Komi's Story

[Komi_Valentine]

[ I’m writing my story down from a third person perspective to process the things that happened in my life as a human “baseliner” pilot. A friend told me this would help my sanity.
I’m trying to write down the most important events that shaped me while traveling new eden in a chronological order. ]

Chapter One: The Incident

Komi looked at the beautiful scenery that reproduced on her retina. The sun lit up the whole nebula into a bright yellow blur.

She turned away from the ships window. They had a mission to complete. Her crew and her were busy the whole day looking for exactly this moment.
She turned around in the copilot seat and spotted Amikr. His long dreadlocks gave him a wild and rough look. Nevertheless, he was a good pilot and a friend.

She smiled at him. “Finally found our treasure?”

“Boss this is a hidden Sansha facility, are you sure you want to do it?”

She zipped at her tea and gave him a look. “Are you afraid Amkir? We have hacked multiple facilitys today and nobody even noticed our arrival. You trust me, don’t you?”

They have hunted all day long but didn’t find anything of value. This discovery however, could turn their bad luck. They just joined a corporation of Minmatar pilots and they had to prove their worth!

“Aye Aye sweetheart, whatever you say!” He smirked back at her and added “Setting the course to the next data interface, you better hurry!”

Komi stood up fast and ran into the back of the ship. A small, rusty gangway, then she arrived at the “Terminal Room”. She powered on her hacking module. Green and white digits flashed the screen, than the user interface showed up.

She shouted: “Hey Akemet, Antenna 60°32steps!”

*“On my way boss”*The voice came from a big, tattooed Brutor guy who vanished into the twilight as fast as he appeared.

Once the Broadcasting antenna was aligned she began penetrating the systems firewalls, looking for a loophole in the defensive grid.
This was her domain. She was a magician -kind of- and typed lines of code while staring at the screen. Her fingers were so fast, they danced around the keyboard like playing an ancient piano song.
She injected a carrier virus with a line of code and waited…
It returned a hirachy of structures and THERE!

“Hey Guys I’ve found something! I start downloading!”

She would analyze the data later… for now she needed to make sure the job was done quick and professional.

Akemet and Bino stepped up behind her. Bino was the ships mechanic and he had a little crush on Komi, just he would never admit it. He looked at her fingers moving over the keyboard.
Bino said “I think Akemet is too rough with the Antenna, I fixed it multiple times this week but it’s still a little unstable”
Akemets sarcastic smile reveals some golden teeth. He took it as a compliment.

Komi a little annoyed: “Hey guys you really could get ready for the next interface. we still have -…”

“■■■■!!! ■■■■!! Sansha Battleships on Grid!!” came a panicing scream out of the cockpit

“Good Job!” Akemet cursed and gave Komi a hateful look that froze her to the core.

Suddenly the ship was very busy. They were prepared for this, but now Komi felt stunned…Akemet and Bino were already on their way to the escape pods. Amikr was cursing in the cockpit and the ship made a hard turn. Komi lost balance and fell to the hard steel floor.

“I’m warping out!” Amikr shouted…

Komi did nothing. She got up and ran to the next escape pod in panic, not even thinking. It was an ancient instinct that helped her - an instinct as old as humanity itself.
“save place… save place”

The download bar showed already 95% … Nobody noticed it, but when Amikr aligned the ship to warp off, the antennas connection broke and a very small microcontroller gave a tiny signal to the Defense System of the facility.
The System, which sole purpose was to protect the data, decided solidly that the best way to react to this event was destroying all it’s valuable data.

• BOOM *

The Facility exploded and it crushed the ship by force. A heavy yank pushed Komis escape pod just seconds before the explosion took place.
The pod was already running his automated alignment process. Komi hits the only small window of the pod. Her cheek pushed against cold glass.
Her mind could not process what happened.
She couldn’t even cry or show any emotion as she saw the other escape pods surfing the fireball and getting dangerously close to the Sansha vessels.
This view -unlike the beautiful nebula- would be burned into her retina for ever.

She lost consciousness as the pod warped into the void…

RIP
Amikr Gemarr
Bino Stigmann
Akemet Valkor
o7

related killmail =(

[ to be continued… ]

[Komi_Valentine]

Chapter Two: Welcome to Amarr

She opened her eyes. She was desoriented for a few seconds then she realized she was in an escape pod. Komi crawled to the lock. Through a small window she could see people outside. They gestured something to her.
A big red button opened the lid and warm light was filling the small rescue pod.
She blinks as she spots some men equipped with a welding lighter who seemed really happy they didn’t need to cut her body out of the pod.

