready to back my friends up, always calm and collected, knowing how to react to a situation.

Today, I was nervous.

“WARP WARP WARP, HOSTILE GATE CAMP ON THE OTHER SIDE!”, I blared. Why did I have to be the scout on my first flight in a stealth bomber through hostile null sec? Only when off a gate in an empty system, my Purifier nicely cloaked, was I able to control the shaking in my hands and the throbbing heart rate pulsing in the back of my head. It seemed those mythical camping fleets and destroying everything it could catch was not a myth. If the purpose of flying out here wasn’t to gain good favor with a potential friendly alliance, I would have definitely thought twice… no, four times about this.

“Ok, Masa, once you jump in system, you sit 30 clicks off the gate, aligned to a planet, I will do the same from another angle. You know what to do, uncloak, deploy, RUN” . Little did I know, my little dialogue would cost me my life.  ”Shit, Rifter on the gate, hes got me! I forgot to turn on my cloak. FUCK”. Now all I can hope to do is get my body out in one piece. Warp, warp, warp… Wha-?

“The little shit…”, I uttered as I ran out of my clone vat, grabbing the nearest robe and picking up the NeoCom on my dresser. “Masa, whats it look like out there?”. “The Rifter left and the CEO we came out here to meet JUST showed up. Let me wire you some ISK to jump into another bomber. How much do you need?”, he replied, supportive and helpful as always. No wonder I liked the guy so much, I really felt bad for what I was about to say. Checking my personal fitting files, “Ugh, 50 mil is what it will cost”. “Done”, he simply said, with my NeoCom giving me a notification of a recent deposit.

30 minutes and one trip to Jita later, I was back in a brand new Purifier and ready to go. After arriving at my recent death site, we engaged in our purpose for being out here. I left Masa and all of his charm to the diplomatic purposes of the trip. I kept my mind solely focused on the gate and my directional scanner.

Seconds went by. Minutes went by. Hours went by. At least, that is what it felt like. I swore I would start hallucinating if I kep-. Gate flash, back to reality.

“Wait for target to decloak…. Rupture, he warped off… Damn”. I don’t know what this pilot’s agenda was for today, but he decided to visit my gate a good 4 times, never wasting more than a second to warp off.

Back to waiting for the seconds, the minutes, the hours to roll by…

“Hey, TMS, someone jumped”, Masa reminded me. “Yep, its a Rapier, align to it and- damnit, jumped back. When are we going to catch any luck?”

I have never been startled so throughly by what occurred next. Our friendly neighborhood Rapier had friends. LOTS of them. Thirty, forty,  eighty, one hundred and fifty ships jumped through local. “Masa, should we engage? We could take a good chunk of them out.” “Yeah, lets do it, deploy in three…. two…”

They were gone. We had missed our chance. Or had we? I was not going to miss the fun in this!

“…Masa… Lets follow them”, a grin spreading rapidly across my face. “Entering warp, dropping out 30 clicks short of the gate…. Dropping…. FUCK”. My hear sank at the sight ahead of me. A full on gate camp with a bubble dragging me behind the gate. Luck was not with me that moment, as I decloaked, but I kept my senses together and had Aura align for the quickest route  outside of the bubble, immediately activating my microwarp drive. The moments dragged by as Auro notified me of dozens of target locks being initiated. Had I not been inside my pod, I would have been drenched in sweat by now.

My shields vaporized, my scant amount of armor peeled off into space. My pod barreled out  of my exploding ship in  the exact velocity that I was heading. Perhaps luck was with me, my ship’s explosion thrusting me out of the warp bubble, and before I could even thank the Gods, I was safely in warp, carrying my tail in between my legs.

Too bad things were not going to be getting better for me anytime soon.

“Wait… what?”. Not my most articulate response, I know. Had I not been talking directly with the proverbial horse, I wouldn’t believe it,

“It’s true buddy, we are packing our bags and moving to 0.0″, my CEO calmly replied. JohnPaulJones was a good guy. Recruiting me from very early on in my pod piloting days, I had grown very fond of him. Supplying me with knowledge, ISK, ships, help, and saving my ass a few times tends to do that. “We aren’t sure EXACTLY which system we will be setting up in, or which alliance we will be buddying up with, but first thing is first, and that is getting our tower and carriers out of this wormhole”.

Ah, I could already tell this would be a problem. While a nice guy, Jones was very stubborn at times, and easily irritated. More of the blow them up and ask questions never kind of guy. He was more than likely to open up a private comm with a 0.0 director and ask “Wanna be friends?… No? Fuck you” -beep- I knew he would be hellbent on keeping our current alliance intact, and the 0.0 alliances would want us to disband and join theirs. Not having any other Alliances with blue standings to us didn’t help either. Thankfully for all of us, Masamunesky was taking care of diplomatic relations. Masa, like Jones, was a good guy. Much more of a smart ass, but the Corp loved him for it, and anything you needed him to do got done.

