– by Vellekla

I used to think about it all the time when I was young.

What was out really out there, beyond the impossible tapestry of stars suspended in the night sky. I thought would never know, forever on the inside looking out. The knowledge pained and comforted me.

Distilling the needed chemicals was a complicated and dangerous process. It took time and patience. I had ample amounts of both.

One day, impossibly, I found out. We all did. The gods had found us, or so we thought. Gods encased in silver and black metal, descending from the heavens to see and to speak to us! We quickly found that they were not gods, but demons barely held at bay.

These capsuleers, as they were called, were gods in a box. Controlling the galaxy in their terrifying constructs, their bodies atrophied and suspended within. They were entombed and unbridled all at once. Free to move in ways undreamed of, but not moving at all.

The crystals were beautiful. I was reminded of how the stones shown in my mothers necklace. Like so many others, she was dead now. I had not thought of the necklace in what felt like lifetimes. I wanted to close my eyes and cry, but my work would not permit it. I slowly ground the crystals into the consistency of sand.

While they roamed the galaxy inflicting suffering on each other, we found that we would be safe. CONCORD, the eternal enforcers of order, kept us safe. Keeping our way of life and our world intact. Or so we thought.

I would be searched, but it would be cursory. The second part of the reagent was easy enough to smuggle under a fingernail, just a trace amount would do it.

Then these celestial guardians left as swiftly as they came, CONCORD abandoning us to out fate. The capsuleers came swiftly, employing their minions and using their might to threaten and cow us. Without mercy, they began sucking the marrow from our world.

I mixed the sandy substance I had created with a silicone gel I had managed to procure, mixed with an anesthetic. Even so, the pain would be excruciating. I didn’t care.

Still, out world suffered less than most. The capsuleers would not come themselves to oversee the rape our planet. There was something about the atmosphere I heard. Some combination of ions and magnetic fields that scared them – scared the gods. I was told that if one of them died here it would be the true death. Death without resurrection.

I stifled a scream as the needle plunged into my abdomen. I could see my muscles begin to smooth out, and then fatten as the coarse and viscous substance flowed into me. I could not attract any attention, so I had to move the needle around to keep the topography around my stomach and waist consistent. I used a dermal regenerator to seal the wounds as I went along.

I didn’t know what do to when it all began. I wanted to fight, but who could fight against such might? Those that did so fell quickly, including all of my family saving only me. I had to do something. I decided that I was going to turn in on myself, and create a vile chimera of the man I once was. I would assist them in the slow destruction of our world, to the best of my ability.

The chemicals I had injected into my body would spread out and kill me in a matter of hours. It would be enough time.

At first, I was viewed suspiciously. They needed help badly, but were slow to trust. I proved my loyalty and worked my way up. I told them I wanted to help them do this to other worlds, and that I worshiped them as gods. This pleased them greatly. I inflicted great pains on my own people to squeeze more and more from the land and the sea. I was rewarded for my cruelty and for my devotion. I instituted a compulsory religion heralding them as deities. In a few years, I became one of the most trusted and powerful people on the planet.

I stood in the shower, warm water mixing with my tears. I looked back into my memories. I could still see my brothers and my parents. I thought about how I had worked so hard and so very long. I did it for them, for all that they stood for. For my planet. For my people. The price had been my soul, a price I had willingly paid. I stepped out and dressed in my finest uniform, with its flowing ribbons and medals and assorted false pageantry. I slicked my hair back and hardened my expression. This would be the last time I would have to wear the mask.

Over time, the populace because subdued. The planet was producing, but not nearly enough. Greed overcoming caution, the capsuleers were coming down to visit personally. We had a metal they needed for their war effort, and they needed more of it. Not one, but three of the gods were coming, each representing a member of an alliance they had formed. They would be meeting the small group of people that ran the planet to discuss how we could increase production. It was an important matter.

I took the nail file and cleaned my nails. One was filed especially sharp, with a small jagged point. A small amount of a special chemical was smeared underneath it. As my eyes swept the room for the last time, and I opened the door and walked out to see my security detail. As one of the most reviled beings on the planet, I needed their protection, and they needed to keep their families alive.

