I had only met her in passing at a corporation briefing. She was new to the corp, straight from Republic University, but versed in Planetary Interaction and industry. It was evident she lacked field experience, but she was aggressively trying to make a name for herself, that much was clear. She was taller than me, almost Mynxee’s height, but younger, firmer, and walked with a sway that was mesmerizing. Her dark braids were pulled back into a loose ponytail, drawing more attention to her slender face and neck. She was heavily tattooed in red ink, with piercings everywhere one could imagine on her face. Of course, my mind led me to imagine where else she was pierced, and if she had experience in other areas of expertise, but those would be pursuits for another time. She did carry herself like a woman that liked to play it rough in the bedroom; the bad girl through and through.

Hours later, I was scanning down anomalies in Dal, military launching point for the Tribal Liberation Force. Even with Amamake next door being the second highest kill zone in recent days, Dal was fairly quiet. This young industrialist had made her intentions clear; she wanted to setup operations in either nullsec or wormhole space. I wasn’t scheduled back in nullsec for several weeks so figured I could garner a little favour from her by taking my chances at finding a wormhole in Dal, though the odds were slim.

It would seem luck wanted me to get laid that day, as within minutes, my probes had isolated a wormhole not too far from my base of operations in Dal. Though unusual, I was … eager, and quickly moved to the location. Without hesitation, I made the jump into uncharted space.

There was a certain serenity when in wormhole space: no local to distract and annoy, no cluttered overview to keep you on constant alert even in Concord patrolled high sec, no station business as docking berths were filled, emptied and the cycle repeated several times per minute.

Wormhole space was peaceful.

Aura quickly destroyed that illusion by informing me there were over a dozen cosmic signatures of what had come to be classified as Sleeper sites. I was fairly inexperienced when it came to Sleepers, but had researched enough to know which were potentially the least threatening. Cautiously, I warped to a small energy production site, coming out of warp a hundred kilometers away, thinking I would be safe and able to survey the situation before choosing a course of action.

Unfortunately for my Wolf class assault frigate, the Sleepers were anything but. Within seconds, an interceptor had me locked, and was quickly closing the gap between us. For the briefest moment I was amazed at its propulsion technology and had to assume in awe that it was something greater than our microwarp technology. My ship seemed to turn ever so slowly, aligning itself back towards the only point of familiarity I had, the recently bookmarked wormhole egress point.

But the interceptor was blindingly fast, and scrambled my warp engine before I could reach critical acceleration. I had no choice in the matter. I was committed to fight. I turned my autocannons onto the interceptor, destroying its shields in the first volley. Over one hundred and twenty kilometers away, a Sleeper battleship launched a salvo of heavy missiles in retaliation. My shields held and I knew I would have to face that vessel next. No problem, I thought to myself, I had faced much worse.

The armour and hull of the interceptor quickly disintegrated, and I was freed. I turned my agression towards the battleship. That was a near fatal mistake. The destruction of the interceptor alerted the Sleepers that I represented an actual threat. Their response was to launch a fleet of defending cruisers, frigates and battleships.

Their coordination was something of beauty. Within seconds, the frigates had triple webbed me, reducing my speed to less than 3 m/s. Even overheated, my afterburner couldn’t break free. My Brutor blood boiled, and I nearly issued the command to overheat my autocannons, to turn my full fury against the surrounding frigates.

Then my shields fails as the group of battleship’s missiles found me an easy target. I clenched my teeth as my entire ship shook from bow to stern. Aura warned me that my shields were depleted, my armour plating already showing breaches. I saw the wreck of the original interceptor I had encountered only 9,000 km away, and thought it imperative to salvage a sample of what I had encountered in order to alert the others I would hopefully enlist for help.

Another salvo of heavy missiles quickly pushed that thought to the side, and my survival instinct kicked in as Aura informed me the armour repair systems were no longer able to offset the incoming damage, that the capacitor would deplete long before my ability to destroy even a single Sleeper ship.

It was time to strategically withdraw, or as we’ve said throughout Brutor history, run like hell.

As luck would have it, it appeared the Sleepers only had the initial scramble capable interceptor available on short notice, and while pinned and unable to move, my warp core was able to cycle quickly. I aligned for the wormhole and warped the hell out of there.

I did a quick 360 degree scan at the wormhole on the offchance that either A) other capsuleers had also found this entry point and decided to investigate (I was in no position to defend myself), or B) the Sleepers would follow my warp trail and be on me any moment. The scanner returned nothing. All clear.

MISSION BRIEFING

This is Roc Wieler, reporting from a Class III wormhole located in Dal system (I encrypted the Dal side coordinates into the message). I have made contact with Sleepers and have recorded the positions of over a dozen Sleeper sites within this wormhole (again, encrypted coordinates, standard Ushra’Khan protocol). I am requesting appropriate assistance to neutralize this threat, and will stand by for further instructions.

Should I not receive word within 48 hours, I will assume no aid is coming, and will do what I can to slow these Sleepers and collapse the wormhole to prevent them from reaching Empire space.

Fly safe.

I launched a probe containing the message through the wormhole. I could only hope that someone would find the probe before it expired to the hostile environment of space.

A quick scan, and I was aligned to the dark side of nearby storm class world. Seemed like a good place to hide and repair…

I chuckled. That Brutor industrialist wanted to setup her operations out here, unarmed and unescorted? She was crazier than I was. I liked her more already.