As exciting as this would sound to others, my first thoughts were of apprehension. I was well aware of the dangers or 0.0; the constant war for territory, huge Alliances dropping fleets of Capitals on ill-prepared victims, “Steamrolling” them, if you will. On top of questionable mental preparation, there was my hangar to think about. At the time, the only ships I had to fly were an Apocalypse, a Drake, a Purifier, a Hookbill, and a Vengeance, and the Apocalypse was currently optimized for taking on the mysterious sleepers I had become familiar with.  I would have to ask my engineering crew the time they would need to refit my pride and glory for a more appropriate sniper set up.

Then the questions of who we would ally ourselves plagued my thoughts. For all we knew, Valhalla Strategic Command could be obliterated in one fell swoop by our own “friends”. We may be the next victim of the constant blood bath in 0.0 before we even get to taste it! This was likely, taking into account the recent flood of Corporations staking their claim in o.o recently.

“I know what you are thinking”, John interjected, snapping me back into the present. “This isn’t my first time dealing with null sec. I am going to make this work. Trust me”. He was right. I was letting my characteristically pessimistic side get a hold of me. I did trust John. I would follow him to the edge of the galaxy. Well, technically I already have, and farther. Wormholes DO take you pretty far from home… I owed everything I had to him, my Corp, and my friends. The decision was made, now wasn’t the time to start having personal doubts.

With my typical smirk on my face, I replied, “Time to take the plunge”.

This is my first entry of many that will be written in Character. Hopefully you will enjoy it as much as I did writing it. Feel free to critique!

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Location: Unknown

System Designation: Valhalla

Ship: Apocalypse class Battle Ship

Few things compare to the beauty of space. Even after spending week on end in your ship, traversing the universe in the blink of an eye, I simply cannot grow tired of of its majestic qualities. At times I get lost in a trance, taking in all its-

My comms overlay flashed open, the familiar voice of my CEO blaring. “Everyone, grab your bombers. If you can’t fly a bomber, grab a small fast ship, preferably an Assault Frigate. We have a wormhole to a neighbor and we are going to pay them a visit”. Great, I was just starting to relax. Obviously my time tested Apocalypse wouldn’t do, so I informed my crew to keep my Battle Ship primed and ready to go just in case things turned ugly, and situated myself in my Vengeance class Assault Frigate.

The fearsome fleet jumped through the wormhole, all cloaking up but myself. A group of battle cruisers. Perfect. “Myrmidon and Brutix leaving the bubble, warping to planet 100.”

“Finally, permission to engage?”, I tentatively asked. “Warp and hold. TMS, engage, others hold! Damnit! The Myrmidon is leaving”. Ah, my cue. My nimble frigate quickly entered warp, shuddering slightly as its relatively fragile hull strained under the pressure. Reacting instantly, I locked the Brutix. “POINT!”. All at once, the fleet decloaks, leaving me to only chuckle at the reaction our new friend must be having at what he thought was just an assault frigate prowling around. Never losing focus as others would at an easy victory, I quickly focused my targeting systems on the pod, but this was no dumb struck rookie, and he got away. “Lost the pod… Wait a second… FRIENDLY DOWN!” In the heat of the the fight, we failed to see that one of our bombers warped to 0, and was caught in the blasts of our own bombs. After many apologies, a few exasperated sighs of disapproval, and a trip to Empire space to replace our fallen Manticore, we decided to pay null sec a visit. Even with the kill under our belts, we all knew we had some problems to sort out. Losing a bomber to friendly fire was MUCH too sloppy, and we all knew it.

Two jumps later found us in a system crawling with potential targets, but not what I would have liked to see. Our scout reported a Scimitar, an Ishkur, and a few other ships sitting at a station, all in the same Corporation. Not the best situation. “Combat probes on scanner. TMS, you better get moving, they are coming for YOU.” One step ahead of you, FC. I was already warping in and around 3 bookmarks, waiting for permission to engage whatever target is called. The scimitar warps out, leaving the Ishkur warping in between the belts I was nearest too. Heh, good look with that.

My ships comm opened up again, blaring in my ears. I really need to get that fixed. “Guys, I’m not sure what we are going to do about this guy. He’s no fool. He knows TMS is here, and he knows we are here, but not what we are in.”, said our CEO. Back to enjoying the beauty of space then, all the while warping between my safe spots. What an interesting color for ice rings. I wonder what chemicals present would b-

“HE IS AT THE GATE, ISHKUR AT THE GATE”. God damn, if the link between me and my pod wasn’t mental, my ears would be bleeding right now… “WAIT, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? DO NOT ENGAGE!” Ugh, what the fuck are they doing? “BOMBER DOWN!” You have got to be kidding me…

At this point, I was preoccupied with a mental debate, wondering which was more annoying; the fact that I had a headache from hell, or the fact that one of the squad members was stupid enough to engage the tiny assault frigate with a bomb, alone, without him being tackled, painted, permission to fire, etc, to pay too much attention to the reprimand the FC was giving the pilot.

“Fleet, jump through the gate and jump through our wormhole. This op is over”. Ah, finally not blaring your thoughts into my mind. Thank you, FC. “TMS, the Ishkur followed us to the other side, jump through and warp out as soon as possible.”

Of course, on the other side our new friend was waiting for me, narrowly missing getting a point on me by 4 clicks as I warped off into the distance, rocketing my sleek Vengeance closer and closer to home.