Immediatly she recognised where she was. The escape pod had automatically brought her to the nearest rescue station… which in her case was Amarr VIII Emperor Family Academy.

“oh no… of course Amarr” she thought. Then she remembered what happened.

The sorrow of the ineluctable fate of her crew. She wanted to cry and tear apart herself.
She wanted to drop on the floor and die… but … but … there was a little spark of hope that they had survived. This was the only thought that kept her from collapsing into a crying furl.

Komi gathered up all her willpower, stepped out of the pod and thanked the dockworkers for their help.
A bright, golden corridor extends to both sides. Some people were slowly walking towards one side of the tunnel. Two men walk past her with a stretcher.

“Hello Miss” said an old Amarrian officer. “I’m Tugvald, the manager of this Hangar. Please come closer.”

Komi turned around just to see a tall, blonde man, who scornfully inspected her. She walked towards the Amarr.

“Miss, your escape pod is docked in Hangar 42/0023-C. I need your ID to transfer the lay charges” he grinned, while he pressed some buttons on his small register. “How long are you planning to stay?”

“Have there been other escape pods from my ship?”

“No Miss sadly not…How long are you planning to stay?” his voice sounded a little impatient. Komi thought about the darker meaning of those words.

“Just around 8 hours…” She quietly took out her pocket computer and sent her validated ID to Tugvald. Her computer beeped and showed a lot of numbers…

“2300 ISK?!” Komi curses. “That’s way too much!”

“It is what it is.” He replied with a soft confident voice.

“I will not pay you that cutthroat price!” She turned around and quickly went along the floor.

Suddenly a strong Hand grabbed Komis shoulder and dragged her back.
Her arm was dragged on her back and she was pushed to the ground. Two Amarrian security guards enthroned over her. Some bystanders looked, but did not intervene.

"Miss Valentine, you do not seem to understand… " Tugvald, who suddenly was next to her ear “… this station is the holy cathedral of empress Catiz. It’s an honor and a blessing to be here. Of course it has a price… especially for some scum heretic like you.”

To make his statement clear, one of the guards kicked her hard into her side then forcefully pulled her up and brought her back to her feet.

She stared at Tugvald with rage and tears in her eyes. Her lips twitching. But she didn’t retort.
“This ■■■■■■■ bastard…”
Tugvald grinned sadisticly. He knew, he could do whatever he wanted for his faith and power were strong. And he would be paid, like he was many times before.

She paid the fee (+ and extra fee for resistance and the welding crew) quietly and didn’t cause any other conflict.
She had lost her ship and crew and this disgusting asshole had broken her honor, too. What a shame.
Oh what a failure she was. Komi shook her head, a desperate attempt to get rid of her grim thoughts.
How could she ever return to her corporation after this desaster?
She wished it all was just a dream but it wasn’t.
Komi never felt so low in her entire life as she walked -head down- up the steps into the heart of the station.

[ to be continued… ]

[Komi_Valentine]

Chapter Three: Makatipid

Komi merged with the crowds.
A wide golden avenue fenced off by giant golden statues of ancient Amarrian Emperors and countless shops, bars and some religious buildings. But she couldn’t enjoy the exclusive panorama. Komi unfolded her pocket computer and checked the regional market offers. She needed a new ship to escape from this place.

Her wallet showed 1.2 Million ISK. She sobbed…
It was a giant sum of money. It was enough to buy a small ship or finance a giant industrial operation on some planets. Her family and all the people who belived in her had gathered money to support Komi. They even gave her a free ship and crew after her graduation. They saw great potential in her, for she was one of the Rebublic University’s best finalists.
But Komi was a failure. Loosing the ship she had betrayed all the trust given to her.

“Heya Sista, you’re all right?” It brought her back to reality.

A tall Minmatar in a white shirt came to her. His arms were full of wooden bracelets and tattoos showing signs of a Sebiestor heritage. Komi could also spot some Thukker and Brutor inspired Tattoos.

“Hey, It has been a rough day”

The man looked compassionatly at her. “You look quite battered. Wanna join me for a drink and tell me what happened?”

He didn’t accept Komis excuse and she was really greateful for having company, so she followed him. His name was Ka’hang and he seemed to be a nice guy. They crossed some streets. Komi spotted a caravan of Minmatar teens dressed in white robes… walking in line in front of a fat overseer.

