tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17091737335427634662024-02-08T05:11:54.374-08:00BlacklightSome stories I felt I wanted to write. After all, all the cool kids are doing it.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709173733542763466.post-7336216750954451142011-03-31T17:37:00.000-07:002011-03-31T18:14:39.112-07:00The Drop pt1The walkway clanked under the young soldier’s heavy boots as he stepped from the flight deck into the drop ship. The interior was dark, barely illuminated by two lines of pulsing blue lights running along the ceiling. He walked down the narrow corridor, past the enclosed forms of the men he’d trained with for the past few months, until he reached the open door of his own drop pod. It was painted a heat-absorbent black, its design functional and blocky, with his name and rank projected above it in blinking blue letters by the HUD in his helmet. He checked the seal of his suit, the armoured uniform he had grown accustomed to during training, now growing strangely claustrophobic. Then he unslung his weapon, a high tech automatic railgun, from his back. Reflexively, he pulled back the lever to open the chamber, checking the ammunition load and the blinking series of LEDs indicating the power level of the battery, even though he’d checked and rechecked already, waiting for the scramble order earlier that day.<br /><br />He slipped the gun into the waiting receiver in his pod, and the machinery hissed as hydraulics drew the weapon into a recessed cavity. Another blue light blinked on above it, indicating that it was stowed correctly. He stood there for a moment, his mind suddenly blank and empty, until he remembered where he was, then stepped quickly into the tritanium embrace of the capsule. The doors hissed shut, and for a moment, the only source of light was the dim glow from the small window in front of his face. A burst of panicky adrenaline swept through him, filling him with thoughts of faulty equipment, sealing him into the robotic drop ship until it’s final kamikaze assault on the enemy’s base. A moment later, though, his HUD blinked and brought up a message reading ‘Seal Formed’, and the faint inside lights switched on. He took several deep breaths, his chest plate feeling tight around his ribs, and forced himself to relax.<br /><br />“<span style="font-style: italic;">Pod locked, all systems normal</span>,” whispered the soft, calming feminine voice of the AI into his ear, confirming what his readouts had already told him.<br /><br />He waited there in the dimly lit enclosure for what felt like hours. Every so often a rumbling vibration would come up through his boots, indicating the launch of another drop ship, or perhaps an orbital defense weapon striking the shields of the vessel he was on. His mind began to drift, back to memories of the past: stumbling upon his mother, crying silently in the kitchen in the middle of the night before he left, as he snuck downstairs to find something to eat. Later, his father, face solemn but proud, presenting him with his grandfather’s gold watch, the one he wore when he’d gone to war. His fingers went to his wrist, feeling the contours of the watch through his bulky protective gloves, and a strange feeling of calm filled his mind, settling him into a state of blank patience. Finally, there was a deeper vibration, the whole of the pod seeming to hum, as the engines of the craft that bore his platoon rose to life.<br /><br />“<span style="font-style: italic;">Warning, launch imminent. Warning, launch imminent</span>,” whispered the AI, “<span style="font-style: italic;">Please ensure all equipment and personnel are stowed and ready</span>.”<br /><br />The scarred face of a technician appeared suddenly in the little window, startling him, even though he’d been waiting for it. The man tapped on the thick glass, and the waiting soldier nodded. The face disappeared, doubtless checking the rest of the men. “<span style="font-style: italic;">Now disengaging docking umbilicals</span>,”, the soft voice continued, as a series of rapid thumps echoed through the young man’s feet. Finally, the quiet buzz of the engine rose in pitch, and the man felt a shift in his balance, as the craft tilted, then the strange pressure of acceleration, pushing him into the side of the capsule, the padding there cushioning and supporting him.<br /><br />The feeling of acceleration rose, until it felt as though his whole squad was resting on his chest. The soldier's breath caught, and he unconsciously squirmed, struggling against the embrace of the drop pod. He forced himself to relax once more, and remember the breathing techniques the worn out old battle-axe of a drill instructor had taught him.<span style="font-style: italic;"> In through the nose, out through the mouth. Feel your chest expand, push up on your diaphragm</span>. Finally, enough oxygen was making it into his blood, and he felt himself calming.<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Warning. Warning. Atmospheric impact imminent. Atmospheric impact imminent</span>," the artificial woman crooned into his ear, a note of urgency in her digitally generated tone. The young man twisted slightly, exerting his muscles to bring his chin to a switch, making a velocity and heading readout appear on his HUD. Just as he was focusing on it, though, his vision shook and his whole body was jolted and shaken sharply as the nose of the drop ship dipped into the atmosphere of the planet. His vision stabilized as the craft bounced up, and he studied the telemetry readout, but for some reason, he couldn't make sense of it. He knew he'd been trained to know what those numbers meant, but at that moment, when he tried to focus on the gibberish projected into his helmet, all he could think about was the watch on his wrist, ticking, ticking.<br /><br />The ship bounced twice more, rattling him about in his capsule, and making him feel like a child's toy, then broke through into the atmosphere of the planet. The external temperature gauge began to rise, as the friction of the craft's passing against the air heated it's armour plating rapidly. The soldier braced his hands against the side of the pod; this, he knew, was when the true danger would start. The acceleration eased off, releasing the pressure on his chest, but he couldn't seem to draw a full breath. His tongue felt too big, and his mouth dry and scratchy. In seconds the calm voice of the AI would announce a countdown into range of the planetary anti-air defenses. He knew that his ship was the most advanced around, with the best stealth technologies, and the smartest pilot program that money could buy, but the terror remained in the back of his skull, like a little spiny worm.<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Now approaching combat envelop. Evasive maneuvers active in 5...4...3....2</span>..." murmured the AI, confirming the young man's fear, but her last words were lost, as the whine of the engines suddenly blossomed into an ear-piercing shriek of rage. He felt the ship twist to the side, then all sense of balance and location were lost as the computer threw the vessel bodily into a series of impossible twists, turns, jukes, dives, and spins. As it did, the soldier cued up an external view through his helmet feed. His breath came short as he tried to make sense of the tumbling perspective, the red ground spinning away to be replaced by the orange-ish sky, all punctuated by brilliant green blossoms of defensive blaster cannon fire surrounding them. Suddenly, the ship seemed to drop out of the sky, the altimetre spinning upwards as though flicked by the finger of God. The man's heart leaped into his throat, and for a moment he was terrified, convinced that the engines had been destroyed by a lucky hit, and he was moments from death. Then, the craft stabilized, settling into inhumanly precise terrain-following flight.<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Now entering drop zone. All units, prepare for launch</span>," the calming AI woman whispered, "<span style="font-style: italic;">Repeat, prepare for launch, drop imminent</span>."<br /><br />Adrenaline surged through the soldier's limbs again, but this time, he didn't try to push it away, instead, he embraced it, made it his own. His heart was pounding, and his helmet felt to small. He felt out the small handles on the sides of his pod, and gripped them tightly, his knuckles white under his gloves. The ship juked, then jumped once, then, with an mighty thud which echoed through the panels to the young man's feet, the first drop pod was away. More crashes followed in rapid succession, sweeping up the ship to fire each soldier at extreme velocity towards the ground, until suddenly, all the lights on his HUD went a deep blood red. He bit down hard on the rubber tongue-guard, and let out a deep breath, then the world exploded with velocity as he was crushed into the bottom of his capsule. His vision went grey, a tunnel appearing at the corners of his eyes, and then he impacted onto the surface of an alien world, and the safely enveloping cocoon of his drop pod spat him out with his weapon, to fight.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709173733542763466.post-47674563638531316342011-02-07T11:59:00.000-08:002011-02-07T12:02:43.420-08:00Smoking GunThe bar was poorly lit, a haze of smoke hanging in the air. The ceiling and walls were bare, unadorned, leaving the rusted steel bulkheads and girders visible. It was located in the Egbinger system, in an abandoned mechanic's workshop in the bowels of a station belonging to CONCORD. I sat at the bar, and beside me was thin Sebiestor man, his features seeming ageless, a permanent smirk fixed to his face, his blue eyes twinkling with madness. The bartender set a glass of whiskey in front of me, the amber liquid seeming to glow in the half-light. I drank a measure, savouring the feel of the alcohol burning its heat to my core.<br /><br />"So, Coffee," I began, "The kid. Has he said anything about his father?"<br /><br />The other man laughed, and shook his head quickly. "Nope, nothin'. But he's a weird little bastard, insists on helping us where he can, keeps goin' on about 'making amends for past misdeeds'." He drums his fingers on the bar, producing a frantic, off-beat rhythm. "I've put him to work doing logistics and accounts, he's got a head for numbers. Must be all that expensive Gallente schoolin'."<br /><br />I felt a frown tugging at my mouth, and covered it with another gulp of whiskey. "Nothing? Damn it." A sigh escaped my lips, but my companion only smirked wider. "Well, I guess we can assume that he's gone for good, at least."<br /><br />"Unless the fucker comes back for his kid." He chuckles, seeming delighted by the prospect. "Maybe even monsters find family important. Hell, you tell me, you're a monster, aintcha?"<br /><br />"You're one to talk, Mr 'Good Coffee'," I replied, forcing a smile onto my face, and staring into his slightly unhinged gaze. "But if he comes, we'll be ready for him."<br /><br />The man laughed again, and nodded, then turned away to receive his drink. As he did, I heard from behind my back the door to the bar creak open. I swiveled on my stool, and watched three young looking men saunter nonchalantly into the place. They were out of place for a spot like this, well-groomed, and dressed in the uniforms of CONCORD trainees, arrogant expressions on their faces. I turned away, pulling the jacket of my suit back on, letting them see the embroidered 'V', symbol of Veto Corporation, and finished my drink in a single pull, the liquor making a path of fire to my stomach.<br /><br />They sat down across the bar from me, ordering drinks, and talking quietly, but I could feel their gaze on my back. Coffee's elbow nudged me in the side, and I turned to see his ever-present smirk.<br /><br />"Hey Raxip," he grinned, "Some of these things are not like the others. One gets you ten they try and make trouble."<br /><br />I rolled my eyes, and fished out a bit of coin to pay the bartender. "I don't bet, you know that, Coffee. And besides, that's a sucker bet for you: Why else would they be here?"<br /><br />As I finished my words, I felt a man's hand fall heavily on my shoulder and a voice from behind my back. "Hey, scumbag. I don't like seeing murdering filth in my new bar, so get the fuck out."<br /><br />I turned slowly, slipping off my chair, and looking up at the man who spoke. He was the oldest looking, maybe twenty, his hair shaved in a crewcut, his jaw smooth and free of stubble. He was lean, with the build of a martial artist. To either side of him were his two companions: to his left, a chubby looking kid with glasses, but big, probably breaking six feet, and to his right, an arrogant looking fellow with a well-trimmed moustache.<br /><br />"No problem, boss. I was just leaving," I answered, smiling pleasantly at him and adjusting my suit.<br /><br />"You mouthin' off at me, boy," he responded, his eyes narrowing. Suddenly, his hand shot out, smacking against my cheek. He hit hard, clearly with some training, and I let myself roll with the blow, turning away from him, and letting him think the strike had connected properly. From behind me, I heard Coffee begin to chuckle, and knew he'd be no help here. I wrapped my fingers slowly around the back of the chair I'd been sitting on, as if to keep my balance.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Raxip,</span> I thought to myself,<span style="font-style: italic;"> This is probably a bad idea. They outnumber you and out-weigh you, and you're unarmed.</span> But it didn't matter; I could feel the anger rising up in me. I clamped down on it, controlling it tightly, and channelling it, not letting it take me over. My fingers gripped the chair, and I spun suddenly, lifting it into the air and hurling it towards the big one to my right. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw it impact against his face with a crunch, his glasses shattering, and blood squirting from his nose. He stumbled and fell back, tripping backwards onto his ass, but I was already moving, stepping in quickly before anyone else could react, and driving my fist as hard as I could into the leader's midsection. He made a 'whomph' as the air rushed out of his lung, and began to bend double, but I wasn’t finished. I moved in again, and reached up to grab either side of his head, bringing it down with all my strength towards my rising knee. There was a loud crack, and a blossom of pain from my leg, as his face smashed into it, and another spurt of blood, as his nose squashed flat from my strike. I let my foot go down between his, and slammed my elbow into his chest, hurling him backwards to tumble to the floor in a heap.