R. Ellen Magenis was born in Gary, Indiana, in 1925. She was a distinguished American pediatrician, medical geneticist and cytogeneticist. As a key contributor to the human genome project, her work was well known and respected worldwide.

She also was the team lead for a government sanctioned, off the books project code named “Afterlife”. The sole pursuit of this project was to unlock the key to human immortality, something many leading experts of the time believed was achievable within the next few decades.

They were right. And they were wrong.

Ellen, or Elly as her friends called her, had created a way in which living DNA from the host could be used as a “hard drive” to map the mendulla oblongata onto a portable biological computer device. The DNAC was the crowning achievement of her life, though due to its beyond top secret clearance level, the world would never know its marvel until the government deigned it appropriate.

The current issue for her and her team was twofold:

1. While the DNA could exist indefinitely within the bio computer they had designed, the process of “uploading” the memory imprint back to the host was temporal at best. Their studies had shown an average imprint lifespan of only four months; so immortality, but at a very high cost. They obviously had to do better.
2. The second issue was compatability. In the pursuit of true human cloning, they were substantially off the mark. The memory imprint could only be uploaded to a person with the same DNA markers, meaning the original host, which defeated the point, or a living relative, which was quite sinister in its undertones.

Elly had initially human tested the DNAC on herself. Being the team lead, she felt it her responsibility to take on such a risk. The experiment had been successful. They had downloaded her memory to the DNAC, allowed two days to pass, then uploaded it back into her mind. Testing showed a complete memory loss of the prior two days, having been “overwritten” by the data contained within the DNAC. At the time, it had been a tremendous success, and they were applauded their efforts. It was only months later the problems began. Strong nightmares of memories that were not hers woke her at night in sweats. 

It was eventually determined that it was her original memories superceding the imprinted data, fortunately only a two day span of unknown and angst inducing data. It was a problem they never found a workaround for.

Scuttlebutt was the higher ups were going to shut down the project if the desired result couldn’t be achieved. Elly worked day and night for weeks, leaving her very large family to fend for themselves. She knew she was close; she knew the key to immmortality was staring her in the face.

It was one random night that fate intervened, changing her life forever. In her research, she had been given complete security access to the computer network. If they were to do the undoable, she had argued that they would need access to everything on the subject ever attempted prior, on the books, and off the books. While delving into a new branch of research, she had inadvertently stumbled upon sealed files on the central government network; a folder entitled “Afterlife phase 2”. She hadn’t been informed of a phase 2, and not being able to resist her scientific curiousity, opened the folder. 

What she found shocked her to the core of her being. Phase 2 was abhorrent and immoral beyond reasoning. The idea was to take the existing DNAC technology, and use it to create disposable soldiers, completely in sync with each other mentally, as they would all share the same thoughts and directives. Entire families would be inducted to the program under false pretense, and be used as small counter terrorist teams by the government. Eventually, as non genetically related hosts were viable, through further research, the entire military could be composed of vacant drones following one mind. It was deplorable and she could not allow it to happen.

Elly deleted all records from her computer, and the network. Undoubtedly there would be copies elsewhere, but she hoped this would at least slow their progress. She disconnected the DNAC, putting it in a duffle bag, and walked out the front door of the government facility.

Within hours she had safely stored the DNAC in the safety deposit box of her grand daughter, leaving a note to never open the box, as it was a most precious heirloom. She then spent most of her life savings acquiring forged identification documents, and disappeared to Europe, never to be seen by the public again. She married and had more children, putting her previous life as far behind her as imaginable.

The US government had eventually caught up with her new identity, and put an end to both “Lady Grey” and Ellen Magenis with a single bullet. The DNAC was never recovered, but the research moved forward.

Perhaps one day cloning technology would be a reality. 

