Encapsulated

[Vladimir_Korff]

The Seven’s Brothel

Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Tsuguwa system – Planet VI
Caldari Navy Assembly Plant Station

26 January YC 127

“Good morning, Ms Voiras,” I said, walking into Level 2 agent’s office, “I was getting bored and thought that maybe you could provide some entertainment in a form of a security mission to me.”

Ozanero raised her eyes from the datapad and for a moment something like disappointment flickered on her face. The expression was gone in a heartbeat and was replaced with professional friendliness.

“Good morning, Mr Korff,” replied the agent, “let me check my backlog.”

She tapped the datapad a few times and stared at it for a few seconds as if it offended her. Then she swiped the screen with a nervous gesture and glared at it some more. That continued for a couple of minutes after which Ozanero irritably moved the datapad aside and mumbled under her breath, “To hell with politics. I’ve got job to do.”

“Pardon?” I raised my eyebrows quizzically.

“Sorry, it’s nothing,” the agent said with a sigh of resignation and looked me in the eye, “Mr Korff, I gather that you are familiar with a gang called The Seven.”

Ozanero made a pause but it was clear that it was a statement rather than a question.

I nodded, “So it was you who took the investigation from Purkkoken.”

Again, a statement.

“Yes, it was transferred to me,” confirmed Ozanero, “as the complexity of the case exceeded the parameters of Level 1 missions and… for other reasons.”

I wanted to ask her if they were the same reasons for which I was taken off the case, but I didn’t want to betray Purkkoken’s trust for it would be immediately clear who gave me the inside information. Anyway, I was curious why she mentioned The Seven.

The agent continued, “We have recently discovered that the gang set up an illegal brothel in Ekura system. Although it was created for generating profit, the bandits themselves are not averse to such…” she pursed her lips, “entertainment. We have reasons to believe that their leader, Kruul, will visit the brothel today. I need you to go there and eliminate him.”

“What? In the brothel?”

“If needed, with the brothel,” corrected the agent.

I looked at her in disbelief, “You know that those thugs are slavers. I bet you any money that the girls working there are not willing collaborators, but were trafficked there as sex slaves. Do you want me to knowingly attack the civilians who are victims of that gang?”

A certain hardness appeared in Ozanero Voiras’s eyes which I never observed in Purkkoken’s.

“Mr Korff,” she said coldly, “the objective of this mission is to kill the gang leader Kruul. I don’t care how you achieve it, but I don’t give you a squad of marines to smoke him out of the brothel. Within that deadspace pocket you are authorised to take any necessary steps to complete your assignment. All I require from you is bring me a sample of Kruul’s DNA as evidence of his elimination. Do you accept the mission?”

So that’s how they play at Level 2, I thought sadly. I wasn’t going to destroy the brothel even if it meant a loss of the mission reward. The more disturbing thought was that I could let Kruul off the hook if I accepted the mission. Was it better to wash my hands and simply let another pilot, with no qualms, to handle it? No, looking the other way, while I had a chance to enforce the course of action which I considered right, was unconscionable.

I nodded firmly, “I do.”

Ozanero looked at me for a few seconds with a strange expression on her face. Then she reached for the datapad and tapped it a few times.

“I’ve sent the coordinates to your Aura,” she said, and added with a half smile, “Good luck, capsuleer.”

---

“What is it today – a mission or a combat site?” asked Aura when I boarded the Cormorant.

“A brothel,” I replied drily.

Aura raised her eyebrows and snickered, “You are flying to a brothel in a destroyer armed with seven 125-mm Tech II railguns? Are you trying to compensate for something?”

I ignored the innuendo and explained the mission.

Aura whistled in surprise and said, “So you are back on The Seven case. I thought Purkkoken said that you would not be let anywhere near it.”

I shrugged my shoulders, “I thought so too. To be fair, Ozanero acted as if giving me this mission was against her better judgement. Unfortunately, I am not on the same terms with her as I am with Purkkoken, so I can’t just invite her to Merimetso and ask her to spill the beans.”

“Give it some time,” said Aura soothingly, “it’s just the second mission that you fly for her. Anyway, talking about the mission, what should we expect?”

I opened the brief and looked at the threat assessment, “Cruisers. Almost 100%.”

Aura opened a fitting window and looked at it sceptically, “Are you going to face The Seven’s cruiser with a fit optimised to resist only kinetic damage? Those guys are not Guristas, they shoot everything.”

I scratched my head, “You are right but I don’t have a fit which provides omni-resistance. Maybe it’s a good time to try that active shield tank.”

Aura smiled enigmatically, “What if I told you that you didn’t need to worry about the tank at all?”

“The way you say it, I am already worried. I just don’t know about what.”

“Have you ever heard of 150-mm railguns?”

I laughed, “I see you take my ‘compensation efforts’ to heart.”

“Exactly! You’ve gotta have something to compensate for the miniscule size of your,” Aura made a pause and finished, “shield.”

“And how are they going to help? Even with one-fifties I don’t think I can destroy cruisers quickly enough. They’ll go through my shield and armour faster than I go through theirs.”

“Only if they can reach you. The bigger guns don’t just give you more firepower, they also give you more range. Look here,” Aura opened a new window with a list of equipment, “if you install these modules, you’ll be able to hit the bastards from the distance of 86 kilometres. That’s beyond even a cruiser firing range.”

[Cormorant, Kaukokärki]
Signal Amplifier II
Signal Amplifier II

5MN Cold-Gas Enduring Microwarpdrive
Kinetic Shield Amplifier II
Compact Thermal Shield Amplifier

150mm Railgun II
150mm Railgun II
150mm Railgun II
150mm Railgun II
150mm Railgun II
150mm Railgun II
150mm Railgun II

Small Hybrid Locus Coordinator II
Small Ionic Field Projector II

Spike S x10000
Iron Charge S x10000

Then she enthusiastically walked me through the slot configuration.

“The Signal Amplifiers and the Small Ionic Field Projector will increase your targeting range. The rig will reduce your shield,” she smiled apologetically, “but, as I said, it is of secondary importance. The optimal range of 150-mm railguns is 33% greater than that of one-twenty-fives. It will be further enhanced by the Small Hybrid Locus Coordinator rig. You’ll need a microwarpdrive instead of the afterburner, so that you can quickly get out of the hostiles’ firing range. In the remaining two mid-slots I threw in a couple of Shield Amplifiers, just in case. You can change them depending on the expected type of damage,” she looked eagerly at me, “What do you think?”

I loaded the configuration into the fitting window and after a short examination shook my head, “No, I can’t fit it. That Small Hybrid Locus Coordinator rig increases the power consumed by the railguns. I’ll need an auxiliary power core but then I’ll have to uninstall one of the Signal Amplifiers which will reduce the targeting range. Besides, even with all the proposed enhancements, 86 clicks is beyond my optimal firing range, so the damage will fall off.”

Aura snorted, “Of course, you can’t. Not with your skills. You need to train Hybrid Weapon Rigging to reduce the rig drawbacks, and Advanced Weapon Upgrades to reduce power consumption by hybrid turrets. Sharpshooter skill will ensure that your optimal range will be 87 km.”

“And to what level do I need to train those skills?” I asked suspiciously.

“To level 5.”

I gasped, “That will take weeks! And I need to complete the mission today.”

Aura rolled her eyes, “Says a man with 6 million unallocated skill points in his head. What are you keeping them for? It’s not like they earn you any interest.”

“Well, just in case,” I answered defensively.

“This is the case,” said Aura emphatically, “If killing the leader of an infamous slaver gang is not a good reason to use your hoarded skill points, then I don’t know what is.”

I sighed, “Okay, okay, you are right, but even if I train the skills, I don’t have the modules to fit the ship. I’ll have to fly to Jita to buy them.”

“Then what are you waiting for?” she said sternly. A riding crop appeared in her hand and she tapped it on the palm of her other hand, “Chop chop!”

---

Aura’s modelling was spot on. As soon as I trained those three skills to level 5, the proposed modules fitted into the Cormorant like hand in glove. Maybe it was possible to further improve the destroyer’s characteristics by using blingy modules or implants, but with 99.59% power grid utilisation and 99.12% CPU allocation we really squeezed the last drops of performance from a Tech II fit.

As the fit required different rigs, I decided to keep Merimetso for encounters with Guristas and buy a new Cormorant for sniping.

When the new destroyer was bought and fitted, Aura raised a very important question, “What do you wanna call it?”

I thought for a while and said, “Kaukokärki. In my native dialect it means ‘long point’ or ‘distant spear’.”

Kaukokärki

Aura nodded approvingly, “Nice. Hints at the purpose without giving it away. Also, doesn’t sound like a pet name which you gave Merimetso. You may find yourself in a situation where you’ll have to spend ships like ammo. Better not to get too attached to them.”

---

Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Ekura system – Mission location

The Damsels Wimpy Brothel

When I arrived to the mission location, I sighed with relief – Kruul’s cruiser was on the grid and was not docked. It meant that I could take him on without risking civilians’ lives. Eager to test my new fit, I chose the brothel as the pivot and willed Kaukokärki into an 85-km orbit around it. As the distance between the structure and the ship decreased, I enjoyed the feeling of invulnerability and anticipated an easy one-sided battle. That feeling didn’t last long as my HUD suddenly started displaying damage notifications. Something was hitting me pretty hard!

Tower Sentry Drone

It turned out that while the cruisers were clustered around the brothel, a solitary Tower Sentry Drone was placed some distance away, and I was actually flying toward it. As the shield damage indicator crept across the HUD, I had to decide what to do. I could turn back, build the distance and destroy the drone from a safe range. On the other hand, it was just one drone.

“Let’s see what these one-fifties are capable of,” I muttered and targeted the hostile machine.

The new rails worked like a charm – 30 seconds after my first salvo the drone was shredded to pieces. During the same period it managed to reduce my shield only by 15% which was quite acceptable. Apart from that stuff-up with the drone, the rest of the mission was a walk in the park. First, I targeted the fast frigates and destroyed them before they could get into their firing range. Then I took care of the two cruisers which ineffectually tried to hit me with missiles. Finally, when the overview was clear of red icons, I turned my guns toward Outpost Headquarters and reduced it to a pile of floating rubble. Quite satisfied with the results, I praised Aura for the brilliant idea of the sniper fit and started aligning to Tsuguwa stargate.

Seven Death Dealer

Seven Grunt

Kruul

Rogue Mercenary Thorn

“Hey, didn’t you forget something?” asked Aura, interrupting my manoeuvre.

“What?”

“The evidence.”

I slapped my head, “Right,” but then a thought occurred to me, “Wait a moment. We have looted the wreck of Kruul’s cruiser and there was no Kruul’s corpse there.”

“…which means that what was left of Kruul did not qualify as a whole corpse,” finished Aura.

I groaned, “Oh no, not again,” remembering the mission when I had to get Phenod’s DNA out of a bloody mess.

Then I remembered something, “Aura, remember how you recalibrated the overview at Gurista Hideout so that it showed smaller debris? Does it work on, you know, body parts?”

Aura knit her brow and said, “There is only one way to check.”

She reconfigured the overview and the window was filled with descriptions of scorched, broken and twisted objects. I tentatively scrolled the list but it was too long.

“Can you filter the list so that it shows only human remains?”

“Hmm… Give me a minute. I need to find an authoritative reference,” said Aura and froze.

I waited patiently and soon the list was reduced to what looked like a table of contents of an anatomical atlas. The important difference was that some body parts appeared several times, implying that there was more than one person on the ship.

I grimaced, “Is there any way to tell which parts belonged to Kruul?”

Aura spread her hands helplessly, “Only after a DNA analysis.”

I closed my eyes and muttered through clenched teeth, “Damn you, Ozanero.”

---

Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Tsuguwa system – Planet VI
Caldari Navy Assembly Plant Station

I was walking down the corridor toward the security department. Behind me slowly crawled a forklift which carried a large metal crate. As we approached Ozanero Voiras’s office, I opened the door and indicated to the driver to move the crate in.

The driver shook his head, “No, boss, the doorway is too narrow.”

I shrugged nonchalantly and said, “Then leave it outside. Just make sure that it doesn’t block the passage.”

While I was paying the driver, Ozanero emerged from her room and stared at the crate in confusion.

“What is this box, Mr Korff?” she asked trying to take control of the situation.

I looked at her feigning a mild surprise, “The evidence, Ms Voiras. As you requested.”

The agent lifted the metal lid and, on observing the contents, immediately dropped it and put her (other) hand to her mouth with a queasy look on her face.

“But…” she stammered, “but I asked just for a sample of the DNA.”

“Unfortunately, Ms Ozanero,” I said in an apologetic voice, “when I inspected the cruiser wreck I did not find a neatly sealed specimen bag labelled ‘Kruul’s DNA’. For that matter, none of the body parts I found had any identifying tags. So, I had no other choice but to gather complete evidence. I hope it won’t take your laboratory technicians long to sort out who is who.”

With a pleasant smile I waved my good-bye to the bewildered agent and walked away. When she was out of earshot my smile transformed into an evil grin as I murmured, “That will teach you to trust your pilots, Ms Smarty-Pants.”

[Vladimir_Korff]

Gurista Lookout

Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Nourvukaiken system

31 January YC 127

I was patrolling Okela constellation when my probe scanner revealed a Guristas base which I had not encountered before – Gurista Lookout.

I scowled and said, “These guys have no business squatting in my constellation and I am keen to kick them out but the question is: Do I need a destroyer or do I need a dreadnought?”

Aura raised an eyebrow, “Your constellation?”

“Well, I live here, even if temporarily, so I call Okela home.”

“Fair enough,” agreed Aura, “As to your question, a destroyer will be sufficient. Eve Uni academics say that Lookouts are typically guarded by frigates and destroyers. Merimetso should have no trouble fighting them.”

“Then fight we shall,” I said enthusiastically and warped to the stargate.

I boarded Merimetso in Tsuguwa, returned to Nourvukaiken and warped to the location of the Lookout. When I saw the overview I whistled in surprise – apart from the expected frigates and destroyers it showed two bunkers, two telescopes, a communications control centre and a shipyard!

First Pocket

“These guys feel pretty cozy here,” I said with a grin, “Let’s change that.”

I opened the local comms channel and broadcasted my first and final warning, “Hey you, rabbit-fanciers! You have exactly one minute to fire up your warp drives and start looking for another constellation where, hopefully, you can live a long and fulfilling life as honest Caldari citizens. Whoever remains here after 60 seconds will be terminated with extreme prejudice. The clock starts now.”

I started a 60-second countdown timer on my HUD.

Aura looked at me in astonishment, “I thought the idea was to kill ’em all, but with that broadcast not only you lost an element of surprise but also offered them to get off the hook altogether.”

I smiled dreamily remembering my early capsuleer days, “As one of my career instructors said, the purpose of law enforcement is to make crime unprofitable in your neck of the woods. Eliminating the bastards is great but making them move on achieves the same result, at least for your beat.”

In the meantime, the pirates sent me a few scornful messages but otherwise didn’t show any intention to leave the area.

“Alright,” I scoffed as the countdown reached zero, “let’s dance.”

“Wait,” Aura interrupted me as I was about to fly Merimetso closer to the pirate ships, “before engaging anyone else, kill that Dire Pithi Imputor.”

Dire Pithi Imputor

“Why? Is there anything special about it except that it’s called Dire?”

“Yes, pilots who encountered that kind of frigate before reported that it was equipped with a warp disruptor and a stasis webifier. You don’t want to find yourself webbed in the middle of a gang of fast frigates without an option to bail out.”

I grimaced, “Ouch! That would be unpleasant. Thanks for letting me know.”

I changed my course so that it would bring me into the vicinity of the Guristas tackler but not directly toward it. As the distance reduced to 45 km, I targeted the Dire Pithi Imputor and made a short work of it before it could approach me with its webs. I thought that the death of their best frigate would send the pirates a message and add gravitas to my warning. Instead, they suddenly aggroed me all at once.

Pithior Guerilla

“You are welcome,” mumbled I, “Now I can make sure that you won’t infest neither Okela, nor any other place.”

Firstly, I flew directly away from the approaching horde building the distance with the help of my afterburner. In the process, I targeted and destroyed the closest frigates. As Merimetso reached the limit of its firing range, I changed tack so that it was flying perpendicularly to the previous trajectory, giving the pirates a chance to close in on me. That didn’t do them any good – being faster than their frigates and having a longer reach than their destroyers I dictated the distance and stayed away from their effective firing range only occasionally receiving a hit.

Pithior Renegade

I repeated my manoeuvre a few times and eventually destroyed all mobile threats. Then came the turn of the Light Missile Battery which managed to send half a dozen Scourge light missiles my way but otherwise was as harmless as the rest of that sorry lot. From the first shot to the last it took me five minutes to clear out the first pocket.

“Right,” I said rubbing my hands, “Which structure shall we demolish first?”

“Are you really going to spend the rest of the morning bashing those tritanium walls?” winced Aura.

I shrugged, “I have to. What’s the point of killing the guards and leaving alone the ones who do the actual work at this Lookout?”

“Can’t you you just send the coordinates to the Navy and let them take care of the structures?”

“The Navy is always stretched. As this is not an official mission, their level of interest will be pretty low. For all I know, this base will continue functioning for months, if not years.”

Aura sighed, “Well, if you have to, I suggest to destroy only the communications control centre. It will take the whole base out of commission and, given it is already compromised, it is unlikely that Guristas will rebuild it.”

Communications Control Centre

That sounded reasonable and I spent the next two minutes reducing the comms centre to a pile of rubble.

“That will give them a pause, but our job is not done yet,” said I activating the acceleration gate which brought us deeper into the pirate-infested deadspace.

Second Pocket

When we arrived to the second pocket I nearly chocked on the pod good. I had thought that the extent of the Guristas development in the first pocket was impressive, but now it looked like a side show or a façade which concealed the actual purpose of that ‘lookout’. In this pocket Guristas managed to build a whole starbase complete with a shield generator and a solar harvester. They even started constructing a star gate!

Pithi Infiltrator

I didn’t waste time on pointless public service announcements and went into an orbit around the solar harvester. Having confirmed that there were no Dire Pithi frigates, I focused my fire on whatever ship managed to come closest to me. Even without Tech II ammunition Merimetso chewed through various Pithis and Pithiors in no time, all the while suffering only superficial shield damage. When I got rid of the red triangles, I looked at the overview and scratched my head.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to destroy that star gate,” I said thoughtfully, “It’s just too large.”

“If I were you, I wouldn’t be too worried about it,” said Aura, “Firstly, the Guristas will not continue its construction, now that it has been discovered. Secondly, the Navy will be much more interested in this base when you tell them about an unauthorised star gate built under their noses. I expect them to send heavy cavalry here as soon as they hear from you.”

“That makes sense,” I agreed, “please prepare the relevant logs for the report. However, I would feel better if we could do something to these structures before the Navy arrived.”

“Just destroy their star base control centre and everything else will become pretty much non-functional,” suggested Aura distractedly as she scoured the ship logs.

Guristas Control Centre

I liked the idea and targeted the control centre. It appeared to be very crunchy for such an important part of the star base, and it took me only 20 seconds to destroy it.

As I watched the explosion, Aura said excitedly, “Vlad, look what I’ve found in the logs!”

I was about to check out Aura’s findings when my eyes fell on the overview which reported arrival of four more Guristas destroyers led by Dread Guristas Despoiler frigate.

“Later,” I said curtly as I focused all my attention on the newcomers.

I didn’t know if the Dread frigate had any special equipment like the Dire one before, but I didn’t want to take any risks and targeted it first. Three volleys later it exploded and a kill bonus notification appeared on my HUD.

I whooped triumphantly, “That’s what I call value for money: 60,000 ISK in three seconds! Send more Dread Guristas my way!”

“Seventy-two million ISK per hour wouldn’t be bad,” agreed Aura, “but you did much better at Guristas Scout Outpost, even with an inferior fit which made you waste a lot of time restoring your shield.”

“Let me deal with those pesky Pithiors first, and then you can talk finances to your heart’s content,” I chuckled and turned my attention to the remaining Guristas.

The pirate destroyers were not as profitable, bringing me only 48,000 ISK for a minute’s work. After the last of them exploded I waited for another minute but nothing else happened.

“I guess, it’s time to go home,” I said contentedly, “Have you prepared the logs for the Navy?”

Aura’s eyes glinted, “Forget the Navy, look here,” she said and opened a HUD window filled with binary data.

I blinked in confusion, “What’s that?”

“Oh, sorry,” Aura said hastily, “it’s not human-readable, but it says that as soon as we arrived here our sensors picked up a group of Blood ships slipping away.”

“Blood ships? At the Guristas base?” I asked, astonished.

“Yes, but that’s not all. Their leader sent her wing the coordinates of their destination!”

I looked at Aura in disbelief, “What, in local? Unencrypted?”

“In local. Unencrypted,” she confirmed enthusiastically.

I wrinkled my nose, “Do you smell anything?”

Aura became serious, “You know that I don’t have a sense of smell but I can tell you that the sensors in your pod goo filters show that all anomalous substances are within the acceptable thresholds.”

“Then why do I smell something fishy?”

Aura looked baffled but then it dawned on her, “Oh, you mean metaphorically?”

“Literally,” I said sarcastically, “When a group of Blood Raiders openly sends their coordinates at a Guristas base it literally reeks of a trap!”

Aura bit her lip and admitted, “I didn’t think about it.” Then she perked up, “On the other hand, what’s the worst thing that can happen if we follow them?”

“Finding ourselves webbed in the middle of a gang of fast frigates without an option to bail out?”

“Right. And what is the best thing that can happen to you when you follow the lead?”

I raised my eyebrow and looked at Aura pensively, “Guristas Scout Outpost?”

Aura nodded with a smile, “Guristas Scout Outpost.”

[Vladimir_Korff]

Trap?

The Forge region – Ruomo constellation
Ahtulaima system

31 January YC 127

The system whither the Blood Raiders were heading was Ahtulaima in The Forge region.

“It’s a long way from Amarr,” I mused while jumping through the gates, “What would Blood Raiders do in a quiet cul-de-sac in the middle of Caldari space? And if it’s a trap, why do they think anyone will be interested in pursuing them while we have our hands full with Guristas?”