<br /><br />From behind me, I could hear maniacal laughter, and turned reflexively to see Coffee half doubled up, gales of laughter erupting from him, as he pointed at the two men I'd dispatched. Then, time seemed to slow as I registered a faint click from the final man. I turned back towards him, taking in his lazy smile, and the glint of light reflecting from the barrel of the pistol in his hand, the circular opening of the weapon pointing at my face. I froze, and straightened up, letting my hands fall to my sides unthreateningly.<br /><br />"You don't want to do this, buddy," I told him, keeping my voice even and quiet. "It'll make a mess, and cause you more trouble than it's worth. Besides, your friends are gonna be fine. A little beat up, but they'll get over it." As I spoke, I could feel the anger draining out of me, replaced with a cold determination. I glanced about quickly, taking in my surroundings, looking for my best defense.<br /><br />"You're nothing but criminal filth," he spat at me, his features twisting in a sneer. "If I put you down right here, no one will care. Hell, I'll probably get a commendation."<br /><br />"Listen, man. I have clones backed up. And I'll come back for you, I will hunt you down." I kept my voice quiet, but felt the steel of the certainty of my survival creep into my tone. Then I realized that behind me, Coffee had grown suddenly and completely quiet. I began to spin just as I heard the cadet let out a shout, then there was a flash of light and a booming thunderclap, and I witnessed from the corner of my eye the young man's left leg explode in a welter of blood, just above his knee. As he began to fall, I completed my turn, to see Coffee now standing straight, a huge silver revolver in his grip. Smoke curled up from the cylinder and barrel, twisting towards the ceiling. His face had lost its customary smirk, and was set in a deadly flat expression. He raised the gun, and began to sight down towards his victim, now writhing on the ground and clutching his grievously wounded limb.<br /><br />"Dammit!" I shouted, and took a quick step, slapping Coffee's gun down with the palm of my hand, just as it fired again. I felt the searing gasses escape from the chamber across my hand, but the round smacked into the floor, instead of the kid's head, where it had been aimed. "Void, Coffee, what the fuck are you thinking? This is not the appropriate time to be killing a bunch of stupid kids."<br /><br />He slowly turned his head to look at me, the smug smile back, and the madness twinkling in his eyes. "He pulled a piece on ya, Rax. No one pulls a fuckin' piece and doesn't expect to get shot. He had it comin'." His voice was measured, completely calm. I rubbed my burned hand, then reached out with the other and grabbed his shoulder, sweeping my gaze quickly over my former assailants. The leader was passed out on his side on the floor, completely out cold. The fat one was sitting against the bar, his broken glasses dangling from one ear, clutching his smashed nose and quietly sobbing. The last one was squirming on the ground, a pool of blood spreading from his shattered leg, as he moaned quietly in pain. I tossed a few ISK onto the bar, telling the bartender to call for some help in a minute.<br /><br />"Come on, man, let's get the fuck out of here before one of them comes to and calls friends." I led him out, as he chuckled quietly, flipping his hand-cannon open to replace the fired shells.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709173733542763466.post-44625614258047406722011-01-11T12:01:00.000-08:002011-01-11T12:04:44.254-08:00Terror in the SpacelanesThe young man sat in the back of the transport ship, converted to be a passenger liner. He kept his head down, trying to disappear into his seat. The violent shaking had mercifully ceased, but the lights were flickering, and the formerly ever-present rumble of the engines had stopped suddenly. The captain had said that he'd done this trip many times, and it was safe, he'd never been hit, before the young man had agreed to board, but it seemed that his luck had run out. He didn't know what was happening, could only guess that they were under attack from pirates. The lights flickered, and dimmed, casting a shadowy amber haze through the compartment. The young man wondered if this was it, if he was about to die. He was sure that at any moment, there would be a flash and then nothing, as he was disintegrated by nuclear fire.<br /><br />He heard a hissing noise, and squeezed his eyes shut, knowing that any breath might be his last. Then a small metallic click. He frowned, and looked up. Confusion filled his mind, the sound hadn't been some horrible weapon, but the door to the rest of the ship opening. Framed in the doorway was a small man, silhouetted by the brighter lights in the bulkhead beyond the entrance. The figure stepped in, and the young man blinked, his confusion only growing. Standing there was a Brutor, no more than five and a half feet tall and slim, his hair in dreadlocks, tied back from his face, his eyes hidden by a pair of aviator sunglasses. He was dressed, bizarrely, in a bright purple three piece suit, over a pink shirt, completed by a red bow tie. A smile formed on the young man's lips. Surely, this had to be a joke. This was just the craggy old captain playing a practical joke on them. Then, the smile faded, as two other men stepped in to flank the small intruder. They were another story entirely; huge, imposing men, dressed in black fatigues, armor strapped to their bodies, the logo '-=RANSM=-' in red and grey painted onto their chest plates. Their masked faces swiveled to assess the room, and they held black, viciously functional looking weapons in their hands.<br /><br />The strangely dressed little man ran his gaze along the rows of passengers, then spoke, a slight smirk on his face. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Raxip, and I will be your pirate for today. First, a sad announcement: You are all dead, you just haven't realized it yet." A shock jolted through the young man's body at the words. He had hoped that perhaps, he might survive. He thought maybe the man had been planning on ransoming them, but it seems he was just playing some sort of twisted game.<br /><br />"Now," the man continued, "before we proceed with your deaths, I have some business to complete." He reached into his jacket and pulled out a scrap of flimsy with something written or drawn on it. After studying it for a moment, his eyes swept up, and his gaze locked with the young man's. They both froze, the small pirate's brow furrowing, his mouth growing tense. "This isn't right," he mumbled, glancing back down. Then he took a step forward. Suddenly, a tall thin Gallente gentleman, several rows ahead of the young man, shot to his feet. He locked eyes with the diminutive Brutor, and smoothed down his extravagant white mustache.<br /><br />"See here, young man," he commanded haughtily, "You can't simply stride in here and babble on about nonsense like this. I'll have you know that I am a very powerful man in the Federation, and you would be sorry to-" As he spoke, then smaller man's eyebrows shot up over the top of his shades. Midway through the gentleman's words, the pirate nodded to the two soldiers to either side of him. They raised their weapons, and the young man's world dissolved into thunder and lightening, his eyes blinded momentarily by the flashes of the guns. The fury died in moments, and the young man blinked, his vision filled with spots. Slowly, he grew aware of warm liquid running down his face. He touched a hand to his cheek, and looked down at it, horror filling his mind with the realization that the substance was blood. His gaze flicked up, to the gentleman. The back of the man's expensive grey suit was ruined, shredded by the passage of the bullets. There was a spray of blood across the floor and on the wall. The man still stood, swaying slightly on his feet, and then he collapsed, crumpling slowly to the floor.<br /><br />The compartment was bathed in a strange tense silence, and then all hell broke loose, as the rest of the passengers panicked. The small man stood there, grinning, and looked around. Suddenly, his movements snakelike with speed, he grabbed a sidearm from the man next to him and fired it into the air. Silence once again filled the room, and the pirate spoke again. "Ladies and gentlemen, you really try my patience." He looked around, meeting each person's gaze. "Would anyone else like brighten up my day? No? Great." Suddenly, his eyes stopped on the dead man's wife, a painfully thin Gallente woman, dressed in fine cloaks and a dress that probably cost more than the ship. She was huddled in her seat, spattered with her husband's blood, shaking slightly. He stepped towards her, and she shrank back, causing him to chuckle lowly. "Don't worry, I'm not gonna hurt you." He grins crookedly, handing the gun back. "At least, not unless you make me." He leaned forward, brushing her hair away from her neck, revealing to the young man a choker necklace, of black silk. The intruder ran his hands along it, then reached around behind and unclasped it, oblivious to the woman's shaking. Raising it to the light, he suddenly smiled, turning it this way and that, the square obsidian jewel in the center glinting in the yellowish glow. Then his face hardened again, and he stuffed his spoils into his suit, and locked eyes again with the young man. The young man froze, his hands shaking slightly, trying to repress his fear, show a brave face, as the smaller man crossed the small distance between them.<br /><br />He studied the young man's face for a moment. "Durynx?" he asked, his voice cold. The young man opened his mouth to answer, but found he couldn't make a sound come out, so he merely nodded. "Got a new clone, didja? Nice young body to try to escape your age?" Confusion grew in the young man's mind. How did this pirate know who he was? What did he want? Suddenly, the intruder was right up next to him, his arm snapping out to grip his collar with an iron grasp. The small Brutor grinned predatorily, lifting the young man out of his seat, so that their eyes were level. "I'm afraid I've got some plans for you, Durynx. But on the up side, you get to live a little longer." Suddenly, and with strength surprising for his size, he threw the young man down to the blood spattered floor, his head bouncing against the metal edge of a chair as he flew. Darkness welled up to cover the young man, and as consciousness faded, he heard the man say "Cuff him, and get him to my ship. Then kill the rest, and plant the bomb."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709173733542763466.post-52519355639942588442010-11-25T20:35:00.000-08:002010-11-26T01:28:38.373-08:00Awareness<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:donotpromoteqf/> <w:lidthemeother>EN-CA</w:LidThemeOther> <w:lidthemeasian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:lidthemecomplexscript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:splitpgbreakandparamark/> <w:dontvertaligncellwithsp/> <w:dontbreakconstrainedforcedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> <w:word11kerningpairs/> <w:cachedcolbalance/> 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I could see fuzzy white shadows around me, but it took all my effort to keep them from slipping into unconsciousness. I tried to move, but it seemed like my limbs wouldn’t obey me. I lay quiet, focusing on my breathing, willing the woolen wrapping around my mind to dissipate. Gradually, my surroundings came into focus. I could see, above me, the gentle glow of white ambiance lights. Beside my bed was a machine, blinking softly with green lights. To the other side, I could see a figure moving, and pushed it into focus, revealing a woman in a white coat, her hair black and long, held back from her dark skinned face by a strip of red cloth. I tried, but her features remained a blur. She leaned down over me, speaking softly.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span lang="EN-US">“Ah. You’re awake, Mr. Criminal.” A cool hand was placed on my head. “Please, don’t try to move. You’re heavily sedated, and since we don’t know who you are, you’re also quite strongly restrained.” Her cold fingers gently pressed into the side of my neck. “Besides, we still have some work to do.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span lang="EN-US">I felt, as if from a long way away, a tiny pinprick in my throat, beside her fingers. I tried to struggle, but her other hand held my head still, and my limbs still would not obey me. I felt the darkness well up behind my eyes, and fell back into it, the white room flying upwards and far away from me. I reached out, stretching for awareness, but the walls of shadow rushed over and around me, and consciousness faded.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span lang="EN-US">I jerk awake, sitting bolt upright, my surroundings unfamiliar. I look around, hands fumbling at my sides for a weapon, but as my eyes adjust to the darkness, I relax, making out the familiar features and layouts of a Veto member apartment. 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The frigid shock makes my breath stop for a moment, and before I can recover, I splash the handful of icy liquid into my face, making my muscles contract with a jerk, a shiver rushing up and down my spine, and causing me to let out a shuddering exhalation. I stand upright, the water slowly dripping down my chin and neck, beginning to soak my black undershirt, and I reach for a towel, wiping my hands and face dry.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span lang="EN-US">The door to the bedroom is well kept, and hardly makes a noise as I inch it open, then slide in. I leave the lights dark, not wanting to disturb the occupant, a young blonde Gallentean man, sprawled on the twisted sheets of his bed. I quietly push the door closed behind me with a click, and step forward, so that I am standing over him. He is muttering something in his sleep, and his eyes are flickering rapidly under his eyelids. I let my sight adjust to the dark, then lean over a little and run my hand through his soft golden hair. He doesn’t respond at first, but then he mumbles something, and his legs twitch. I feel a grin across my face, but can’t help it. I pull the covers back over his sleeping form, then silently let myself out, and make my way back to my own apartment.