We would be meeting them at night. Far from pomp and circumstance, they wanted to keep the meeting quiet. They still feared the true death. I arrived, and was patted down. The sergeant withdrew the body scanner from his belt, and I gave him a withering stare. He waved me through. The others had arrived, and I could not be kept waiting.

The room was large. Three small pods stood at the top of the altar that had been hastily constructed, the meeting spot kept a secret until the end. As we sat down, a small light came out of the pods, and we saw projections of what could have been our own kind before us. They looked on quietly.

Before anyone spoke, I knelt down before them.

“O true gods. O gods of gods, grant me a boon. Let me gaze upon your wonder. Let me see you as you truly are. I beseech thee.”

The room was quiet. I felt numb with purpose. I felt outside myself, watching what was happening.

I had to know.

A hollow metallic sound reverberated of the wall. “You have pleased us greater than any other. We grant your request. Come forward.”

As I walked up the steps, a small window opened and green light flooded out. I looked in. As my eyes adjusted, I saw what looked like a fetus, except larger in size. Wires protruded from the form, and soft lidless eyes stayed blankly out. I was looking at a perversion, a devolution of nature. These beings had surrendered themselves to technology. They has becomes its slave, as they had made us slaves. They could not taste foods, have sex, or ever feel the grass under their feet. They were a grotesque mockery of life.

I stood up, and turned around. Their holograms slowly turned toward me.

“You are not gods,” I said calmly. “You are nothing. You will take and destroy until there is nothing left. In the end, you will turn inward and find nothing there.”

“You are fortunate though. You will not be there.” The holograms wavered and a noise rose behind me. I raised my hand, forming a claw. I gritted my teeth and tore at my stomach. As it bit true, I looked up and saw the face of my mother smiling at me.

Somewhere above out plant, if anyone was looking down, they would have seen a small while light appear.

Just like the stars I used to think about all the time when I was young.

– by Stockeater

My name is Dave.

I grew up on a small farm on Caldari prime, where my family grew crops in large greenhouses to protect them from the almost perpetual rain. When I was eighteen I attended university on a nearby space station. A normal enough life shared by billions of New Eden’s inhabitants.

After I’d received my engineering degree, I was looking through the job advertisements for something I could do to earn a decent wage. I normally just glossed over the capsuleer staff recruitment; we’d all heard the horror stories from those lucky enough to survive on one of their vessels.

However, I’d heard from a few friends that capsuleers were now running operations planetside. They said the pay was very good and the commitment wasn’t as heavy as the navy or one of the mega corporations would demand.

One of these advertisements caught my eye. A small capsuleer corporation needed technicians to work on a gas giant harvesting platform. The advert said that the living conditions were great and that their corporation has an ‘exemplary safety record’. To be honest I didn’t really believe it, but the pay was great, probably due to having to live in one small facility for months on end.

So I applied for the job.

I have to admit my training was very thorough. I was assigned to be part of a team for a harvesting node they were putting up in Umokka. We had three weeks of training in our respective roles that we’d have to perform before meeting the rest of the crew, probably thirty all in, and they actually put us in a full sized mock up to work in for a whole month, so we could learn how to do our jobs almost second nature before we were put in at the deep end, so to speak.

We went through every kind of drill imaginable, so if anything and everything went wrong, we’d all live to tell the tale.

No one was particularly fond of the notion of ending up mangled in a crushed piece of metal falling into the heart of a giant planet, so we all paid close attention to this vital piece of training.

It was also an excellent ice breaker so we could get to know our colleagues in the friendlier environment of an orbital station so we could live more happily together once we were on the rig.

This is also where I met Sandra and Alan- two other young people who were fresh out of university and were in a similar boat to mine, and we became good friends throughout our training.

There was one odd point though. A few days before we were due to be shipped down to the new harvesting rig, everyone had to go into a med scanner and had to sit there for an uncomfortable ten minutes while they took their scans.

The official reason; they claimed they were looking for any underlying health problems before we went planetside. Although there would be a fully equipped infirmary, specialist help would be a couple of hours away at best, and they didn’t want anyone having anything drastic like an aneurism under such conditions.

I thought they were probably just selling the results to various research groups for a bit of extra money on the side. It’s fairly common practice nowadays. To be honest I really didn’t take any notice, or care.