“Ask yourself,” snorted Aura, “you are the one chasing them.”

“Ha-ha, that’s right. But I am doing it only because you lured me into this escapade by the promise of another Guristas Scout Outpost. They can hardly expect an average capsuleer ship to be inhabited by such an adventurous navigation AI,” I laughed but then something clicked in my mind, “Wait a moment, why would a Blood Raider gang lead me to a Guristas base?”

Aura looked at me innocently and shrugged her shoulders, “I have no idea why you would think so.”

I glared at her and said accusingly, “Because you mentioned it.”

“I meant it just as a general example of a positive outcome which could be achieved by following unverified leads obtained by forensic examination of pirate communications,” said Aura smoothly.

“Argh,” I growled in frustration, “you led me up a garden path. I bet we won’t see a single Guristas ship at our destination, and I am not equipped to fight Blood Raiders. By the way, is there a Blood Raiders equivalent of Guristas Scout Outpost?”

“Yep, a Raiders’ base with the same DED rating as Gurustas Scout Outpost is called Mul-Zatah Monastery.”

“A monastery? Built by pirates? I knew that pirates were superstitious, but religious?” I shook my head in disbelief.

Aura looked at me with surprise, “But Blood Raiders are followers of Sani Sabik faith, and extreme ones, for that matter. Didn’t you know?”

“All I need to know about pirates is what kind of ammo kills them best,” I grumbled.

At that time we finally arrived to Ahtulaima. I loaded Spike into the railguns, turned on the shield hardener and activated the warp drive.

“Let’s see what awaits us at the end of this tunnel – an Outpost or a Monastery,” I mumbled looking tensely at the overview.

At the end of the tunnel we found… a Newly Constructed Acceleration Gate guarded by… a Guristas fleet.

Aura giggled, “I should have taken you up on your bet.”

I rolled my eyes, “Is it one of those ‘expeditions’ again? Last time we went on one we also found a newly constructed acceleration gate which led nowhere.”

“Huh,” said Aura, freezing momentarily as she processed information from GalNet, “you know, you are right. The pirates play this trick quite regularly with varying results. Sometimes they lead their victims to a well-protected base, and sometimes…” she spread her hands apologetically nodding at the overview.

“Whatever,” I sighed with resignation, “Be that as it may, I am not going to leave this rabble in peace whether they guard a gate to a treasury or to a pristine deadspace pocket.”

The overview showed four Guristas destroyers and four frigates, led by Dread Guristas Invader. I had become quite comfortable with my shield buffer tank and knew that the pirates presented no danger to Merimetso. For that reason I chose the simplest of tactics, orbiting the acceleration gate at 43 km and pulverising any ship which came into my firing range. Dread Guristas Invader turned out to be as crunchy as its Despoiler cousin, but yielded only 52,500 ISK in bounties. Soon the rest of the fleet followed its leader into the afterlife. I looted the wrecks and activated the newly constructed acceleration gate.

When we arrived to the second pocket Aura glanced at the overview and giggled, “You’ve got any cash on you? I’m sure they’ll give you a discount.”

I snorted, “I’ve got seven railguns on me and I’m sure they’ll give me all their stash for free. But thank you very much, life is weird enough without that ■■■■.”

Having said that, I targeted Drug Lab – the only object on the grid.

Drug Lab

When the demolition works were over and the structure exploded in a green cloud tinted with pink streaks, I turned to Aura and said, “Any clues? Any trails leading to other bases?”

Aura shook her head, “No. It’s a dead end.”

I sighed, “So much for ‘Guristas Scout Outpost’.”

“Well, your haul is not as spectacular as four Pithum C-Type modules, but you aren’t leaving empty-handed either.”

“Yeah,” I laughed derisively, “I am leaving with 1.5 million ISK worth of stuff in my cargo hold, half of which is ammo that I brought with me.”

“You again forget about blueprints. That Mid-grade Hydra Gamma blueprint is worth about 17 million ISK in the contracts.”

My eyes popped out of my head, “Seventeen million just for the blueprint? How much is the implant then?”

“Around 241 million in Jita.”

“Wow, let’s build it ourselves and sell it!”

“Don’t get too excited, darl,” drawled Aura, “most of that price will go to cover the materials. If you ask your friend Yakub to manufacture and sell it, each of you will get about 20 million ISK on top of the material and blueprint costs.”

I grimaced, “Probably not worth bothering him for a single item. Although, if I pump good old Yakub full of Amarrian Imperial Stout he’ll do everything for a friend.”

“But since he is a better drinker than you, in all likelihood you’ll end up giving him that blueprint for free before managing to lure him into a joint venture,” chuckled Aura.

“I think you are right,” I laughed, “Let’s go home and stash it for now.”

“Warp drive active, Captain,” said Aura, and Merimetso whooshed into the void.

Merimetso

[Vladimir_Korff]

The Damsel in Distress

Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Tsuguwa system – Planet VI
Caldari Navy Assembly Plant Station

9 February YC 127

Today I received a message from Ozanero Voiras, Level 2 Security Agent, which requested my presence in her office at my earliest convenience.

“Earliest convenience, my foot,” I mumbled finishing my breakfast hastily.

In military parlance ‘earliest convenience’ was a polite way of saying ‘chop chop!’ If after such a message a capsuleer did not arrive post-haste, the agent’s attitude could become decidedly icy. Even if tardiness didn’t lead to a formal decrease in standings, the contractor could expect agents to give him the shittiest missions in their backlog.

As I entered the agent’s office, Ozanero greeted me and invited me to sit in a visitor’s chair. Then she produced a non-fungible token of the kind being used for single-copy certified documents, and pushed it to me over the table.

“Your methods, Mr Korff, are unconventional, but definitely effective,” said the agent, “Some of the remains that you brought from the last mission indeed belonged to Kruul. This is a certificate confirming the kill.”

I took the token and asked sarcastically, “And what am I supposed to do with it? Frame it and hang on the wall?”

Ozanero did not react to my goading and replied coolly, “You may find it useful if you decide to purchase certain items from the Navy loyalty point store.”

I made a mental note to check the LP shop later and put the token into the pocket.

“But I guess that you didn’t ask me to visit you ‘at my earliest convenience’ just to give me this certificate,” I said.

“You are quite right, Mr Korff. As you have a recent and positive experience fighting Kruul, I deemed it reasonable to request your assistance in another mission against him.”

“Another mission against Kruul?” I asked incredulously, “Are you telling me that he somehow managed to escape?”

“In a sense, yes. The same way all you, capsuleers, escape when your pod explodes.”

“Oh, damn!” I exclaimed as it dawned on me what it meant. “He is a capsuleer too!” I shook my head in exasperation, “Why do you, guys, bestow eternal life on scum like him? Can’t you run personality tests, or something, before admitting people to capsuleer training programs?”

Ozanero pursed her lips, “We deny any responsibility for the actions of individual pod pilots who are not active members of Caldari Navy. But even if we didn’t, you couldn’t blame us for producing that particular pirate – he was trained by Amarr Empire.”

I raised my hand in a placating gesture, “Sorry, forget I said it. I am just frustrated.” I took a deep breath to calm myself, “So, how can I assist? Do you want me to kill the bastard again?”

The agent’s face relaxed, “Not necessarily. You may need to kill him but it is not the main objective of the mission. What I am going to tell you now is highly confidential. You will need to forget about this mission as soon as you have completed it. Understood?”

My curiosity was piqued as confidentiality was a standard clause in all mission contracts and the agents didn’t bother reiterating it. I nodded.

Ozanero continued, “A daughter of a senior Navy officer has gone missing. Recently she was spotted in a disreputable nightclub which belonged to Kruul. We are afraid that she was forced into slave labour or even prostitution. Your objective is to retrieve her from the club and bring her safely back to her family. And this time you are getting a squad of marines to help you.”

I scoffed, “Of course, I am. The best I can do on my own is blow up the nightclub and hope that I can extract the girl from the debris in one piece and breathing. Anything else I need to know?”

“Yes, you will get further details of the mission plan from Marine Sergeant Aoki. He will meet you in the dock.”

There was no time to lose. I accepted the mission and headed to my hangar.

---

When I arrived to the docks Sergeant Aoki was already waiting for me. He wore an impressive Katana-class heavy assault suit reinforced with a kinetic shield. The sergeant’s angular face did not betray any emotion regarding the upcoming deployment. In a few dry sentences he outlined the tactical plan: my objective was to suppress all the guards deployed in space, after which his squad would fly onboard a breacher pod to the pleasure hub and rescue the girl. I would then pick up the pod from space and warp out. Having finished his explanation, he requested a permission to load the breacher pod to my destroyer’s cargo hold.

Sergeant Aoki

“Not so quick, Sergeant. We are not flying this ship today,” said I, instructing the docking crew to replace Merimetso with Kaukokärki.

Seeing a slightly quizzical expression on Aoki’s face, I explained, “Merimetso is great against Guristas, but not so much when I have to fight The Seven. Kaukokärki has a sniper fit which is more suitable in the upcoming battle.”

The Sergeant nodded, “Makes sense. I just didn’t expect you to keep two destroyers with different fits.”

I shrugged, “Saves time in situations like this. Swapping ships is faster than refitting them.”

As soon as Kaukokärki was towed into the hangar, I loaded the breacher pod with the marines into the ship and undocked.

---

Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Nourvukaiken system – Mission location

Our destination was in Nourvukaiken. When we arrived at the location provided by Ozanero, I marvelled at the boldness of Kruul’s operations. His pleasure hub was not even in a deadspace pocket which could be reached only by an acceleration gate. On the contrary, it was anchored in the regular space where it could be accessed easily by any ship with a warp drive. However, the agent called it disreputable, not illegal. Knowing our profit-loving government, they would happily register any enterprise which paid taxes into the State’s coffers.

My musings were interrupted by the sound of alarm indicating that I was targeted. Although the hub was not protected by a gate, it didn’t mean it was unguarded. My overview showed eight frigates called Kruul’s Henchman led by a cruiser piloted by Kruul himself. All of them were acquiring a target lock on me. I immediately turned away from the pirate fleet and activated the microwarpdrive. The distance between the pirates and me started rapidly increasing.

Aiko, who was monitoring the tactical display from the pod, said dryly, “I think you are flying in the wrong direction, Captain.”

“Sergeant, let’s have a deal,” I answered, “I don’t teach you how to assault pleasure hubs, and you don’t tell me how to fight pirate ships.”

Silence was the only answer I got from the marine. I waited until the distance to the nearest pirate reached 100 km and turned the MWD off.

In the meantime, I got a message from Kruul in the local broadcast channel: “So you’re one of their lap-dogs come to do their dirty work, eh? I’m warning you, if you don’t leave immediately I’ll have to sling out my new weapon on your ass.”

Kruul

I rolled my eyes, “How do you know I haven’t come here to have a relaxing evening in the company of your girls?”

The pirate sniggered, “I saw what kind of relaxation you prefer at my brothel in Tsuguwa. You may have destroyed my body, but I still have vivid memories of that encounter. Mind you, I’ve installed some combat implants in my new clone, so this time you will be the one to take the pod express home.”

“And what do those implants do?” I asked with a genuine curiosity. Combat implants were a new area for me and I was keen to learn about them.

“You’ll see soon enough,” growled Kruul, “Just don’t go cryin’ home to mommy in your capsule when I’m done wit ya. And don’t beg for your life, it’s pathetic…”

Before Kruul had an opportunity to turn his threats into actions the first of his henchmen entered my firing range. I promptly acquired a target lock and concentrated the fire of all seven of my 150-mm railguns on it. The high-calibre rails ripped through the pirate frigate with a devastating efficiency – it took only two salvos to blow up the hapless guard. Meanwhile, the remaining frigates quickly gained on me. One by one they were entering the optimal range of my weapons, and one by one they exploded. Kruul’s cruiser, though, was slower than my destroyer and the distance between us kept growing. I noticed that he kept launching heavy missiles in my direction but none of them had reached me so far.

Kruuls Henchman

Having rid the space of Kruul’s escort, I turned my attention to the man himself. I willed Kaukokärki into an 85-km orbit around his cruiser and, while the destroyer was closing the distance, asked Kruul in the local channel, “How are the implants doing, by the way? I hope they aren’t overheating.”

There was no response from the pirate. His launcher was still shooting the missiles ineffectually. I chuckled – whatever implants he installed, they did not improve the reach of his weapons. When Kruul’s cruiser finally reached my railguns’ range, I targeted and started firing at him.

“Vlad, he has sent a distress signal,” said Aura urgently.

“I wonder if anyone else is left to give him a hand,” I replied.

As if in response to my words, 10 Mercenary Elite Fighters warped into the vicinity of the pleasure hub and headed in my direction. I nodded appreciatively – for all his braggadocio, Kruul knew how to hedge his bets. That, however, was not going to help him; the Fighters were a solid 100 clicks away while Kruul’s shield melted under the fire of my one-fifties faster than snow under a blowtorch. It took me just 25 seconds to make mincemeat of Kruul’s cruiser – armour, hull, implants and all. Then I turned my attention to the mercenaries who were still pursuing me despite the loss of their employer. I guess they were aware of his empyrean nature and had hopes for a bounty if they could blow me up.

Mercenary Elite Fighter

I kept flying away from the pleasure hub as the Fighters were slowly closing the distance between us. At some point I got bored waiting for them to come into my firing range and made a 90-degree turn, flying perpendicularly to my previous course. Their relative speed increased dramatically and soon the first of them was within reach of my railguns. The Mercenary Elite Fighters were 50% sturdier than Kruul’s Henchmen which meant that I needed three salvos instead of two to destroy one of them. Initially everything went pretty well – I targeted and fired at the closest mercenary, dispatching one every 15 seconds. Then, when the distance between us reduced to 30 km, I started getting first hits from Inferno Light Missiles. Every impact reduced my shield by 45 hit points, and the damage indicator rapidly crawled across my dashboard. I cursed, turned Kaukokärki away from the murderous frigates and activated the microwarpdrive. By the time I left their effective firing range half my shield was gone!

Aura, looking wide-eyed at the four remaining Figters, said in a shocked voice, “That was a smart move to pull away from the pleasure hub, Captain. Imagine what would happen if all ten of them warped in on top of us.”

I nodded, accepting the praise, and matched my velocity to that of the frigates, so that they stayed within reach of my railguns but were unable to close in on me. After that it was just a matter of time before the space was clear of all threats. I made a U-turn and flew in the direction of the pleasure hub, at the same time starting a countdown for the breacher pod launch. As I was approaching the hub, I saw several small vessels undocking and warping away from it. I hoped those were just scared patrons and not the pirates evacuating their ‘human resources’.

“Sergeant,” I said on the intercom, “it looks like the hangar is clear. You should have no problem docking there.”

“Roger that,” was a curt response.

When we were 5 km away from the pleasure hub I jettisoned the breacher pod and stood sentry near the entrance to the dock. As the pod’s exhaust nozzle flared up, it quickly covered the distance separating it from the hub and disappeared within the hangar. There was nothing else left for me but wait. Minutes passed.

Pleasure Hub

Suddenly, I saw flickers of light coming out of the docking entrance. The illumination continued for a few seconds after which Sergeant Aoki’s voice interrupted the radio silence.

“Captain, we have the VIP. Get ready to pick us up in…”

At that moment a bright flash coloured the dock blindingly white.

“Sergeant,” I said alarmed, “What was that? Are you OK?”

“Later,” was all I heard in reply, after which the fireworks resumed.

Now the weak flickers I saw before were periodically punctuated by bright white flashes, albeit not as strong as the first one. After a couple of agonisingly slow minutes, I heard Aoki’s voice again.

“Captain, can you tractor the pod out of the hangar?”

I looked at the overview. The pleasure hub was not classified as a container from which I could extract other objects.

I glanced at Aura questioningly, “Can you do that overview calibration trick on the hub?”

She shook her head, “No, it appears as a solid structure even at a granular level.”

“Negative, Sergeant,” I replied to Aoki, “What’s the problem?”

“The pod’s controls are cooked,” said the Sergeant breathing heavily, “The pirates have got a high-power laser gun which they fired at the pod when we were about to undock. We managed to push them back, but the time is on their side. That thing can burn through bulkheads. I have already lost four of my marines.”

“Is there any other way I can assist?” I asked desperately, although I had not the slightest idea what I could do.

“Blow up the hub,” immediately replied Aoki, making it sound as the most obvious thing to do.

“What?” I cried in dismay, “But what about the girl?”

“The VIP is strapped securely in the pod which is sturdy enough to survive the destruction of the hub. You can pick it up from the debris.”

“What about you?”

“We have to hold the pirates at bay, or they will fry the vessel. Don’t worry about us. We have armoured assault suits which give us a non-zero chance of survival.”

“B-but…” I stammered, trying to think of another solution.

“Hurry, Captain,” the Sergeant said urgently, “There are only four of us remaining.”

“Damn you, Aoki”, I mumbled through clenched teeth and targeted the pleasure hub.

The structure had hardly any defences. Every salvo from my one-fifties fired at point-blank range chewed through the hub’s shield and armour as if they were paper-thin. After just 20 seconds its structural integrity was completely compromised. I expected the hub to break apart but I was suddenly blinded by a violent explosion.

“What the ■■■■?” I cried out as the a field of small debris quickly expanded in all directions, shaking Kaukokärki on its way.

That was not supposed to happen. It was a habitation module, not a fuel depot.

“Look,” suddenly said Aura, pointing at the overview.

I turned my gaze to the indicated window and saw that there were now two objects where the pleasure hub had just been. One of them was a breacher pod! It looked badly mangled but in one piece. Another was some non-descript container. I quickly approached the pod and dragged it into the cargo hold. As all its electronics was fried, I did not have a radio connection to it. I used a loudspeaker in the hold to ask if there was anyone alive, but there was no answer. I then looked closer at the other object. It appeared to be an unpowered escape pod. My heart raced as the tractor beam grabbed the container and pulled it into my cargo hold. Could it be that the marines managed to get out of the station at the last minute? My hopes were dashed when the HUD told me that the escape pod contained ten ‘exotic male dancers’.

As soon as the first of the ‘dancers’ emerged from the escape pod, I addressed him through the intercom, “This is Captain Korff. Welcome aboard. I need your urgent assistance. Please check if there is anyone alive onboard the other pod.”

The CCTV camera showed the man enter the breacher pod and only now I noticed that the door was missing. All the time while the pod was in space after the explosion, it was unpressurised! A few seconds later the man ducked out of the pod and said, “There is a girl inside but she is not breathing. I think she is dead.”

“Damn it!” I growled willing Kaukokärki into the warp toward the Tsuguwa gate, “Try to resuscitate her! She wasn’t exposed to the vacuum that long.”

The man looked uncertain for a second but then shrugged and headed back into the breacher pod.

---

Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Tsuguwa system – Planet VI
Caldari Navy Assembly Plant Station

As we were flying back to Caldari Navy Assembly Plant station in Tsuguwa I called Ozanero and described the situation. She just nodded and dropped the connection. I don’t know what kind of emergency powers she possessed but when, a few minutes later, I was docking at the CNAP, the dispatcher gave my docking request a priority and I whizzed past the queue of vessels waiting for their turn. I was directed to a berth where medical personnel was already waiting. I also noticed a tall man in a Navy uniform with admiral’s insignia who rushed into Kaukokärki’s cargo hold ahead of the medics as soon as I docked. After a few minutes, the same group emerged from the hold with the girl lying on a stretcher with an oxygen mask on her face. They quickly loaded the stretcher into an ambulance and departed. Then I saw a squad of military police entering my destroyer and escorting the rescued exotic dancers away, one of them gesticulating angrily at the officers. After their departure no one else seemed to be interested in my Cormorant anymore, and I turned to Aura.

“Shall we return to the pleasure hub location and search the debris for the marines?” I asked.

She shook her head sadly, “I checked the detailed logs. The explosion was so powerful that there was nothing human-sized left, like everything went through a meat-grinder. I am surprised that the escape pod we picked up was in one piece. They must have left the hub just before the explosion.”

I sighed, “Alright. In such case, I think I’ll sign off for the day.”

Aura looked at me apologetically, “I’ve just got a message from Ozanero. She wants you for a mission debrief at 5 pm.”

I groaned, “I better come, or she will cut my bonus.”

---

At 4:58 pm I knocked on the door of Ozanero Voiras’s office and, having received a positive reply, entered. The agent looked at me with a tired smile and invited me to sit down. When I was seated, she took a familiar-looking token from a drawer and gave it to me.

I raised my eyebrow, “Is it what I think it is?”

Ozanero nodded, “Yep, every time you defeat Kruul, you get a certificate.”

“And you don’t require a collection of body parts to confirm the kill?”

The agent chuckled, “Our department gave it a considerate thought after you delivered a crate of ‘specimens’ from the Seven’s brothel. What usually happened when we issued a mission against Kruul was that a capsuleer who blew up the pirate’s cruiser would grab the first piece of organic matter from the wreck and present it to us as Kruul’s. We would analyse the DNA and either confirm the kill or reject it, depending on whose body part it actually was. There were even incidents when capsuleers tried to present their own blood as Kruul’s,” Ozanero rolled her eyes and continued, “Such laid-back attitude exhibited by capsuleers ensured that now and then the department could save on the cost of the token. When you wheeled in your mobile morgue, suddenly the onus was on us – we had to ensure that we analysed all organic matter, if we wanted to claim that Kruul’s remains were not part of it. Given the cruiser had about two dozen crew members apart from Kruul himself, it took us a considerable amount of time and money to analyse the DNA taken from various body parts before we actually found a Kruul’s one. After that I was given an informal directive to use only flight logs and video footage to verify Kruul’s kills reported by you. I hope you will be discrete and will not disclose this information to other capsuleers who might want to adopt your approach.”

I looked meaningfully at the CCTV camera and asked, “And you are not afraid of divulging this confidential directive to me?”

“It’s a calculated risk based on your behavioural profile. If I don’t give you an explanation, it is likely that you will casually comment on this discrepancy in a conversation with other capsuleers from which they will draw undesirable conclusions. But if I take you into my confidence, Vladimir Korff, then I believe that the chance of your disclosing this information will be minimal.”