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709173733542763466.post-26122446961584144312010-11-18T21:01:00.000-08:002010-11-18T21:10:29.940-08:00Climbing Down to Darkness<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:donotpromoteqf/> <w:lidthemeother>EN-CA</w:LidThemeOther> <w:lidthemeasian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:lidthemecomplexscript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:splitpgbreakandparamark/> <w:dontvertaligncellwithsp/> 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mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">The harsh actinic glare of the cutting torch cast sharp-edged shadows in the dim red-lit derelict vessel. Its ferocious heat slowly carved a circular entrance into the ceiling, and when the leading edge reached its point of origins, the now loose slab of tritanium slammed down to the floor, the clang echoing up and down it’s corridors. A black rope fell down from above, and pooled on the scuffed steel floor. Through the emptiness of the void surrounding the craft, a wave of radiation carried a voice, crackling with solar interference and compressive algorithms. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Salvage Team Alpha to Claw Shrimp Away Command, we have gained ingress to the scuttled transport. Interior is quiet, emergency lighting still on. There appears to be functioning life support, sir. Permission to make entry?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Permission Granted, Alpha. Stay frosty, this is a prisoner transport, and we don’t know what happened,” the response came back.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Roger that, Command. We’ll stay in contact.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">First one figure then another dropped down the rope. They are black-clad, armoured with slightly scratched and dented armour plates, their sensor studded helmets rotating to take in the interior of the craft.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Command, this is Alpha. We’re in. Looks quiet still form here. By your scans, we should be just aft of the cells.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">One figure patted the other on the shoulder, and the other nodded, <span style=""> </span>then they began to move down the corridor, their heavy boots softly clanking on the floor. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Command, the cell block is mostly empty; only one slot is loaded. Moving to investigate.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Roger that, Alpha. Keep us appraised.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Uh, looks like the locks on the cell are disengaged, Command. We’re going in.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The utter blackness of the room was slowly pushed back into the corners as the door swung silently open, silhouetting the intruder in the soft red glow of the emergency lighting.<span style=""> </span>His head swung from side to side, and then his hand rose to the bulbous insect-like helmet. With a sharp click, seeming overly loud in the dead quiet of the space, a bright spear of light shot from a lamp on the side of the figure’s head, throwing a brilliant circle of light on the opposite wall, and resolving the vague shadows of the chamber into the shapes of a cell, with three additional sprawled forms laid across the floor. The light flicked back and forth once, checking the corners of the room, then leaped to the figures of the floor, illuminating the lifeless forms of three men, dressed in the uniforms of the Minmatar Republic military police. Beneath them was a pool of blood, completely still, but remaining a sharp crimson.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Uh, Command, this is Alpha. We’re in the cell now, and there are no occupants, but three dead guards.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Roger that, Alpha. Keep investigating, but watch your backs. Who knows what kind of loony could be out here?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Affirmative, Command.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The dark figure stepped into the room, until he was beside the first body, lying on its side, facing away. A new figure steps up to the doorway, and walks just inside, turning to keep a watchful eye on the corridor leading to the door.<span style=""> </span>The first investigator kneels down, rolls the corpse over. The circle of his spotlight slides up the lifeless man, revealing him fully. His jacked front is a mess of blood, starting to dry slightly black, all coming from a deep wound right over the man’s heart. The light moves up, and the man’s head flops to the side as the salvager lifts him slightly off the ground, revealing the knife sticking up to the hilt in the man’s head. The man’s black gloves grasp the corpse’s chin, twist his head from side to side. On the side of the knife, the body’s eye is filled with blood, the whites gone almost burgundy.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Command, this is Alpha. First guy down with two knife wounds, and it’s pretty brutal. I’d hazard one attacker, but a real psycho.” The light glances down to the body’s belt, then the intruder puts him back down. “It happened fast, too, Command. The bastard didn’t even have time to get his gun out.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Got it, Alpha. Um, I’m giving you weapons free, from here. If you see someone and he doesn’t immediately get down on the ground when you tell him, you have the go ahead to shoot, repeat, go ahead to shoot.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Thanks, Command. Alpha out.” The intruder by the door reaches down and slides a bulky, mean looking rail-pistol from a holster, as the other moves deeper in to the second body, this one lying on the ground face up, lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">At first, other than a twisted, wrong-angled elbow, the corpse does not seem visibly hurt, but when the investigator lifts him a little off the ground and shines the light up his body, it reveals fragments of skull and bits of hair in a pool of blood below the body’s head. “Void,” the man whispers, his voice seeming lost in the room. He puts the body back down, and steps to the last one, almost sitting at the back of the cell, but slumped far over. The man squats down in front of him. “Let’s see how he did you, mate,” he mumbles to himself.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The light reveals that the late guard’s shirt is utterly drenched in blood, the spatters rising up above his chin, and also seeming to have poured from his mouth and nose. The man leans in closer, twisting his head around to bring the glare of the spot into the body’s neck. It reveals a mass of stab wounds, black and puckered around the too-white flesh.<span style=""> </span>The investigator stands up, and makes his way back to his partner. He puts a hand on their shoulder, and they reach up and pat his hand.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Okay, Command.<span style=""> </span>Second man had his head smashed open on the floor, and the last guy was nearly fucking decapitated. This looks really bad, Command.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“We don’t know, Alpha. But we can tell you that we’ve gotten a hit on our deep penetrative scans. So we know two more things now. First, looks like this thing suffered from catastrophic warp drive malfunction. It all looks normal from the outside, but half the electronics on this bucket are completely scrapped, and another quarter of the rest is simply evaporated into space.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Well, shit, Command. We’re not gonna get much for this thing, then. Means it’s basically a block of tritanium vaguely shaped like a spaceship. So, what’s the other thing?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“We’ve got a faint life-sign reading on the bridge, Alpha. Think you mind checking it out before heading home?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Roger that, Command.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">As they usually are in such craft, the bridge was extremely cramped, comprising of several stations, all brushing elbows with each other. The entrance to this particular model was a hatch in the ceiling. The locking mechanism began slowly to rotate, and then the door opened with a well-oiled hydraulic hiss. A beam of light blasted down, filling the smallish room with shadows, sharp where they touched on the main circle of light, but growing fuzzier the further they went. The inside was spattered with blood, all over the consoles, some of it even in an arc across the ceiling. The light disappeared, then a black boot fitted itself to a rung with a clunk. The other follows, and the intruder climbs down the ladder to the floor. The illuminating circle from his helmet swings about the room again, taking in the crimson sprays, then downwards to two figures lying on the ground. One is dressed in the uniform of a Republic military police ship captain, lying on his back, his uniform drenched in blood, his face white as a sheet. The light holds on him, and the vicious cut across his throat is clearly visible.<span style=""> </span>The other figure, curled beside him, is still alive, his chest slowly rising and falling with breath. He is a small man, dark-skinned, not more than six inches taller than five feet, and lean, but wiry and sculpted rather than thin. His hair is shaved off, and he is wearing the costume of a prisoner, black with thick diagonal red stripes. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Command, Alpha here. Looks like your live one is the prisoner, all curled up beside the body of the Captain.” The unconscious figure twitches slightly as the man speaks, but does not move. He continues. “Want me to continue investigations?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Please do, Alpha. Command out.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The man steps in closer, avoiding the limbs of the dead captain, and kneels down on one knee above the survivor. He puts a hand on the unconscious prisoner’s shoulder, and turns him onto his back. As he does, the prisoner’s eyes fly open, and he lunges up, his hand describing an arc towards the intruder’s throat, but he is too slow, and the bigger man jerks back, allowing the knife to trace a skittering line of sparks across his armoured chest.<span style=""> </span>Then his steel-clad elbow connects with the other man’s temple, and he slumps back to the floor, his eyes flickering close.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Void! The little fucker just tried to kill me! With a goddamn Knife!”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Uh, are you in danger, Alpha? Please say again.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Sorry Command. He was awake, and when I went to turn him over, he tried to cut my throat. Uh, negative, though. I knocked him out, he should be safe, now.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Roger that, Alpha.” A faint laugh comes over the com system, seemingly not belonging to the man addressed as Command, and then there is a faint pause. “Okay, Alpha. We’ve got orders. You are to ship the survivor to us, and do not, I repeat NOT, harm him. From Black Claw’s own mouth, Alpha.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Shit, really?” The figure clicks his mic off, and sighs, muttering a more potent curse, then turns it back on. “Affirmative, Command. We’re on our way back.”</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709173733542763466.post-85029593337439834362010-11-10T12:46:00.000-08:002010-11-10T12:48:30.583-08:00The Shining Arc<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:donotpromoteqf/> <w:lidthemeother>EN-CA</w:LidThemeOther> <w:lidthemeasian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:lidthemecomplexscript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:splitpgbreakandparamark/> <w:dontvertaligncellwithsp/> <w:dontbreakconstrainedforcedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> <w:word11kerningpairs/> <w:cachedcolbalance/> 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mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal">The room was dark, with the exception of a single bright light creating a pool of visibility in the center of the room. I felt as though I was watching from afar, but I could see my body, standing beside a rough wooden table in the centre. I tried to shout, but no sound came out. I couldn’t move. Two men appeared behind me, dressed in the uniforms of Veto Corporation Security. They grabbed my shoulders, pressed me down until my cheek was resting against the coarse wood of the table.<span style=""> </span>I still couldn’t move, couldn’t scream a warning to myself. It was like I was wrapped in molasses. A huge figure appeared in the edges of the light behind me, the gloom concealing his identity until he stepped forward into the circle. An enormous Gallente man, with spiked red hair; undoubtedly Ethan Verone, the man who leads my alliance. I can’t understand what’s happening, until my mind finally registers that the object dangling loosely from his left hand is a vicious axe, well worn with use, but with a glinting razor edge.<span style=""> </span>He extends a hand to my head, rests it there for a moment, then says “Sorry, kid, but they’re shouting for blood, and I have to give them something. Maybe next time you’ll think twice before going off half-cocked, hmm?” I try to look away, shut my eyes, anything, but can’t, as that axe rises into the air, then hangs above his head for one glimmering second, before crashing down...</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I jerk awake, my eyes flicking open, but there’s only darkness. Then, they begin to adjust, and I can make out my apartment. I pull myself into a sitting position, my body covered in a cold sweat, the sheets twisted around me.