A Memoir from Space

“What do you mean my license has been revoked?”. The tall man before me did not appear to be stepping down any time soon. Time to quit the enraged tough guy act then.

“Concord protocols clearly state that any Capsuleer accused of the charges brought before you is to be temporarily grounded in station until a hearing has occurred. Any attempt to leave the current station will result in Concord… intervention. Do you understand?”

“Screw it”, I sighed. “Your hearing will take place within the next 72 hours” he replied, and with that, the  official pivoted on his heel and left, a path creating itself in the mob of people crowding the station.

Thats what I get for being a little too aggressive with the locals, I guessed. I wouldn’t let the time go to waste then. There were plenty of things for me to do that didn’t involve… doing anything. Up until that point, my attitude had been that being docked up was a waste of time when I could be out flying, destroying things, mining rocks, SOMETHING. As much as I didn’t like the situation, I would certainly make use of the next two or three days doing something productive, after a nice day’s worth of rest.

The next day was filled with activity, in spite of me not once leaving my quarters. After many a jest from my corp mates about the recent trouble I had gotten myself into, I focused my attentions to researching more recent fittings used by fellow Capsuleers for my ships and was surprised to see that with a few modifications, I could have been getting much more performance out of them. A quick check on market prices for the necessary modules set my spirits low for  moment. It was really irritating me that I was not out in space engaging in wallet-happy activity. I was no business mogul, so staying docked up did no good for my pocket, and I was no rich man by anyone’s standards. Eventually I gave in and made the transaction, giving my crew orders to have the specified changes complete within the next three days, hoping the changes would pay for themselves.

I really had to stop getting myself intro trouble. High Security space was not for me.

Hope you all had a very merry and blessed Christmas! And to those of you not Christian, I hope you had a great day!

The loot

Axe toiletries set

Car detailing kit

PS2 with Kingdom Hearts, FF X and XII

A nice charging station for all my stuff

200 bucks.

Pretty good stuff! Again, hope you all have a Merry Christmas!

“Damnit! It isn’t supposed to be this difficult!”, sweat already appearing on my brow. The worst part was I wasn’t physically taxed at all.

“It would be easier if you relaxed, you will get the hang of it sooner or later. Why don’t you just take a break before you rupture a blood vessel or something, buddy?”. “Yeah, you are probably right”, I sighed, trying to keep the pent up frustration from turning into a viscous cycle. He was right about me needing to relax, but I was not about to take a break. I was going to figure this out if it was the last thing I do.

After a quick search on my NeoCom on popular and effective probing patterns, I quickly began searching for the cosmic signature that was giving my life hell at the time. I wouldn’t let a task like this best me. After 15 minutes of slowly repositioning each individual probe and resetting their scan ranges, I finally narrowed the signature down to two possible hits, and chose one of them at random.

I blinked in disbelief. 100% signal strength. I had done it! I was in such a rush to warp to explore my figuratively beaten opponent I nearly forgot to recall my probes. I blinked twice in disbelief. Out of the wormhole I had just warped to, an Iteron piloted by an unaware pilot warped off into the distance, clearly too late to have noticed my presence. Opportunity had struck.

After such extensive time in wormhole systems myself, I knew that this pilot would be making at least a few runs in and out of the wormhole due to the lack of regular availability of access to good high sec market systems. He had no idea I was about to ruin his day. Hastily warping back  to my main station, I posed a mental debate to myself; Bring a small ship that I know can get in tackle range quickly and not risk pushing the wormhole over its mass limit, or bring a big ship that I know can obliterate the opponent quickly and risk losing it? I chose the former and immediately ordered my crew to prep my Vengeance class Assault Frigate for combat. Not a huge problem as my crew is always on their toes.

And so I lay in wait, knowing my prey would come right back to me. Temporarily cloaked in my new friend’s home, I mentally prepared myself for the short window I knew I had, instructing my crew to prepare to overload my warp scrambler. I didn’t want to take any chances with my prey escaping.