I made a mental note of not having been called ‘Mr Korff’ for the first time since I started working with the agent. Aloud I said, “Behavioural profile, huh? Maybe it’s time for me to do something weird to throw your psychologists off-kilter. But don’t worry, I won’t do it this time. Such things work best when they are not expected. You secret is safe with me.”

Ozanero laughed and teased me, “I didn’t expect you to do anything funny this time either. So if you want to reduce the confidence of our predictive modelling, now is as good time as any.”

I said, “Touché,” and laughed with the agent. Then I changed the topic, “By the way, how is the girl?”

“She is fine. Mild hypoxia, but nothing serious. You did a good job quickly picking her up from the hub debris, as did that rescued exotic dancer who kept her blood oxygen up until you arrived to the station. I was more afraid for her father who looked as if he was about to have a fit of apoplexy.” Suddenly the agent emitted a girlish giggle, “Can you imagine his face when he saw his unconscious daughter being kissed by a half-naked man?”

I guffawed, “Oh no! Now I understand why that dancer was so agitated when he left the Cormorant. He was doing his best to resuscitate the girl, when he was apprehended by a furious father who immediately jumped to wrong conclusions. Did they come to fisticuffs?”

“Not that I am aware of,” replied Ozanero shaking with laughter. Then she took a deep breath, calming herself, and said, “Anyway, congratulations on the successful mission! I appreciate your prompt response and professional conduct.”

At that point my mood darkened, “You call it successful? We have just lost ten lives in an attempt to save one. That doesn’t fit the definition of ‘success’ in my books.”

Ozanero grew serious and looked me in the eye, “Vladimir, if you don’t mind me calling you by your given name,” I shook my head, and she continued, “from your file I know that you have never served in the Navy. You have been a security contractor who is free to come and go as he wishes, and for that reason you do not understand the people like those marines who chose to be career servicemen and servicewomen. They live by their own code of honour which defines who they are, and to some degree it applies to all Navy personnel. One of the axioms of their existence is that they don’t leave one of their own behind. The numbers of lives saved and lost are not part of their success formula, as long as they do what they believe is right. It gives them mental strength and resilience to perform such feats of valour which Feds would never think possible.”

Ozanero became agitated as she continued, “Now, imagine Aoki ordering his marines to retreat because it was too hard. How would they feel? They would not be committing a crime which would be judged by a court. They would not be committing a sin which would be judged by a god. They would not even be losing face which would be judged by others. They would be losing themselves, and their judgement is always ‘guilty’. There is no return from that.”

That was a lot to process and all I could do was fix on the last sentence, “No return? What do you mean? Return where?”

“To life. Or at least to normal life. Such breaches of the code are extremely rare but, whenever they happened, inevitably the servicepeople involved either committed a suicide or withdrew into themselves, many expiring in a few months,” the agent said sadly.

My head was spinning. I needed time to come to terms with what Ozanero had told me. Excusing myself, I rose from the chair and left the agent’s office.

---

I came to my apartment and dropped on the bed, mentally exhausted. What I needed at that moment was a good night’s sleep to clear my mind, but the thoughts and emotions buzzing in my head made any rest impossible. I spent two hours thinking about the mission, my mind going in circles: blaming myself, blaming the reckless girl, blaming the marines with their stupid code of honour, blaming myself again… Eventually, the confines of my room became unbearable, and I went out to distract myself.

Simply walking along the corridor and watching other people passing by had a calming influence on me. To reinforce the effect I went to my favourite Voidwatcher bar and ordered two pints of Amarrian Imperial Stout. Having found a place near the window, I quickly gulped down the first glass. As the alcohol slowly made its way to the brain, soothing my frayed nerves, I watched the endless mesmerising carousel of arriving and departing ships.

View from The Voidwatcher Bar

Some indeterminate time later my thoughts returned to the mission and I found that the recollection was not as painful and raw as before. Back in the apartment I was fixated on the unjustified loss of life, obviously projecting my own fear of death on the situation. Now, Ozanero’s words about the Navy’s absolutism started filtering through. Caldari society was always based on honour and loyalty. However, in the corporate world which most Caldari were part of, those values were tempered by business pragmatism and political acumen. For the sake of internal stability, the establishment did not encourage extreme manifestation of those principles. It was better to take a small loss here and there than to go to an all-out war with your competitor.

Having slipped into a philosophical mood, I realised that there was no such dampener in Caldari Navy. The Navy was a tool of last resort when the diplomacy failed, and it was paramount that when that tool was employed it always delivered the desired result. And so it did, through unwavering dedication of Caldari servicemen and servicewomen for whom a failure was not an option; for whom bargaining was not an option; for whom the duty was black and white – you either achieved the goal or died trying. They unconditionally put their lives on the line, but in return they got an all-empowering feeling of righteousness which left no space for moral qualms that dogged me so often. The Navy people were at peace with themselves and at one with the State, as long as they followed their code of honour. Having realised that, I felt a pang of envy at their being able to achieve such a harmony, but also a sense of pride of belonging to a nation which could inspire such feelings in its citizens.

I took a deep breath and looked with new eyes at men and women in Navy uniform who were in the bar. Suddenly, my gaze fell on a familiar face – Ozanero Voiras was sitting at one of the tables and talking to a man with space marine Lieutenant insignia. As if she felt my attention, her eyes looked across the bar and met mine. Almost imperceptibly Ozanero nodded showing her recognition. In response, I raised my glass of stout in a silent toast to the brave men and women with whom I had an honour to fly today. She understood me without words and raised her glass too. Her companion, seeing her gesture, turned to look at me. Ozanero said something to him, after which he nodded and raised his glass joining our toast.

I finished my beer and realised that my head was blissfully empty. At the same time, I felt incredibly tired. With an effort I stood up and slowly walked to my apartment. As soon as I reached my bedroom and my head hit the pillar, I sank into a mercifully dreamless sleep.

[Vladimir_Korff]

Guristas Forsaken Hideaway

Lonetrek region – Okela constellation

17 February YC 127

After the drama and emotional turmoil of Damsel in Distress mission I wanted a simple fight where the only baseliners’ lives on the line were those of the pirates. Patrolling Okela constellation fitted the bill perfectly. I undocked from Caldari Navy Assembly Plant in Tsuguwa in my Buzzard and scanned the system. There were a couple of pirate bases called Guristas Forlorn Hideaway which I had not seen before.

“Hey, Aura,” I said, “What do we know about those Forlorn Hideaways?”

After a brief research in GalNet Aura replied, “One thing that we know for sure is that those places are not ‘forlorn’. Don’t expect it to be a kind of a relic site which you can plunder at your leisure. All Guristas Hideaways are guarded and the Forlorn variety is particularly bitey. Expect multiple waves of reinforcements containing up to five cruisers each.”

“Ouch. It sounds like Kaukokärki kind of deployment.”

“Yes,” confirmed Aura, “with five cruisers on the grid you will be well-advised to stay out of their range.”

I returned to the station and changed the ship to a sniper-fit Cormorant. When I was back in space I noticed that one of the Hideaways was already taken care of. I warped to the remaining one only to find another enterprising capsuleer there. The guy flew an Astero whose main weapon was a flight of Hornet II drones. When I arrived at the scene the little beasts were taking apart a Pithum Abolisher cruiser while the frigate’s shield was tanking the damage from the pirate ship. While I was watching, the pilot dispatched all the hostiles on the grid triggering a wave of reinforcements. Five cruisers warped in and rushed toward the Astero. I wondered if the frigate needed assistance but it looked like the capsuleer knew what he was doing. Then I noticed a look of adoration on Aura’s face as she gazed at the Astero’s sleek shape, and hurriedly warped back to the station. Asteros were Aura’s idée fixe since I graduated from the Academy. The last thing I needed then was an argument about relative advantages of Asteros over Buzzards.

I moved my pod back to the Buzzard and continued exploring the constellation. Ekura and Jouvulen didn’t have any interesting cosmic signatures but the latter hosted a Guristas Forsaken Hideaway.

“Let me guess,” said I, “it’s not really forsaken.”

“Nope,” confirmed Aura, “but the good news is that it’s not as well-guarded as Forlorn.”

“How not well?”

“Just frigates and destroyers in measured doses, four of each at a time.”

I scratched my head, “Merimetso then?”

Aura nodded. I flew to Tsuguwa to board Merimetso and quickly jumped back to Jouvulen. When I arrived at the Hideaway location I was glad to see that I was the only capsuleer at the scene. Before engaging the guards I took some time to observe the base. Don’t know why they called it a hideaway – there were no habitation modules or hangars which could hide a ship. The only structure I could see was a Listening Post.

Listening Post

“It may not be a fully-fledged base, but in this never-ending war every bit counts,” noted I and attacked the pirate ships.

Pithi Plunderer

Pithior Terrorist

With a microwarpdrive and a Tech II Kinetic Shield Hardener I was not much concerned about staying out of harm’s way, so I simply went into a 45-km orbit around the Listening Post, and shot at any pirate ship which came within my firing range. Soon, the sordid careers of two Pithi Plunderers and three Pithior Terrorists came to a deserving end. That was not the end of my battle though, as two Dire Pithi Plunderer frigates and two destroyers warped in.

“Those ‘Dire’ things,” I said, “are they equipped with any nasty modules such as target jammers?”

“Not that I know of,” replied Aura.

“Anyway, it won’t hurt to get rid of those frigates first,” I mumbled and targeted the closest one.

Dire Pithi Plunderer

As Aura predicted, the Dire Pithis did not have any unpleasant offensive capabilities but, boy, were they hard to kill! While my average salvo damage against pirate destroyers was above 100, the Dire frigates got only 45. While I was struggling to overcome a single frigate, I received unexpected assistance – another Cormorant piloted by a capsuleer named Say Li warped to the grid and, without much ado, started taking apart other pirate ships.

“Woo-hoo!” I cheered exuberantly, “Go get’em!”

“Um,” Aura said cautiously, “I think I know what this guy is after, so you better watch him.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked nonplussed.

“Eve Uni academics say that the last reinforcement wave can sometimes be led by a Dread Guristas Despoiler frigate. Those are typically equipped with superior modules which attract high prices on the market.”

“You mean something like Pithum C-Type Modules?”

“Something like that,” smiled Aura meaningfully.

“Hmm… Thank you for the warning. It won’t be nice if he grabs the booty, given I have invested more time and effort into destroying the pirate fleet. On the other hand, if it comes to that, it will be ‘first come, first served’ situation. At least he doesn’t simply sit on the sidelines and wait for the Dread Guristas frigate to appear.”

When I have finally overpowered Dire Pithi’s defences there was only one other pirate ship remaining. I joined Say Li in his assault on the Guristas ship and together we made a short work of it. Then came a tense moment when we held our breath for the last wave of reinforcements. After a few heartbeats, the overview lit up with a garland of red triangles… none of which carried ‘Dread’ designation.

Aura shrugged her shoulders, “Not this time.”

Pithi Wrecker

Pithi Destructor

I exhaled the deoxygenated pod goo and took a deep breath before targeting the first of the newcomers. With two capsuleer Cormorants on the grid, the Guristas scum had no chance of survival. We cleared the area in no time, after which Say Li unhurriedly looted the wrecks of the ships he destroyed and departed into the void without saying a word.

“Um… Thank you,” I mumbled, as I was looting the wrecks of my own doing.

“He can’t hear you,” sniggered Aura.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said snootily, “A polite person stays polite whether he is observed or not.”

“You wouldn’t get objections from Schrödinger and his cat on that count,” Aura remarked drily.

“Definitely not from the cat,” I agreed, “For him it was a life-and-death question.”

We laughed, and I warped Merimetso to Ekura gate.

[Vladimir_Korff]

Intercept the Saboteurs

Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Tsuguwa system – Planet VI
Caldari Navy Assembly Plant Station

26 February YC 127

I haven’t heard from Ozanero Voiras for a while, and when I finally got a call from her I had an uneasy feeling. The memories of my desperate fight to save a girl which cost the lives of 10 marines were still raw in my head. The Level 2 Security Agent told me that she had a mission for which I was expected in her office, as always, at my earliest convenience. I shrugged – someone had to take the job and it was not like I had anything better to do – and 15 minutes later I was sitting in the familiar guest chair.

Ozanero smiled warmly and said, “How are you, Vladimir?”

The way she said it implied that she was genuinely concerned about my wellbeing and was ready to hear more than a usual “I am fine”.

I appreciated that personal touch and said, “Had to blow off steam by bashing a few Guristas’ heads in. If you are worried about my readiness for another mission, I am OK. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.” Then I changed the topic, “By the way, who was the guy I saw you with in the bar after the last mission?”

The agent’s smile became sad, “He was Sergeant Aoki’s commander. I told him that it was you who delivered the girl back to her father. He asked me to convey his gratitude to you. The fact that the mission was ultimately successful means a lot to the Navy and to the relatives of the deceased marines.”

I nodded, “It was an honour.”

As soon as I said it, something shifted almost imperceptibly in Ozanero’s eyes. The questioning expression disappeared and was replaced by some kind of acknowledgment but I was not sure of what. After a few heartbeats Ozanero took a deep breath and assumed her usual professional demeanour.

“Last time I sent you to save one girl,” she said, “Today I need you to save a planet. Are you ready?”

“What do you mean by a planet?” I asked, taken aback.

Ozanero’s face hardened, “We discovered a few convoys of Minmatar saboteurs carrying a heap load of viral agents. They are heading to one of the planets in Iidoken where they plan to carry out a biological attack on the populace. I need you to intercept them.”

My eyes widened, “Minmatar? Attacking Caldari civilians? But why?”

The agent looked at me in surprise, “If you listened to news any time since you were born, you surely know that we are at war with Gallente who are Minmatar’s allies, and Minmatar are at war with Amarr who are our allies. From Minmatar’s perspective, they are attacking not only the ally of their enemy, but also the enemy of their ally.”

“I know all that. But why do they attack the civilians? It’s pure terrorism! Although my opinion of Minmatar is not high, but even I thought they were above such atrocities.”

“I don’t believe that Minmatar are rabid dogs who want to sow chaos and destruction indiscriminately. My guess is that they want us to shift some of our Navy assets to Iidoken, away from another system where they or Gallente plan a big attack. That would be a solid tactical ploy.”

I narrowed my eyes, “And do we use such ploys?”

I was amazed at the transformation that the agent’s face underwent in a blink of an eye – a soft thoughtful expression was replaced with a blank, somewhat rigid grimace.

Stiffly, the agent replied, “No comments.”

I raised my eyebrow, “So, you do not deny it?”

Ozanero shook her head, “This is the only response that I may give to questions which can incriminate Caldari State, regardless of the answer and my knowledge of the answer. If we refuted false allegations and declined to comment on true ones, it would be too easy to figure out the truth. Always refusing to comment prevents people from jumping to conclusions.”

I scratched my head, “I guess, there is more to being an agent than just handing out the mission briefs. Talking of which, is there anything else I need to know?”

The agent relaxed and said in her normal tone as if nothing happened, “Yes, there will be interceptors.”

---

Still shell-shocked by the revelation that I could be scrammed, I boarded my capsule and woke up Aura. During my exploration days I expected hunters with warp scramblers, and I was ready to flee them in a fast agile frigate. For that matter, during most expeditions I didn’t see any hostiles at all. Now, I was an attacker who had to fly a not-so-nimble destroyer toward the enemy who was certain to possess warp disrupting modules. On top of that, the mission reward, decent as it was for Level 2, was nowhere close to covering the losses if my Cormorant was destroyed. On the other hand, how could I refuse a mission when lives of billions of people were on the line? But forget the billions! How could I refuse when a few days ago a squad of marines sacrificed themselves to save just one life?

“What shall we do?” I asked Aura anxiously. “Shall I get a brawler fit with blasters? Or shall I replace the MWD with an afterburner to keep the prop module running?”

Aura was all business-like and said in a cool voice, “Stop panicking. Tell me, do we expect scrams or points?”

I shrugged, “I don’t know. Ozanero didn’t have such details.”

“Alright. Did she tell you how far the warp-in point will be from the hostiles?”

“Er… Yes, it was in the brief. The closest group in the deadspace pocket will be about 20 clicks away if they haven’t changed the position.”

Aura smiled, “Then relax. No warp scrambler can get you at that distance. In the the worst case, they’ll use a warp disruptor to disable your warp drive, but MWD will get you out of their range eventually. Then you can snipe at them to your heart’s content.”

“But what if the interceptor has a microwarpdrive?”

“Then you’ll have to kill it before it starts running circles around you. Inties are crunchy. With seven 150-mm rails you’ll need to land just one or two volleys.”

“But…” I started another objection when Aura interrupted me with a dismissive gesture.

“Stop it,” she said firmly. “You can’t foresee every eventuality. For all I know, it may be a one-in-thousand chance that Minmatar sent a battlecruiser which will alpha you off the grid as soon as you arrive.”

“This doesn’t sound reassuring,” I said plaintively.

Aura spread her hands, “It’s New Eden, baby. If you don’t want to take risks, you better stay docked.”

After some mental toing and froing I decided to take Aura’s advice and loaded the pod into Kaukokärki. Then we undocked and warped to Iidoken gate.

---

Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Iidoken system – Mission location

Republic Baldur

The acceleration gate to the deadspace pocket was lightly guarded. It took me just a minute to dispatch three Republic Baldurs and one transport. Normally, I would not attack a transport ship but that one, in all probability, carried the viral agent which Minmatar planned to release into the atmosphere of one of our planets. I didn’t feel any qualms when the hauler exploded in a ball of fire.

Minmatar Transport Ship

Having got rid of the guards I mentally prepared for the real battle which awaited me in the deadspace. One more time I repeated the sequence of commands that I would need to issue on the other side, and then activated the gate.

First thing I did when we I came out of the warp was fly full speed away from the nearest group of hostiles. With grim satisfaction, I noted that the distance between Minmatar ships and my Cormorant was steadily increasing. Only then I started looking at the tactical disposition. To my relief, Chief Republic Isak interceptors were in two farther groups which did not pursue me. The nearest group was indeed 20 kilometres away when I warped in, but now that distance increased to 30 clicks.

I smiled at Aura, “You plan is working!”

She snorted, “Of course, it is. And you would have come up with the same plan if you didn’t fixate on the worst-case scenario.”

“It was really unnerving,” I said lamely.

“Then why don’t you soothe your nerves by playing a merry melody on your seven railguns?” asked Aura sweetly. “You know, those Thukkers and Brutors aren’t going to shoot themselves.”

“Oh, right,” I said, hastily turning my attention to the overview.

Republic Gleeda

The eight frigates that were chasing me were already out of my firing range. I was surprised to see that one of Republic Gleeda frigates managed to project a target painter on my hull from the distance of 122 kilometres. That didn’t do them any good, though, as they obviously did not possess weapons with such a long reach.

Target Painter

“If you wanted to play laser tag, mate, you came to a wrong party,” I sniggered.

Then I turned off my microwarpdrive and changed course so that I moved perpendicular to the pursuers’ path, giving them an opportunity to close in on me. They flew in a tight formation and entered my weapons range together. And together they died within a span of two minutes which passed from my first shot to the last one. Now it was time to tackle the tacklers.

Republic Otur

While I was dealing with the first group the remaining two wings stayed put and were now more than 100 km away. Each wing had a transport ship, a Chief Republic Isak interceptor, and a mix of regular frigates and destroyers. I chose a fly-by trajectory which would briefly bring one of the wings within my firing range while keeping as far away as possible from the other wing. That way I ensured that I would not have to deal with two interceptors simultaneously.

During my approach I had time to take a closer look at Minmatar ships which, come to think of it, was the first time I saw them live – the state that I was intent on changing very soon. More than anything, they looked like a product of a garage project where an enthusiastic amateur bolted a barely space-worthy ship together from spare parts. My assessment of the Minmatar quality was confirmed by my railguns which dispatched most frigates with a single volley. The transport ships and destroyers lasted longer but not because of the strength of their shields and armour but purely because of their size. All that, however, I discovered only after dealing with the main threat – the Chief Republic Isak. The interceptor proved to be less crunchy than Aura made it out to be. In fact, it was harder to kill than Republic Austri destroyers. If it had an MWD and was located 20 kilometres from me when I warped in, I don’t think I would be able to dispatch it quickly enough. Even from my advantageous sniping position where the angle speed was not a factor, I spent 15 seconds and 42 Spike charges to kill the pesky tackler. But once it was gone, dealing with the rest of the wing was a run-of-the-mill job.

Chief Republic Isak

I didn’t dilly-dally with the last group, flying directly toward it and shooting at each ship as it entered my firing range. My 85-km reach ensured that all the hostiles were destroyed before they managed to land a single hit on me.

As the last Minmatar ship exploded, I relaxed and looked at Aura, “This was easier than I thought.”

She giggled, “If you can call that panic-stricken wide-eyed raving of yours thinking, then yes.”

I smiled, accepting the barb graciously, then looked at the overview which was filled with Minmatar ship wrecks.

“Why don’t we take a look at what these clunkers were made of, eh?” suggested I and willed Kaukokärki toward the closest debris.

Examination of the wrecks revealed that the inties were armed with Faint Scoped Warp Disruptors and Fleeting Compact Stasis Webifiers. The former could have shut down my warp engine from the distance of 22 kilometres but they never got a chance to get that close to me.

“Hey, what’s that?” asked Aura pointing at a container icon on the overview.

“Don’t know. Let’s check,” I replied and approached the object.

The next words which I uttered when I inspected the contents of the container were “Holy ■■■■!”

The box held 10 bottles of the viral agent! I immediately moved away from the accursed container and started targeting it. The last thing I wanted was to stain Kaukokärki’s beautiful skin with the virus and bring it back to the station.

At that moment, the screen showed the head of Ozanero Voiras who said urgently, “Vladimir, you need to bring the virus back to the station.”

“What?” I cried out in disbelief.

“We need this container as the evidence of Minmatar’s nefarious plot.”

I narrowed my eyes, “Just as the evidence?”

Ozanero sighed, “This is what I’ve been told and this is what I am telling you.”

I didn’t like the idea a single bit.

“And what if I simply destroy it?” I asked.

“Then you won’t get your mission reward.”

“Hey, my mission objective was to destroy the Minmatar convoy and I achieved it.”

Ozanero pursed her lips, “You need to read mission briefs more carefully, Captain. There is a clause which requires you to surrender any discovered hazardous materials to the Navy.”