<span style=""> </span>I rub my neck, feeling a dull ache. “Lights,” I mutter, then shout as the room flares to actinic white brilliance. The glare stabs into me even through my closed eyelids, and I add “Lights, Dusk.”<span style=""> </span>I see the glare of the lights fade, and risk opening my eyes.<span style=""> </span>It’s better now, I’m bathed in a soft orange glow. I rub my forehead, wiping away the drops of cold sweat, and swing my legs over the edge of the bed. It’s early, but I may as well take a shower, and go fly something. No way I’m sleeping again.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709173733542763466.post-46872427870460592202010-10-26T21:17:00.000-07:002010-10-26T21:18:39.325-07:00The Litany Against Drama<span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 153);">I must not cause Drama. </span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 153);">Drama is the Corp-killer.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 153);">Drama is the little-death that brings Failure Cascade.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 153);">I will face my Drama.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 153);">I will permit it to pass over me and through me.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 153);">And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 153);">Where the Drama has gone there will be nothing.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 51, 153);">Only I will remain.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709173733542763466.post-10954609466201632842010-10-16T16:14:00.000-07:002010-10-16T16:20:26.718-07:00The Mistake<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:donotpromoteqf/> <w:lidthemeother>EN-CA</w:LidThemeOther> <w:lidthemeasian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:lidthemecomplexscript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:splitpgbreakandparamark/> <w:dontvertaligncellwithsp/> <w:dontbreakconstrainedforcedtables/> <w:dontvertalignintxbx/> <w:word11kerningpairs/> <w:cachedcolbalance/> </w:Compatibility> 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mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The wind whistled through the immense gate, blowing drifts of snow against the huge stone walls to each side of it<span style=""> </span>Within was the so-called Mercy’s Keep, a haven for pilots serving the Amarrian Empire, located on their home planet itself, Amarr Prime. <span style=""> </span>I sat on the bench, breathing deeply, trying to control the white hot heat of my rage. It felt like my head was bursting, I had to do something. I was going to do something. I adjusted the sleeves of my rough brown pilot’s jacket, the one that Wei had given me when I graduated. Then I slid my hand along my fore-arm, feeling the tacky rubber grip of the compact switchblade concealed in a quick-draw sheath on my arm. Its viciously designed cerarmic blade was razor sharp, I knew that much. I had sharpened it before I left. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I knew what I had to do.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">A rumble passed overhead, the sound of atmospheric engines howling a thunderous roar at the earth. I couldn’t see it, through the stinging curtain of ice crystals, but I knew what it was, an imperial issue fighter craft. I knew who it carried, and suddenly all the rage left me, leaving me with a cold empty gap in my chest.<span style=""> </span>My contact had told me that he was returning to base, that he’d contacted the woman, the one he was engaged to, the woman I loved, who lived in the immense building behind me.<span style=""> </span>He had told her he was on his way, my contact had said. I had been waiting for a while, but my patience was about to be rewarded. <span style=""> </span>For a moment, I hunched my body, wishing I was somewhere else, that it was a dream. It never worked, though, and slowly, I felt resolve harden my muscles against the world. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I stood, leaning against the blowing wind, and peered into the gloom of the swirling storm. From here, I couldn’t see anything, but I knew he was there. I felt the fingers of my right hand flex, and it was almost like an invisible force pushed me towards the path.<span style=""> </span>The cold starting numbing my limbs, but I didn’t care, I had to find the end. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I pulled the mirrored glasses from my face, tucking them into my coat. The fury of the ice made me squint my eyes, but I could see a little further. As I reached the path, I could just make out the landed craft, a bubble of the world illuminated by its landing lights. A figure climbed from the cockpit, slid onto the wing, then to the ground. I couldn’t make out details, so started walking towards him.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I reached about halfway down the path, and by this time, the identity of the man before me was clear. My heart leaped into my throat<i style="">; it was him, it was</i>.<span style=""> </span>I kept walking, but my heart was pounding in my ears, the rage somehow coming back at the sight of the man, filling my head with red, but not touching that cold center in the middle of me.<span style=""> </span>As I got closer, I nodded my head, and, trying to mask the hatred in my voice, shouted a greeting.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“Math’ra, right?”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“Yeah, that’s me,” he responded, “Do I know you?” He seemed hesitant, wary, like a wild animal. I tried to make my body language less threatening, so I wouldn’t spook him. Not yet.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“Raxip Elamp. We met the other night, at the Gate?” I keep slowly closing the distance, counting my steps, but at the mention of my name, he grew ever so slightly more still.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“Raxip?”<span style=""> </span>He speaks hesitantly, like something is bothering him. “Didn’t you run off early, or something?” Doubt and tension fill his voice; I can feel his body preparing for a burst of movement. I hold up my hands, to show I mean no harm. I tell him as much, as well, my voice firm and unwavering.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“That’s what they all say,” he quips, a half smirk on his face, but I can tell he’s less nervous, that he thinks I truly mean him no harm. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“I just want to talk, it’s all right.” He folds his arms across his chest, but the tension in his posture is gone. I readjust my sleeves, again slipping my fingers along my arm to caress the knife strapped to myself.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">His face remains in its condescending grin, taunting me. “Yeah, Morwen told me you figured it all out,” I explained. I took another step closer, shaving the distance between us down bit by bit.<span style=""> </span>I see his weight shift slightly, but he’s off his guard. I try to force myself into a grin. “Hey, don’t worry about it. I just wanted to apologize.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">He nods slowly, seeming less concerned.<span style=""> </span>“Thanks,” he says, “And it was a probably a bad way to find out.<span style=""> </span>Sorry about that.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I nod, and a chuckle escapes my lips. “Yeah, not the best way to find out the girl you love has a fiancée.”<span style=""> </span>I offer a hand to the bulky figure towering nearly a foot above my head. “Still, no hard feelings, right?”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">He chuckles a bit too, as if we’re sharing a moment of camaraderie. “Yeah, life’s a bitch.” He extends his arm, grasps my hand with his. His grip is firm, but not forceful.<span style=""> </span>“I am really sorry about it.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I slide my grip up, clasping his wrist, and pull him towards me, into a hug. He follows the motion, and I feel his hand pat me on the back, between my shoulder blades. I tilt my head up towards his ear and whisper. “Still, one thing, buddy?” I ask him.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">“Hmmm?” He responds, and I release his arm, flicking my own in a serpentine motion to release the catch on the sheath and launching the knife into the palm of my hand. “Fuck you,” I hiss into his ear, as my hand jerks up and plunges the blade of my weapon deep into his chest, between the plates of armour he wears.<span style=""> </span>He grunts into my neck, his body stiffening, then he convulses.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">Hot blood wells up around my grip, and pours over my hand, soaking my fingers with his life. I twist, then yank the knife from the wound.<span style=""> </span>I spit “Fuck you, Slaver” at him, as I jam the knife back into his body, lower this time, driving it into his stomach. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">A wild keening cry interrupts my thoughts, and my head spins sharply towards it. <i style="">She’s right there! She’s standing right there! </i><span style=""> </span>“God no! Stop! Raxip, no!” She screams, as she recognizes me. “MATH’RA!”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The man towering above me regains my attention with a cough, and I feel blood spatter my cheek. I try to pull the knife out, to turn it on her, but can’t, and look down, to realize that he is gripping my wrist with one iron-strong hand. I wrench my arm, trying to escape, but can’t, right away. I can feel him weakening, though, as his strength pours out onto the snow covered ground. “Fuck you... Too....” He spits back at me, his voice barely a rasping whisper. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">I twist my hand again, and pull myself from his grip, leaving my weapon sunk into his torso. Turning to the woman who had interrupted us, I snarl “<i style="">This is your fault, you slaver bitch.</i>” The rage is filling me up, making me want to explode through my skin. I can’t stand the sight of her; it tells me all of all the happiness and stability I’ve never known.<span style=""> </span>She cries out again, looking between us, confusion written across her face.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-size:100%;">The big man is struggling to stay upright, his body swaying, but he wraps his hand around the hilt of the knife in his gut, and with a grunt and another cough of blood, he pulls it out, causing a fresh splatter of crimson to land on the white earth.<span style=""> </span>He tries to pull me towards him with the hand still on my shoulder, while thrusting the blade towards me. I twist back, and throw my hand out, to stave away his attack. I feel a burning line draw itself up my arm, as my razor sharp weapon carves a line from the palm of my hand to my elbow. He loses his balance, and stumbles forward, and I take the opportunity to guide him into the ground between me and the girl.</span></p> <span style="font-family: arial;font-size:100%;" ><span style="line-height: 115%;">She’s shouting something to another figure fast approaching, but I can’t understand it, her voice echoing and distorting.<span style=""> </span>“Void take you,” I snarl at the fallen figure, the blood dripping from my arm mingling with his blood soaking my hand, and clutching arm to my chest, I run from the scene, shouldering my way past the man running to the rescue. I think I hear my name from behind me through the howling wind, but I don’t stop. I won’t ever stop.</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709173733542763466.post-10871889209194527842010-08-14T11:02:00.000-07:002010-08-14T11:03:39.289-07:00For Spec<a href="http://evenewb.blogspot.com/">Spec</a> is a great guy<br />Named THE LEGEND for his skill<br />Please stop quitting EveUnknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709173733542763466.post-49030920684566466692010-08-13T06:38:00.000-07:002010-08-13T06:39:36.653-07:00The RifterThe Rifter is king<br />Great mix of speed, tank, damage<br />A pirate's best toolUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709173733542763466.post-34813231268661096862010-04-07T12:24:00.000-07:002010-04-07T12:27:57.924-07:00Still AliveThis post is to let you all know that I'm not dead. I know I haven't posted anything in ages, but please bear with me. I'm actually working on a new story; it's a little different from what I've done up to now, in that I'm actually planning out what happens before I write it. Because this is my first time doing something like this, It's taking me longer than I expected to get it under control. Worry not, though, the first part of the story should be up in a month, if the gods are with me.<br /><br />Thanks for the patience, everyone. <3 you all.tUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709173733542763466.post-44018007529343230712010-01-08T06:15:00.001-08:002010-01-08T06:15:59.267-08:00Soft Red[to avoid confusion, this post is immediately following the last one chronologically]<br /><br /><br />Well, that went as well as could be expected, Raxip though to himself. He knew Coffee, though, knew he was a competent, dangerous man. If anyone could burrow through to the core of this problem, it was Coffee. Lying back on the bed, he stared up at the ceiling. There was nothing special about this particular ceiling; it was the same institution off-white of every space station he had ever visited. He wished, just for a minute that it would all stop, just come to an end. The calm flat glow of the fluorescent lighting, softly bathing the small living quarters in a miserable imitation of daylight, relaxed Raxip. He felt himself slipping into a meditative trance, his breathing and heartbeat seeming to align themselves with the gentle pulsations of the lights. Wait, he though to himself, My lights aren’t supposed to pulse. Except now, he realized it wasn’t the lights that were pulsing, but the whole world, his consciousness fading in and out of focus like waves on the beaches he dimly remembered from his childhood, an infinity of lifetimes ago. Then, the world dropped out from under him, and the darkness of absolute nothingness swaddled him.