“Slaves…” Ka’hang told her “It’s gross, but very common here. Better don’t look or talk about it. You don’t want to get into trouble, trust me”

They ended up in a somber bar at the docks. Many more Minmatar and Gallente folks were hanging around. Some gave them quick looks as they entered. Komi tied her hair up to a big messy bun.

“You should really take care of you. You look like a fuckin’ mess!” He offered her a drink and a cigarette. She excepted. The smoke filled her lungs and the disgusting smell settled on her tonge. That form of self punishment was what she needed right now.

“Yeah I know” She tried to set up a small smile.

“Are you alone?”

“I’m alone.” After a short pause she added “but I’ll buy a ship to leave this place.”

“Whaaaat!?” Ka’hang jumped up. “You’ll buy a ship?” He couldn’t believe his luck. He got a really good catch there.

“You will need some Crew!” he said eagerly. “I can help you with that. I myself am a trained pilot…”
He added in a dangerous tone: “…and I know a lot of good loyal people.”
Komis eyes widened.

They met at a small dock to inspect an old Vherokior Probe. The rusty ship loomed over them. “Makatipid” was written in large letters on the hull.

Komi liked it, not just because it carried the insignia of her tribe; it was a functional ship design equipped with a probe launcher, a civilian afterburner and had optimized cargo holds. Not the best, but not the worst either.
As she and Ka’hang inspected the bridge, that looked quite familiar to her, she stopped.

“We’ll take it!” she announced.

The seller -and stocky Caldari man- looked really happy as Komi signed the contract and transferred a huge amount of ISK into his account.

Ka’hang organized the connections and soon they boarded the ship with a wild group of 20 men and women. Some of them actual valueable crew but most of them refugees or stranded freedom fighters.
At the point they had finished all the Checks, Komi was awake for 22 hours. Ka’hang took place in the pilot seat while she let herself fall into the co-pilot seat.

“Ma crew! Get ready for takeoff!” he announced.

The other crewmembers gathered up behind him. The bridge was full of people. Ka’hang pushed the joystick forward and … nothing happened.
A big confusion for some seconds, until they realized, Komi had taken control.

Komi now added thrust.

“Well Ka’hang don’t forget this is my crew and my ship! Ladies first!” She blinked at him. Ka’hang grinned.

The engines awoke from a long sleep and with an elegant movement the ship glided outside the mighty cathedral of empress Catiz.
Komi rotated the ship and got a second look. She sweared to herself never to return to this cursed place…

"Let’s fly home!"

[ to be continued… ]

[Komi_Valentine]

Chapter 4: Panther

Sist.
A large shape that loomed over the background of stars.
The base station of the Tribal Intelligency Agency [TIA] grew bigger and bigger as they approached. Komi had almost slept the entire flight and was now standing behind Ka’hang who piloted the ship.
They could spot hundreds of beautiful small lights over the stations hard surface. Makatipid -her new ship- circled around the station.

“You can dock at Hangar 04/3b.” a scratchy tone replied out of the speakers.

Komi was afraid. Reporting back her failure -the biggest in her life- would be a challenge. She had taken a quick hot shower in the rusty shower stall and her hair was tied the usual way. A drop of water detached from heir hair and fell on the hard metal floor with a splash.
Makatipid crossed the forcefield that acted like a giant air lock and seperated the hangar air from the coldness of space. The forcefield unclenched as she ship passed trough, wiggeling around the ships hull with small sparks of light. There was not turning back now.

With a great blow the loading hatch fell to the floor. Komi had a quick talk with the hangar manager and he was seemingly not amused by all the refugees leaving the ship.

“You know, we cannot provide for them here, they’ll have to leave with the next shuttles. I’ll assign some quarters to them, but you’ll have to discuss this with Panther.”

Panther… Komi swallowed. Panther was the CEO of TIA and her direct boss. Not much was known about Panthers past, but she had some powerful connections within the Minmatar Republic. Komi got hired to extract secret Blueprints from pirate facilities Panther found valueable.

A large woman, ash blond hair, dressed in full combat gear walked into the hangar. 2 Marines on each side, who quickly seperated and cared about the refugees. Panthers face painted with a tattoo that proved tenacity. She was a capsuleer. One of those immortal humans, a demigod. Her presence made her taller than she actually was. Komi had never seen her without her tactical goggles but she imagined Panthers eyes just being dark as black holes. She shivers…

“Hey Panther, I have to tell you …” Komi began speaking.