I looked at Aura questioningly. She nodded with an apologetic smile, confirming Ozanero’s words. I, however, had not done resisting yet.

“I am sure that the saboteurs had more than one such crate with the virus. For all I know, it is covered with the remains of the viral medium from the destroyed containers, and there is a regulation which prohibits bringing contaminated goods into the station.”

To be honest, it was a pure bluff, as I had no idea if such regulation existed. But, as they say, even a blind squirrel can find a nut once in a while.

The agent’s face became thoughtful and after some deliberation she said, “Depressurise your cargo hold before collecting the crate. When you come to the station you will be directed to one of the external docks where the container can be picked up without a risk of spreading the virus through the air.”

I knew I was losing the battle but I was hell-bent on making that transaction as expensive as possible for the Navy.

“And what about my cargo hold? It will be contaminated through the contact with the crate.”

Ozanero’s face stiffened and she said, “We’ll send a biohazard crew to clean the hold.”

“At your expense,” insisted I.

After a pause, the agent nodded, “At our expense.”

There was nothing else to do. I picked up the container and warped to Tsuguwa gate.

Kaukokärki

As we were making our way back to the station, Aura suddenly looked at me with excitement, “Hey, Vlad. Do you know how much that crate is worth on the market?”

I shook my head.

Aura made a dramatic pause and said, “For the 10 bottles you can 775,088.20 ISK. It is twice more than the mission bonus!”

“And who do you think will buy it?” I asked cautiously.

“Does it matter? Anyone who has enough money.”

“Someone like an agent of the Republic Fleet?”

Aura started nodding enthusiastically, but then the penny dropped, and she shrunk visibly. There was no way such amount of viral material could be used for a peaceful purpose like research. Whoever possessed it would think of it as a weapon or, in the best case, as an evidence. And the best case was all we could hope for.

[Vladimir_Korff]

Rogue Drone Asteroid Infestation

Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Nourvukaiken system

3 March YC 127

“Look what we’ve got here,” I said, having finished scanning Nourvukaiken system. “There are two sites which I have never seen before. Which one shall we visit first?”

The probe scanner revealed Local Guristas Production Installation and Rogue Drone Asteroid Infestation.

“Since we are flying a Buzzard, I would suggest to go to the Guristas place first,” replied Aura.

I looked at Aura with surprise, “Don’t good manners, to say nothing about common sense, dictate that one should fly a combat ship when visiting a den of pirates?”

“Nah, those production installations are unguarded. Also, they contain some information facilities which may be looted if one has a data analyser – a module which is not typically found on destroyers.”

“Ah,” I said raising my eyebrows, “then let’s go and rob the robbers.”

I warped to the location of the Guristas site where I found a coral-like asteroid surrounded by three Info Shards and a Com Tower. Hacking was a breeze and soon I became a new owner of a handful of decryptors, filaments and other bric-a-brac.

Local Guristas Production Installation

“Hmm…” said Aura, “No datacores?”

“Nope,” I shook my head.

“Why do you think we don’t find datacores in Guristas hi-sec communication facilities? Or, for that matter, why don’t we find more such facilities? It’s the first one we have discovered since December despite your regular patrols.”

“I can’t answer your first question, but as to the second one, I think this is due to the busy nature of this constellation. A lot of traffic passes through Okela systems, including explorers. If any Guristas base starts leaking emissions, it is quickly discovered and looted.”

Aura looked at me hopefully, “Can we move our operations to a quieter constellation?”

“In principle, I don’t care where we fight the pirates, but here I am finally getting some traction with the security agent. Given how much effort it takes to build a good working relationship, I wouldn’t like to start over. But why? What do you have on your mind?”

“Nothing,” replied Aura absent-mindedly, looking in the distance. “Hmm…”

I shrugged my shoulders and headed back to the station in Tsuguwa.

“Merimetso or Kaukokärki?” I asked Aura when my pod was extracted from Nosuri.

“Merimetso will do,” said Aura. “All you can expect at that Asteroid Infestation is frigates and baby drones.”

“Baby drones,” I chuckled remembering Aura’s drone evolution theory.

---

Having boarded Merimetso, I returned to Nourvukaiken and warped to the Infestation site. All I found there was an acceleration gate and three baby drones guarding it.

Incubus Apis

“You shouldn’t wander alone in this cold dark void, kids,” I muttered and started orbiting the gate.

Two Incubus Apis drones needed just one volley each before they exploded.

“Where is the third one?” I asked.

I could see it on the overview but not on the cameras.

“It’s running circles around you,” giggled Aura.

Indeed, the distance between the remaining Scorpionfly Apis and me was steady 2,000 metres.

“Geez, this thing is fast!” I exclaimed. “It’s the first hostile of any persuasion which can keep pace with me. Let’s see if I can hit it.”

Despite orbiting me like crazy, the drone could not outrun my railguns.

Scorpionfly Apis

“Good thing we chose Merimetso with one-twenty-fives,” I mused when the Scorpionfly exploded. “If we flew Kaukokärki with one-fifties, they could be too slow for this insect.”

“But then you would have an MWD instead of the afterburner, and could just fly away from it reducing its angular speed,” objected Aura.

“True,” I nodded, and activated the acceleration gate.

The second pocket contained 12 baby drones and 7 frigates, split in four groups none of which paid any attention to me.

Arachula Apis

“Ha! These drones have no manners,” complained I. “Where is the welcoming committee?”

“Maybe they want you to say ‘hello’ first?” said Aura, smiling and pointing at the weapon icons on the HUD.

“Happy to oblige,” I said brightly, willing Merimetso into a 45-km orbit around a Rogue Drone Container.

Infester Alvi

That fleet did not have Scorpionflies which could reach me, so all the baby drones supervised by three adults, sorry, frigates gave a spirited but fruitless chase. Easily keeping my distance from the pursuing machines, I was totally absorbed in a select-target-shoot cycle which had to be repeated for each railgun as soon as its previous target exploded. Soon, the deadspace pocket was littered with debris from the destroyed drones.

“Now this place really lives up to its name – deadspace,” I quipped looking at the wrecks with satisfaction.

“Hey, there are still living beings here!” objected Aura.

“There won’t be any soon, darling. Just let me check the contents of those two containers.”

I approached a box labelled ‘Rogue Drone Container’ and looked inside. It contained one piece of Lucent Compound.

“What’s this?” I asked scratching my head.

“Some stuff that can be refined into other stuff… I guess,” said Aura.

“Let’s take it. I’ll give to Yakub as a birthday present,” I chuckled.

Next was a Black Drone Container which held 5th Tier Overseer’s Personal Effects. There was nothing else to do there and I jumped to the next pocket.

“Wow!” I gasped as we arrived. “What is this place?”

Mining Base

The last room of the deadspace complex was dominated by a large human-built station. It was nested between two asteroids and was surrounded by a complex net of traffic lanes.

“Currently, it’s just a nest of drones,” answered Aura, “but if you are interested in what this place was, I can tell you that once it was owned by a mining corporation. The pocket contained such a large number of mineral-rich asteroids that the company even invested in building a permanent station here. Unfortunately, at some point, the gate control system was infested with a mysterious virus which drained the power coils to such a degree that they couldn’t move industrial haulers between the pockets. Only smaller vessels like ours could use the gates.”

“And the drones.”

“And the drones,” nodded Aura. “Soon after the gate malfunction those pests appeared en masse and made further operations all but impossible. The corporation had to evacuate its personnel and abandon the site.”

“What a sad story,” I sighed. “We can’t do much about the gates, but at least we can exterminate the vermin.”

Decimator Alvi

With that, I turned my attention to the aforementioned pests. Altogether there were 8 baby drones and 12 frigates, all within my firing range. As in the previous room, they weren’t paying any attention to me, just buzzing around the ‘roids and minding their own business. Lulled by such indifferent attitude, I simply targeted the seven closest rogue drones and started firing. That was a mistake – the whole swarm immediately aggressed me. Although it didn’t take me long to kill individual enemies, I couldn’t do it fast enough before I was overrun by angry insectoids. My damage indicator started crawling across the HUD and my rails stopped hitting the hostiles which were orbiting too fast around me. Willy-nilly I was forced to resort to my regular tactic of orbiting a stationary object. Once I’ve done it and built a bit of distance between Merimetso and the pursuing machines, the nascent SNAFU was reduced just to SN. Two minutes later the grid was clear.

Belphegor Apis

“Is that it?” I asked, looking for another acceleration gate.

“No,” replied Aura.

Panicking, I inspected the overview window but didn’t see any live drones there.

“Why not?”

“Because you have not looted all those juicy containers yet,” explained Aura with an endless patience of a teacher talking to a particularly dense pupil.

“Phew,” I exhaled. “I thought there were other hostiles in the area.”

Aura rolled her eyes and said nothing.

Ore Storage Platform with Mineral Containers

The juiciness of the containers was greatly exaggerated. All I found inside was a small amount of minerals and 7th Tier Overseer’s Personal Effects, the latter being the most valuable trophy but still rather cheap by my standards.

Seeing my disappointment, Aura said brightly, “By the way, do you know that some researchers believe that Overseer’s Personal Effects found in drone-infested places are, in fact, Overseers themselves? I mean, a Drone Overseer is not a ship but the thing that you have found in the container.”

“I’ll remember it for trivia,” I grumbled and warped to Tsuguwa stargate.

[Vladimir_Korff]

Lonetrek Exploration

Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Tsuguwa system – Planet VI
Caldari Navy Assembly Plant Station

9 March YC 127

For the last few days Aura was badgering me about Guristas data sites in hi-sec. For some reason, she couldn’t get the datacores, or rather a lack thereof, out of her mind. If she were any old navigational AI, I would have sent her to the repair shop. But since it was my Aura…

I sighed and gave up, “Okay what exactly do you want me to do?”

Aura brightened up, “Just jump into the Buzzard and explore data sites in other constellations. Surely, we must find some datacores there.”

“But what constellations?”

“Oh,” she thought for a moment, “all constellations in Lonetrek would give us a representative sample, I’m sure.”

“What?” I gasped. “The whole region?”

“It’s just 91 systems,” said Aura airily and batted her eyelashes at me.

“That will take ages!” I objected.

“I don’t think so. If we have the same luck in other constellations as in Okela, we won’t spend much time in each system. You just need to scan all the signatures and check if any of them represents a data site. Odds are that none will. Then we move to the next system.”

“Okay,” I sighed, “just calculate the optimal route through the region while I am loading the pod into Nosuri.”

Now it was Aura’s turn to make round eyes, “You want me to solve a travelling salesman problem for 91 nodes? Vlad, you are dreaming!”

“What’s the issue? You are a navigational AI, aren’t you?”

“I am, but it will take forever to find the optimal route through Lonetrek. Do you know how many possible routes are there? Factorial ninety-one!”

I winced, “But why do you have to use brute force for that problem? Surely, there are optimised methods.”

“There are, but whoever programmed me decided that a brute force algorithm would do.”

I scratched my head and smiled, “Shall I dust off my coding skills and knock up a quick and dirty script?”

Aura rolled her eyes, “Vlad, trust me, you’ll spend more time on writing, testing and debugging the program than you will waste on following a suboptimal path.”

You know, as much as I wanted to object, I had to admit that Aura was probably right.

“Alright,” I grumbled, “we’ll take a scenic route.”

“You are an angel,” purred Aura.

---

Lonetrek region

As we travelled through Lonetrek, I was slowly coming to a conclusion that my theory about the dependency between the number of exploration sites and the volume of traffic was wrong. Systems which contained data sites had, on average, 4,500 jumps in the last 24 hours, which was also an average across all Lonetrek systems. Aura’s demeanor became increasingly morose as she was having the same realisation. Her hopes of finding a quiet cluster of systems where we could regularly harvest the elusive Guristas data sites were fading quickly.

On the second day of our journey I finished exploring Sela constellation which yielded a meagre one data site across six systems.

“Well, we are almost done,” I told Aura. “Only Karnola constellation is remaining.”

“Hey, and what about Pietanen and Malariya?” asked Aura.

“They are isolated by a low-sec system, Aunenen. I thought you were interested in hi-sec systems only.”

“I am, and there are 11 hi-sec systems in those constellations. I am sure that that hi-sec pocket will have a treasure trove of Guristas data sites.”

After all the time I spent exploring Anoikis, I could not, hand on heart, say that flying through a low-sec system was an unacceptable danger. Especially, with a Tech II CovOps Cloaking Device. So I acquiesced to Aura’s demands but took all regular precautions such as checking the kills in the last hour. There were none. As expected, our transit through Aunenen was quite uneventful.

The average jump rate in Pietanen and Malariya was the lowest in the whole region – only 600 jumps per day. And they did contain a treasure trove of pirate sites but not the kind that Aura was expecting. Each system was rife with active pirate bases which one could locate even without a probe scanner. The data sites, however, were as sparse as they were elsewhere in the region – there was a grand total of four in both constellations.

“The locals seem to be more interested in raiding Guristas data and relic sites than in exterminating their bases,” I remarked.

Aura did not reply.

It was getting late and I spent a night in Caldari Steel Warehouse station in Otalieto. Next morning, I successfully escaped the hi-sec pocket and completed my exploration of Lonetrek by travelling through Karnola constellation. The number of data or relic sites we discovered there was zero.

When we returned to the station in Tsuguwa, I took stock of the loot from the whole region and found that we had obtained 13 datacores: one Graviton Physics, three Hydromagnetic Physics and nine Mechanical Engineering.

“Happy?” I asked Aura.

I knew she was not but I couldn’t help this little passive-aggressive jibe after wasting three days on that senseless expedition. Aura seemed to be deep in thought and ignored my barb.

“Hmm…” she said. “I’d say our trip raised more questions than it gave answers.”

“Questions like what?”

“Like why did datacores appear only in Com Towers? Why weren’t they present in Info Shards? If the names reflect the function of each structure, I would expect datacores to be part of Shards, not communication devices. And I am no closer to understanding what the pirates keep on the second partition in the datacores.”

I was tired of that wild goose chase and tried to direct Aura’s thoughts toward less time-consuming endeavours, at least the ones consuming my time.

“Look, maybe you can glean some information from these new cores. Before, you only had Electromagnetic Physics, and now you have three more types. Why don’t you experiment with those datacores for a while?”

“Yes, I think it’s a good idea,” Aura answered absent-mindedly.

I was about to extract the pod from the Buzzard when Aura stopped me, “Vlad, can you please leave the pod in the ship?”

In response to my questioning gaze, she explained, “I’ll need some computing power to analyse the cores. The capsule has just one teraflop while the Buzzard has 300.”

I shrugged my shoulders, “Whatever floats your boat, baby,” and started draining the pod goo.

After three days in an exploration frigate I was ready to kill someone, but I decided to give Aura time to play with her datacores, lest I find myself in the middle of a fight with deactivated railguns.

[Vladimir_Korff]

The Blood-Stained Stars: Quality of Mercy – Part I

Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Tsuguwa system – Planet VI
Caldari Navy Assembly Plant Station

16 March YC 127

Today I got an unusual call from Ozanero Voiras, Level 2 Security Agent.

“Vladimir, where are you?” she said by way of greeting.

“Um… I am here, in Tsuguwa,” I replied. “Why?”

“Erm… Can you do me a favour?” said the agent with an uncharacteristic hesitation.

That didn’t sound like a run-of-the-mill mission assignment, if it was a mission at all. Maybe she wanted me to look after her cat while she was on vacation. I raised my eyebrows enquiringly.

“Do you mind flying to Arnon,” she continued, “and helping out Sisters of Eve with an urgent rescue mission?”

Arnon? Sisters of Eve? I had a lot of questions, but after hearing the words ‘urgent rescue mission’ my legs started moving me in the direction of the docks. Nevertheless, I was capable of multitasking, meaning I could walk and talk at the same time. So I started asking my questions.

“Where in the void is Arnon?” was my first one.

“It’s in Essence. Just 15 jumps away,” replied Ozanero.

I stumbled on hearing that.

“Essence? That’s Gallente space!”

“Don’t worry. Your standings with the Feds are not too bad.”

“But their standings in my books aren’t good enough,” I grumbled. “Anyway, why is a Caldari security agent referring her contractor to a third party? I thought you, lot, tended to guard your contacts. Or is my performance so poor that you’ve decided to pass me on?”

“Oh no, it’s nothing like that,” Ozanero objected vehemently. “It’s just that Sisters are a neutral faction and from time to time we rely on their cooperation. It pays to have good relations with them, and this is an opportunity to strengthen our ties. Besides, they must be really desperate. You see, Sister Alitura is a Level 1 agent, and she would not have reached out to me if she could find someone available at that level. Since she decided to escalate it to Level 2, the situation must be dire. I have been calling all my contractors, regardless of their standings, but haven’t had much luck so far. I am so glad that I was able to reach you. Can you take this assignment, Vladimir?”

I turned my commlink around so that the camera showed the entrance to the docks.

“Almost there. Send me the coordinates, and I’ll do my best.”

Ozanero’s face lit up with joy, “Oh, thank you so much! I don’t know what I would do without you.”

Probably call another pilot, I thought.

Aloud I said, “You are welcome,” and ended the connection.

---

“We are going to Gallente Federation? Cool!” exclaimed Aura when I told her about our ‘mission’. “After our Lonetrek exploration trip I thought we should travel more. What is the destination system?”

“Arnon,” I said lackadaisically.

“Arnon? Hmm…” Aura opened the system map with a sceptical look. “If you didn’t tell me it was in Federation space I could take that system for Caldari – three stations out of four belong to CBD corporation.”

“That part doesn’t surprise me at all. CBD does a lot of export and import, so if there is one Caldari mega-corp that you expect to find abroad, it’s them.”

“Oh, well. At least we will visit the Sisters’ station. What are we flying?”

“Kaukokärki.”

Aura raised her eyebrow, “For a Level 1 mission? Sounds like an overkill.”

“Maybe, but if there is any escalation I don’t want to make 30 jumps to Tsuguwa and back just to change the destroyer.”

“Fair enough. The route is ready, Captain.”

I acknowledged Aura’s report with a nod and undocked.

---

A Beacon Becons

Essense region – Peccanouette constellation
Arnon System – Planet IX – Moon 3
Sisters of EVE Bureau

Sisters of Eve Bureau in Arnon

Sister Alitura looked up from the screen and fixed her unsympathetic gaze at me.

“You are a capsuleer,” she said accusingly.

I was taken aback by her tone but replied lightly, “Guilty as charged,” using my best used-car-salesman smile. That didn’t produce the desired effect.

Alitura shook her head in disbelief, “I asked for help and she sent me a goddamn capsuleer! One of those immortal arrogant pilots who think that they shape the fate of empires!”

“Well, since you’ve mentioned that, Empress Catiz I is sitting on her throne courtesy of such an arrogant pilot,” I said acerbically.

“And what good has it done? While you and your ilk are playing gods, millions of ordinary people suffer from your games. You, empyreans,” she spat out the word, “don’t have a modicum of humanity in you!”

I didn’t know what Sister Alitura had against capsuleers, in general, and me, in particular, but I was fed up with her hostility.

I stood up and said, “That’s enough! I did not fly all the way here to be insulted.”

As I started making my way to the door, the agent cried out, “Wait! I didn’t ask for a capsuleer but I don’t have a choice…”

I turned sharply toward her and put my clenched fists on her table with a bang.

“Yes, you do, Sister,” I hissed looking her in the eye. “If you want help from me and my ilk, you will choose your words wisely. You can choose to continue your baseless accusations, or you can start telling me what you need me to do.”

For a long moment our eyes were locked and no one said anything. Then the agent took a deep breath and started talking in a flat, business-like tone.

“We have received a distress signal from a ship called The Damsel. The signal came from Manarq system. We do not know the situation there but we believe that lives of people onboard The Damsel are in danger. We need you to fly to the last known location of the ship and provide whatever assistance is required.”

In normal circumstances I would ask for details, but I wanted to end that conversation as soon as possible.

I nodded and said curtly, “My ship is Kaukokärki. Send the coordinates to my navigational AI.”

Without saying another word, I turned and left that inhospitable place.

---

Genesis region – Sanctum constellation
Manarq system – Mission location

“Holy ■■■■!” I gasped, looking at the scene in front of me. “What in void has happened here?”

The Damsel Wreck

The Damsel turned out to be a Minmatar battleship, or rather had been, since what I was looking at was its wreck. As if sending a Level 1 mission pilot to the rescue of a battleship was not enough, two other objects completing the nature morte were remains of Amarrian and Minmatar dreadnoughts.

Revelation Wreck

Naglfar Wreck

“Any signs of life onboard any of the ships?” I asked Aura.

“None,” she replied with an apologetic smile.

“I don’t know if I should be upset or relieved by the fact that we came late to the party. If we arrived when there was a fight between capital ships, by now we would be flying back home in a capsule.”

“If we were lucky,” added Aura grimly.

“Hmm…” I mused. “It’s quite unusual that the opposing fleets are so closely matched that they manage to destroy each other at the same time. I wonder if there was a third party involved.”

“Dunno,” Aura shrugged her shoulders. “What do we do now? Go back to Sisters and say that the mission was a failure?”

“I am not admitting any failure,” I said angrily. “Not after the treatment that righteous upstart security agent gave me in her office. It’s not my problem that there is no one to save.”

At that moment I got a call from the righteous upstart security agent.

“Captain,” Sister Alitura said in a neutral but urgent tone, “there has been a development since you left the station. Please return to my office at your earliest convenience.”

Then she ended the connection. Aura and I looked at each other in astonishment.

“Er… Warp drive active, Captain?” asked Aura uncertainly.

I made a grimace, “I guess so… If only to collect our reward.”

[Vladimir_Korff]

The Blood-Stained Stars: Quality of Mercy – Part II

Agent Enquiry

Essense region – Peccanouette constellation
Arnon System – Planet IX – Moon 3
Sisters of EVE Bureau

16 March YC 127

I entered Sister Alitura’s office and stared at her without saying anything. Usually, I dislike giving people silent treatment, preferring to avoid such people instead, but face-to-face debriefing was unavoidable if I wanted to get my kredits.

“You arrived too late,” said Alitura starting a conversation, “CONCORD was faster to respond and they took survivors to care facilities.”