<br /><br />The darkness was fading, as my eyes adjusted to the soft red haze of the transport shuttle’s emergency lighting filtering in through the open doorway. I felt a spasm through my forearm, as my right hand, still clutching the blood-slick knife tighter than I thought possible, began to cramp. I sank away, pressing my back against the wall beside the doorway, trying not to look at the spreading pool of life draining from the corpse that used to be the guard, encroaching on my bare feet. Images kept flashing through my mind, I desperately tried to block them out, pressing my eyes shut until it hurt, cramming my knuckles against my temples until they popped. It wouldn’t work though. I kept seeing it, the wickedly sharp knife flashing across the proud woman’s exposed neck, the hot blood, steaming in the cold black caverns, staining the lilly-white robes forever, over and over, and I struggled against the men holding me back, straining my still-young arms against their hold, but I couldn’t escape, couldn’t stop it, until I could feel it burning a hot line through my consciousness, feeling her death in my own heart again and again.<br /><br />My torturous recollection was interrupted by a sound. At first, I couldn’t make it out, couldn’t understand it, but then my mind dropped back into the present, and over my gasping breath, thunderous in my own ears, I heard footsteps, coming towards my cell. I stopped breathing, stopped everything. Silently, I begged them to keep walking, to just assume everything was fine and go deal with whatever had gone so catastrophically wrong. But whatever gods that still exist deigned not to listen, and the two men stepped into the room.<br /><br />“Hey! Hrollur?” One of the guards spoke to the stifling darkness. “You there, buddy?”<br /><br />There was a pause, as he waited for a response that could never come. One beat, two. My blood was pounding so hard in my veins, I was sure they could here the violence of its passage clearly.<br /><br />“Hey?” said the other one, venturing further into the room, “Everything okay in here? Where are you?”<br /><br />Then his heavy boot landed in the growing puddle of life on the floor, and promptly flew out from under him. He twisted, hard, but didn’t manage to regain his balance, and slammed into the floor with a loud thud.<br /><br />“What the fuck?” shouted the other guard, “What happened?”<br /><br />“I fuckin’ slipped. Void, the floor, it’s covered with blood. Oh my god... Oh my god. Hrollur.”<br /><br />The relaxed stance of the remaining upright guard dropped into a crouch, his body hardening into a spring, to launch himself at what ever threat lurked. I realized I was holding my breath, had been holding for too long, and in a moment I was going to have to release the iron bands crushing my chest and suck in air, and that when I did, the men would surely hear me. My mind spun. Then suddenly, it stopped. I had to do it. I shifted the grip of my hand on the knife, feeling the already-drying blood make my fingers peel stickily from the handle, until it was in a proper hold.<br /><br />I leapt forward, slammed the blade into the standing man’s chest, deep, until I could feel the blood welling up from the wound. It washed the old blood from my hand, replacing it with new. He made a low grunt in his throat, looked down at the knife, then back up into my face, his eyes confused, asking me what was happening, screaming at my why would I do such a thing. I felt his hands close onto mine, and he pushed the long edge out of his ribs. The suction of his flesh resisted, and then pulled free. He shivered, coughed a mist of blood into my face, then seemed to regain sense, and his hand started to travel towards his sidearm. I swung my hand back, and rammed the knife as hard as I could into his temple, through his skull, twisted his head away from me. I needed to avert his eyes, stop him from looking at me. His whole body quivered, and he let out a long gurgling moan, then went limp. The weight of his body pulled down, wrenched the already slippery knife out of my grasp.<br /><br />“Poreg? What are you...” The other man, the one on the floor. I had forgotten about him, but the man I had just killed had collapsed onto his leg. He narrowed his eyes, peered into the darkness, then I saw them snap wide.<br /><br />“Oh my god! You were there! You... Oh god, Poreg! P-please, just let me go,” I realized I was already leaping upon him, before his words had even penetrated my mind. His arm snaked towards his gun, but I kicked him in the elbow, hard, and stomped down, feeling something pop. He started to open his mouth, and I dropped down on him with all my body weight, pushing the air from his lungs before he had a chance to scream. My questing fingers found his face, and I wrapped my hand around his head, gripped, and slammed it once, twice, three times, hard, into the solid tritanium bulkheads, until his desperate convulsions beneath me ceased.<br /><br />I lay there, for a moment. I needed to be somewhere else, thought back to the golden fields, until my heart stopped pounding a thousand beats. I pushed myself to my knees, dug around on the two corpses I had just made, took their knives from him, and climbed up all the way to my feet. There was a plan beginning to tickle the edges of my mind. Perhaps there was salvation, in the end. Maybe I could get out of here, start again. If I could find the escape pod, get off the vessel, maybe I could make it to the lawless edges of the empire, where an outlaw could go unnoticed, or at least unmolested.<br /><br />To start on my path to freedom, all I had to do was walk out of this pitch black blood slick slaughterhouse of a room, and reach the doorway, glowing red. I couldn’t, though. The more I tried to get close to it, the further it seemed to get, until it receded and vanished into the darkness, everything vanished into the darkness.<br /><br />The floor fell away from me, and the darkness swaddled me, until my eyes started to adjust to the soft red haze of the emergency lighting filtering in from the doorway...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709173733542763466.post-15350805446142122992009-12-09T13:58:00.000-08:002009-12-09T14:01:03.263-08:00Hot WaterThe door hissed open, and Raxip stepped into his room. It was fully morning, now, the artificial station lighting making a jaunty yellow-tinted glow across his chamber which didn’t match his mood. Rax’s face was grim, his eyes seeming unfocused, staring into the distance, past the solid bulkheads of his apartment. He stood still for a moment, as the door returned to it’s closed position, then leaned back against it. His head dropped down, and his legs folded slowly, sliding him down the wall to sit on the floor. Raxip rested his head on his knees, and breathed deeply for a few minutes.<br /><br />His composure regained, Raxip got to his feet, and glanced about. The bed was unmade, empty, the sheets half tossed to the floor. He shrugged, and went to clean up. Resting on the pillow, though was a small datachip. Raxip snorted, and scooped his ‘pad up from the small dresser. Slotting in the chip, he brought up it’s contents, and found a small text message.<br /><br /> Rax where did you go? I woke up and you were gone. You didn’t even leave me a note.<br /> If that’s the way you’re gonna treat me, I think we shouldn’t see each other anymore.<br /> -Shiaen<br /><br />Shrugging, Raxip hit the ‘wipe’ command on his pad, and tossed it on the bed.<br /><br />~<br /><br />The hot water ran over Rax’s face, and down his body, almost washing the insanity of the morning away, but not quite. For a moment he just stood there in the shower, his head bowed under the stream, but a little sound wiggled its way into his conscious, cutting through his trance. When he realized it was the high insistent beep of an incoming call from his communications gear, Raxip leapt out of the small enclosed shower and into his living area, slapping the Receive button. As the screen flickered with static while the connection stabilized, he composed his features to neutrality. The screen resolved into the image of a Sebiestor man sporting a mohawk, his features thin and seeming prematurely lined. His face looked weary, but his eyes were alight, a seed of madness resting in their depths. His eyes widened with recognition, then his mouth quirked up in a smirk as he glanced Raxip from head to toe.<br /><br />"Raxi, buddy, if I knew it was this kind of call, I wouldn’t have rushed. I’ve told you before, I’m not interested in that way,” he said, a mocking tone in his voice.<br /><br />Raxip’s brow furrowed with confusion, then realization that he had forgot to dress from his shower swept through him. He abruptly sat down on his bed, and pulled the sheets over his lap.<br /><br />“Uh, Coffee, um. No, that’s not it. I wanted to hire you for something. You can... Find people, right?”<br /><br />The Sebiestor man smiled, and steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “You’re a friend Rax, so I can look into it. But it’s still going to cost you.” His eyes widened, and he smiled broadly. “So, who am I finding, and you want him in one piece or what? Oh, and if he’s a capsuleer, it’s gonna cost extra.”<br /><br />“No, he’s no capsuleer. Actually, I don’t know exactly who he is,” Rax said, his eyes narrowing to a glare, “But his name is Durynx, and I heard he’s out there somewhere. I wanna find him.”<br /><br />“Alright, Raxip. I’ll see what I can do. I’ll get back to you when I have news.”. Coffee glanced off screen, and made a quick gesture, closing the connection.<br /><br />Raxip sat there staring at the matte grey panelling of the wall where the screen was, before sighing deeply, and flopping down backwards onto his bed.<br /><br />“It’s starting again,” he whispered to himself.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709173733542763466.post-92100622350805789942009-11-24T10:54:00.000-08:002009-11-24T10:55:46.664-08:00Sounds In The Night“I WILL LIVE!”<br /><br />The shout echoed through the spartan and sparsely decorated bedroom, grey with the first lights of the station’s artificial morning. Raxip sat up and looked about, his chest heaving with adrenaline, trying to locate the source of the cry. Eventually, though, the last hazy mists of sleep evaporated from his mind and he realized that he himself had cried out. A hand reached up from the form in the bed beside him and gripped the muscles of his upper arm, pulling him downwards.<br /><br /> “Come back to bed, love,” said the form beside him, bleary with sleep. “ It was just a nightmare”.<br /><br />Raxip twitched the offending limb off himself, though, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. It was early, a couple hours before true dawn, but he knew that the dreams would continue to haunt him if he tried to keep sleeping. They were getting worse. He got up and pulled on an undershirt and trousers, before getting up.<br /><br />“I’ll be back later,” he said, brusquely. “ Leave, or don’t. Whatever.” There was an op tomorrow, he figured he may as well get an early start making sure everything was ready.<br /><br />The inside of the hangar was cavernous, with the weaving spotlights only serving to highlight the enormous scale of the structure, built to consolidate much more massive craft than Raxip’s Rupture class cruiser, which currently inhabited it. He stopped at the computer panel beside the door, verifying that all the additional equipment he had requested had been loaded onto it by the station personnel. Everything was fine, however. Since he didn’t have any problems to pursue, and he didn’t want to risk sleep again, he decided to take a rest in his office.<br /><br />To get to the office, Raxip had to travel down a connecting corridor to the door at the very end. As he got closer to the portal, however, Raxip realized that the oppressive claustrophobic feeling of the empty, silent, vast hangar complex had lifted from his shoulders. Immediately he stopped, and pressed himself up against the wall, willing his breathing to slow, his heart to stop. Gradually, he became aware that he wasn’t alone. He could faintly hear voices, coming from the office.<br /><br />Pushing his spine hard up against the wall, he slowly slid down the hallway towards the entrance. Easing his small handgun from it’s holster in the small of his back, he opened the door several inches with glacial slowness. Crouching down low, he peered around the corner, and saw two figures, one with his back to him, talking, in his office. Raxip recognized the man facing him as one of his crewmen, his weapons officer. The other was dressed all in matte black, in the uniform of the Republic Commandos, with a full mask over his head, concealing his features.<br /><br />“I just need you to give this to him. Is that such a hard task?” The voice, a harsh buzzing growl, seemingly modified by some process, came from the man with his back to Raxip.<br /><br />“No! I told you, If it’s so important, tell him yourself. I don’t wanna get mixed up in this!” His officer seemed agitated. Just then, the man caught sight of Raxip, and just for a second his eyes widened, and flicked towards Rax’s hiding spot. He quickly smothered the reaction, but it was too late. All of a sudden, things started happening quickly.<br /><br />Raxip saw the intruder begin to spin and reach for a weapon at his side, and shouting “DOWN!” at his officer, a surge of adrenaline blasted through Raxip’s system. Time seemed to slow down, and he rose from his crouch like a sprinter from his starting blocks. Before the other man had even turned halfway into him, Rax slammed his shoulder into the man’s arm and side. Using the moment of bad balance to his advantage, he grabbed the black-clad man’s arm, twisted it up behind his back, and used his momentum and new leverage to bullrush the man the four remaining feet up against the wall of the office. The man grunted with pain, and dropped the small sidearm he had been reaching for. Raxip kicked it away. Sweeping the man’s feet out from under him, Raxip bore the man to the ground, and pinned him there with his knee, pushing the barrel of his own gun into the back of the man’s neck.<br /><br />“Let’s see who you are, then,” Raxip said, as he unbuckled the sub-vocal microphone collar holding the mask in place. <br /><br />“Shit,” the man half-rasped, as midway through the word, the voice changer was lifted from his mouth.