It was a typical first day back from RNR. The crew was anxious, as was I. Time off is pleasant and all, but I yearn to be back in the thick of things. I got my choice of assignment this time round, a rare treat. I chose a destroyer, a Thrasher that had only seen a handful of flights. We were to go into contested systems deep in dead space, off the beaten path of the war. It would seem the Amarr had been delving deeper and deeper into our territories.

We traversed the expanse to our destination without encountering a single soul. No merchant ships. No war targets. We began our sweep of the planets. Nothing.

We moved to an adjacent system. No contacts. Once again, we began scanning down the planets. A blip. No wait, nothing. Another full sweep with no results.

Third system. Maybe this one’s the charm?

Planet I. Clear. Planet II. Clear. Planet III…

15 seconds from a full analysis, a Taranis warps in on top of us. Locked and scrambled instantly. Shields already down one third. Systems seem sluggish.

I order the gunners to fire back, put up a fight. I know we have no chance. I urge the ship to start plotting a course for the nearest moon. I give the impulse for all hands evacuation.

The ship blows. My pod is intact. I align towards the locked moon. No response. My pod is scrambled. How could that happen so quickly?

A bright flash. I awake, gasping for air, in a Tribal Liberation Force cloning capsule fifteen systems away. It is quiet. The sounds of war still ring in my mind.

How did this happen? My mind instantly recalls the blip that I had disgarded as pilot error. Was it more than that? Had someone sabotaged my pod? Mutiny? Perhaps Red Shirt #5 had friends amongst the crew. Perhaps it was more? Maybe he was a spy?

I shake my head clear of the quickly forming multiple conclusions until I have at least an informed hypothesis to go on. My crew was dead.

I squeeze my eyes closed. It never gets easy losing a crew. As a capsuleer we enjoy more than just the physical isolation our pods afford us. More than immortality. We have mental walls that protect us from gazing upon the deaths of the loyal men and women under our command. We don’t hear their screams. We don’t see their bodies implode in the coldness of space, or get blown apart by enemy fire. They are the lucky ones. Their fate at least is instant. They aren’t scooped up into enemy cargo holds to be drugged into submissive slaves by our enemy.

We aren’t the ones who make the calls to loved ones, informing them of the valiant and noble deaths made by our Minmatar soldiers. The children that cry knowing their parent will never be coming home again.

I open my eyes, anger flashing before me. It’s not about the hundreds of millions in lost implants. It’s not about the months of physical training gone to waste. It’s not about another ship blown to salvage. It’s about the people. That is why we fight. That is where the heart of our people lay.

I am filled with anguish. I am consumed with rage. Remorse.

I will make things right. I swear it.

Ever have a hangover so bad you just want to kill anyone and everyone who comes within your immediate radius? Ever have such a throbbing headache that you want to puke your guts out when the motion sensing lights come on in your quarters as you roll over to drag yourself out of bed? Ever have that annoying shipmate who just insists on trying to cheer you up, won’t piss off, and just seems to yell every word he says?

I had one.

I woke up this morning with the worst hangover I can remember. Must’ve been a good night, but damned if I could tell you anything about it. Thankfully, I woke up alone. I’ll never forget that time I went on a bender and woke up with three achuri females in bed with me the next morning, but that’s a tale for another time.

This morning, I dragged my sorry ass into the shower, threw on some clean smelling clothes, and headed towards my pod. We had powered down under cover of an asteroid field in our issued Huginn, on day three of a five day recon mission. Recon can be relaxing and today was the perfect day for some relaxation.

As I made my way to the bridge, I received the usual salutes, a few smiles of pride at my shiny new Talon Commander pin, but for the most part, my crew was busy with their preflight checks. I had trained them well, and had no doubts in any of their abilities.

There was a new face today however. I’m sure he told me his name but don’t ask; I can’t remember. He wore our standard security uniform, with his red shirt blazing underneath. It hurt my eyes. His constant yammering hurt my ears.

I was checking over my pod with Aura, making sure everything was in optimal condition, and “red shirt # 5”, as I had already come to call him, was doing his best to impress irritate me.

Maybe it was the hangover. Maybe it was something else entirely; let’s call it fate. After some choice words to red shirt #5, I somehow ended up at the airlock controls, him stripped naked in the airlock. Next thing I know he’s floating through space in front of our ship. There he was, floating peacefully, content, for all eternity. The bastard.

I quickly got into my pod. If I wasn’t going to get any peace, any contentment, then neither was he. The crew worked quickly to release the anchoring cables which secured us to a nearby asteroid. Powering up the reactor, I bumped him. Then I bumped again. It brought a pure and joyous smile to my face, and suddenly my hangover didn’t seem so bad.