“I am very happy that CONCORD came to the rescue first but I did not sign up for a competition,” I said testily. “You asked me to ‘provide whatever assistance was required’ and so I did. It’s not my fault that the amount of required assistance was nil. I earned my mission reward and I demand it to be transferred into my account immediately.”

The agent’s face darkened, “You’ll get your money, Captain, if money is all you care for. And I’ll offer you an opportunity to earn more if you can spare you precious time on further investigation.”

I had absolutely no wish to continue my collaboration with Sister Alitura, but I was intrigued by that incident in Manarq.

Having decided that I could at least listen to what she had to say, I put on an exaggeratedly greedy smile and said, “I am all ears.”

Taking a pause to show how regrettable she found the necessity to talk to me, Sister Alitura continued, “We will pay you 240,000 ISK for making a contact with a CONCORD agent who can provide further directions to you.”

“Wow,” I drawled, looking incredulously at Alitura, “you are paying me money to get rid of me?” Then I guffawed, “Lady, you missed an opportunity of the year – I would have taken such a mission for free!”

The agent clenched her teeth, “We are paying money to incentivise you to continue the investigation and also to ensure your discretion.”

Now I felt genuinely offended. Again.

“Who do you take me for?” I asked indignantly. “None of my agents has ever had a reason to question my integrity. Confidentiality is a standard clause in any mission contract, and I honour it without demanding an extra payment.”

“This is a special case. The CONCORD agent I mentioned works under cover. You will be required to keep the agent’s identity secret. Do you accept the mission?” asked Sister Alitura pushing her datapad to me across the table.

I noticed how she avoided using a personal pronoun before ‘identity’, thus concealing even the CONCORD agent’s gender. The ■■■■ was getting serious. I considered the offer for a while. All in all, it looked like a win-win situation – Alitura and I would get rid of each other, and I’d get a nice stack of kredits just for travelling to CONCORD agent’s location. I started moving my finger to the signature field on the datapad screen when a sudden thought occurred to me and made me pull my hand back.

“Where is that agent located?” I asked suspiciously.

“It’s classified information which I cannot disclose before you accept the mission,” replied Alitura.

“What if it’s somewhere in null-sec? Then your reward will not be worth the risk.”

“If you are afraid of travelling to null-sec, I can put your mind to rest,” Alitura said scornfully. “The CONCORD agent is in hi-sec – this much I can tell you.”

“It’s not about fear, it’s about risk and reward,” grumbled I, putting my finger on the datapad sensor. “If you ask Black Frog to make just one jump in null-sec for you, you’ll have to start with a nine-digit figure, not your puny 240K.”

As soon as the sensor confirmed my identity, Alitura pulled the datapad and said coldly, “That will be all, Captain Korff. Have a good day.”

She then turned her eyes to the screen and started typing something, ignoring me. I was past empty courtesies. Silently I had entered that room, and silently I left.

---

Genesis region – Sanctum constellation
Tar System

When I boarded my ship, Aura showed me the mission brief. I had to contact CONCORD agent Tevis Jak who was located just three jumps away, in Tar. He posed as an ORE agent and lived in an Epithal anchored somewhere in the system. The cover was plausible as, I guess, even ORE had to have representatives outside Outer Ring, but why CONCORD would deploy their undercover agent in CONCORD space was beyond me.

As we arrived in Tar, the overview showed a beacon which advertised Tevis Jak’s location to the whole system.

I chuckled, “If you want to hide something, or someone, make them blatantly conspicuous.”

Tavis Jak’s Epithal

We warped to the beacon where we saw the agent’s Epithal and… a Cormorant floating near it. I observed the scene for a couple of minutes during which the Cormorant went away and was replaced by an Atron. Then I saw a Catalyst and another Cormorant warping in and out.

“This guy is busy,” I said, surprised, “but I can’t wait the whole day, lest my time bonus expires. Aura, will you please inform the esteemed agent of our arrival?”

“Knock-knock,” said Aura with a smile, and requested a connection.

As soon as the connection was accepted, Neocom informed me that I became 240,000 kredits richer. For a moment I considered simply collecting my fee for three hi-sec jumps and flying away, but… I was really curious. I wanted to know how, in the middle of CONCORD space, two capital ships were destroyed without anyone noticing.

Then Tevis Jak’s face appeared on the screen and said, “Good day, Mr Korff. I was waiting for you.”

Tavis Jak

[Vladimir_Korff]

The Blood-Stained Stars: Quality of Mercy – Part III

Of Interest

Genesis region – Sanctum constellation
Tar System

16 March YC 127

I nodded, “Agent Jak. How can I be of service?”

Tevis Jak smiled, “In many ways, Mr Korff. I need boots on the ground, ships in space, eyes in stations…”

“Erm…” I interrupted Jak’s enthusiastic enumeration of mission locations, “Ships in space – definitely, eyes in stations – maybe, boots on the ground – definitely not.”

Tevis Jak sighed, “I thought so. But let’s start with space. First of all, to preserve the evidence of sabotage, I need you to take out the pirates scavenging the explosion site.”

I knitted my brow, “Sabotage? Are we talking about the same incident?”

“I am talking about The Damsel explosion. That’s what Sister Alitura sent you to investigate, right?”

“Yes, but there was no sabotage. The Damsel was destroyed by an Amarrian dreadnought. I saw its wreck at the site of the tragedy.”

The agent pursed his lips, “No, no, no. I don’t know how well you inspected The Damsel’s remains, but I took a really close look and I can tell you that there were no signs of external damage on the hull. The Damsel was blown up from inside. Didn’t Alitura tell you about it? It should be in your mission brief.”

I looked at Aura. She shook her head.

“That bitсh,” I mumbled.

The agent raised his eyebrows, “Pardon?”

“Sorry, ignore that. No, that information was not in the brief.”

“Hmm… This is strange. She is usually quite diligent. You see, this piece of intel is significant. If The Damsel was destroyed by another ship, you and I would not be having this conversation. I am a Level 1 agent. You, judging by your well-equipped Cormorant, can probably take a Level 2 mission, but neither of us is qualified to deal with a force which can kill a battleship in a space battle. But saboteurs, they don’t fly dreadnoughts and battleships; their ships are fast and inconspicuous – a shuttle, a corvette, a frigate at the outside. And this is where you come in. We need someone who can move quickly between locations and survive a skirmish with the usual small-time riff-raff plaguing our space lanes.”

I smiled wryly, “Such as the pirates looting The Damsel’s wreck as we speak?”

“Exactly!” exclaimed the agent ignoring my sarcasm. “Please take care of them. In the meantime, I’ll be looking for rescued survivors who I hope can shed light on what happened. They were sent to various facilities, and I need time to track them down. Any questions?”

The assignment was pretty simple, so I bid my good-bye and headed to Manarq.

---

Genesis region – Sanctum constellation
Manarq system – Mission location

When we arrived to the site of the disaster, I saw two Corpii Worshipper frigates milling around The Damsel’s wreck.

Corpii Worshipper

“Blood Raiders,” I muttered. “I hate Blood Raiders.”

“Don’t you hate all pirates?” asked Aura.

“Yes, but it’s on a spectrum. Serpentis, for example, operate in Gallente space. They tie up Federation Navy forces and undermine Gallente economy. Although I do not approve of their methods, especially when it comes to harassing civilians, they are the enemy of our enemy. Blood Raiders, on the other hand, are worst of the worst. Before you told me that they were followers of Sani Sabik faith, I could never have imagined that such bloody rituals would be practiced as part of a mainstream religion in our times.”

Aura shuddered, “If I ever tell you that I’d like to have a body, just remind me about those barbarians. At least in my present virtual form I will never become their victim.”

“Well, if you are talking about these particular barbarians,” I pointed at the overview, “no one will ever become their victim.”

I turned Kaukokärki toward the pirates and fired up the engine. In a few seconds, both hostiles were within my firing range. Ten seconds later they were no more.

“Love my one-fifties,” I murmured adoring the fireballs on the screen. “One salvo and a frigate is gone. Sometimes I wonder why I should bother flying Merimetso with her one-twenty-fives. Maybe I should fit her with blasters and convert to a brawler. What do you think, Aura?”

“I think,” replied Aura, “that we have more urgent things to do than theorising about the relative strengths of your favourite Cormorants.”

She pointed at the overview where three more red triangles appeared just outside my targeting range. I noticed with surprise that although they didn’t have any weapons that could reach me from 90 km, they did manage to acquire a target lock on me.

“That’s a stupid design,” I scoffed. “They allocated resources to increasing the targeting distance but could not fit a weapon with a matching firing range. I am actually quite proud of my sniper fit which ensures that the firing and targeting ranges differ by less than one click.”

Aura raised an eyebrow, “Your sniper fit?”

I raised my hands in a placating gesture – one had to give credit where credit was due. After all, it was Aura who crafted the combination of modules, charges and skills which produced such a harmonious fit.

“Of course, it is your fit. Come to think of it, maybe they are flying those jury-rigged rust buckets because they didn’t have assistance of such smart an AI.”

Aura beamed proudly. A little bit of flattery went a long way with her.

“Just make sure that you don’t squander the benefits of my sniper fit by letting those scoundrels get too close to us,” she said.

Corpii Herald

That was a timely reminder, as the Raiders had already entered my firing range and were closing in unmolested. I targeted the three newcomers and started picking them off one by one. Corpii Heralds were as squishy as Worshippers but a bit more agile. That meant that my first hit did not cause as much damage and I had to top it up with a second one. Corpii Upholder was a tougher bird but it too couldn’t take more than two hits. In less than half a minute the second wave of attackers was repelled.

As soon as the Upholder was reduced to stardust, three Corpii Followers and one Corpii Worshipper warped in. They, too, were sent to the warm embrace of their bloodthirsty god.

Corpii Follower

“Hehe,” I chuckled, “it’s not every day that one gets to loot a wreck of a dreadnought in hi-sec. No wonder those guys were so eager.”

I wish I could rummage in those gigantic broken hulls myself, but my mission was exactly the opposite – to protect them – so I had to settle for salvaging stuff from the pirates’ wrecks. When I finished looting the the last Corpii Worshipper, Tevis Jak’s head suddenly popped up on my comms screen.

“That thing, the datacore, that you just extracted, bring it to me,” he said excitedly and ended the connection.

I didn’t pay much attention to the exact contents of the wrecks, so I had to do a double take. Indeed, there was a strange object in my cargo hold which looked like a datacore. What made it even stranger was a foreign data interface that I had never seen before.

“Can you check what’s inside?” I asked Aura.

She froze for a moment, then shook her head, “No, it doesn’t accept wireless connections, and we don’t have equipment compatible with its cable interface onboard.”

There was nothing else we could do, so I jumped back to Tar to deliver the datacore and collect my mission reward.

[Vladimir_Korff]

The Blood-Stained Stars: Quality of Mercy – Part IV

Retrieving Red

Genesis region – Sanctum constellation
Tar System – Tevis Jak’s Epithal

16 March YC 127

I was back in Tar and talking to Tevis Jak.

“I’ve brought the datacore,” I said starting a conversation. “Do you want to send someone to my ship to grab it?”

The agent scoffed, “If only I had that ‘someone’. Nah, just jettison it and I’ll pick it up.”

“Erm… We better form a fleet, or you will become a suspect after collecting my can.”

“Hehe, don’t you worry, Mr Korff,” chuckled Tevis. “We, CONCORD agents, have our little privileges.”

I was taken aback, “Do you mean you can steal other people’s property without being flagged as a suspect?”

“Not publicly, no. But the use of our privileges is closely monitored. If I actually steal someone’s jetcan, I will very quickly become a suspect in the eyes of my supervisor.”

“Okay. Then, for the record:

“Dear supervisor, please rest assured that the can that I am going to jettison in the next minute or so is a lawful transfer of evidence from me to agent Tevis Jak. But if he picks up any of my stuff two minutes or later from now, please consider it a theft and a blatant abuse of official privileges.

“Will he get the message?” I asked, expelling the strange datacore from my hold.

“It’s ‘she’, not ‘he’. And yes, she will get the message,” the agent answered, laughing. “I better scoop that can before your two-minute window expires, or I’ll be in trouble.”

After collecting the datacore, Tevis Jak turned to the camera, “By the way, I have good news. While you were shooing the ‘rats away from the wrecks, I managed to track down one of the survivors. His name is Red and he has already shipped out.”

“What?” I asked in astonishment.

“I know. If I survived a ship explosion I would take two weeks of shore leave before even contemplating another contract. What a fighter, huh?”

“Don’t you find it suspicious?”

“Hmm…” the agent said pensively. “Now that you mention that, I actually do. Then it’s even more important for you to intercept the convoy that Red joined. I don’t think they have enough firepower to deal with the pirates where they’re headed.”

“And where is that?”

“Never mind the destination. The important thing that they are still in Tar. You should be able to meet them here,” said Tevis and sent me the coordinates.

“On it,” I replied, aligning Kaukokärki to the warp-in destination.

---

Genesis region – Sanctum constellation
Tar System – Mission location

“Where is that bloody convoy?” I asked looking at the overview. “Are we late? Or early?”

Mission Location

All I saw in the window was a small group of hoodlums of Sani Sabik persuasion.

“I don’t know,” said Aura, “but I’d wait here until we meet the convoy or the agent gives us further instructions.”

“Agree,” I nodded, “and while we wait, why don’t we have a bit of entertainment?”

I winked and pointed at the approaching Corpii frigates.

“Pirate bounty is better than nothing,” agreed Aura the Practical.

Twenty seconds later two Corpii Worshippers and one Corpii Follower learned an important lesson – if you see a capsuleer in a Cormorant, run away from him, not toward.

Aura wrinkled her nose, “When you said a bit of entertainment, I didn’t think you meant it literally.”

“Huh, what did you expect me to do? Let them run circles around me and play a Triglavian roulette with my one-fifties to prolong the fun?”

“What’s a Triglavian roulette?”

“Imagine a Gatling gun which fires from one barrel only. Every time you press the trigger it shoots just once. If it’s the right barrel, then the gun fires; if it’s not, then you are out of luck.”

“But we don’t have Gatling guns,” said Aura, confused.

“No, but the chance of hitting an orbiting frigate from a 150-mm railgun is about the same as from that Gatling gun – one in six or one in seven.”

“And then it would take you six or seven times longer to kill those pirates,” Aura exclaimed brightly, as the realisation dawned on her. Then she looked puzzled again, “But why would Triglavians use such a Gatling gun?”

I sighed in exasperation, “Aura, forget I told you about that roulette,” and quickly added as she started to object, “look, there is more entertainment on the way.”

While we were engaged in the discussion of strange Triglavian traditions, two more Blood Raiders landed on the grid – Corpii Raider and Corpii Diviner. Compared to Worshippers and Followers, these Corpii’s flesh was pleasantly firm – each of them took five salvos to dispatch.

Corpii Raider

Corpii Diviner

“Yippee!” cried Aura in delight. “Bring on the destroyers!”

We waited for several tense seconds, but the universe did not respond to Aura’s call – the grid remained clear. To pass the time, I started inspecting the pirates’ wrecks. There wasn’t much loot, mostly metal scraps. As I approached the Corpii Follower’s wreck and opened the list of salvageable items, one line caught my attention. It was the answer to my question – were we early or late? – and the answer was ‘late’. There, casually inserted between scraps and frequency crystals by dispassionate Neocom, were two words: ‘Red’s corpse’.

I realised that I was holding my breath and exhaled the pod goo which suddenly felt dense and oppressive.

“I guess, our mission is over,” I said grimly.

Aura nodded silently, and warped us back to Jak’s Epithal.

---

Genesis region – Sanctum constellation
Tar System – Tevis Jak’s Epithal

“Dead, huh?” said Tevis Jak when I told him about our find. “Why am I not surprised?”

The agent clenched his teeth and looked in the distance, away from the camera. He was clearly upset and I let him have a moment to compose himself.

Presently, Tevis took a deep breath and looked at me, “That was my only lead. I’ve got nothing else that can help with the investigation.”

At that moment his commlink buzzed, and the agent picked it up to read the message.

Having finished reading, he looked up and said, “Actually, this is for you.”

[Vladimir_Korff]

The Blood-Stained Stars: Quality of Mercy – Part V

Alerting Alitura

Genesis region – Sanctum constellation
Tar System – Tevis Jak’s Epithal

16 March YC 127

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s a message from Sister Alitura,” said Tevis. “I sent her that weird datacore that you had found, but she was not able to decipher it.”

“We should have kept it,” mumbled Aura, who had a thing for mysterious memory devices.

“Anyway,” continued the agent, “she is very interested in consulting you.”

I raised an eyebrow, “About the datacore?”

Aura perked up.

“I don’t know,” said Tevis, “but you better visit her. The Sisters are good people.”

“Uh-huh,” I said noncommittally and bid my good-bye.

---

“Do you think Alitura can give us that datacore?” asked Aura, as soon as the connection ended.

“Don’t know,” I replied, “and, to be honest, don’t care.”

“But will you talk to her?”

I gave it a thought. I had no wish to see again that mean-spirited ■■■■■ who significantly undermined my respect to the Sisters. An hour ago, I would have abandoned this assignment without a second thought, just to avoid meeting Alitura. But things had changed since – I failed to save Red. It wasn’t rational. People who died in The Damsel explosion deserved justice as much as Red. And, for that matter, Red’s death was not really my fault – he was already dead when I received the mission from Tevis. Still, somehow I felt obliged to find those responsible for all these crimes. Stopping now just because I didn’t want to talk to an unpleasant person seemed petty and wrong.

Having made up my mind, I said, “Yes, I will.”

On hearing that, Aura lightened, “Ask her about the datacore.”

I clenched my teeth, “I am not asking anything of Alitura. Last thing I want is to be in her debt.”

“Alright, alright,” said Aura soothingly, “let’s just talk to her.”

She activated the drive and we warped to Manarq gate.

---

Jet-Canning a Janitor

Essense region – Peccanouette constellation
Arnon System – Planet IX – Moon 3
Sisters of EVE Bureau

“Sister,” I greeted the agent with the slightest of nods as I entered her office.

“Captain Korff,” replied Alitura, “please take a seat.”

“Thank you,” I said coldly, not moving from where I stood.

In my experience, all meetings went faster when people were standing, and I had no intention to stay in that room even a minute longer than needed. Alitura watched me for a few seconds, then realised that I was not going to accept her kind invitation, and frowned.

She took a deep breath and went straight to the business, “We have another crew member located. His name is Nebben Centrien; he was a janitor on The Damsel. He is now stationed at a small outpost.”

“What do you want with the janitor?” I snorted. “All he is going to say is ‘Things went boom, and I ran to the escape pod’.”

“For one thing, he may know where other personnel was sent for recuperation, but there is another consideration. The fact that Red shipped out on a new contract and was killed within a few hours by pirates may look like a coincidence. And it may be so, but if it’s not, then Centrien’s life is in danger too.”

I had to admit that Alitura had a point. If someone went for Red because he was a witness, they’d go for Nebben too.

“So, I need you to bring Centrien to me,” continued the agent, “but not like Red. I need him alive, you understand?”

Blood rushed to my face when I heard her last words – not only Alitura blamed me for Red’s death, but she also wanted to rub it in. It felt like she was deliberately provoking me. For a few heartbeats I stood there frozen to the floor, trying not to explode. If I lost my temper, it would be gross professional misconduct which would lead to my immediate removal from the investigation. However, my desire to deprive Alitura from having that pleasure was almost as strong as my motivation to see that case through, so I came to the table and pointed at her datapad with my chin. The agent gave me a penetrating look, then tapped something on the datapad and pushed it to me across the tabletop. The display showed the mission summary. I pressed my finger to the sensor. When a message popped up on the screen confirming my acceptance of the mission, I turned away and left the office.

---

Essense region – Peccanouette constellation
Arnon System – Mission location

Coreli Agent

The outpost was in the same system, and it took us just a few seconds to reach it after we undocked. There were three Coreli Agent frigates blockading the docking perimeter. I went into a wide, 85-km orbit around the control tower and called the outpost. They confirmed that there was a staff member called Nebben Centrien and put me through to him.

“Mr Centrien,” I greeted the janitor with a smile, “my name is Captain Korff. I was sent by Sisters of Eve to request your assistance in the investigation of The Damsel incident.”

“I was onboard but I don’t know anything about what happened there,” said Nebben. “I am sorry, Captain, but I am really busy. This station didn’t have a janitor for three months, and it’s a real mess. You better talk to someone else from The Damsel.”

“Well, we tried. Do you know a crew member called Red?”

“Yes, of course. Talk to him. He is a good guy. He will help you.”

“I can’t. Red is dead.”

Nebben looked at me incredulously, “Dead? How can he be dead? I know that he has survived. We were in the same escape pod.”

“He shipped out and in an hour or two after that his ship was attacked by a gang of Blood Raiders, and Red was killed. We have reasons to believe that the attack was targeted.”

“You mean, someone wanted to kill Red?”

I nodded, “Yes, and we have grave concern about the safety of other survivors, you including.”

Nebben looked surprised, “Me? But why me? I don’t know anything. I haven’t seen anything.” Then his eyes went wide and he muttered, “Oh no, oh no.”

He went off camera and after a few seconds reappeared holding a small object in his hand.

“Do you know what this is?” he asked.

I zoomed the image.

“Looks like a baggage tracker,” I said uncertainly. “A thing which helps you find your suitcase if it’s lost in transit.”

“Yes, that’s it. I found it when I was unpacking my bag. But the problem is – it’s not my tracker.”

That sounded bad.

“I didn’t give it much thought at the time,” Nebben continued. “You know, mistakes happen. But… but is it possible that someone is trying to track me? Is this why you said you had concerns?”

“Mr Centrien, please stay calm…” I started saying but it was too late – the janitor was now in full panic mode.

“I… I must get off this station,” he shrieked.

“Wait, there are pirates,” I shouted, but Nebben already ended the connection. “Damn it,” I swore. “Let’s hope that the pilot is not stupid enough to undock while Serpentis guard the entrance. Or maybe they have a frigate, but I doubt a janitor can afford such a ride.”

“Don’t know about the frigate,” said Aura, “but he definitely can afford a destroyer.” Seeing my confused expression, she smiled, “Sisters are paying.”