<br /><br />When Raxip saw the tall Civire intruder’s face, however, his expression of cold fury was replaced with confusion.<br /><br />“Graham,” he said, “is that you? What the fuck are you doing breaking into my office and fucking with my crew?”<br /><br />His posture relaxed slightly, but he still kept his knee on the man’s spine, and the gun pointing unerringly towards his skull. The other man smiled, and said “It’s okay, Rax. I’m not doing anything bad.”<br /><br />“Weren’t you ordered by your commander not to communicate with me in any way ever again,” Raxip asked, with the slightest hint of a smirk at the edges of his mouth.<br /><br />The man nodded, “That’s why I did this. I was trying to convince your officer to deliver you the message, so there would be no trace back to me.”<br /><br />Raxip holstered his weapon, and stood up, releasing his weight from Graham’s back. He offered his hand to the other man. “It’s been a long time, Graham.”<br /><br />Graham clasped his old friend’s hand firmly, pulling himself to his feet and rubbing his abused shoulder. He smiled. “I know. We move in very different circles nowadays, though, Rax.”<br /><br />“We do, that. So what the hell is so important that you had to risk court-martial by the republic and getting shot by me?”<br /><br />Graham’s smile fell from his face. He put a hand on Raxip’s shoulder, and said “You’re not going to like this, Rax. It’s Durynx. I think he might have resurfaced.”Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709173733542763466.post-27705401793596960912009-10-13T17:30:00.000-07:002009-10-13T18:06:54.928-07:00Prices(This is a story I wrote. Read the post below first please.)<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The man’s body presses down on mine, constricting my movement. I lock my leg around him, and try to reverse our positions, but the floor is slick with blood, and I cannot get any purchase. He tries to reach for something in his boot, and I snap an elbow into his briefly unprotected face. His hand scrabbles against my face. I have my arms locked around his chest, but I cannot find leverage. I feel his thumb press against my left eye. I bite down on his wrist, and he shrieks.</span><br /><br />A golden sunlight field, stretching in all directions as far as he could see. There were no clouds, and the warmth poured down from the sky. He ran, as far as he could, with no cares. He did not know anything else, so he was happy. The feel of the stubbly furrows under his unshod feet, the whisper of the stalks against his outstretched arms, the heat of the sun on his face, it all meant home to him. Behind him, his family, working the land. Far in front of him, a woman, just back from market, with baskets in her hands. She is thin, with a delicate face, and sadness is visible in the lines around her eyes. She seems tired. Her clothes are simple, and flowing. She wears a collar around her neck. When she sees him, her face transforms into a beaming smile.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I slam my fist once more into his body, just under his ribcage, on his left side. He curls towards the blow, which allows me to drag my right hand from between our bodies. My left arm is numb from repeated impacts, my fingers tingling with pain. I am about to reach up and hook my hand in his face when he snaps his forehead into my nose. Pain blossoms, seeming to fill the universe, and my vision briefly goes white.</span><br /><br />A huge vaulted chamber, of yellowish stone. To his young eyes, the ceiling seems to stretch upwards, perhaps into heaven itself. There are huge stained glass windows along each wall, the light spilling through them, illuminating incredible images of serene, wise men and caring, motherly women, brightly coloured, throwing patchwork shadows across the white marble floor. As he walks, he looks in all directions. It is all so new. Halfway, the enormous icons give way to towering pillars, coated with a golden metal. Between them are hung vast tapestries, each one easily the size of his childhood home. At the end of the cavernous chamber, almost dwarfed by the scale of it all, is a chair, simple, hand-carved from wood. He recognizes it, they told him once that his father had made it. In the chair sits a young man, confident, draped with silks and golden decoration, self-consciously toying with a simple silver band on his left middle finger. He looks at the boy, and his mother, and smiles. The boy knows that things will be different.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">My mind clears. His forearm is pressing down against my throat, slowly choking me, while he digs his gloved fingers into my left wrist, preventing me from striking him. I cough, and spit blood onto his cheek. I feel a crackle in the joint, but the pain doesn’t make it through the haze of adrenaline. The weight on my neck seems infinite, though, and my vision begins to be encroached by a grey tunnel.</span><br /><br />A shadowed vault, made from roughly hewn blocks. Simple wood shelves cover the walls. They are filled with books. He had never even seen one book before. He didn’t even know what they were for. In the centre, lit by a flickering lantern, is a desk, strewn with scrolls, tomes, and old, tattered pages. Hunched over it, a man, ancient looking, with a long flowing beard, and dressed in the simple garb of a hermit or a monk. He adjusts a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. He remembered, there was a bright red mark on the bridge of the old man’s nose, as if the adjustment was a nervous habit or a tick. He shuffles some parchments, then unrolls a scroll. He gestures at it to someone behind the boy. He turns, and behind him is the woman, and the confident young lord. The lord looks shaken and frightened, his face white. The woman’s eyes suddenly catch his, and his is filled with a feeling. “<span style="font-style: italic;">I love you. I will always love you.</span>” The old man shakes his head, and a hand falls on the back of the boy’s neck, pushing his collar into his shoulders. He shouts something, a protest, a prayer, he can’t remember.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I can’t breath. I can’t see. I am about to give up, and go the rest of the way quietly. Suddenly, my grasping fingers settle on a handle. I explore it further. He had a small knife hidden on his back! I wrap my hand around it, and jerk it from it’s sheath. He feels the sudden tug, and the pressure on my breath is momentarily reduced as he twists about to see what is happening.</span><br /><br />A small room, made from perfectly fitted blocks of smooth black stone. There are no windows, or decorations at all. Beside the simple steel door, the only interruption is a raised dias. Standing at the stage is the confident young lord. This time, his robes are red, and the ring, set with a large ruby, into which is carved a sigil. He struggles against the ties about his wrists and ankles, but they are too strong for his young limbs. The woman is lead onto the dias. She is dressed in gorgeous white linen robes, and wears a veil over her eyes. She seems limp, docile, like the drugged fowl he used to slaughter for the great feasts. His eyes fill with tears, but he shakes his head. He will not cry. <span style="font-style: italic;">He will not cry!</span> His mother is lain across the altar, and the noble is handed a wicked knife. <span style="font-style: italic;">I WILL NOT CRY.<span style="font-weight: bold;"> I WILL LIVE!</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The short blade of the knife disappears into his throat. We both stop. He looks at me incredulously, as though he doesn’t really believe what just happened. Red wells up around the sharpened spar of steel jutting from the half-shaven flesh of his neck. I pull the weapon out, and hot red blood sprays onto my face. He gurgles, tries to say something, but can’t. I plunge the knife into him again, and again. I will live.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709173733542763466.post-17803746963917408162009-10-13T17:27:00.000-07:002009-10-13T17:52:54.897-07:00And now for something...Completely different. As anyone who used to follow this blog knows, I've kinda stopped posting. This is because I found that I had run out of things to write about in the narrow confines of the format I made for myself. Rather than repeat myself, endlessly, I just stopped. But I've been working on backstory and such for Raxip as a character, and I've written a little story. It's intentionally a little mysterious. Maybe I'll fill you all in later, maybe I won't =P. And keep in mind, this is my first real foray into writing actual fiction, so comments are in fact encouraged, to shore up the tatters of my fragile abused ego.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709173733542763466.post-57362403459840280102009-06-06T12:11:00.000-07:002009-06-06T12:14:22.347-07:00RebuttalAs my Rifter’s computers began their full reboot, recovering from the confusion of jump gate travel, I took stock of the situation so far today. I’d spent the afternoon wandering through my usual haunts in Molden Heath, but absolutely nothing interesting had happened. I suppose everyone has days like this. It had been the same for much of the time yesterday, with one small exception. Normally the system of Half is outside my usual flight path, but yesterday I had decided to take a look around and see what I found. The area is dominated by a gang of do-gooders who go by the name of the “Shadows of Light” alliance, but I knew that most of them would be no match for a hardened warrior such as me. Sure enough, mere minutes after I entered system, I managed to blow another Rifter pilot out of space, under the bumbling gaze of a local defence force made up of several cruisers and a battleship. The kill itself was unimpressive, my foe having fit his craft to combat non-pod pilots, but the circumstances were what made it worth it. Today, however, the system seemed empty. Only a few pilots in the local comms, most likely docked up doing what ever it is white-hats do in their spare time. Still, it never hurts to check. I took a quick spin about the asteroid belts, hoping to find a straggler, but no such luck. I punched in the co-ordinates of the gate to Istotard, and hit warp.<br /><br />As I landed on the gate, I sighed. Some days you get no luck. I had my hand on the command to hail the gate crew for immediate transport, but before I got the chance to finish my action, I saw the characteristic flash of light which indicates that someone has just been transported into system. I decided to give this place one more chance, and I brought up the local comms, checking for the new arrival. There was, of course, one, a pilot who went by the name of <a href="http://moduleactive.blogspot.com/">Vasavia</a>. I knew her, having had an encounter with her about a week ago. She’d won, but I was pretty certain it was a fluke, myself having had a little too much to drink that night. Not that she was a bad pilot, I was just convinced I was better, as I almost always am. She was Shadows of Light, but unlike the rest of her organization, she seemed to actually have a pair of ovaries. This was good. She was holding her gate cloak, so I punched in a warp to a nearby asteroid belt, hoping she would get the hint and follow.<br /><br />It wasn’t more than a few moments before I saw a Rifter appear on my long range sensors, and even less time before my sensors pinged, telling me that a vessel had just exited warp less than 3 klicks from mine. I quickly shouted orders to my crew, settling myself into an orbit approximately 5 kilometres from my foe, and painting her craft with my LADAR targeting suite. I activated my suite of combat modules, and disengaged the thermal safeties of my autocannons, pushing them past the manufacturer’s specifications. She responded in kind, and the fight was on. Swiftly, streams of nuclear death filled the space between our ships. I could tell she was using the standard cookie cutter setup for her craft, but mine was a little different, as I had filled the space normally containing a rocket launch system with an energy vampire, in order to steal my foes’ capacitor to run my modules for longer. This had been much more popular a few years back, before legal issues surrounding the patents forced manufacturers to limit the operation of the NOS modules, but they hadn’t been completely neutered. I knew that the added punch of the launcher would give her the advantage in sheer firepower, but if I held range, I could force the fight into distances where the inherent instability of the ammunition we fired would reduce the damage. This would allow me to capitalise on the greater staying power my nosferatu had given me.<br /><br />Very rapidly, the multiple continuous detonations erupting about her craft overloaded the fragile shield projectors, and my cannons began to bite into the armour of her tough little craft. Almost simultaneously, however, an insistent warning light on my heads up display warned me of total system failure in my own shields, and my Rifter started to shake and lurch with the force of the Morphite explosives impacting my own hull. I activated my nanite repair modules, and watched the digital readout as the tiny robots clawed their way through my ship, converging at impact points to replace blackened craters with smooth tungsten. The repair systems were helping, but I wasn’t sure it would be enough. My sensors were telling me that although my weapons were in peak condition and my targeting systems were ably compensating for the contortions my helmsman and hers were putting our nimble frigates through, she was very good. This was going to be a very close fight, and I wasn’t certain of the victor if things continued as they were.<br /><br />As my armour diagnostics reported 50% armour integrity, I knew I had only one more option available to me. I brought up the computer brains controlling my repair systems, and disengaged the safeties governing their operation. There was a certain amount of danger in doing this, as the increased speed and force of the nanites could damage and eventually even destroy my various protective measures, but for short times, the benefits outweighed the possible drawbacks, and repairs would still be much less expensive than replacing my craft.