I think I may have found a new hobby.

So I am currently testing a beta app for an iPhone Skillwatcher by PyjamaSam ( a fellow Minmatar). It’s very basic so far, but it works!!! Also did up some designs for the developer, and  hopefully the two of us can polish this up into an official App Store application.

Here’s one example mockup I did:

You can see more photos of this project in Roc’s Reels.

What an attractive title to today’s little ditty.

So I’m still enjoying my shore leave, taking in sights, sounds and smells most people never have the pleasure of enjoying. It’s been a great experience so far.

Contrarily, I am still a crotchety old man. A stick in the mud. That hasn’t changed.

Please don’t misunderstand the following statement. I like my people. I am proud to be one of the fortunate souls in the Minmatar Republic. Even if they are pigs.

I was waiting for the station monorail to arrive earlier today ( I seem to spend a lot of time waiting for transports), when a random citizen caught my attention. He was unwrapping some type of nutrition bar, and discarded the wrapper on the platform. This in and of itself is a whole other rant about saving the environment, etc, etc, but that isn’t what I want to talk about right now. If you were to look literally two feet to the right of this civvie, there was a waste disposal unit. Laziness knows no bounds.

Boy did I see red. When I think of why I fight for our people, it’s for all the freedoms we enjoy at a very high cost. One of my ancestors was in the original Eve wars, so through every generation since, it’s always been ingrained into my family to have a great sense of honour and pride in every little thing that makes us the people are. One thing we are NOT is lazy.

Being the person I am, I decided to rectify the situation. I walked over to the civilian, picked up the wrapper from the ground, and began a polite dialogue:

Roc: You seemed to have dropped this my friend.
Ignorant Civilian Cuss: What?
Roc: There’s a waste bin right there. I figured you just didn’t see it. (See how nice I am?)
ICS: Fuck you.
Roc<fuming mad>: I’m sorry. I must not have heard you correctly, civilian.
ICS: I said fuck you capsuleer. Who the hell do you think you are anyway? Are you part of the garbage police now or something? Don’t you have anything better to do with your goddamned time? Piss off.
Roc: Actually, you’re right. I do have something better to do.

At that point, I grabbed the insolent little whelp by the back of his hair, making sure my hand was solid against the roots before squeezing into a fist. As he screamed a little, involuntarily standing on his tiptoes as I knew his body would, I grabbed with my other hand at the belt buckle, and moved to our right. Stepping on the “Open” pedal for the disposal unit, I then forcefully shoved the little pissant into the opening. It was actually quite the tight squeeze and I broke out in a mild sweat from the effort. As the flap closed, a satisfying swoosh sounded, and I knew that somewhere, either stuck in a tube, or in a pile of refuse, this civilian had learned a valuable lesson.

Don’t litter.

I turned back to wait for the monorail, smirking contentedly, when I noticed an older woman staring at me, drinking some Quafe. I let the smile leave my face, and let my brow drop into a stern look. I’ve never seen an old lady move to a waste receptacle so fast.

It’s good to have an influence.

I have come to realize that I am racist. Not just against the Amarr, but against stupid people. They really get on my nerves. Maybe I am just a crotchety old man. I’m ok with that.

Here’s an example:

I’ve been pushing hard in the war effort against the Amarr (while keeping an eye on the Caldari in case they get too eager), and earned myself some RNR.

I decided to spend my week off in a local pleasure station, engaging in things that don’t need to be written about here. But I made a mistake. I decided to take public transit, on a Tuesday morning, during rush hour.

This isn’t a rant about how insanely packed these public terminals are. I expected that to a degree.

This is a rant about utterly stupid these sheep can be.

There I am, waiting on the platform for the next shuttle to come in, along with everyone else in the galaxy. It’s busy, people have jobs to get to, etc, etc. I understand that.

Then I watch a woman lean her head over the platform, looking towards where the shuttle will enter the station from. Upon seeing this, a few more sheep do the same.

Now I know my chrono said the shuttle arrives at 7:25 AM. It either will, or it won’t. What really gets me is that I know full well looking to see if it’s coming yet will not actually alter the course of time. I mean seriously, do you think if you look for it, it will magically appear? Of course not. So why do it? Why look to see if the shuttle is there? Do you not think you would know? Would you not hear it? Would you not notice everyone crowding around the loading platform, angling to be first onto a fully packed shuttle?

Anyway, it just makes me smirk. I think next time I am out plexing for the war effort, and no Amarr are in sight, I might just look around. Who knows? Maybe it will make one show up…