“Sir! Wake up.”

“Hrmmh?”

“Sir! Roc! Wake up!” I feel myself being shaken by the shoulders and open my eyes. My team lead is there, looking at me with concern. “What is it?” I ask. “Sir, you were barking like a dog. It was kinda freaking out some of the new recruits.” I sit fully up, working the kinks out of my neck. Dreaming of dreams within memories that aren’t. I’m messed up.

The mind is a wondrous device. It has the ability to store every detail of every moment of our lives, and even those memories that aren’t from our lives. I am still haunted by what they have done to me. Obviously. 

“I’m good. At ease, Major. Report.”

“The storm’s finally died down. We’ve contacted the landing shuttle. They’ve brought fresh supplies and also commended us on our search.” He smirks at me. I don’t like it when people are in on a joke and I’m not; makes me wonder if the joke is about me.

“Our search?” I ask cautiously. The Vorshud Major salutes, turns on his heel, and walks to the entrace of the cave we had been holed up in. I arch my eyebrow, put on my enviro suit, and follow fifty two seconds later.

I put my hand in front of my eyes as I leave the cave. The sun is blinding in its brightness. I squint through my polarized glasses until my eyes adjust, then my eyes bulge, and my jaw drops. I lower my hand and stand in complete awe.

Less than half a kilometer away are a ring of twelve obelisks, each at least 500 feet in height, maybe more. We were sitting on it the whole time. The Elders were right. It does exist. After all our effort, after all our pain, salvation may finally be in sight.

—

“Entering the atmosphere now, sir.”, the pilot reports. “Very good.”, the Gallente capsuleer says. “Soon I will have you, Roc. Soon you will know your eternal death.”

—

“Ok, contact the ship and have them prep the dig teams. Send a few men to help with the setup. I also want snipers covering the site from there,” I point to an outcropping on my left, “there, and there.” I point out two more locations. No sense getting sloppy near the end. Stay alert. Stay alive.

“Sir, yessir!”

I don’t know what it is, but I’ve got a bad feeling about this…

—

“Hard to confirm life signs, sir. The dust storms on the planet’s surface make it difficult to insure accuracy.”

I know you’re here. I’ve been following your trail. It’s because of you I’ve lost my honour. It’s because of you I’ve lost all credibility. Everything I’ve spent my lifetime achieving is gone, because of you. Your death will be slow. I will break you, Brutor. You will beg me to kill you, and I won’t. Ever. I will just make you wish you were dead; like I wish I was dead.

—

Hours passed; the dig was going well. The team had already found a few unidentifiable ship parts buried beneath the surface, a treasure in their own right, but not the one we’re looking for. I squint against the sun, looking to sniper position one. “S1 Report.” I say into my communicator. I get the triple click of all clear. I go through the same process with the other two snipers, getting the same confirmation message that all is clear. Good. I like it when things goes easy.

“Colonel, we’ve found something. It could be the artifact.” 

“Alright, I’m on my way over.” I say into my communicator and head towards the main dig site recovery area. This could be it. Months of searching, months of pain and torment, months of sacrifice. The Elders say it will all be worth it if we acquire the Terran artifact, but they also said time is of the essence. That if we could decipher its whereabouts, so could the other Empires. The fact that it was in Minmatar space only gave us a slight headstart. 

As I approach, I try not to get my hopes up. I don’t understand all the intricacies of science. I pay people for that. All I know is that if the Elders say it’s important, I’ll get it done. 

“Here we are, sir.” one of the technicians says to me. I walk with him for a few moments until we come across a completely bare and sterile looking table. On it is a simple black box. It’s about the length of my arm, maybe half a foot high. Not at all what I was expecting them to find. “That’s it?” I ask, not really understanding what I am looking at. “That’s the outer casing, Colonel. It’s what inside that is glorious.” the technician replies, moving towards the box. 

I hear the screeching of engines from above, then the sounds of laser turrets. I dive for cover to my right, but there is no cover, only sand. The technician gets incinerated by the laser turret, as does most everyone else around me.

The attack shuttle lands heavily about fifty feet in front of me, its two laser turrets appearing trained on our area. 

After it secures its landing feet, the side door panel opens, hissing against this dusty desert air. They have the sun behind them, making it difficult to see how many there are, or what formation they are breaking into. Five of them walk into focus, and I feel my blood boil. There he is, that treacherous cur. My friend, I think with utter bile on my tongue. All of my suffering has been because of you. I start walking towards him, hatred burning through me. He is flanked by two on either side, carrying laser rifles. All five of them have their weapons trained on me. We are thirty feet from each other, neither side stopping. 