<br /><br />The difference was very apparent. Almost immediately, my diagnostics systems reported that the damage incoming on my ship was nearly balanced out by the increased efficiency of my glowing green helpers. On the other hand, my opponent seemed not to be aware of this kind of modification, as her armour integrity dropped lower and lower, until my rounds finally began to blast hard radiation and concussive force into her very interior. She had set her systems up well, with protective internal force fields and redundancies, but it was no match for the fury of the 150mm cannon shells riding my LADAR guidance directly into the gaps in her defences, and Vasavia’s tough little <a href="http://evebroadside.griefwatch.net/index.php?p=details&kill=252">Rifter quickly evaporated around her</a>. It was an excellent test of my abilities as a warrior, however, and kudos to her for a fabulous duel, but to the victor goes the spoils.<br /><br />I gathered up what undamaged equipment I could get from her wreck, and sent my craft to a safe spot to await the end of my global criminal countdown timer. It was always nice to find fresh blood flying in my home of Molden Heath, especially in a capsuleer as skilled as Vasavia seemed. I expected great things from her.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709173733542763466.post-52121222004528563832009-05-07T17:10:00.000-07:002009-05-07T17:12:56.387-07:00I'd like to thank the Academy...In case you didn't already see it, I've been added to KrazyKinux's Eve Blogroll! This is very exciting, I now feel validated as a blogger. In all seriousness, though, thanks so much. I guess I'll actually have to start posting again, though, huh.<br /><br />Oh, and a shout out from one Canadian Eve player to another! Thanks again.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709173733542763466.post-46955844048626167432009-04-09T06:05:00.000-07:002009-04-09T06:08:17.045-07:00Gods of ThunderI looked about at the now very familiar vista of the Bosena system surrounding my ship. There had been a lot of activity in here earlier, so I Had been forced to stay low, but I was hoping to catch a straggler or two now that things had calmed down a little. I called a sensor report up to my main view screen, and checked my surroundings. According to my scanner, somewhere nearby there was three ships. First, a Hurricane class Battlecruiser, probably too much for my Rifter. Second, a Raven class Caldari Battleship, favoured by the dogs of the empire for killing non-pod pilots, probably deep in space running a mission. Finally, a Taranis class Interceptor. The Taranis is one of the few frigate-sized ships I’m not 100% comfortable engaging in my Rifter. Not only is it faster than my Rifter when fitted with afterburners, but it can also fit an appreciable amount of armour plating, and the Blasters it normally mounted were quite capable of pulverizing my Rifter into shreds of vapour at close range. Still, I knew that despite my poor record against them up to this point, which I believe was 0-4, I had a chance. If he fit a microwarp drive, I could easily use my afterburners to keep him at arms length where the rapid loss of shot cohesion would render his Blasters useless.<br /><br />I began scanning all the known Celestials near the safe spot I was sitting at, and found him at the Stargate leading to Teonusude. I sighed, guessing that as usual, by the time I arrived, he would already be long gone, but engaged my warp drives anyway. Sometimes you get lucky. To my surprise, when my craft shot from the warp, he was in fact still inside the window of my mid-range sensors. I looked around and found him, sitting 40 km away, looting a wreck or some sort. After a second, he finished with it, and began to burn at high speed towards another. A burst of laughter slipped from me, his speed was much too great to be based on an afterburner. I might actually have a chance. I book marked the wreck he was aiming at, and dropped my ship into warp towards the nearby planet, while setting my navigation computer to automate an orbit at four and a half klicks, which should be more than enough to muffle the fury of his guns, while allowing mine to still apply enough damage to him to give me a chance at victory. The moment I arrived, I slammed the warp button again, directing me to the marked wreck.<br /><br />As the space bubble collapsed from around my ship, allowing my sensors a look at my environment, it became clear that I had timed this perfectly. He was just arriving at the wreck, and I ordered my tactical officer to engage a targeting lock on my foe. I could not shoot him first, since that would Instigate the Empire defence sentries to make short work of my ship, but I knew that interceptor pilots are often cocky to the point of foolishness, and seeing a juicy T1 frigate piloted by an outlaw under his guns, he wouldn’t hesitate. I was right, and he locked me back and almost instantly opened up with all of his systems. I returned the favour, and the fight was on.<br /><br />I knew that my greater speed due to my AB would let me prevail in the end, but he managed to fly into point-blank range in the opening moments of the engagement, and his stasis web was interfering with my engines, making my retreat to safer ranges a slow and terrifying experience. My guns were spraying fire into his shields, but in only two volleys, his powerful blasters filled with antimatter ammunition turned my unprotected defence field projectors into so much overheated slag smeared across the tungsten plates of my armour. His guns began to eat into my plates, and I knew that I probably could not stand up to this in the time it would take me to gain range. He had also released a pair of second generation Hobgoblin light scout drones, and while they were nothing as terrifying as the Minmatar Warrior class drone to a frigate pilot, they were adding their own appreciable fire to the torrent already splashing across my ship. My repair nanites were mitigating the damage to a certain extent, but they just couldn’t quite seem to keep up. This was the time to pull out my ace in the hole, and try something I’d never done before. I sent orders to my engineering crew to increase the power input to the repair systems, to about 125 percent. I knew I couldn’t keep this up for long, as the massive heat being built up in my systems would eventually shut down my modules, but I knew I if I could just weather the fire for a few more moments, I would be safe. Just as my armour integrity crept towards 0 and the fire started eating slowly into my well-protected hull, the Interceptor’s damage abruptly dropped out. Once I had settled into a comfortable orbit, already having stripped my foe of his shields, I ordered to also overload my guns, and the nuclear fire of my cannons bit deeply into his armour, vaporising large chunks with every volley. Molten steel began to bubble up through channels in his plates, carried by his own repair systems, but the screaming fury of my abused and overloaded autocannons was ripping his vessel apart far faster than it’s ability to heal, and at that point, the fight was quickly over, with the relatively light bulwarks of his nimble ship evaporating into a cloud of <a href="http://dec-x.evewarzone.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=70">expanding gasses</a>. I don’t think I’ll be in a hurry to engage further Taranises, seeing as how incredibly tough they are for their size, but it’s nice to finally be able to put a tick in the win column.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709173733542763466.post-66784269453620901362009-03-17T15:35:00.000-07:002009-03-17T16:02:33.215-07:00I Guess They Were FrenchAs the gate bubble around my ship dissolves, I punch in the coordinates that will send my ship through the warp to the assistance of my CEO, Ozkar, and I shudder into maximum warp. As I decelerate into the asteroid belt, my sensors sweep about and tell me who I’m sharing it with. The first thing I see is floating wreckage, and a moment of frustration passes through me, but then I see Oz and his Jaguar sitting calmly right beside the blasted shell of a Hulk class mining Barge. We scoop what loot we can together, and as we warp to a safe spot to wait out his criminal flag, I ask him what exactly happened, and why he didn’t wait. He explained that moments after he engaged the Hulk, a squadron of Fighter craft from a nearby allied carrier had appeared from warp, so he had finished the hulk quickly and prepared to flee. However, once the Hulk they were protecting was dead, they didn’t seem interested in revenge, and simply left. But that wasn’t the strangest thing about the fight. It appears that the Hulk pilot had fitted <a href="http://dec-x.evewarzone.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=604">powerful warp stabilizers on his craft</a>, preventing Oz’s propulsion jamming from operation, but the pilot still did not warp out and died in his ship. <br /><br />As we sit in the safespot, laughing about this, I notice the local comms channel demanding attention. I check, and see the pilot we just attacked and his friends saying some very rude things in local, but in Gallentean, I suppose in the hopes that we wouldn’t know what they were saying. Luckily for us, I speak fluent Gallentean after my year as a refugee on one of their planets, and translate for my CEO.<br /><br />As we banter back and forth, my long range scanners start picking up a small signature nearby, and my technician quickly resolves it down to a Caldari Hawk-class Assault Frigate, probably flown by one of the pilots we just offended with our attack. Oz and I take a moment to confer, and we decide that I will hunt this ship in the asteroid belts and lock it down so that Oz’s much more powerful Jaguar can come and kill it. I engage my warp drives, and fly to the third belt, where I saw the Hawk last, but when I exit warp he is nowhere to be found. As I begin scanning down each belt in turn, I load the powerful but extremely short range EMP ammunition into my guns. It may not have the extended reach of the rocket assisted multi-warhead Barrage rounds I usually load, but the devastating lightening bolt of energy it releases upon impact will cut through the Caldari’s foolish preference towards shields like nothing else.<br /><br />Finally, I get a solid sensor reading at a belt, and my warp drive hurtles me to his location. I exit the warp no more than 3 klicks from the other ship, and targeting systems stab out from both craft. As my computer feeds me the clean tone of a good lock, the brackets about my enemy suddenly flash from yellow to red, indicating that not only has he locked me as well, he has also aggressed me in the eyes of Concord. Both of our combat systems activate, and I punch in an orbit at five hundred metres from him. For the first few seconds he seems faster than my Rifter, which is very strange, but once I activate my advanced afterburner systems, my ship gains substantial advantage and I leap to once again close the range between us. Once settled into a comfortable orbit, I signal to my backup, and engage my autocannons. I don’t expect to be able to break through his powerful defensive systems by myself, because if there is one thing the Caldari know how to do, it is build shields for their ships, and for it’s size, the Hawk will have some of the most powerful. To my surprise, however, the blinding blue flashes of artificial lightening created by my shells are stabbing deep into him, and a glance at my deep sensor readout, showing his probable defensive integrity, reveals that my guns are rapidly peeling layer upon layer of his defences away with ease.<br /><br />As I notice this, however, my CEO’s craft bursts from the warp onto the scene. I send him a message asking to wait, because I want to see how much of this my little craft is capable of on its own. By the time I’m finished with my comms, there is a crackle of energy from the other ship and the rest of his shield relays and projectors evaporate into space, overheated by the strain of sustaining power while my guns shattered them. I think to myself that perhaps this is some strange experimental Hawk with heavy armour plating, but the armour seems to fall just as fast as his shield, if not faster. Before the enemy craft falls completely, I tell Oz to fire a shot into his structure to so that concord will include him on the mail. After all, we are a team. Very quickly it is all over, and the Hawk, under the fury of two sets of powerful cannons <a href="http://dec-x.evewarzone.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=605">explodes into a ball of nuclear light</a>, causing my view screen to darken momentarily.<br /><br />We warp away together back to our safe spot, and look at the kill mail sent by Concord, and a shock awaits us. The Hawk had been fitted with incredibly expensive modules made by the Angels and Serpentis corporation, worth something over one hundred million isk in total. We immediately leap back towards the belt where we got the kill, and the wreck is still there. Wonderfully, when we examine it, we find that half of the equipment was not destroyed in the blast, and we scoop it up. And who says crime doesn’t pay?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709173733542763466.post-36054509037641137072009-03-07T06:28:00.000-08:002009-03-08T07:50:18.327-07:00Close, But No CigarMy ship burst from warp to the asteroid belt, and a quick glance at my sensor readout showed that the other Rifter was still there, only 5 klicks from my own. Immediately, the microwave lasers of my targeting systems stab out and painted my target with the glow of an active sensor lock, enabling my tracking computer to guide my guns to their target. I kick my combat modules into activation and as blue waves of energy fly from my craft to interfere with his drives, my own engines scream into the red with the force of my advanced afterburners. I settle into a comfortable 4 klick orbit around my opponent, far enough out that his earlier-model weaponry has difficulty reaching my ship. The whirring of my Autocannons cycling into life is almost impossible to hear over the roar of my drives, but the thunder of their battle cry cuts through all other lesser sounds.