It seemed like hardly any time at all had passed between signing up and we found ourselves in the passenger lounge of the cargo ship in orbit around the gas giant. I couldn’t help but stare at what would soon be my new home.

Umokka IX lay beneath us like a misty green jewel, far from the orange light of the sun. Interspersed bands of green and brown encompassed the planet, with eddies and whirls hundreds and sometimes thousands of kilometres across forming where two winds meet.

As the ship descended I could see the sun’s rays filtering through the edges of the planet’s vast atmosphere, turning a murky green. I couldn’t help but feel like I was being consumed by a primordial monster as I plunged into the abyss.

I spent most of the voyage playing cards with Alan, Sandra and a few others. The pilot had explained over the address system that we couldn’t go into the atmosphere very fast or the cargo vessel we were on wouldn’t survive. The light through the windows got progressively more tinted, which set up a fairly foreboding atmosphere for myself and the other assorted workers who would soon be living here.

‘Hey look!’ An excited shout went up ‘There it is!’

Everyone stopped what they were doing and rushed to the observation window. A shadow was forming in the gloom, with red warning lights winking all over it. As we got closer, the harvesting station gradually revealed itself.

It was fairly typical Caldari design, with a series of bulbous repulsor pods holding a platform aloft, upon which was built a structure that looked a lot like a Christmas pudding with the top removed. Between the repulsor pods, a long cable snaked down and disappeared in the clouds below, and a large pipeline stretched away, slowly fading from view as it moved further away from the harvesting rig.

On the opposite side to the pipeline, large tritanium girders jutted out over the roiling clouds, and it was these the transport ship came to rest on. A short airlock bridge extended and connected to the hull with a clang.

My first impressions were of how bright and clean the inside was compared to the perpetual twilight outside. Everyone had their own cabins and although not incredibly large, were big enough to live in. I was also surprised to find that indeed all the modern amenities were provided, such as personal computer terminals with a good access to galnet and a few general relaxation areas joined on to the mess hall.

Basically, it felt like the brand new extraction rig that it was supposed to be.

Everyone settled in fairly quickly, the month’s training on the dummy proving worth its while. Within six hours we had already located a dense layer of argon and were pumping it into the pipeline back to the command and storage centre a few hundred kilometres away.

On this rig I had two jobs, to calibrate the analytical equipment used to locate the gasses that we would be extracting, and to make sure that the main pipeline feed was clear. Dust particles would build up on the line’s filters and so they would have to be replaced and cleaned off every so often.

For the next few months, life was good. Everyone got to more or less know each other like a large extended family, and we got the work we needed to done, piping vast amounts of noble gasses to be launched into orbit. Every week or so a small cargo ship would dock and drop off supplies to keep the crew’s needs satiated.

The only exception was the security team, who always seemed aloof. Because we were located in high security space with CONCORD watching over us it was highly unlikely that pirates would try to interfere with the harvesting operations.

We all assumed that they remained distant from the rest of the crew so they could better look for signs that a particular crewman might try to sabotage the equipment or steal company secrets, both of which are serious concerns, especially on a rig where people are cooped up for months on end.

It was a fairly normal day; I’d started work and was monitoring the flow of liquefied gas through the pipeline when I felt a slight change in the vibration of the deck plate.

I was in the main control room at the time and an alarm sounded.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

One of the technicians was peering at a control panel on the wall while he responded.

‘Looks like one of the repulsors just went offline. It’s probably just a loose cable that’s been blown loose by the wind.’ He said.

Our overseer agreed.

‘OK, stop the pumps and disconnect the pipeline as per normal procedure. Brian, get outside and see if you can fix it.’ He ordered.

Brian nodded and left the room. I turned the pumps off and watched the lines clear, before sealing them shut and giving the all clear for another worker across the room to disconnect.

The floor shuddered again as the pipeline came free of the rig. We were now adrift.

At that moment Alan came into the control room.

‘What’s going on? I was just working on the pumps and they shut down on me.’ He asked.

‘One of the repulsors is malfunctioning. We had to disconnect from the pipeline as per standard safety procedure.’ Our overseer put bluntly.

We knew that if we sank too far the pipeline could tear away, compromising the entire structure.