“I already know.” Panthers voice was appealing. She didn’t seem that angry.

“No you don’t!” Komi got very emotional. “I’ve lost my entire crew. Only I survived. The mission was a desaster!”

Panther didn’t respond. The air in the hangar suddenly rose in pressure but just to Komi’s awareness.
It was hard not to start crying while she had to admit her mistakes publicly… what a shame
She lowered her head and voice.

“I’ll resign my post. I’m ashamed that I disappointed your trust. I will…-”

“Recruit Komi!” Panthers voice cuts the air.

Out of reflex Komi stood straight. Her eyes moistened.

“We’ve all made mistakes” Panther continued with a lower volume “You will get over it. Do you want to run like a coward?”

No reaction from Komi.

Panther shrugged it off. “You have to live with it. We all know the risks. You applied for this job and you didn’t succeed. Get used to it. I recruited you because you are a very good hacker with great potential so stand your ground like the professional you are! If you want to restore your honor you will not run away! Just think about the sacrifice of your ancestors or your crew. If they could see you now they would be ashamed.”

The words hit Komi deep inside her. The two women now were very close to each other and even if they were about the same size, Panther was much bigger in her own special way.

Panther touched Komis shoulder.“By the way I’m glad you survived, really. I don’t care about the losses. Your experience is more valueable than any ship. The cluster is a dark place and we all have our scars. You’ll get used to it.”

“Panther I can not…”

“Stop!” Panther was furious. “You will come into my office in two hours to get your new mission. Have I made it clear?”

“Yes Boss.” Komi squeaked.

Panther shook her head and told Komi: "I’ll hire some crew to equip your new… " She looked at the Makatipid “…ship with all required equipment. Your loss was expected and calculated… two hours!”

Komi was standing still until Panther had already taken some steps to the hangar exit. She forced herself to breathe.
“expected and calculated…” Komi shivered. Her Boss was right. The Universe was a dangerous place. And Panther was right about one more thing… Komi could not run away. If she did, her whole career as a pilot was over and her honor forever broken. She had no choice but to continue.

She stood there in the middle of the hangar very lost for some seconds. Then with heavy feet, she stepped to her quarters. She had survived the confrontation and had two hours left…

[ to be continued … ]

[Amakei]

The discription does fit Panther Pretty well. Keep going Komi.

[Panther_Zwei]

well… * a sly smile spreading across her lips*

[Iceacid_Frostpacker]

Komi Valentine constant struggle to save lives may that small party of freedom fighters rest in space.

[Komi_Valentine]

Chapter 5: Into the unknown

It had been a great week. Komi and her new crew hacked multiple facilities belonging to the Angel Cartel and recovered valueable blueprints. They soon were a well-rehearsed and reliable team. Everything from Bino aligning the broadcasting antenna, to Ka’hang piloting the ship went great. But they soon had to prove themselves…

Ka’hang had insisted to further pilot the ship. The other crew members provided by Panther consisted of Bjoddy and Ray - A Caldari couple of ship engineers, Bino a turned up science graduate who was responsible for navigation and the scanning equipment. Steiner and Heifnar, two big Brutor guys responsible for the cargo bay as well as Tek, a freedom fighter that had no real job but was told to be an excellent fighter.

A small red dot was blinking on the ship scanner.

“Hey, I think I’ve found something interesting!” Bino committed. “The signal is unlike everything we’ve catched before… kind of fluctuating.”

“Let’s see.” Komi came close to the monitor and observed the red dot. “Yeah you are right, the signal spectrum is unusual. Let’s find out what we’ve got here!”

Bino launched the scanner probes. The probe launcher on the upper part of the hull shot 8 small projectiles, that unfolded themselves 1,5km away from the ship and soon warped off.

Komi and Bino calculated the optimal way to triangulate the source of the unusual signal and positioned the probes accordingly. The signal originated from a point several AUs above the rotation plane of the system. This was very interesting, because normally there was nothing of interest in this unnatural orbit.
It took them some time but they figured it out and the Scanner Probes returned a warpable position.
Bino let the drones return to the hangar while Ka’hang aligned the ship and warped into the void.