<br /><br />My Rifter, the <span style="font-style: italic;">Baying of the Hounds</span>, will have little trouble with this lesser foe. His shielding has already evaporated under the fury of my ACs, and I bite deep into his unresisting armour. His own firepower is barely managing to land a few paltry scores into the tungsten plates surrounding my craft, but what little harm they do is mitigated by the roiling green nanobot soup flowing from reservoirs and knitting new plating atop the damage. Just as the nuclear fire of my own weaponry begins to cut through his plating and stab into the bulkheads and systems of his ship, I see a new foe on my scan. It is a Rupture class Cruiser, one of the most deadly cruisers I would ever have the misfortune of facing. Worse, it is piloted by a Capsuleer of the same corporation as my first target. The Rupture is still 40 klicks from the fight, and I am certain that I can dispatch my first target before it comes within range of the electronic warfare systems necessary to catch and hold my craft.<br /><br />I cross my fingers within the bubbling green goo of my pod, and as my heart thunders in my chest, the thunder of my cannons continues to shred my enemy. I find my self counting down the range to Actylla’s Rupture. If it gets within 24km, the of the advanced warp disruptors his ship probably fits, it is all over for my craft. Though my original enemy poses little threat to me, my capacitor is already sorely taxed from running full combat systems for the duration of this fight, and the nearly full flight of Warrior II drones The Cruiser has already released from his ship can easily rip my ship into vapour and floating shrapnel. As my count reaches 25km, the pounding of my heart seems to drown out everything else. A warhead launched from my 150mm Autocannons finds a gap in the other Rifter’s already melted and torn armour, flying true into the centre of his warp drive. The resulting detonation turns his ship into nothing but <a href="http://http//dec-x.evewarzone.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=653">an expanding cloud of gasses</a>.<br /><br />Just as the Rupture’s drones speed out to make mincemeat of me, I lurch towards the course already set into my navigation computers, my warp drive shrieking as I exit to freedom. I breathe out, realizing I had been holding my breath, and allow myself a smile of satisfaction. Next time perhaps Actylla will remember to align his ship to his bait instead of the celestial body it is located at. However, this time the day is mine.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709173733542763466.post-23227089054978081662009-03-05T19:46:00.000-08:002009-03-05T20:23:21.588-08:00Eve + Flu = Dead ShipsHey there gentle readers! Or what is left of you after my taking a week's holiday after only 2 posts. Heh. Heh. Anyway. Today, I have a bit of wisdom for you, gathered from my day's eveings. Mainly, I fly Rifters, and though I tend to have a rather suicidal aggression in my piloting practices, I've gotten relatively good at getting my ships out of sticky situations. When I first started piloting, I would lose a ship more or less every time I took one into combat. Nowadays, I'd reduce that to about 1 in four or less depending on the day. I've even gotten good, or lucky, at escaping from situations which really should kill me without a bit of effort, as you will all see in a relatively minor instance in my next actual post (Yes Raxip fans, I do in fact have one on the burner as I type this, but it needs a <span style="font-style: italic;">little</span> more work). Anyway, today has seen a massive exception to the growing trend. Today I have lost three Rifters, gotten no kills, and gotten in fact into no fights. That's right, one from gate sentries, and two from concordokken, one of which was when I jumped into a 0.6 system with a GCC. Go ahead, laugh. I dare you. Jerks. The lesson to be learned from this is never play EvE with a fever so high you can't stand up without black spots encroaching on your vision and the room gently twisting counter-clockwise. Yes, I should've just stayed in bed.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709173733542763466.post-41719294965451051152009-02-27T14:10:00.000-08:002009-02-27T14:12:59.266-08:00My Ship Is Not The HammerOnce again I find myself sitting in the Bosena system, absorbing the beauty. However, this time my interest is not directed towards the system itself. Instead, the lenses of the drone which acts as my eyes in space are focussed towards my new ship. She’s called the Broken Nose, a Maller class Cruiser, made by the Amarrian Empire. Honestly I wouldn’t care if she was made by Jamyl herself; the Broken Nose is mine now. I sit at the lagrange point, panning about and admiring the clean lines of the heaviest armour in the class, broken only by the jutting turrets of the five 200mm autocannons.<br /><br />Moments later, my scanner pings, and I glance away to see the signature of a Minmatar Wolf assault frigate. I’ve flown those before, I know exactly how dangerous they are. I am, however, confident in my belief that I am more dangerous than this intruder, but still I broadcast orders to my crew to go to full combat readiness. I narrow him down to a belt, but since I’m supposed to be playing the part of a simple lower class pilot not prepared for duels against other immortal ship-gods, I decide to wait and let him come to me. I sit patiently, checking my scanner so that I’d know if he decided to leave, but he seems stationary. Alright, I think to myself, if you want to make me come, I’ll comply. I set in a course for the asteroid point he seems to be lurking at, and activate my warp drive. It is a sharp contrast to the drive of my ramshackle Rifters: instead of screams reverberating and shaking the entire ship, this brute simply purrs and rumbles, all the vibration of the massive drives absorbed by my still more massive armour plating.<br /><br />However, just as my ship is about to pierce Einsteinian limits and hurl itself towards the point in space, I see on my displays the bracket and icon of a new ship flying into the point I’m sitting at. A Wolf class assault frigate. Damn, should’ve been patient. It’s too late to cancel warp, but in the brief second I see him, I notice that the white brackets around his ship in my HUD are filled with a blinking red overlay, symbolizing that Concord, in it’s infinite wisdom, has decided that this Capsuleer has done enough damage to peace and stability to warrant open season on the ships he flies. Not only will the sentry gunners at gates and turrets not engage me if I decide to attack him nearby, but Concord will not penalize me for destroying his ship around his pod.<br /><br />The moment I arrive at the place I first saw the Wolf on my scanner, I snap out orders to reverse direction and spin up the warp drive as fast as my engineers humanly can, so that I can fly back to my origin. The Wolf is still there, fourteen klicks off my bow. I order my sensor tech to get a lock on his ship, while laying in a course to orbit him as close as I can, and send out a ping on my corporation comm channel. The instant the intermittent blips of the targeting software turn to the clear tone of a solid lock, I slam my fists on the activators for my guns and my propulsion jamming suite. As we both approach each other under one kilometre, struggling for a position of advantage on the other, his guns find their range, and my shields, which are only an afterthought on this ship, fade instantly to the barrages of nuclear fire spitting from his craft. Moments later, my own cannons, slightly at odds with the software of my craft which was not designed to compute firing solutions for such unwieldy weapons as projectiles, spew their solution into the turrets’ trackers. My own hail of ammunition, perhaps not as accurate but certainly greater in volume, slam into his ship, rocking it, melting his shield projectors to drifting vapour. He begins to dig into my armour, but my massive bulwarks of tungsten, layered with energized nanite webs, absorb it like so much space dust. The lines of my fire begin to trace back and forth across his now-unshielded craft, and I see that even as the stitching paths of hell run across his ship, green mist bubbles from the depths of his hull and reform the twisted scraps into clean and shining plates.<br /><br />I engage my frigate-sized capacitor neutralizer, but even with it’s help, he’s holding up marvellously. Slowly but surely the monstrous output of his guns are chewing precise well grouped holes into my armour. To make matters worse, an opportunistic captain of an Angels faction cruiser has decided to add his pitiful firepower to the mix. Luckily, my comms ping from earlier has finally been answered, and the two new members of my organization exit warp and engage the Wolf. Under the firepower of myself, another Wolf, and a Rifter, <a href="http://dec-x.evewarzone.com/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=596">my opponent quickly melts</a>. I let his pod go while I chase down the impetuous Angels captain, and punish him for his impudence, permanently.<br /><br />The fight over, I retire to a prepared safe spot, and check my comms for any chatter I need to respond to. I see that the pilot whose frigate I just tore apart around him has said “Good fight” in local. I respond in kind, and he mentions that he in fact suspected it was a trap, but engaged anyway. I laugh, but inside I’m smiling grimly. That’s exactly why I won.<br /><br />Then I see the best news of all in a local pirate’s channel. Before I tell you, first, some back story. When I first came to be a black hat in the realm of New Eden, I met a great man by the name of <a href="http://evebroadside.blogspot.com/">Sard Caid</a>. Not only did he teach me all I know about combat and hunting as a Capsuleer, he was also a good friend and a deadly wingman and commander. Of late, however, he has been inflicted with a strange glitch in his pod interface implants, meaning that occasionally without warning, while piloting his ship, he suddenly falls unconscious. This of course has meant that he has been able to in combat safely. However, with the help of a man in my corporation, who was a cybernetics expert before he became a killer, his problem has been fixed.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1709173733542763466.post-84616466241200722262009-02-25T10:07:00.000-08:002009-02-26T13:54:44.591-08:00Everything Begins SomewhereThere is no sound more relaxing than that of an idle ship at your command. It all blends into a gentle massage, the thrum of the superconducting capacitors, the soft whir of the autocannon barrels in standby, the calming buzz of the engines at neutral power. I sat in my half opened pod, enjoying the sounds, and the red-orange mists of Bosena glowing up from the monitors. I'd had a busy day, this was exactly what I needed. Until, of course, the insistent bleep of the ship's long-range scanner alarm shatters the calm of my mind.<br /><br />I sigh and close the pod around me, then bring up the scan interface, and quickly manage to localize the source of Aura's panic to one of the lagrange points surrounding the planet where asteroids tend to collect. It's a Thorax class Cruiser. Gallente manufacture, and when it comes to ship design, the Gallente don't mess about. I consider for a moment. After all, my Rifter class Tissue Fang is tough, but it's only a frigate, and the Thorax is one of the top tier combat ships in it's class. My indecision lasts very little time, however. I am, after all, an immortal Capsuleer. I shout orders to my crew, and as my ship aligns to the point in space where the cruiser was, the warp drive screams it's fury to space and hurls my tiny craft into speeds greater than anything even imaginable in the human psyche.<br /><br />As my ship decelerates into the asteroid point, I pan my drone about and take my bearings. At first I think I am too late, when I spot nothing but rocks and a single wreck. But on second glance, I notice my overview claiming that there is a thorax only 30 km from me, and then I see it seemingly hiding behind the wreck. I engage my engines and order my helmsman to set course straight for the enemy vessel, planning to start manoeuvring to avoid his guns when he's locked me and getting as much closing as I can before. I'm surprised, though, when I manage to get within 8km of him before he even locks be, but once I set in an orbit a klick away from him and engage my various combat systems, he deigns to open up on me with his blasters. At that point, though, my rack of 150mm autocannons are already spitting tiny nuclear death at him, and I can see the bright flashes as his shield relays and projectors fail one after the other, until with a bright flash they disintegrate altogether and the brilliant sprays of metal and fission from my guns being to impact on his armour. However, by this time he's also managed to blast through my unguarded shield, so I spring the surprise I kept up my sleeve on him. I direct my crew to begin draining his capacitor with my newly fitted NOS, and activate the nanite repair pumps to patch the chips he's flaking off of my armour plating. Things are going well, and my cannons are steadily walking across the thick plates of his armour towards his relatively unguarded warp drive when I see a secondary proximity alarm. A Jaguar class Assault Frigate and another Thorax, both belonging to the same corporation as the first. Things are, of course, over very quickly, and as my pod is blasted out of the wreckage of the Tissue Fang, I lament that I didn't have those extra few seconds I would have needed to bring that thorax down before his gangmates showed up. Perhaps next time. Well, I suppose it was a glorious death for my crew. Time to start interviews for a new one, I guess. Sometimes it's tough being an immortal.<br /><br /><br />------------<br /><br /><br />Hi. My name's Raxip Elamp, but you can call me Rax. Everyone does, after all. This is my blog about EvE online, and it'll probably drift between In character and out of character posts. I haven't really made up my mind yet, heh. In EvE, I guess I could be best described as a pirate, but I've also been known to dabble in other elements of PvP such as Highsec Wardecs. I've been Doing PvP solidly for about three or four months now, so I wouldn't exactly call myself a newbie anymore, but I'm by no means a vet.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4