I waited… a lump growing in my throat. I knew that if the pilot took any longer to come back, their was more chance of not only the charge on his ship dissipating from  his last jump, but for his friends to pay me a visit.

My heart leaped, the familiar ripple of the wormhole shooting adrenaline through my system. Action.

Within seconds, my target appeared, slowly aligning for warp. Not today, my friend. He was mine, helpless. Unable of warping away, his ship still dissipating the charges coursing through its warp core, preventing him from jumping back to safety, unable to destroy me. My rockets buffeting his ship with all their might, slowly peeling back his shields, then his armor.

This wasn’t good, he wasn’t going down quick enough. Soon he would be able to run back into the arms of Concord if I didn’t do anything. “DISENGAGE SAFETY PROTOCOLS ON ALL WEAPON SYSTEMS, DISENGAGE SAFETY PROTOCOLS ON ALL WEAPON SYSTEMS”. Within moments, my rocket launchers were spitting out fiery death noticeably faster upon the helpless Iteron. I would have smiled with smug satisfaction at the pilot sweating bullets, no, cannon shots by now, but instead I was panicking. My mental timer was running down. He was only into 20% hull now, and momentarily he would be able t-

FUCK. Back into “safe” space my prey went, leaving me to dwell in more frustration. Today was NOT a good day.

“Not too much damage, I would say. You ought to be a bit more careful though, buddy”, my chief engineer remarked, grinning from ear to ear knowing that I knew that he was pushing my buttons. “Your Vengeance may be a beaut, and she may be quite a ship, but she just isn’t built to handle that kind of-”

“Shut it. NOW.”, I cut him off, giving my most fearsome stare I could muster. Not that it was a frown or any sort of wierd face, but I have been told that my straight face can be intimidating at time. Which quickly turned into a friendly smile. “Ha, had you going, huh? Get her patched up buddy, I appreciate it”.

During my brisk walk through the Amarr station to my quarters, I learned quite a few things about my so called “allies”. Though I am Caldari, even the many Amarr pilots I walked with had nothing but a disdainful look on their faces upon sight of me. Good I thing I didn’t give a damn about what people thought of me outside of friends, or I might have ended up in a fight, like that crazy Matar Colonel everyone had been talking about it, but I did keep this information in mind for any future meeting I would have with any Amarr. Their stations luxuries were second to none, but hospitality and luxury are two different things.

My much needed nap, however comforable, was cut short. Masa was contacting me. I would get him back for it later.

“TMS, hey bud. We got a new recruit by the name of Ill. Hes only been a pod pilot for a little over two weeks, but we are going to teach him all he needs to know. I am going to take him under my wing. I’d like you to meet him!”. Ah, something worth the time after all. I have always enjoyed helping others out in any way I can, perhaps because of the kindness showed to me by more experienced capsuleers early on in my career, despite their negative reputation. 2 hours later, I was back inside my favorite ship tearing apart Blood Raider ships without effort, conversing with Masa and his new recruit. Eventually, I slid into a barely concious sleep, ripping apart frigates and idly listening in on the conversation, every once in a while explaining to Ill that the 1 mil he asked to borrow was nothing, that we didn’t mind helping him out, explaining some of my fond memories of losing Caracals and hoping the Corporation wouldnt be mad at me.

After the very pleasant idle chat, Masa anad our new found friend started a mining op and I returned my focus to not focusing on anything, simply enjoying being alive.

“Scrambler? Webber? Ok buddy, I got something for ya”, Masa’s voice brings me out of my relaxed state. “Masa, what is going on?”. “This fucker is attacking me”, “What are you in? What is he in? He isn’t stopping?”

Now I was worried. It wasn’t uncommon at all for my buddies and I to open fire on each other everyone in a while, shouting “TANK TEST!” and getting a good laugh, but this rookie couldn’t know that”. I knew I had better end this foolishness.