…

“Wooow!” was her only reaction while she stared at the cosmic annomaly in front of the ship. Komi couldn’t describe it with words for the beauty and the greatness of this thing were unimaginable.
On the other hand it was just terrifying how insignificant the ship looked in front of this cosmic rift that seemed to swallow up the fabric of the universe itself.

They had found a wormhole. A connection to a distant part of space. Komi had heard about Wormholes before, but this was the first time she ever saw one by herself and now she felt an unnatural force pulling her and the ship, and everything. It was like the deep bass at a concert that shook her to the base leaving her with a numb feeling of euphoria.

The ship camera drones scanned the wormhole. Soon the navigation computer calculated the position of known stellar constellations visible in the wormhole. The result was promising:

“System not found in database, unknown.” appeared in luminous letters on the dark screen.

Bino’s and Komi’s eyes widened. The passion and curiosity about this discovery filled the room. Cracks in space time like this were quite a new phenomena. Some years ago they suddenly appeared after some incident, Komi did not remember excactly, but it had something to do with a chain reaction of Isogen isotypes that shaped the universe forever. It was inconceivable that something so gigantic and sublime like the dragging crack had not always been there. But the appearance was deceptive. Sooner or later the wormhole would collapse and the spacetime would snap into its normal form again, closing the connection.

“I think we should talk about our next steps…” Komi whispered.

But nothing had to be talked about. They all were hungry for adventure and this was an adventure unlike any other. The rations were plenty, the powercells were fully operational and so the Makatipid set course to the center of the singularity.

The crew was oberserving the shift of spacetime from the bridge. The orange glow of Metropolis space mixed and blended with the greyblue background from the other side, where a powerful magnetar blinded the sensors with it’s flares. As the ship got nearer to the singularity, the vibrations in their bodies tickled and for a moment the crew felt one with the ship and space. The sound of the universe. Peacefully and rough at the same time, they crossed lightyears of space and suddenly all they knew was behind them, a small red rift in space, crackling with electricity and unknown forces from the passing ship. And in front of them, they spotted their future.

[ to be continued… ]

[Rhys_Andrard]

welcome to j-space, be super careful, everyone out here wants to kill you

[Komi_Valentine]

These stories date back long ago. Back then my life was much more carefree =^_^=

[Komi_Valentine]

Chapter 6: Sleepers

The Drone was sleeping for decades, maybe hundreds or thousands of years. It couldn’t tell, because time was a construct that it did not understand. It was operating in cycles and now it took excactly 64.368.234 cycles to remember it’s cause of existance. After checking all its subsystems and only finding minor, fixxable errors, it received an order from the hive.

A small vessel approached the giant, wheel like structure from a distance of 200km. It was identified a thread and it’s existence was unacceptable.
The drone received the order and together with other drones, it approached the vessel.
It’s calculated path to intercept the small target was updated by the hive. Not used for a long time, the hull was shaking with material fatigue as it accellerates with force and inessential pipes were bursting in it’s inside. The drone readjusted the pressure and went on, aiming directly for the target. It locked the small vessel and loaded it’s energy weapon. An internal counter decreased with every cycle and once it reached zero, the target would be in range of the drones weapon. 180km … 130km… 100km… 90km…

“NOW!” Komi shouted and made sure her safety belt was locked.

The Makatipid turned around so fast the inertia stabilizers couldn’t hold up with the acceleration. The old vherokior hull bent and groaned, glasses shattered, odds and sods were flying around and even the bottle of Starsi, Bjoddy had left in a secret place emptied itself on the control panel of the microwarpdrive, which sparkled and went into emergency mode.

Ka’hang held his breath while was trying his best to get the ship under control and align it to the ancient structure. Now activating the warpdrive, they closed distance to it so fast that it was filling our the whole window of the cockpit. He exhaled loudly. If he had aligned just a single degree to the left, they would have crashed right into the structure, passing from this world in a ball of fire and molten metal.

“Okay, READY!” he shouted over the ships communicator.

Komi was looking at the lines of code on her terminal. Her brand new hacking module, a custom made one by the Tribal Intelligence Agency, did the job very well. While the sleeper technology was not compatible with “regular” systems, there were certain patterns in communication that followed an universal law. The AI-subroutines of the analyzer module quickly learned how to communicate with the foreign system in milliseconds.
From this point on the process was quite similar to hacking a regular server. It could be compared to asking a system question after question, until it contradicted itself. Every few seconds the analyzer printed some logical volunerability that Komi could exploit. And she did. It was quite hard, because she noticed some of her attacks and logical viruses were simply discarded by the Sleeper system. The System learned fast, but not fast enough for Komi. Her fingers typed command after command until the firewall was broken and she had access to the information. She extracted a large amount of data, or objectively the structure send her the data out of it’s own will. If “will” was the right word when describing AI Systems.