“Haha, that’s true. I don’t think I can actually dock there – the station hangar looks pretty small – but it will be my pleasure to secure the area.”

Coreli Scout

Coreli Initiate

Having said that, I targeted the Coreli Agents. Two or three salvos were enough to pop each frigate. The reinforcements sent by the pirates, two Initiates and a Scout, were even crunchier. Soon six active threats became passive hazards, littering the approach to the station with their remains. We waited for a few minutes but no new hostiles appeared. I was about to raise the outpost when a small shuttle emerged from the dock.

Centrien’s Shuttle

“It must be him,” I said. “Aura, connect me with the shuttle before it warps away!”

Soon the shuttle pilot’s face appeared on my comms screen.

“Good day,” he said. “How can I help you, Captain?”

“Good day. Do you have Mr Nebben Centrien onboard?” I asked.

“Yes, he has chartered this flight.”

“Can you please connect me with Mr Centrien? I have an important message for him.”

The pilot shrugged his shoulders and switched me to his passenger.

“What do you you want?” squealed Nebben.

“I just want to ensure your safety, Mr Centrien.”

“I am already ensuring my safety by leaving this goddamn outpost! And you are not helping by holding up my flight!”

I started losing my patience, “You aren’t going anywhere in this eggshell, Mr Centrien. Whoever is pursuing you will have no trouble tracking down and destroying this shuttle. Please come aboard my ship and I will deliver you safely to Sisters of Eve. They can give you sanctuary.”

“I don’t know you. And I don’t trust you. Leave me alone!” cried Nebben and ended the connection.

The shuttle pilot’s face appeared on the screen again.

I sighed, “Captain, I need your assistance in delivering Mr Centrien to my ship.”

The pilot smirked, “That’s not the destination that my passenger paid for.”

I stared at the pilot coldly, “This is an order. Put Mr Centrien into an EVA suit and jettison him in my direction. Now.”

“What authority do you have to give me orders?” asked the pilot haughtily.

Giving Kaukokärki a mental command I acquired a target lock on the shuttle.

“Are seven 150-mm railguns enough authority for you?”

“Hey, what are you doing?” cried the pilot. “I thought you needed Centrien alive.”

“Listen, Captain,” I said earnestly, “your passenger has a target painted on his back, he is a dead man walking. Just before you undocked, I killed six pirate ships which were waiting for him. I won’t be able to protect you if you warp away. So to save the time I would spend searching for your corpses, I can just put you out of your misery here and now.”

The shuttle pilot swallowed hard, croaked, “Don’t shoot,” and disappeared from the screen.

Five minutes later a person in an EVA suit was expelled from an airlock by a burst of air. I picked the figure by a tractor beam and pulled it into my cargo hold. Having confirmed that it was Nebben Centrien, I aligned the Cormorant to the Sisters station and activated the warp drive.

While we were flying, Aura said, “Would you really shoot the shuttle if it tried to warp away?”

I chuckled, “Nah, I was bluffing. If they tried to run I would have to contact our good friend Tevis Jak and ask him to use the CONCORD logs to track the fugitives. But I was serious about the corpses – I wouldn’t give a kredit for their lives even if I escorted them. Given the forces our adversaries have been willing to commit so far, I am confident I could destroy whatever they would send our way. But if Centrien remained in a shuttle, it would take just one lucky shot to pop it.”

---

Essense region – Peccanouette constellation
Arnon System – Planet IX – Moon 3
Sisters of EVE Bureau

As we approached the station, I contacted Sister Alitura, briefly explained the situation, and asked her to organise armed escort for the janitor. She agreed and told me to visit her in an hour for debriefing. Having handed Centrien over to Sisters, I dined at a local restaurant, enjoying authentic Gallentean cuisine which, in Caldari space, was adulterated to cater for local tastes. After a successful mission and a delicious meal I was ready to face the cruel world, and even started feeling charitable toward Alitura. Unfortunately, the feeling wasn’t mutual.

I entered the agent’s office and, without invitation, made myself comfortable in a guest chair.

“How is the investigation going?” I asked good-naturedly. “Have you learned anything interesting from Centrien?”

“We did, indeed,” answered Alitura icily. “For example, we learned that you threatened to attack the shuttle on which Mr Centrien was flying. Do you admit it?”

Here we go again, I thought, my mood souring.

I shrugged my shoulders, “Yes, I did. But what does it matter? He has been safely delivered to your custody. Mission accomplished.”

“And what would you have done, Captain, if the pilot did not obey your unlawful order?”

“I thought I was here for the debrief, not for woulda, coulda, shoulda.”

“I insist, Captain,” said Alitura looking me in the eye.

I had had enough of her attitude.

Leaning forward over the table, I hissed, “I would have blown up the ■■■■■■. No one messes with capsuleers.”

Holding my gaze, Alitura smiled triumphantly and said, “This is all I need to know. Thank you, Captain. The debrief is over. Let me not detain you any longer.”

I leaned back and raised my eyebrows, “Don’t you need assistance with finding other witnesses?”

“We do, but not from you. I will find someone of a higher moral stature. Good-bye, Captain.”

I looked at the agent for a few seconds, giving her time to reconsider, but she was just patiently waiting for me to depart.

“Very well,” I said curtly and left her office.

Outside, I propped myself comfortably against the wall and started browsing Galnet. After a couple of minutes I got a call from Aura.

“Hey, Cap,” she said looking distressed, “I’ve got a request to clear the berth from the station control. They didn’t explain why but I can see plenty of vacant berths around. What’s going on?”

I rolled my eyes, “That was really petty of her.” Having taken a few moments to think, I smiled and said, “Aura, lodge a formal complaint with the station authorities and send a copy to Alitura’s supervisor.”

“Done,” confirmed Aura almost immediately. “But what’s this all about?”

I told Aura about my altercation with the agent.

Aura groaned, “Oh, Vlad! Did you really have to goad her so?”

“I am teaching her a lesson. Her behaviour is unprofessional, and she has to change her attitude, if she wants to become a good security agent.”

“I don’t see how she is supposed to learn anything. She kicked you out of the investigation and will go on her merry way.”

“Sister Alitura may have a beef with me, but her superiors are not stupid. They understand that having a Level 2 mission capsuleer on the job gives them a much better chance of success than engaging a baseliner, which is Alitura’s preference.”

Aura made a grimace, “Okay, you made your point. Let’s hope she’ll get the message. But what are you still doing there? Get to the docks before they have towed Kaukokärki away.”

“I am just saving time it would take me to get back here from the docks.”

“Do you really expect Alitura to offer you another mission after you cemented your image of a complete jerk? You must be joking.”

“Watch me,” I winked at Aura, and started a stopwatch.

The screen showed 7 minutes 32 seconds when I received a call from Sister Alitura.

“You see?” I told Aura, and declined the call.

Sister Alitura

Then there was another call which I also rejected. Finally, the door opened and flustered Sister Alitura burst out from her office, only to stop in her tracks when she saw me just two metres away.

I detached myself from the wall and smiled sweetly at her, “Shall we discuss the details of my new mission inside, Sister?”

A curious range of emotions appeared on the agent’s face – surprise, embarrassment, hatred… For a few moments she just stood there breathing heavily as if unsure what to do. Eventually, she brought her emotions under control and assumed a stony expression.

“Please come in, Captain,” said Alitura in a neutral tone, and pointed toward the entrance.

[Vladimir_Korff]

The Blood-Stained Stars: Quality of Mercy – Part VI

Chivvying a Chef

Essense region – Peccanouette constellation
Arnon System – Planet IX – Moon 3
Sisters of EVE Bureau station

16 March YC 127

Sister Alitura followed me into the office and closed the door behind her. She did not offer me a chair and remained standing herself. Obviously, the agent took a leaf out of my book which brought a knowing smile to my face.

“Captain,” Alitura started drily, “we received information from Mr Centrien about the ship’s cook, Mr Aubrei Azil, but there is a problem. It appears that he has shipped out as well.”

That new intel made me frown, “There is no way three of them could get reassignments so soon after an incident like this. I think they are being shuffled through the system so that we don’t find them.”

The agent opened her mouth to retort, then checked herself. Her face assumed a thoughtful expression, and she gazed into the distance for a while, considering what I had said.

Still not looking at me, she nodded and said slowly, “Yes, that figures… And then there are the drones…”

I narrowed my eyes, “Drones? What drones?”

Alitura emerged from her reverie with a start, “Never mind the drones. Your task is to find Mr Azil and bring him to me. Do you accept the mission?”

I extended my index finger instead of an answer.

Alitura brought her datapad in contact with the finger, confirming the mission, and dismissed me.

---

Essense region – Peccanouette constellation
Arnon System – Mission location

Luckily, the former Damsel chef was still in Arnon. The coordinates given by Alitura led me to a small cluster of asteroids. As soon as I arrived I received a message in the local channel.

“Good day, Captain Korff. Captain Elen Vorell of the Cinder Drift is here. Could you give me a hand? The damn things took out my propulsion. I’m dead in the water.”

I knitted my brow, confused. Cinder Drift was the name of Azil’s transport but the overview did not show any ships on the grid, so I was not sure where the message came from. I did a double take and noticed a grey container icon in the window labelled Cinder Drift. It must have been pretty badly damaged for Neocom not to identify it as a ship.

“Happy to help, Captain Vorell,” I replied, “but what are those ‘damn things’ you are talking about?”

“The bloody Rogue Drones! Wait, where are they?”

I was about to ask for further information when two Infester Alvis and one Splinter Alvi appeared on the overview. Apparently, they powered themselves down behind the biggest asteroid and were waiting in ambush.

The time for questions was over and I said, “Hang tight, Captain. Let me take care of these pests.”

Elen Vorell snorted, “As if I could do anything else. Don’t worry about us. Go get’em!”

Infester Alvis were only 23 km away, so they started firing as soon as they acquired target locks on me. That was good. My main goal was not to avoid the damage but to keep their attention away from the crippled transport. I didn’t waste time either, targeting all three of them at once. Making a split-second decision, I resolved not to spread the fire across all hostiles, focusing it instead on the closest Infester. It was important to reduce their combined firepower as soon as possible, in case they decided to attack Cinder Drift.

Infester Alvi

Two cycles of one-fifties and the Infester was gone. Another two cycles and the second Infester exploded. While I was busy de-infesting the system, Splinter Alvi had gained on me and started harassing my shield, not very successfully. The first two shots glanced off and the third missed me completely. By that time, my railguns tracked the rogue drone down and fired in rapid succession, landing a solid hit. Then the Splinter was upon me and my railgun tracking became less effective, but three more volleys finished it off.

Aura, who was monitoring the damage log, shook her head in disbelief, “What kind of peashooters do they mount these days? Even when that Splinter hit us slap-bang in the middle, we lost only five hit points.”

I was preparing a smart reply when another group of drones popped up on the overview. So I did the next smartest thing, namely, targeted and engaged the newcomers. They were the same old Infesters and Splinters, and it took me only 25 seconds to dispatch all of them.

“Wow, that was impressive,” said Captain Vorell. “I wish I had a one-fifty installed on my Heron.”

Heron? I was surprised. Herons were scout ships employed by the Navy for reconnaissance. I then realised that since I warped in I didn’t really have time to look at my surrounds. To rectify the omission, I focused my camera drones on Cinder Drift. Indeed, it was a Heron-class frigate but without Navy insignia.

Cinder Drift

“Do you even know how to use one-fifties?” I asked sceptically.

From my own capsuleer experience I knew that piloting a ship and firing guns required totally different skills.

“Nah, the Navy never allowed me to learn anything more serious than a Gatling gun. Said higher calibres were not required for scouting. But my Gunney, he served on Cormorants like yours and knows his way around one-fifties. Well, Tech I variants, at least.”

My scepticism was replaced by respect – it appeared that I was talking to a real combat pilot.

“So you did fly this bird in the Navy? What’s the story?”

Captain Vorell shrugged her shoulders, “A rather usual one, I reckon. Worked my way up the ladder to the Captain rank. Was on multiple deployments to contested systems in low-sec. All was going well until that day in Teskanen, right after we lost it to Feds in YC 122. I was patrolling the ‘roid belts, when out of nowhere appeared a Gallentean capsuleer and locked me before I could move a finger to activate the cloak. One of those damn insta-lockers, I guess. Anyway, before I knew it, I was scrammed and hit by Tech II blasters. My scout fit didn’t have a chance against an Ares, so we just had enough time to run to escape pods before my ship would have exploded.

“Then one of those curious things happened – the Heron did not explode. One of the blaster hits damaged something in the power grid which made the ship look very dead. After that, the Gallentean lost interest and warped away. When the hull was towed to the nearby Navy Assembly Plant, the techs discovered that it was one-in-a-million hit which managed to disable the grid, the capacitor and the CPU in one go! It was mostly broken conduits which were not hard to replace. Unfortunately for the Navy, and fortunately for me, the Ares also managed to damage the core subsystem which provided bonuses to scanner probe strength. It could not be repaired and, without the bonus, the Heron became a half-arsed frigate which had no place in the Navy doctrine.

“The Navy decided to write it off, and I was quick to take her off their hands at the price of scrap metal. Then I got a few mates together; we chipped in and repaired the bird. I changed her name, re-registered her as a commercial vessel and started taking transportation contracts.”

I looked at the scorched hull of the immobilised Heron and chuckled, “I fly a Heron myself, it’s a good ship, but maybe you should reconsider her name.”

Elen Vorell raised her eyebrows quizzically.

“I mean, it’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy – you are burnt to cinder and you are adrift,” I explained.

“Oh, that!” laughed Elen. “That’s nothing. You should have seen her after that encounter with the Ares! We’ll fix her again once we get towed to a nearby station.”

While we were talking, I kept my eye on the overview in case Rogue Drones sent reinforcements, but all was quiet. It was time to get to my mission objective.

“By the way, Captain,” I said, “do you have Mr Aubrei Azil onboard?”

“Yes, I do. Are you here to pick him up?”

“Yes, I am.”

“You chose a strange place for a rendezvous, Captain Korff.”

I frowned, “Me?”

Captain Vorell looked suspiciously at me, “My ship was chartered to deliver Mr Azil to this place from which he would be picked up for the next leg of his journey. If you didn’t choose this place, how did you know that Mr Azil would be here?”

That new intel put the situation in a completely different light – someone sent Aubrei Azil to a drone-infested asteroid cluster where he would have waited for a connecting flight which would never arrive.

“Oh, I see what you mean,” I drawled, buying time to think up a plausible reply. “The fact is that I didn’t choose this place. I was also chartered to pick up and transport Mr Azil, and my employer gave me these coordinates. If I had my way, I would never have chosen a drone nest as a rendezvous point.”

Elen Vorell relaxed and chuckled, “Those landlubbers will be the death of me. But not today.”

“Do you have a docking tube?”

“I surely do. What kind of transport ship would I be without one? Had to install it after I bought this wreck.”

“Oh, good. I haven’t got to that yet, so my last passenger had to be jettisoned in an EVA suit.”

We laughed together.

“Anyway,” I continued, “please extend the tube and be welcome aboard Kaukokärki with Mr Azil and your crew.”

“Wait a moment,” said Captain Vorell, “thank you for the invitation but my crew and I aren’t going anywhere.”

“But your ship is crippled and Rogue Drones may return at any moment. Let me take you to the nearest station where you can hire a tow ship.”

“No, if we abandon the ship, it will be considered a legitimate salvage for any scrapper. I can’t risk it – this ship is all I have. We have to stay and defend it.”

I paused to think over this dilemma. On the one hand, I couldn’t in all conscience leave Captain Vorell and her crew to their fate. On the other hand, I had an urgent mission to complete. I didn’t see how I could achieve both objectives. Unless…

“Look, Captain,” I said, “if you have to stay on your ship, I respect that. I will hang around and protect you until the tow ship arrives.”

Elen Vorell laughed bitterly, “Thank you for your offer, Captain Korff, but I can’t afford it. It may take the tow ship days to arrive. With capsuleer rates being what they are, I’ll have to sell Cinder Drift to pay off my debt to you.”

“Don’t worry, Captain. The escort is on the house. As to the wait, let me see what I can do about it. I need to make a call, and in the meantime, please send Mr Azil to my ship.”

Two minutes later Sister Alitura’s face appeared on my comms screen.

“Good day, Sister,” I said jovially, “I have good news and bad news.”

“Go on,” Alitura replied curtly, not expressing a preference for the order of the delivery.

“The good news is that I found Aubrei Azil and he is being transferred to my ship as we speak.”

I made a pause. No reaction.

“The bad news is that I am stuck here guarding a damaged ship, and I don’t know when they can be towed to safety.”

Alitura frowned, “Just get them onboard and deliver them to my station. We’ll take care of the rest.”

“Well, the thing is, they don’t want to leave the ship. And I can’t abandon them unprotected in this dangerous area.”

“Then it’s their problem,” fumed Alitura. “According to Space Rescue Law, you only have to save lives, not the property. If they refuse to be saved, then you have no further obligation.”

“But in this case I choose to take on such an obligation. There is no law that prohibits me from doing it.”

“But your first obligation is to me. You signed up for the mission, and you have to complete it ASAP!”

I raised my finger, “Uh-uh. The mission does not have a time limit. There is, admittedly a time bonus, but I am happy to forego it, if this is what it takes to save lives. Anyway, if you are in such a rush to interrogate Mr Azil, I can put you through to him, once he is aboard.”

“It’s against the protocol,” hissed Alitura. “I have to talk to the witness face-to-face in a secure location.”

I narrowed my eyes, “If you care so much about protocols, then why don’t you make sure that your rescue protocol is executed in the most expeditious manner?”

“Our rescue protocol only covers saving lives, as required by Law.”

“Then it’s your problem,” I shrugged my shoulders and ended the connection.

Thirty minutes later, a hauler with Sisters of Eve emblem warped to the grid, scooped Cinder Drift and transported it to SOE Bureau station.

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” I chuckled.

“Are you talking about Alitura or yourself?” asked Aura.

“I guess, both,” I replied and winked at her. “It takes two to dance.”

---

Essense region – Peccanouette constellation
Arnon System – Planet IX – Moon 3
Sisters of EVE Bureau station

Having delivered Aubrei Azil to Sisters, I went to a bar and had two pints of Amarrian stout which I now considered obligatory before facing Sister Alitura. I was halfway through the second pint when she called me and invited for debriefing. I took my time to savour the taste and walked leisurely to her office. As soon as I entered, Alitura was up on her feet and growling at me.

“Why are you always such a trouble, Captain Korff? Why can’t you complete a single mission without causing a drama? I do not understand why am I still working with you!”

I smiled nonchalantly, “Because of my good looks and a cool ride?”

“No, it’s because my supervisor insists but I don’t know why.”

A-ha, there it was. Alitura just confirmed that it was my message to her supervisor that produced the desired effect.

“But I am sure she will change her mind,” sniggered Alitura, “when I inform her how negligent you were in the execution of your last mission. And I’ll make sure that it is your last mission with SOE.”

My face flushed red with anger, “You dare talk to me about negligence? You, who wilfully concealed vital information from me?”

“I haven’t concealed anything!”

“During the mission briefing you mentioned drones. When I asked you to elaborate, you refused. And guess what I encountered at the mission location – Rogue Drones!”

“B… but I didn’t mean Rogue Drones,” stammered Alitura, “although they could be, but I didn’t know for sure… I didn’t have full information. It was just a guess.”

Taking a deep breath, I calmed myself and said, “You have to give me all information relevant to the mission. If you don’t have full confidence in its veracity, tell me it’s a risk, and I’ll decide how to interpret it. Knowing what type of hostiles to expect during the mission is vital for its success. You were lucky that I was well-prepared for the encounter with Rogue Drones, but by failing to mention that possibility you endangered the lives of Mr Azil and Cinder Drift crew.”

Sister Alitura had a look of a rabbit lectured by a python.

I thought that she had had enough and finished in a gentler tone, “We all make mistakes and we learn from them. Let’s not bother your supervisor with the details of this mission and move straight to the point where you tell me what you learned from Mr Azil and what our next steps are. How’s that?”

Alitura swallowed hard and gave me a short nervous nod.

[Vladimir_Korff]

The Blood-Stained Stars: Quality of Mercy – Part VII

Delivering a Doctor

Essense region – Peccanouette constellation
Arnon System – Planet IX – Moon 3
Sisters of EVE Bureau station

16 March YC 127

I took a seat and looked at Sister Alitura expectantly.

She composed herself and said, “We didn’t really learn anything interesting from Mr Azil, but we managed to locate the ship’s doctor. Can’t say that Sisters can take credit for it as we found her by way of ransom demand.”

I rubbed my forehead, “This doesn’t make sense. I understand there is someone who doesn’t want us to find The Damsel survivors, but in such case that someone wouldn’t ask for a ransom. They would just get rid of the witness.”

“I don’t have an explanation. It may be that there is more than one force in play here. Pirates and criminals might have heard about our interest in the former Damsel crew and try to capitalise on it. Anyway, we want the doctor alive and we are paying the ransom. You are to deliver the ransom and retrieve the doctor. Any questions?”

“Just one – what kind of trouble should I expect?”

Alitura shook her head wearily, “I don’t know. If you are asking about risks and my gut feeling, be prepared for a double-cross. I don’t have a rational explanation, but this whole venture stinks.”

I nodded, “Good to know. Thank you.”

---

Essense region – Peccanouette constellation
Arnon System – Mission location

I loaded the ransom and warped to the rendezvous point which was dominated by remains of a star base. I approached the container identified as Dead Drop by Neocom, and placed the money into it.

Dead Drop

“What’s next?” asked Aura.

“Don’t know,” I replied. “The kidnappers did not provide further instructions. Let’s wait.”

At that moment two red triangles appeared on my overview – Coreli Spy and Coreli Agent frigates – and a female voice said in the local channel, “Look, Kestel, that worked out well. I didn’t expect anyone to pay that much money for a doctor.”

Coreli Agent

A raspy male voice replied, “You know what I think, Vessa? I think if they are ready to pay that much, they are probably ready to pay even more. I think we have underestimated the doctor. I think we shall keep the doctor, shall keep the money, and shall ask for more. And while we are waiting, we shall kill the egger.”