Alan looked a little worried, he knew that those repulsors were the only things holding us up and was always a little pessimistic. I could imagine what was going through his mind.

We watched on the monitors as the hulking mass of Brian in his protective exo suit left the airlock, and slowly made his way around the platform.

The speakers crackled into life as Brian called in.

‘Uh, I found the problem. It looks like we had a lot of dust get blown past here. The whole casing on a couple of the units has come off… I don’t know how we didn’t notice this before. I’m coming back up. We’re going to need a repair barge down here.’

‘Copy that.’ The overseer said ‘I’ll call planetary control and see how quickly they can get a ship down here.’

I knew then I started worrying too. There was a real danger that if-

My train of thought was interrupted by yet another tremor and feeling as if I was in an elevator planetside again.

An ominous siren started wailing now.

‘The other repulsors have gone offline!’ A technician cried. ‘We’re falling!’

The overseer swore. ‘Brian, get back inside as fast as you can- you won’t last long out there!’

‘I’m trying!’ Brian replied. We could see him on a video feed. It looked like he was walking through water. ‘The air’s thick, it’s like wading through treacle.’

Over the radio his laboured breathing was all we could hear. We saw him stop a few metres from the airlock.

‘Keep going!’ I cried, trying to get him to move. ’You’re almost there!’

‘Just… Catching… My… Breath.’ He replied.

Suddenly we heard a bang over the communications system and Brian started screaming. The left arm of his pressure suit had just imploded. He stood flailing for a few agonising seconds before the rest of his suit was crushed and the line went dead.

We all stood there in shock, staring even as the camera died.

That bought it all home. If we didn’t take drastic action now we’d all die. It took watching one of our colleagues dying before our eyes to make us break from procedure. We should have got out when we first saw something was wrong.

‘This is a general address.’ The overseer calmly said into the speaker system. ‘All personnel are to evacuate immediately. This is not a drill.’

With that everyone filed out of the command centre, climbed down the stairs two decks and made our way to the row of escape pods studded in the outer hull.

When we got there a small crowd had already gathered around the emergency seals. I knew something was wrong when I saw green through the armoured glass where the escape pods should be.

‘They’ve been crushed!’ Someone wailed in despair. Then I realised it was me.

We didn’t know what to do anymore and just couldn’t believe what was going on. Only the security team seemed nonchalant about it all, and I began to wonder if they were ever completely sane.

With a crash, the porthole on one of the escape pod hatches blew in. The pressurised gas shredded people near it into crimson rain. Everyone started running away. I was furthest ahead and ducked under the emergency bulkheads as they came down. I found myself in the mess hall and realised I was alone.

I felt sick looking at the screen next to the door, watching people bang on the bulkheads with despair. Then the feed cut and I knew they were dead.

I sat down at a table and wept, I don’t know how long for. All I could hear was the groaning of the superstructure as it was crushed around me.

Looking up through my haze of tears I saw the ceiling bulging in under the pressure.

Not long now, I thought.

When it gave way, the mess hall imploded almost instantly. I felt agonising pain for a moment, there was a bright flash and everything was gone.

***

I woke up suddenly, sitting upright in my bed. The bedside clock was going off telling me to get up. I was in familiar surroundings, my cabin on the rig. Sure enough the green half light was filtering in through the porthole.

I got up shakily and went over to my wash basin, splashing my face with water. What was going on? I thought I was supposed to be dead?

I made my way to the mess, and it was as if nothing had happened. I got my breakfast on a tray at the serving hatch and went to find a table.

Sandra was sitting alone at one, and waved me over. I sat down opposite her, glad for the company.

‘What’s up?’ she asked ‘you look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

Indeed I had. I had seen her in the escape pod bay yesterday with all the others.

‘Don’t you remember yesterday?’ I asked.

‘Well it was another day. Can’t say anything unusual happened.’ She replied. ‘Why, what happened to you?’

‘Well, I remember the repulsors cutting out and the rig got crushed. Then I woke up.’

Sandra laughed. ‘Sounds like someone’s been having nightmares. You should lay off the cheese before sleep!’

I laughed as well at that, although I couldn’t help but be unsettled. It had seemed so, real. I couldn’t imagine myself dreaming like that. Still, I tried to shake the thought out of my mind.