Meanwhile the drone and it’s comrades wondered. They were prepared for a really juicy target, but it just disappeared in front of them and some seconds later appeared right in front of their hive. They didn’t know the concept if anger, but they furiously turned around and made their way back to the hive.

The maneuver was ordered so abrupt, that the Drone right next to it started to spin out of the formation for excactly 124.217.422.997.456 cycles. Probably this drone had some troubles from the long missing maintenance as well. Maybe, if they would catch the target, and salvage it, the Hive would replace some of their long matured parts…

While she waited for the download to finish, Komi was quite relieved that her senses didn’t allow for a huge bandwith of informations to be gathered. It was a typical flaw in modern systems. More bandwidth meant more power and more processing speed. But it seemed that systems that could absorb huge amounts of data were also very volunerable to manipulation from outside.
A simple logic gate could not be fooled. But if you stack millions or trillions together, the volunerability of the system would always increase with it’s complexity, just like the Sleeper structure that now had fallen to her.
Komi had only her human senses, but there were other humans around that had more. Capsuleers like Panther. While they were connected to their ship, they would feel every sensor of the ship and even the ships AI subroutines. Did that mean, that they could be corrupted faster?
She shivered at the thought. She remembered one of her fellow classmates had bought himself this hacking implant, that was somehow connected to his brain. He was quite popular and she was at the time very jealous of him having this “magic tool” that allowed him to interface and mess with all kind of systems at the university like doors and the air conditioning system.
Until this one day he decided to prove himself to his friends and tried to hack the server of a Caldari corporation - what an idiot. The hack didn’t work as expected and the corporations AI Firewall corrupted his mind.
She had only seen him once after that. He didn’t speak and was unrecognizable. The doctors described that he went through hundreds of serious traumas for the whole 4 hours he was connected to the system. It had basically destroyed his whole personality. All that was left was an empty shell of a human.
This was they day she decided to never wear any implants.

The Vherokior female could be corrupted as well, but it would take way more time then a fraction of some seconds.

Komi wiped away her thoughts. “Okay, I’m done. Ready to leave Ka’hang!”

She was abruptly pushed into her seat as the ship entered the warp to a calculated save spot between two planets.

It was a huge success. They had gathered 40 Sleeper Databases and suddenly everybody on the ship was celebrating.
They send the details to the headquarters and soon got a reply that their loot was worth 40 Million ISK to the CreoDrone corporation. Of course the Tribal Intelligence Agency would take a huge amount of taxes, but it was still a big win for them.

Bino danced around “40 Million ISK… wohoo, we really found a treasure!” Ka’hang grabbed the small sebiestor guy and stopped him before he would accidentally press some important buttons or damage the loose hanging cable connections in the cockpit, where they were gathered.

Komi was laughing.

“So what are you going to buy with your share, Ka’hang?” Bino asked cheeky. He continued “for my part I’m thinking about a beautiful holiday at Hanalua Beach (Intaki V), where I will drink cocktails all day long and have some cute gallentean chicks massage my feet.”

Ka’hang looked at him. “Well Bino I think I might join you then and steal all your chicks.”

“No that’s not fair! Boss what are you going to do?”

“Well, I will visit my Family on Frarn!”

“How lame, Captain.” Ray poked her. “You should come with BJ and me. We will go shopping in Jita! I will wear all the most expensive dresses!” Ray danced a pirouette around her man.

Bjoddy or “BJ” was not that happy about this idea. Probably he knew what that meant for himself - a giant waste of time - and his face showed horror and desperation.

But it was a happy day. Komi had gathered enough money to pay back her debt to her clan, family and her corporation. Suddenly she was wealthy … really wealthy … and she had no idea what she would do with all that money…

[ to be continued… ]

The Drone slowed down softly. It’s job was done and there was no need to waste the most valueable resource; Energy. It ran a short self diagnosis and detected a malfunction in one of it’s hydraulic grippers. It decided for 33.068.779 Cycles and deactivated the module to continue on. After docking at the Hive, it shut down it’s main power core in 44.031.122 Cycles and went back to a timeless sleep.