My heart sank, “15 mil for your ship, buddy!”. This wasn’t happening! Auro opened a private com in my mind, Masa was contacting me personally. “TMS, get out here NOW, I am going down slowly, he is in a Rifter”. “I’m 3 jumps out, getting there as fast as I can!”.

“Ill, hold up a second, don’t kill him, how much do you want?”. “Ha, too late for that!”, his face sporting a childish grin from ear to ear. He had done it. He bought a rifter with money we loaned him, and he killed one of our own, defensess. My blood was BOILING.”

I then proceeded to chase him three systems out, the whole while giving him my full verbal assault of how lowly what he did was, how he missed out on a great opporunity with my corporation, while he went on and one about how he out smarted us.

Were we stupid? Or were we just trusting? Or were we both? How can someone feel so proud about themselves for committing an act so lowly, so pathetic, and so easy to do? Of course, it isn’t hard to kill your “friend” while mining, certianly nothing to brag about. Doing that doesn’t make you some genius killer, as any real pirate would let you know.

So many questions floated through my head, my blood pressure to high, my fursteration with the lack of honor in people spiking. Too much for one day, I needed a break.

Looks like I’m packing up and leaving podlogs. The site has served me extremely well thus far, making it very easy to start my blog, but I will be moving to tehmastersword.blogspot.com shortly, and I will be in the process of moving my posts to the new blog. Please continue to follow the blog and comment on my adventures, all 3 of you!

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”.

All is quiet. I continue my existence, undisturbed in my far flung resting place, trillions of jumps away from the destructive forces of civilization. I have seen everything, untold wonders, untold horrors. I have seen every end of the universe, from its starts to the present. Nothing holds me back as I flow as the pulls and tugs of the universe act upon me. I exist, I am happy. All is well.

A lone shadow appears from nowhere. Who could this be? No matter, my protectors will handle these intruders.

Or so I thought. My gaurdians fall, posing little threat to these alien beings. For the first time since time began, I am scared.

Hope! The intruders leave! Perhaps I am safe after all. Perhaps I can continue my existence in peace! Oh how I long for my fallen friends. Seeing these shattered forms of what is left of my friends saddens me. How they protected me for all th-

The intruders are back! But wait… These shapes are so unfamiliar, different from my Protector’s murderers. They are getting closer to me! What do they want with me?

THRUMMMMMM

What is this… sensation? What are they doing to me? I’ve never harmed anyone, only lived in peace with my friends, my gaurdians. What could I have done to disturb them?

THRUMMMMMM

I feel my essence being pulled away. Oh please make it stop! I just want to stay here, in the quiet!

THRUMMMMMM

Please…. Please… Pl-

THRUMMMMMM

The stage is empty, the wrecks gone, the clouds gone.

Exeunt all

“Sir, I have imporatant news pertaining to your future training plans”, Aura’s soothing voice rang through my mind. “What do you have for me?”. “It seems that Viziam has made further development in the user interfacing with their Purifier class bomber, making many functions of the ship automatic. You will no longer be required to attent your planned week long training session in order to pilot it.”. At this point, I did a mental double take, and I swear I jumped a little bit in excitement inside my pod.

The gods knew I was not looking forward to that session. Friends who were already qualified to fly bombers were constantly teasing me about having to go through with the seminar, attesting to its legendary trait of putting its pilots to sleep with its devastating week long traning sessions on how to properly pilot the ship. If there is anything I don’t have patience for, its wasting time in a class I could be through with in half prescribed time. Well before my pod pilot days, I told myself I was done with school. I was always the one to be done with class work nearly before the instructor was done giving explanations for the less intelligent students. Getting out of that time sink was a major goal for me at the time, and boring myself to insanity in an auditorium full of pilots taking a whole damned week just so I could fly a bomber properly was not high on my priorities, so this was extremely welcome news. Now I could devote my time to studying the extra procedures required for my newly aquired Tech 2 small lasers, as I was still unfamiliar with their workings.

What a good day indeed.

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.