“Ha-ha-ha,” I laughed and applauded, doing my best to produce loud claps in the pod goo. “It was a brilliant plan all the way to the last part. How do you propose to kill a destroyer with two puny frigates in your wing?”

Kaukokärki

“How? Let me tell you a secret, brother,” replied the male in a confidential tone, “everyone dies if you shoot at them long enough.”

“Says a guy in a Navitas,” I snorted. “Alright, cowboy, you’ve got one minute before I get bored and start shooting back,” I said and started a timer.

Coreli Spy

The frigates immediately attacked Kaukokärki. I don’t know what kind of targeting system the pirates had, but in 60 seconds they managed to hit me only four times for the grand total of 14 hit points! I felt I could enjoy that circus indefinitely but a promise was a promise. When the minute had expired, I targeted the pirates and finished both of them in 15 seconds.

“See,” I told the expanding cloud of debris, “sometimes you don’t even need to shoot that long.”

Four more Serpentis pirates warped in. Apparently, at some point the original perpetrators came to a conclusion that they tried to bite off more than they could chew, and decided to share the ransom with their comrades in exchange for support. The plan might have worked if they didn’t bring a knife to a gunfight – the newcomers flew the same unimpressive Coreli Spies and Agents. The outcome of the battle was the same with the only difference being that I had to spend 30 seconds instead of 15 to finish it.

When the last of the pirate ships was destroyed, Aura asked me anxiously, “But where is the doctor?”

“No idea,” I replied. “I just hope she was not on board of one of those Coreli frigates.”

“Neocom says there are signs of life in one of the wrecks. We better check it.”

I turned on the MWD and in a few seconds reached the wreck. It contained just one object identified as Dr Luija Elban, and it was not a corpse! With a sigh of relief I dragged Dr Elban into the cargo hold and warped back to the Sisters of Eve Bureau.

---

Essense region – Peccanouette constellation
Arnon System – Planet IX – Moon 3
Sisters of EVE Bureau station

“How is she?” I asked Sister Alitura.

Dr Elban was transported to the station hospital as soon as I docked, and I had no idea what state she was in.

“The doctor was wearing an EVA suit, so no hypoxia. But she did suffer a severe concussion caused by the explosion. You should have negotiated her release before shooting at them,” Alitura replied with a reproach in her voice.

“The time for negotiation was over as soon as they started shooting at me, but I gave them a minute to change their mind.”

“And?”

I shrugged my shoulders, “They kept shooting.”

“I see. By the way, since the pirates breached the condition of Dr Elban’s release, we are not obliged to give them the ransom anymore. Have you brought it back?”

I made round eyes, “Of course not! I was too busy saving the doctor’s life. But don’t tell me that I have to fly back and collect it – it was not in my mission brief.”

Alitura pursed her lips, “No, but I don’t like waste. Given the circumstances, this is an absolutely unnecessary expense.”

“How much was it anyway?” I asked with a mild interest.

The agent told me the sum. My jaw dropped.

“ISK?” I asked incredulously.

“No, ISK is a cryptocurrency and has no physical tokens. The pirates wanted cash. It’s laurons, the local currency on Laurvier IX planet.”

“And what’s the exchange rate to ISK?”

Alitura told me the figure.

I rolled my eyes, “Sister, please. Why didn’t you tell me straight away? Just subtract it from my mission reward and let’s forget about it.”

The agent stared at me for a while, then typed something on her datapad and pushed it to me.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Your consent to reducing your mission reward.”

I shrugged my shoulders and touched the sensor.

“What’s next?”

“That will be all for today, Captain Korff,” replied mollified Alitura. “We have to wait until Dr Elban recovers and I can talk to her about The Damsel.”

That made sense. I bid the agent good-bye and went out in search of a hotel where I could stay for the night.

[Vladimir_Korff]

The Blood-Stained Stars: Quality of Mercy – Part VIII

Engineering a Rescue

Essense region – Peccanouette constellation
Arnon System – Planet IX – Moon 3
Sisters of EVE Bureau station

17 March YC 127

I spent a rather uneventful morning in SOE Bureau station and was considering my lunch options when I received summons from Sister Alitura. I winced. The previous day had been intense and if today was going to be the same then I’d have to make do with intravenous nourishment.

When I entered the office, I saw that Alitura was excited.

“Captain, we have found the key survivor,” said the agent, her eyes gleaming. “She was an engineer on The Damsel, and now she is signed on to the crew of the Heartbreak. She may be the only one who knows what really happened.”

“Heartbreak? Really?” I snorted. “That doesn’t bode well.”

“Captain, be serious,” Alitura reprimanded me. “However, you may be right. So far, we have found all the Damsel survivors in grave danger. But you know the drill by now: get out there and get her before someone else does.”

“Aye aye, Sister,” I replied with mock compliance. “Any word of advice before I embark on this dangerous rescue mission?”

A smile briefly played on Alitura’s lips before she replied, “Not really, but I am fairly certain there’ll be someone there to shoot at you.”

“The story of my life,” I said philosophically and went to the docks.

---

Essense region – Peccanouette constellation
Arnon System – Mission location

When I arrived at the location provided by Alitura I immediately saw Heartbreak, or rather what was left of her. A few Rogue Drones were circling the wreck, periodically shooting at the parts of the hull that they thought were not dead enough.

Heartbreak

“Damn! We are late!” I cursed.

At that moment a female face appeared on my comms screen and screamed at me, “Get me out of here! This thing might explode any second now!”

The transmission suddenly broke but I managed to see the sender’s ID – it was Tahaki Karin, the engineer from The Damsel!

“That’s what I call a survivor,” I said with respect.

Then, there wasn’t any time left for admiration, as the Rogue Drones realised that there was something livelier than Heartbreak on the grid, and turned their attention to Kaukokärki. I, however, could not reciprocate as my first priority was to save Tahaki Karin from the wreck. I fired up the microwarpdrive and sped toward Heartbreak. While I was approaching the wreck I did not neglect the opportunity to target and fire at the drones but their angular speed was too high for my railguns and they kept missing. Luckily, the reverse was also true – a lot of their shots glanced off my shield causing minimal damage.

“Ms Karin, get ready for extraction,” I broadcast in the local channel, hoping that the engineer would get my transmission. “Aura, scan the ship for the signs of life – I need to know where to pick her up.”

A 3D model of the wreck appeared on the screen showing living organisms as red dots. There was a cluster of dots midships and a solitary dot at the stern. The latter was moving fast from the ship axis toward the hull.

“I think it’s her,” I said pointing at the stern. “She is moving to an airlock.”

I focused my camera drones on the projected destination of Tahaki and found an array of airlocks which could be used for egress. Willing Kaukokärki in their direction, I soon reached the stern segment. I moved as close as possible to the hull so that the destroyer shielded the airlocks from the drones’ fire. One of the locks opened and a figure in an EVA suit jumped out of it. I was about to pick her up with a tractor beam when I saw that she fired up a jetpack and flew fast toward my cargo hold.

“What a legend!” I said in admiration.

In a few seconds the person reached Kaukokärki. As soon as she was inside I opened an intercom connection to the hold.

“This is Captain Korff. Am I talking to Ms Karin?” I asked to ascertain the identity of the survivor.

“Yes, Captain. Yours truly,” said the figure taking off the EVA suit. “Or what is left of her.”

“Are you injured? We can get you to SOE station in a couple of minutes.”

“Don’t worry about me,” said Tahaki, limping toward the first aid kit fixed to the wall.

She took out a painkiller syringe and plunged it into her right thigh.

Wincing briefly, she continued, “There must be other survivors onboard. We need to rescue them first.”

“Yes, there are, but I don’t know how to reach them. I could not establish a connection.”

“Then I’ll have to get back and extract them. Where is the repkit? I’ll need a blowtorch,” said the engineer breathing heavily.

“You are not in any shape to…” I started saying when Kaukokärki shook violently and half my shield was gone!

“What the ■■■■!” I cried, thinking that the Rogue Drones managed to call in heavy artillery.

When I looked at the camera drones channel, I discovered that the reality was far worse – the midships section of the wreck where remaining survivors congregated was no more. It was its explosion which sent the shockwave that damaged Kaukokärki.

Heartbreak Explosion

After a few moments of stunned silence I said, “Aura, any survivors?”

Aura shook her head. I closed my eyes and felt a ball of red hot anger blooming in my chest. It urged me to find the culprits and shoot at them until nothing more than stardust remained; it urged revenge. It was irrational and it was no good – in such a state a capsuleer could override all safety measures, overheat the engine and become stardust himself. My Academy training kicked in almost automatically and I took several deep breaths. Then I channelled the anger into a cold fury which guided my actions with unparalleled precision.

“Tahaki, get into the crash couch on the second deck, now!” I said into the intercom.

When the engineer was safely strapped in the couch, I turned on the MWD and with maximum acceleration moved away from the marauding Rogue Drones. As soon as they gave chase and their trajectories straightened, my rails were able to track the deadly machines and started delivering solid hits. Half a minute later only metal scraps remained of two Splinters and two Infesters. Three Decimator Alvis appeared on the grid 60 klicks away from me. I turned off the microwarpdrive and engaged the newcomers before they were able to get close enough to fire at me. They were tougher than the first lot but still no match for the sniper Cormorant.

Infester Alvi

When the Decimators were destroyed I stopped the ship. While I was waiting for another wave of reinforcements I contacted Tahaki Karin.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“I’ll live,” she answered curtly.

“Sorry for the delay with getting you to the station but I had to eliminate those pests lest they attack another ship.”

“Don’t apologise, Captain,” said Tahaki, “it was worth it.”

I nodded and waited for another minute or so. As no drones appeared on the grid and Tahaki was in need of medical assistance, I decided to wrap up the mission and returned to SOE Bureau.

---

Essense region – Peccanouette constellation
Arnon System – Planet IX – Moon 3
Sisters of EVE Bureau station

While Tahaki Karin was being examined by the doctors, I made my report to Sister Alitura. I expected her to reprimand me for failing to save the crew in the exploded section of Heartbreak but the reproach came from a different angle.

“There was nothing you could do to save the crew. Once you knew they perished in the explosion you should have returned to the station with Ms Karin,” said Alitura.

“And let the Rogue Drones escape?” I snorted. “I do not leave the job half-done.”

“But the destruction of the drones was not in the mission brief,” objected the agent.

“Then we have a different understanding of our job, Sister,” I said coldly.

Sister Alitura gave me a piercing look but did not reply. We sat for a while in silence.

“Take a rest, Captain,” she finally said. “I’ll talk to Ms Karin and let you know when I have new leads.”

I felt deflated and was glad that the agent did not have anything for me straight away. I nodded and left the office.

[Vladimir_Korff]

The Blood-Stained Stars: Quality of Mercy – Part IX

Going Gallente

Essense region – Peccanouette constellation
Arnon System – Planet IX – Moon 3
Sisters of EVE Bureau station

27 April YC 127

In the end, it turned out neither of The Damsel survivors I brought to Sisters of Eve had a clue what had happened. After interrogating Sister Alitura’s greatest hope, engineer Tahaki Karin, we were none the wiser. Tahaki spent all her time in the engineering section and made a lucky escape in a pod when she heard an evacuation alarm. Otherwise, she had no idea who or what attacked The Damsel. Sister Alitura tried to track other survivors but to no avail. The days went by and there were no good news; any news, for that matter. Gradually, I came to believe that it was a cold case and returned to my usual pastime of harassing Guristas in Okela constellation. Imagine my surprise when more than a month after my last SOE mission I got a call from Alitura. I immediately jumped into Kaukokärki and flew to Arnon.

The agent looked pale and exhausted. She silently pointed at the visitor’s chair inviting me to sit down. When I was seated, she fiddled with her datapad for a while as if she was uncertain about what to say. Finally, she sighed and looked at me.

“Captain, I have no more leads,” she said in a tired voice.

Then why did you call me? I thought but remained silent. She was in such a state that goading her would give me no enjoyment.

“After your last mission, I was chasing the survivors from The Damsel day and night but I could not locate anyone. They either disappeared or,” she paused and swallowed, “they were found dead.”

She averted her eyes and was silent for some time. It appeared that the failure of the investigation weighed heavily on her.

She looked at me again and whispered urgently, “My supervisor told me to close this case as hopeless, but I can’t, I can’t. For the sake of all the victims of that tragedy I must carry on.”

“But what can you do, if you have no witnesses?” I asked.

“No, I don’t have witnesses, but there is a piece of evidence which can shed light on this mystery. Remember the datacore that you extracted from the site of the battle?”

“Yes, I do. Did you manage to decipher it?”

She shook her head, “I didn’t, but I know who can. Have you heard of CreoDron?”

I snorted, “The leading Gallentean manufacturer of drones? Unfortunately, yes.”

“Good,” said Alitura, oblivious to my sarcasm, “I know the daughter of their chief researcher. She is a scientist herself, and she agreed to help us analyse the datacore.”

“And what do you want from me? Deliver it?”

“No. I’ve already sent the datacore to her but she needs…” Alitura made a pause, as if looking for the right word.

“Money?”

“No, money is no object – I still have budget. Delphine wants… a favour.”

I looked at the agent suspiciously, “What kind of favour?”

“She needs a capsuleer for a mission. Don’t worry, she is ready to pay.”

I rolled my eyes – as if payment was the biggest concern in that shemozzle.

“But why does she ask you? Surely, a corporation like CreoDron has a pool of Gallente capsuleers who will be happy to run her mission.”

“I don’t know exactly, but I was given to understand that they didn’t want anyone who actually used their drones. And as far as I know, Cormorants have no drone bays,” she looked at me pointedly.

I sighed and shook my head, “No, I can’t do it. You have to find another capsuleer for this mission.”

Then Sister Alitura did something totally unexpected – she pleaded with me.

“Captain Korff, there is no one else whom I would trust to persevere in this investigation. We didn’t get off to a good start but, despite your unconventional methods, I’ve grown to appreciate your dedication. And I know you want to see this case through as much as I do, don’t you?”

“I do, but… I am Caldari!”

“Don’t worry, Delphine doesn’t mind.”

“But I do!” I cried in exasperation. “If I work for a Gallente corporation I will lose my standing with Caldari State.”

Alitura looked at me sceptically, “Standing? Why do you care about the standing?”

“Sister, I don’t know what you do about the capsuleers who displeased you, but Caldari State shoots them.”

The agent pursed her lips, “We are a charitable organisation and we denounce violence. If Caldari State makes you persona non grata, Sisters of Eve will always welcome you, Captain. For that matter, the rest of New Eden will still be open to you.”

“But I don’t want to become non grata in Caldari State! You may think that we, capsuleers, are cosmopolitans who are happy to live anywhere where money are to be made. I don’t know about others but becoming a capsuleer did not make me less Caldari. I enjoy travelling around New Eden but Caldari State is my home, and I won’t do anything that will jeopardise my connection to it!”

“I understand and respect your attachment to your State,” Alitura said earnestly, “but I still can’t believe that it can punish you for taking part in this investigation which is ultimately a noble and worthy cause.”

I smiled sadly, “You don’t believe me? Let’s ask your fellow agent.”

I dialled Ozanero Voiras’s number on my commlink and placed it on a table in a broadcast mode so that Alitura could participate in the conference. When we established the connection, I briefly explained the situation to Ozanero and asked her opinion about the reaction of Caldari State to my cooperation with a Gallente corp.

“Funny you should ask that,” said Ozanero, smiling enigmatically.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because just an hour ago I was given a mandate to continue this investigation as soon as Sisters of Eve dropped it.”

I raised my eyebrows and looked at Sister Alitura, “And you had your conversation with your supervisor?…”

“Three hours ago,” she whispered, astonished.

Ozanero Voiras was trying hard to conceal a smirk.

I gave Ozanero a reproachful look and said, “Alright, if you had to take over this case, what would be your next step?”

“Well, I would send that datacore to one of Caldari corps which produce drones, like Kaalakiota.”

I grimaced, “I dare say I am as much a Caldari patriot as you are, Ms Voiras, but Kaalakiota? Really?”

Ozanero stopped smiling, “I am a Caldari security agent, Mr Korff. I do what I can to advance the State’s interest.”

“And what if what you can do is not the best thing that can be done for the State? And what is exactly the State’s interest in this matter?”

“As to your second question, the answer is quite simple – our gilded friends lost a dreadnought in that incident, and we can do them a favour by finding out what actually happened there. You know, all alliances are based on the expectation of quid pro quo, and it’s a good opportunity to improve our brownie points balance.”

“Ah, thank you,” I said. “Now I see the predicament you’ve got your self into, Ms Voiras: you either take on this investigation with a really low chance of success and get all the blame, or you leave it to the third party who has better prospects,” I looked at Sister Alitura, “but you don’t get any credit. Am I right?”

“More or less,” said Ozanero drily.

“Right,” I nodded. “So here is the situation: if I take myself out of the equation, Sisters of Eve may continue the investigation but are likely to fail because they can’t find a contractor interested enough to persevere. Caldari Navy may pick up the slack but they can’t get access to the best experts in drone research field, and will probably fail too.”

I made a pause, giving the agents an opportunity to object. Silence was the answer. I continued.

“Now, if I decide to carry on with the party which has the best chances of uncovering the truth,” I nodded at Alitura, “we may succeed, but Caldari State doesn’t get the credit and I find myself in an awkward situation, working for the enemy of the State and losing my standing with it. So my question for you, ladies, is: what can be done to get the best outcome for all three parties?”

After a long pause, Sister Alitura was the first to speak.

“The fact that Caldari State and Am… their gilded friends still have a significant interest in this matter may change the Sisters’ attitude to it. I think I can get a mandate to continue my work. I also believe it may be possible to share the outcome of this investigation with Caldari Navy before it is released to public. This should enable Caldari State to present the findings to their friends as their own. However, I need to consult my supervisor on this matter before I can give you any assurances.”

Ozanero nodded, “This may be an acceptable solution. As to your involvement with a Gallente corporation, Mr Korff, I think allowances can be made but, like Sister Alitura, I have to defer to my superiors.”

I looked at Alitura, then at Ozanero, and said with a smile, “Well, I guess you’ve got your work cut out for you,” and stood up. “You can find me at The Lumen Spire bar when you are ready to talk to me.”

Ozanero Voiras rolled her eyes and said, “Don’t expect a personal visit from me,” and hung up.

I picked up my commlink, gave Alitura a wave and walked out.

Two hours later Sister Alitura asked me to come back to her office. When I returned she already had a connection with Ozanero established. Alitura told me that her management accepted the proposal with a condition that I would be the dedicated contractor for the rest of the case. I assented to the condition and looked at Ozanero.

The Caldari security agent gave me an amused smile and said, “You are very lucky, Captain Korff. It appears that I have underestimated the interest of the injured party in the successful resolution of this case. You are free to continue your work with Sisters of Eve and any other parties, including Gallente entities. You will not lose your standing with Caldari State unless you cross the red line.”

“And what that line might be?” I asked.

“Incurring any damage to Caldari ships, property or citizens.”

I snorted – standings or no standings, that was not something I would do anyway.

“Accepted,” I said curtly and turned to Alitura. “Send the coordinates of your CreoDron contact to my navigation AI. I am departing immediately.”

“You don’t need to hurry,” said Alitura. “It’s actually night time at CreoDron station. Delphine will not be available for a few hours.”

“Haven’t you said she is an agent?”

“She is.”

I raised my eyebrows, “So… does she want the work done or what?”

Alitura sighed and tapped something on her datapad. “Alright. Here you go. Good luck, Captain.”

“Thank you, Sister,” I replied and went to the dock.

[Vladimir_Korff]

The Blood-Stained Stars: Automation Impediment – Part I

Studying the Scene

Everyshore region – Chasnaye constellation
Harerget system – Planet V – Moon 1
CreoDron Factory station

27 April YC 127

As I was jumping through the gates toward Harerget system, I contacted Delphine Xarasier, a Level 1 R&D agent who agreed to help Alitura with deciphering the datacore.

“Good morning, Ms Xarasier,” I said cheerfully, when a disheveled, sleepy agent appeared on the comms screen.

Delphine Xarasier

“Morning? What morning? It’s a middle of the night!” she said testily by way of greeting. Then her eyes focused on me, she blinked a few times, squinted and asked, “Who are you? And how do you know my personal number?”

“Captain Korff, at your service,” I replied and made an attempt to bow courteously, as far as it was possible to do being naked and suspended in pod goo. “Sister Alitura told me that you had a little problem for which you needed a capsuleer.”

“This can wait till morning,” the agent waved her hand dismissively.

I stopped smiling, “Maybe your little problem can, but my big one cannot. I need your help with deciphering the datacore and I am prepared to act with alacrity to resolve any blockers. But I expect the same from you, Ms Xarasier. I am on my way to your station and will be in your office in approximately 20 minutes. I really hope to meet you there when I arrive.”

Delphine scoffed, “And what if you don’t?”

“Then I will meet you in the morning, collect the datacore and you’ll have to find another capsuleer.”

It was a blatant bluff, as I wasn’t going to engage another corp for that task, but I wanted to check how badly CreoDron needed me. It appeared they were quite desperate, as Delphine swallowed the bait.

“Damn you, Captain! I’ll see you in half an hour,” growled the agent and ended the connection.

I noticed the 10-minute pushback and chuckled – if such a petty trick was enough to secure Delphine’s cooperation, we would get on like maison en flambe.

---

When I entered Delphine Xarasier’s office she was busy making coffee. She gave me a bleary-eyed look, waved in a general direction of a visitor’s chair and turned back to the coffee machine. Soon she was sitting at the table with a steaming mug. For a while she was just sipping coffee and staring in the distance. I gave her time to wake up properly. Eventually, she started taking interest in the universe and her gaze fell on me. She studied me for some time and snorted.

“Caldari, eh? What brings you here, Captain? Are the pickings in the State so slim that you decided to try your luck abroad?”

“Me?” I raised my eyebrow. “I was dragged into this affair kicking and screaming. It was you who was looking for foreign mercenaries.”

The agent chuckled, “Touché,” and continued in a more benevolent tone. “You know, Captain, I don’t mind working through the night if a situation calls for it, but not three nights in a row. I was really looking forward to having some rest tonight, so pardon my grouchiness. And it’s not just the lack of sleep, it’s that stupid issue that does my head in.”