I went to the control centre like every morning, and as usual there was Brian sitting at his chair looking bored like nothing interesting had happened in the months on board.

I shuddered momentarily at the memory of the crushed exo-suit on the platform outside, before I remembered that it couldn’t possibly have been real.

This morning I had a surprise when calibrating the scanners. They picked up a fairly large metallic deposit sinking into the atmosphere several hundred kilometres beneath us. I thought its probably just a meteorite or an old starship wreck carried up by some freak winds.

I registered the results with the main computer back at the planetary command centre because it was an anomaly after all, and it came back saying there had been a fault with the scanners.

When I re-ran the sweep there was no metal returned on the display, so I was a little disappointed that I hadn’t made at least a minor discovery.

That day I was scheduled to go and check the filters on the pipeline. I made my way out cautiously, having to hook a safety line to a bar every few metres. I knew although the wind was already ferocious for most terrestrial planets, it was but a breeze for this giant. If a sudden gust sprang up I could be tossed over the side of the platform like a doll and lost forever in the inky depths.

The exo-suit was bulky and it made the going slow anyway without all the fumbling around for the safety lines. Still I was grateful for the protection from the elements. Without the layers of titanium plating and reinforced joints I’d be almost instantly killed at these pressures. Inside one is slightly claustrophobic. There is only a pair of very small eyepieces for you to look out of if you don’t want to rely on the HUD in the visor showing a camera’s view from the side of the helmet.

I finally got to the pipeline and started my inspection. The filters were spotless, which wasn’t surprising since I had replaced them a few days previously. However, something did catch my eye.

The bolts connecting the rig to the pipeline were shiny as if they were new. However the slightly corrosive elements of Umokka IX should have put a little layer of dull corroded metal over the top during the months it had been exposed. I definitely hadn’t seen them that shiny when I last replaced the filters.

When I got back, I asked the maintenance and requisitions officer if the bolts had been replaced.

‘No.’ He said ‘Although they are due to be replaced in a few weeks- I hear this atmosphere isn’t too forgiving to exposed aluminium.’

‘Well I was thinking that myself.’ I replied. ‘But they seemed good as new to me when I went out there earlier.’

‘Probably just someone’s rubbed the grime off is all.’ The officer said.

And that was that. Life went on as normal. Word somehow spread that I had bad nightmares and it came up more often than I’d have liked, although thankfully no one meant it in a particularly nasty way.

A couple of weeks later, they installed a small landing pad near the pipeline, and put a shuttlecraft on it.

The corporation said that they’d had problems on other sites where the lines carrying the liquid gas had fatigued and failed, so now we had this shuttle to inspect the pipeline running towards the planetary command centre.

Honestly the little craft wasn’t a lot to look at. Basically a reinforced armour-glass cockpit and four directional engines to propel it through the gas giant’s turbulent atmosphere.

Sandra, the only one of our crew qualified to fly, got the lucky task of having to fly the shuttle up and down the pipeline.

Between one of my shifts I was lucky enough to get invited to go along on one of the routine inspections. It was cramped in the tiny cockpit, but I thought the way the nimble little craft handled in the winds was fantastic.

We followed the line for a few hundred miles, only clearly seeing the few metres that were illuminated by the shuttle’s searchlight. The rest of the construction disappeared into the gloom, even the bright navigational lights along it winking out in the distance.

After what seemed like an age, another shape emerged. This was the storage tank for all of the liquefied gasses we were pumping out. The structure was immense, just basically a massive cylinder storing millions upon millions of tonnes of gasses.

Huge cables and pipes snaked from the silo to a large landing pad tacked on to the side. From the sheer size of it and the attached control tower, I assumed the ships that would dock here would be at least a mile long.

All too soon, we were back on our way to the little rig and back to my job.

One day we got a call from the planetary control centre telling us to change the types of gas we were harvesting. Of course this got grumbles from the staff, me included.

We had been extracting noble gasses for as long as the platform had been here, and adjusting the extractor inlets was a pain. I had to retune the sensors to pick out Hydrogen now, while the crews on the extractor itself had to play out more line to drop the inlet another hundred kilometres down.