—

That’s right you fool, keep walking. I feel a primal rage within me. His arrogance. His insolence. He just walks at me, by himself, unaware that he is already mine. His comrades are dead. He has nothing. What can he hope to accomplish? We will take the artifact, and take him as my prisoner, to do with as I please. Keep walking, dog. Walk towards your death.

—

The shuttle’s turrets aren’t moving, meaning his squad is probably all he has. I’ve already had my glasses adjust to compensate for the sun in my eyes. At twenty five feet, I give my head a slight nod. Three of them drop dead instantly. Of the two remaining, one panics, looking around for his assailent, his laser rifle pointing in every direction but mine. The Gallente is already reaching for his laser pistol. I reach for my ballistic pistols, holstered against my hips. 

—

No! No, you will not take this from me. You are mine, Roc Wieler, you are mine! 

—

The devil may be fast, but I am faster, and we both know it. A fourth shot rings out, and the last escort falls to his sandy grave. The Gallente immediately drops his pistol, hands reaching for air.

“I surrender. You’ve won.” he says far too smugly as he walks towards me. He disgusts me. Does he really think I’m new? Does he really think I don’t know what he is trying to accomplish stalling for time?

“I have to commend you, Roc. I didn’t think you …” I shoot him straight between the eyes. I have no interest in listening to his crap. I walk over to him, shooting him twice more in the torso, just to be sure. There is no satisfaction in this, despite the torture I suffered because of his actions. He was once my friend, and though he lost his way, I will not lose mine by making the same dark decisions and enjoy revenge.

I quickly give the orders for evac, taking our dead with us, downloading what data the technicians recovered into my datapad. We have the artifact, and undoubtedly there will be an ambush waiting for us in orbit. No capsuleer would’ve surrended so easily unless he had something else up his sleeve. I send the pre-arranged signal to the Renegades, who have been waiting this entire time behind a nearby moon, specifically to cover our exit. It’s a good exercise for them, as we are still new as a fleet. This will teach them discipline and patience.

We push hard for escape velocity, soon finding ourselves in the familiarity of cold space. The Renegades are ready and waiting, in beautiful formation. “All ships, align to Escape Marker Alpha One.” I blare over the secured channel.

That is when the Amarr fleet jumps in to ambush us, but they are too late. Before they can deploy their bubbles, we enter warp. They scramble fighters on pursuit vectors, but we didn’t just make a line for the nearest gate. We bounce around a few safe spots until our cloaked Rapier gives us the thumbs up on the gate we’ve selected for our escape.

All ships accounted for, I take the black box to my private quarters, and send a secured comm to Sam on a non military channel. He requests some three dimensional imaging scans of it, and I comply, as well as sending him our collected data. A few minutes later, he has this to say.

“Jesus Roc, do you have any idea what that thing is?” he asks.

“I know it’s Terran. I know it’s important. Why do you think I contacted you?”

“Important? Important!?! That’s all you have to say? Bloody hell, Roc, that thing could change New Eden forever.” he exclaims.

“Well, what is it then smart guy?” My patience runs thin. My patience often runs thin.

“Roc, open it up.” I am little skeptical, a little hesitant, but I know Sam. He wouldn’t tell me to do anything that would jeopardize me, my ship and my crew. I don’t know if my technicians had any special tools or process for this. I trust Sam. I open the box.

I see lots of circuitry, most of it inactive, and a small glass container with some type of electrical nodes wired into it. The container has a small glass slide suspended in it. It’s really nothing too impressive. I share that with Sam.

“You are SUCH a Brutor sometimes.” he says. “You see that slide? Zoom in on it, 20,000x magnification.” I do as requested. I see something on my monitor, but no idea what I am looking at.

“THAT, my friend, is DNA. What you are looking at is a DNA computer. There are trillions of terabytes of Terran data stored on that single strand, far more advanced than nanotechnology.  It’s the single most amazing thing I have ever seen!”

“What information is in it?” I ask ignorantly.

“I can’t tell that from here. Your technicians didn’t have the equipment to store that kind of data. You’d have to bring it to me.” That probably won’t happen. As soon as we reach our rendezvous with the Liberation Force, a special ops flight team will be escorting the black box straight to Maleatu Shakor’s office. 

Sam is disappointed, but duty is duty. The mission was successful. The price was high. I hope whatever data is contained on this thing was worth the cost.

One mystery solved; a new one revealed.