“What’s the problem?”

“The problem is that every single drone in this system ceased responding to signals three days ago. That just doesn’t happen with Federation technology!”

I ignored the obvious contradiction and shrugged, “As you say, Madame.”

“It’s actually Mademoiselle,” Delphine said demurely.

“I am not sure I am interested in your marital status.”

The agent looked at me in mock horror, “I would be alarmed if you were!”

I laughed and raised my hands acknowledging a good riposte.

“So what can I do for you, Mademoiselle Xarasier?”

“What you can do, Captain Korff, is get out there and see what happened to our drones. As I said, malfunctions on such a scale do not happen with our tech. I am quite convinced that the drones were destroyed. Bring back at least one drone, or whatever remained of it, and it will help us immensely.”

“Should I expect any hostile actors?”

The agent shook her head, “I don’t know. There were no signs of other ships in the system, so I have no idea what could have destroyed the drones. But someone or something did, so keep your eyes peeled, and I’ll try to do the same,” she finished with a yawn.

---

Everyshore region – Chasnaye constellation
Harerget system – Mission location

When I arrived to the last known location of one of the CreoDron drones, the overview showed me a very curious list of local objects. Firstly, there was a container labelled ‘Corrupted Drone’.

Corrupted Drone

“How does the overview know it’s corrupted?” I asked Aura. “I don’t believe there are enough corrupted drones in New Eden to train its ML model on.”

Aura rummaged in capsule documentation and poked its APIs, then said, “It’s a generated label. The overview does not know what that thing is exactly, but it looks like a drone and it looks like other things that were known to be corrupted. And I use ‘looks’ loosely here as the overview uses readings from all available sensors.”

“Yeah, kinda makes sense,” I agreed. “But look at the next three objects!”

“Broken Duvolle Laboratories Recon Drones”, read Aura and got excited. “Does it mean that Duvolle Labs sent their drones to attack CreoDron’s drones? And to hide their participation in the attack, they introduced some flaw so that they now appear ‘broken’. Wow! Gallentean corp wars are tougher than ours.”

I shook my head, “No, I don’t think so. Look at the drone type.”

The overview classified the Duvolle drones as Mammon Apis and Belphegor Apis – the same way it classified Rogue Drones. Aura froze, and CPU consumption hit 100% as she tried to digest the implications of our discovery. A few seconds later she came to and looked at me with round eyes.

“So, this means…” she started and trailed off.

“…that Duvolle Labs drones mutated into Rogue Drones,” I finished her thought.

If it was true, it was a momentous discovery. Everyone believed that Rogue Drones traced their descent from malfunctioned military drones, but nobody was able to find a convincing evidence. The captured Rogue Drones evolved so much that there was hardly any trace of their ancestors left. Finding a drone which was identified as a product of human corporation and, at the same time, had characteristics of a rogue drone provided a missing link in Rogue Drones evolutionary development.

“These are priceless artefacts which will advance our understanding of Rogue Drones,” Aura whispered in awe.

At that moment the ‘priceless artefacts’ acquired a target lock on me and started harassing my shields.

Broken Duvolle Laboratories Recon Drone

“And what course of action do you propose, Professor?” I asked sardonically, watching a growing damage indicator on the HUD.

“Can we… can we disable them somehow?” she asked desperately.

“The only way I know to disable a drone is to shoot it down.”

Aura opened her mouth as if she was going to say something, then closed it again.

Finally she said in a pleading voice, “Just be careful.”

I rolled my eyes, “We both know that I don’t have precise targeting control. The best thing I can promise is make one hole at a time in them.”

And so I did, allocating just one railgun to each drone. The little bastards were fast and nimble, and I had an impression that they bounced off my 150-mm charges before they exploded. But the keyword was ‘little’ – there was only so many hits they could endure before they exploded. When the fight was over I checked their remains and discovered that there was nothing to loot.

“I wish I had a salvager,” I said wistfully, “but I am afraid we’ll have to leave further investigation to Delphine.”

Then I moved to the corrupted drone. Neocom found a few metal scraps which could be extricated from the drone’s wreck but also some interesting electronic components which were classified as corrupted. I grabbed the whole lot and stowed it in my cargo hold.

“May I inspect those components before you return them to CreoDron?” asked Aura enthusiastically.

“Um… better not,” I said, “there could be an unknown virus or something like that. Might give you pockmarks.”

Aura pursed her lips indignantly but didn’t press the point.

---

Everyshore region – Chasnaye constellation
Harerget system – Planet V – Moon 1
CreoDron Factory station

When I told Delphine about our discovery of the broken Duvolle drones, she, totally unexpectedly, emitted a triumphant whoop.

“I gotcha, Dad!” she cried exuberantly.

“Dad?” I asked, confused.

“Yeah, I told the old codger that there was a flaw in his design, but would he listen?”

“Do you mean that your father designs drones for Duvolle Labs?”

“Yes. Why do you look so surprised?”

“Because I thought he was a chief researcher at CreoDron.”

“Who told you that?” Delphine asked, astonished.

“Sister Alitura.”

Delphine shook her head, “She got her wires crossed. My father is a chief researcher but at Duvolle Labs. I, too, worked there for a while but it appears we are just incompatible. When it comes to research and design, he thinks he is a genius and always goes his own way.”

“And is he?” I asked. “A genius, I mean.”

“Oh, he is a genius alright, but even geniuses make mistakes. I was investigating some aberrant drone behaviour and found that evolution-limiting algorithm allowed, under certain circumstances, infinite AI development. That led to a deviation from the desired operational characteristics. I told Dad that the algorithm had to be strengthened, but he dismissed my concerns saying that it would make the drone behaviour too patterned and predictable by the enemy. I had a horrible row with him after which I left Duvolle Labs.”

“And were scooped by CreoDron the next day, I guess?”

Delphine smirked, “The same day. There are some advantages of being a daughter of great Avagher Xarasier, you know.” Then she added vindictively, “But now I’ll take him down a notch. When my salvage team brings the remains of those broken Duvolle drones, I will have an evidence to prove how stupid it was to ignore the risks of uncontrolled AI evolution.”

“And will he listen this time?” I teased.

Delphine snorted, “He’ll have to, unless he wants to become known as an evil genius who unleashed a new generation of rogue drones.”

That won’t be a bad outcome, I though to myself. I was afraid that my collaboration with a Gallente corp would harm Caldari interests, but in that one mission I managed to reduce the threat of rogue drones and make Gallentean drones more predictable, if Delphine’s father’s assertion was true. Not bad, indeed.

Aloud I said, “Well, I’ve helped you solve your little drone problem, as I promised. Are you ready to analyse the datacore?”

“You’ve helped indeed, but the problem is not solved. Now we know that our drones were corrupted by Duvolle drones, but we still need to figure out how to protect our drones from corruption,” said Delphine and, seeing my disappointed face, added hastily, “but I can allocate some resources to your datacore. We’ll start working on it today. I wish I could provide more assistance but I have to balance my priorities.”

“Is there anything I can do to free up more resources for the analysis?” I asked.

Delphine thought for a few seconds, then brightened up and said, “Actually, you can.”

[Vladimir_Korff]

The Blood-Stained Stars: Automation Impediment – Part II

Rendering Assistance

Everyshore region – Chasnaye constellation
Harerget system – Planet V – Moon 1
CreoDron Factory station

27 April YC 127

“You see,” said Delphine Xarasier, “there is a colony in Harerget which experienced an outbreak of Lumivent Sieve and which needs an urgent delivery of antibiotics. We sent them a batch three days ago but it never arrived. Now the colony is in desperate need of the medicine. Can you deliver it to them?”

I hesitated, “Um… Aren’t you an R&D agent?”

“I am. Why?”

“This is actually my question: if you are an R&D agent, why are you handling distribution contracts?”

“Because CreoDron doesn’t have a distribution agent in Harerget. Yet, someone has to pick up the slack.”

“And how will my delivery of the antibiotics help you decipher the datacore?” I asked suspiciously.

“As I said, someone has to do it. I have two options: either I send one of my scientists who can pilot a ship and crack datacores, or I can send you who can pilot a ship.”

The full stop at the end of her last sentence was almost audible.

I sighed, “Alright, I get it. Send the medicine to my Cormorant and the location of the colony to my navigational AI.”

When I arrived to the dock, the medical supplies were already loaded to my cargo hold. I woke up Aura and told her about the mission.

“But I can crack datacores myself,” Aura said indignantly and put her hands on her hips. “Tell them that they can give us the datacore and ferry their cargo themselves.”

“Oh, come on. It’s just a short warp across the system. I am not going to kick up a stink about it. Besides, any delay probably costs someone’s life at that colony.”

Aura gave up and grumbled, “I wish we didn’t give that datacore away when we first found it.”

I shrugged, “We didn’t know how important it was at the time,” and undocked.

---

Everyshore region – Chasnaye constellation
Harerget system – Mission location

Colony Station

The colony resided in an elegant star base anchored near a gas cloud. I stayed put for a while, observing the surrounds. Nothing moved. After a couple of minutes I carefully started approaching Colonial Supply Depot where I was supposed to drop off the antibiotics. The overview was clear. I dared to turn on the microwarpdrive and gradually increased the speed. In just a few seconds I reached the Depot, transferred the medical supplies into it and immediately started moving away. Nothing happened. Looking suspiciously at the indifferent overview, I called the agent.

Colonial Supply Depot

“Hey, I put the medicine into the Supply Depot. What’s next?” I asked Delphine when the connection was established.

“Great! Thank you so much, Captain Korff! You may return to the station,” she replied.

I looked at her incredulously, “You mean, that’s it?”

“Yes, that was the mission objective and you achieved it. What else did you expect?”

“I don’t know… pirate ambushes, rogue drone nests, stasis towers…”

“Why?” asked Delphine, nonplussed.

“Because that’s what typically happens to me on a mission. Last time I was asked to deliver a barrel of oil, I was ambushed by a wing of Blood Raiders who thought I was transporting one of their gang members. The agent who gave me that mission called it ‘a complication’.”

Mademoiselle Xarasier pursed her lips disapprovingly, “This simply doesn’t happen on my missions. If I say delivery, it’s delivery, and not some kind of CovOps rough and tumble.”

I chuckled, “That’s because you are not a security agent.”

Delphine frowned, “What?”

Then she suddenly got distracted, put herself on mute and talked to someone on her commlink. When she finished the call with that someone, she started saying something to me with a worried look on her face.

I rolled my eyes, “You are on mute, Ms Xarasier.”

The agent mouthed an expletive and unmuted herself.

“Sorry, Captain, I’ve just received some disturbing news. Please return to the station immediately.”

[Vladimir_Korff]

The Blood-Stained Stars: Automation Impediment – Part III

Lair of the Snakes

Everyshore region – Chasnaye constellation
Harerget system – Planet V – Moon 1
CreoDron Factory station

27 April YC 127

When I entered Delphine’s office, she was nervously pacing up and down.

“Captain,” the agent cried as soon as she saw me, “you have to save her!”

“Save whom?” I asked, confused.

“Aspasia! I mean, Dr Aspasia Castille. She is one of CreoDron’s top minds.”

“Um… Save from what? Or whom?”

“From Serpentis. They kidnapped her!”

“Isn’t it a matter for police, or corp security?”

“There is no time! I know where they are taking Aspasia. If you act immediately, there is a chance to rescue her,” Delphine said in a pleading voice.

“I am sorry, but I have my own investigation to work on, and this mission looks like another distraction. I tried to help you as much as I could but it’s just one thing after another and there is still no progress on the datacore decoding.”

“But…” Delphine hesitated, “but there can’t be any progress on that datacore without Aspasia. She was the one working on it.”

That statement made me see the situation in a different light.

I sighed, “Okay… tell me the details.”

“You see, we got a toilet alert.”

“What?!”

“Oh, it’s just a surveillance thing. We can’t put cameras inside the toilets for privacy reasons, but we track people entering and leaving the toilet.”

I rolled my eyes, “By the Void! Do you actually track how much of their workday the employees spend in a toilet?”

“We do, but it’s for health reasons,” Delphine replied defensively, but her face became shifty for a split second. She then continued, “If someone spends too much time in a toilet it might mean that they have a medical episode – a bout of diarrhoea or a faint. In such cases we send a medical officer to check on the person. Today the alert was raised for Aspasia. When the officer checked the restroom, she didn’t find Aspasia there. When we reviewed the CCTV records, we found that immediately after Aspasia’s entry, a cleaner came in with a trolley and put up a sign saying that the restroom was closed for cleaning. After some time, she left. There were other people coming in and out but Aspasia was not one of them.”

“Let me guess,” I interjected, “you have not seen that cleaner and the trolley ever since.”

Delphine grimaced reproachfully, “I have to admit a fault in our security but it’s not that bad. There are more cameras around than you can see and we were able to track the subsequent movements of the cleaner around the station. She went straight to the docks and entered a transport ship. We believe that she incapacitated Aspasia in the restroom and transported her in the trolley to the ship which left the station soon after.”

“And how do you know it was Serpentis?” I asked sceptically. “Did the ship have their lovely S-hole logo on it?”

“Asshole logo?”

“Um… now that you have said it, I must admit that it’s probably a better way of spelling it, given Serpentis’s line of business. But what I meant was that the logo consisted of two golden plates, and the hole between the plates formed letter S.”

Serpentis logo

Delphine snorted, “No, there wasn’t any kind of hole logo, S-shaped or otherwise. It belonged to one of thousands of small corps some of which are created just for one trip. But we know where the ship is headed. Their destination is one of the Serpentis research labs! You need to go there and destroy the lab before they can transfer Aspasia to it.”

“And how do you know that they have not already reached that lab? If I understand correctly, the ship left the station hours ago. They must have already arrived.”

The agent rolled her eyes, “Capsuleers! You think everyone flies as fast as you? Most civilian transports can’t afford the advanced warp technology that you take for granted. Their warps are faster than jets, but it still takes them hours to cross the system. If you depart now, you’ll get to the lab well ahead of that transport.”

I ran out of arguments and headed for the docks.

I boarded Kaukokärki, undocked, and was about to warp to the Serpentis lab when Aura suddenly called out, “Look at this!”

“What? Where?” I asked, bewildered.

“A Corax!” replied Aura, switching the HUD view to a camera drone feed.

“A Corax? What’s so special about a Cor…” I started saying, then gasped when the screen was filled with an enlarged image of the ship in question.

Corax

It was a beautiful ship. A rocket boat, but a beauty nonetheless.

“Vlad,” Aura asked, mesmerised, “can we get such a SKIN for Kaukokärki?”

“I wouldn’t mind. What’s it called? And how much is it?”

“It’s called Deathglow Remnant, and…” Aura froze for a second and then groaned, “there isn’t one for Cormorants.”

“What, not on sale? Have you checked Jita?”

“No, such a SKIN simply does not exist for a Cormorant. It was never produced!”

“Shame,” I exhaled and looked wistfully at the majestic Corax.

I checked the lucky pilot’s info and found that she had an unusual call sign ‘xx Creator xx”. Chuckling at the irony of a creator flying a destroyer, I aligned to the Serpentis lab and warped away.

---

Everyshore region – Chasnaye constellation
Harerget system – Mission location

The Serpentis lab was a bunker complex with four research modules. It was guarded by five small ships.

Serpentis Research Laboratory

“Okay, let’s see what we’ve got here,” I said focusing camera drones on the closest pirate, Coreli Initiate.

“Looks like a Velator, although the overview classifies it as a frigate,” noted Aura.

Coreli Initiate

“Maybe the Serpentis have upgraded it,” I hazarded a guess. “In any case, I expect it to be the weakest of the lot. They won’t give a powerful frigate to a rookie.”

Apart from the Initiate, there were two Scouts, one Agent and one Spy. Each of them flew some variation of a Gallente frigate – either an Atron or a Navitas.

Coreli Scout

Coreli Spy

“This Gallentean job gets better and better,” I chuckled. “Now I’ve got a target practice with Gallente ships but without losing my standing with the Feds.”

“Don’t get too cocky,” Aura warned me. “The pirates may hide nasty surprises.”

“There is only one way to find out,” I replied nonchalantly and burned toward the lab.

I started shooting as soon as I got into the firing range, focusing all seven rails on one target. If there was a surprise, it was a nice one – the pirate ships were as crunchy as eggshells. They were nimble enough to avoid direct impacts but even one or two glancing hits were enough to blow them up.

“That was disapp…” I started saying when two pirate destroyers, accompanied by three frigates warped to the grid. “That’s more like it!” I grunted and targeted the newcomers.

Corelior Soldier

To my surprise, Neocom flashed an error message.

The target Coreli Patroller is too far away. It must be within 73 km.

“What?” I exclaimed, baffled, and tried to lock the target again.

Same result.

“What the hell? My targeting range is 86 klicks! Aura, is there anything wrong with our sensors?”

“Yes, it’s called sensor dampening,” Aura replied. “I hope they told you about electronic warfare in the Academy?”

I looked at the HUD and discovered a small icon which I hadn’t seen before.

“Yeah,” I said uncertainly, “there was something about it, but Guristas never used it.”

“Oh, shall I inform Serpentis that they shouldn’t use sensor dampeners on Caldari capsuleers because they are unused to such treatment?” Aura asked in a pleasant tone, sarcasm oozing from each word.

I ignored the barb and checked the overview.

“Look at that!” I cried out in frustration. “It’s an Incursus which dampens me! Who puts a sensor dampener on an Incursus? It’s a combat frigate!”

Coreli Watchman

“I told you to expect surprises,” Aura said triumphantly.

“You told me that about the first lot, not about these ones.”

Aura didn’t grace my lame excuse with a riposte and just stared at me with a smug expression on her face. I sighed and got to to work. The first order of business was to get into my reduced targeting range. I willed Kaukokärki into a 70-km orbit around the lab, and soon acquired a target lock on the insidious Coreli Patroller. I eliminated it with extreme prejudice and proceeded to destroy the rest of the gang one by one. The toughest of the lot was Corelior Soldier but its robustness came at the price of agility. I needed four salvos to destroy the pirate, but every one of them was a solid hit with maximum application.

When the reinforcements were gone, I took a deep breath and was about to congratulate myself on the resounding victory; then I saw Aura’s eyes go wide. A quick glance at the overview revealed that a second wave of reinforcements led by a cruiser, no less, had arrived to our neck of the woods.

“Uh-oh,” I muttered, “■■■■ just got real.”

I didn’t know anything about Serpentis cruisers but, but based on my experience with Guristas, they should be bitey. This time, however, I had an 85-km firing range which I intended to take full advantage of. And so I did. I started with orbiting Corelum Chief Spy at 85 klicks while targeting and picking off its escort ships which could have been equipped with sensor dampeners. Twenty seconds later the cruiser found itself devoid of any support.

I rubbed the hands gleefully and said under my breath, “If you’ve got any surprises, now is the time.”

Silence was the answer. The cruiser doggedly kept turning in my direction as I orbited it but was unable to catch up.

“Well, your loss then,” I shrugged my shoulders and opened fire.

Corelum Chief Spy

It took me 10 direct hits to go through the cruiser’s shield, armour and hull, but in half a minute the one-sided battle was over.

“Spies,” I scoffed, “they are good for cloak-and-dagger stuff, but one shouldn’t bring a knife to a gunfight.”

“Don’t jinx it,” Aura chuckled. “For all I know, the next wave will bring a battlecruiser.”

I looked nervously, first at Aura, then at the overview. The seconds ticked by but nothing was happening. Suddenly, a message from the lab popped up in the local channel.

Transport Ship Bitis, abort your delivery. Our location is compromised. Move on to secondary site!

“Who are they talking to?” I asked, bewildered.

Aura did something to the overview and it showed a new icon labelled “Bitis” and classified as a civilian transport ship. I focused my camera drones on it and saw a non-descript hauler… which was aligning for a warp-out. All I could do was watch it fire up its warp drive and disappear.

Delphine Xarasier’s head appeared on the comm screen and said, “Well done, Captain. Your mission is over. Please return to the station.”

“Hey,” I objected, “but I haven’t destroyed the lab.”

“Don’t worry. By turning away the transport ship you fully earned your mission reward.”

“I don’t like to leave the job half-done. If the Serpentis were willing to send a cruiser to defend this lab, it must be really valuable to them.”

“You can leave it to CreoDron security force. They’ll take care of the lab.”

I snorted, “And how long will that take? By the time you get around to sending warships, the pirates will have evacuated the personnel and relocated the equipment. How long did you know about the existence of this lab?”

Delphine averted her gaze and said in a subdued voice, “All right, Captain Korff. Do the needful but don’t take too long.”

She then signed off.

I turned to Aura and said, “Now, boring but important part – structure bashing.”

Aura yawned demonstratively. I replaced Spike with iron charges, targeted the first research module and started demolition. Ten long minutes later I watched the explosion of the fourth and last research module.

Serpentis Research Laboratory Explosion

I was about to warp back to CreoDron station when Aura stopped me.

“Look, Vlad,” she said pointing at the overview, “an escape pod.”

I smiled evilly, “Well, the spacefaring law requires me to rescue the poor souls on board this pod, but they won’t be happy with my being a law-abiding citizen.”

“Why?” asked Aura.

“Because, not being law-abiding citizens themselves, they will find that the only path out of my cargo hold leads straight to jail.”

With that, I scooped the escape pod and dragged it into the hold.

“Hello, jailbirds!” I said cheerfully after establishing a video connection with the pod.

“Yay! Not anymore!” I received an enthusiastic reply from a young fellow in a lab coat.

“Not yet,” I retorted.

The guy frowned, “What do you mean by ‘not yet’?”

“I mean that you’ll be sentenced and jailed as members of a pirate organisation.”

“But we are not pirates! We are researchers. We have been kidnapped and forced to work at gunpoint. Why would we be jailed for that?”

That was awkward. Apparently the people in the pod suffered the fate that Dr Castille managed to avoid, at least for now. I glanced at Aura. She was covering her mouth with a hand, trying hard not to laugh.

I took a deep breath and said haughtily in an attempt to save face, “That will be for the court to decide.”

Having ended the connection, I looked at Aura and muttered with a grimace, “I don’t like Gallenteans.”

Aura burst into laughter.