—

I-UU15
MEDICAL CLONE VATS

Lady Grey stood transfixed at the station window. The Hounds had cloaked and were no longer visible, the cyno jammer long since vanished, but she couldn’t pull herself away. PyjamaSam was off mumbling incoherently, and she feared her own sanity was straining.

“Incompatible host… not enough time, no time.” PyjamaSam was mumbling. “p-16 strand, p-15 strand, so rudimentary, there must be an answer.” Lady Grey had no idea what he was talking about, nor did it even matter anymore. The invisible fleet outside sealed their fate; they were both going to die. She fixed her gaze back out the window, reflecting on the life she had left behind in the Gallente Federation, reflecting on all the things she had done, and the things she had not done. She had never married; never had children, never experienced any aspect of life to its fullest.

She sighed with resignation. Too late for regrets; too late for false hopes, she thought to herself. She cleared her mind, and opened her eyes wide to embrace the view before her, to appreciate the nebulae and stars as she never had before. If she were going to die, she wanted her last thoughts to be of peace and beauty.

She inhaled deeply, then swooned. She experienced dizziness, then felt her knees buckling. She began to fall ever so slowly, each moment stretching out as an eternity, and she was looking up at PyjamaSam. He had a needle in one hand, his other arm supporting her as she drifted effortlessly towards the floor.

“I’m so sorry.” he said softly, but his words were so deep, so elongated, that she couldn’t help but smile at how humourous they sounded. 

All the worries from but a moment ago no longer mattered. She felt comfortable. She felt tired. She felt at peace. She slept.

—

The Rapier pilot cursed his Aura unit again. What do you mean you don’t know what type of ship it is? How can you fucking not know? he thought with extreme anger. The unidentified ship was within one hundred and fifty kilometers, just beyond his targeting range, and still moving insanely fast.

“I repeat, break formation to assist. If this end of the bridge goes down, there’s going to be hell to pay for all of us.” He had ordered squad 15, the closest to his position, to break the blockade around the station and come take out whatever the hell this ship was. There had been no acknowledgement from the Squad Commander. He repeated his order twice more before he heard the sound that sent every pod pilot’s heart alight; he was being targetted. 

Seven Hounds materialzed around him. About bloody time, the Rapier pilot thought explosively. The Hounds weren’t moving to intercept the unknown vessel. What the hell were they doing? Then he saw the telltale signs of their intent; they were cycling up their portal generators; offering distractions to the incoming enemy ship. Damn them! He had given them orders to engage, as his ship was locked in place by the cyno he was generating. 

If his bridge collapsed, fifty Naglfars would be lost forever, tens of thousands of military personnel would perish, General Mako’s disappearance would certainly mean the end of all their careers, and all they had to do was follow orders and destroy one single ship! There were five hundred of them for crying out loud!

The enemy ship moved closer, and began open firing on the stationary Rapier. The diversion was too little, too late. 

The Rapier pilot screamed and cursed, profanities spilling out of his lips with experienced ease, as the enemy ship made quick and efficient work of him, sending him to his clone, far, far away.

—

“That’s correct, sir. The unknown vessel has retreated back into the anomaly.” the Hound pilot reported. General Mako mulled this over in his mind. His advanced strike team had encountered no resistance from VAF, and yet a craft of unknown type had just dismantled his scout with ease, not that killing an ill-piloted Rapier was merit for an award. Still, it tugged at his mind; an unknown ship type. What had they been constructing out here? What new ships were they using that didn’t show up on the Aura network? Were they mass producing them? And what about the wormhole? The chances of a wormhole randomly appearing in the exact system they were travelling to was astronomical. Did they somehow materialize and stabilize the wormhole? 

There were too many unanswered questions. Mako hated not having answers; he hated it more than he hated anything else, well, almost anything else.

“The fleet will revert to realspace in 22 seconds, Squad Commander. You will have your orders then.” General Mako ended the transmission.

—

Roc Wieler sped through GME-PQ in Fade Region. He was only two jumps from Sam; he hoped he wasn’t too late.