Hydrogen harvesting was a lot more risky than the noble gasses. For example, if there was a leak of argon or similar, we’d only have to shut down the area like a hull breach and send people in exo-suits to fix it. With hydrogen, such a leak could cause an explosion.

Even so, I was surprised at how quickly we converted the rig, and within nine hours of getting the call we were pumping liquid hydrogen to the silo.

Soon after, we got told that we could have more leave. It was a welcome change, since we’d all been on the rig for the last few months. This move was probably made to relieve stress of the crew.

These breaks were only a couple of days long apiece, but it gave everyone a chance to catch up with things that they’d missed on the extractor.

I remember the first trip up to one of the system’s stations. Everything seemed so huge! I guess I’d gotten used to the relatively cramped conditions at work.

My personal favourite destination for these breaks was the corporate police force assembly plant. Visiting the civilian decks you wouldn’t believe you were on a megacorporate security station.

I had one of these breaks coming up when I was replacing the filters a couple of weeks later. I’d just finished placing the clean units in and started the system back up when I saw a familiar searchlight sweep across me. Looking up I saw the shuttle circle overhead, back from its inspection run.

‘Hey there Dave.’ Sandra said over the radio. ‘I guess it has to be you since no-one else likes those things as much as you do!’

I chuckled

‘Yeah you’re right there, but I seriously doubt anyone would want to haul these wretched things around.’

I lifted one of the old filters that was caked in dust and grime. They were about two and a half feet across and you couldn’t fold them away like the clean ones. In my humble opinion, they’re not the most pleasant of things to lug around.

A little warning flashed up on my HUD- the wind speed had started to pick up. I called out a warning.

‘Hey you might want to set that bird down- I think it’s going to start gusting soon.’

‘Relax, I’ve got it covered.’ She replied. ‘Besides, who has the pilot’s licence?’

‘Yeah well just be careful.’ I said. ‘Haven’t you got a couple days’ shore leave too?’

‘Yeah I do actually, thinking of going somewhere?’ she asked.

I thought about it for a moment, while picking up my tools and starting to gingerly make my way back.

‘Yeah, we could go see that new Clear Skies holo that’s in the cinemas. Heard it’s pretty amazing on the big screens.’

‘That does sound pretty good.’ She replied. ‘I guess it’s a date then.’

I watched the shuttle come in on its final approach to the landing pad, when a sudden gust hit. I grabbed a railing to hang on as I felt myself being buffeted sideways. The shuttle jerked in the air, caught unawares by the wind.

‘Oh crap’ I heard Sandra sigh.

The shuttle smashed into the unyielding hull of the rig, its momentum carrying it along the hull before coming to a halt on the shuttle pad above me. Pieces of debris were raining down in the trail the ship had left.

‘Sandra?’ I said, trying to get something, anything to indicate she was ok. All there was in reply was static.

I started to panic. I dropped my tools and started moving towards the stairs to the pad. The going was painfully slow. I had to re fasten my clip to a new rail every couple of metres and hang on tightly if I didn’t want to be blown away.

The heavy exo suit didn’t help, making all of my movements clumsy and slow.

I stopped in horror as I climbed high enough to see over the rim of the pad.

The shuttle was wrecked. It looked as if a giant fist had smashed the front and side of the craft, tearing it apart.

I couldn’t even recognise where the pilot was supposed to sit. I used the optical zoom on my suit’s camera to get a closer look.

I wish I hadn’t.

The cockpit was totally destroyed, and amongst the wreckage I could see pieces of flesh where the intense pressures and forces of the atmosphere had torn them apart. There was nothing left of Sandra but little pieces and streaks of gore.

I felt a massive hand descend on my shoulder and was turned around. It was one of the security team who had come out, having watched the accident on a monitor.

‘Sir, you’ve got to get back inside.’ He said, pointing to the airlock just past the bottom of the steps. Even as he spoke more security personnel in heavily armoured suits were leaving it.

I nodded weakly, and made my way slowly back inside.

I spent the next few hours in my cabin, trying to absorb myself in my paperwork, trying to forget what I’d just seen. I just felt completely empty inside.

I barely noticed the repair barge docking. No doubt it was carrying crews to take away the wrecked shuttle and fix up any damage it had caused.

Eventually, a knock on the cabin door broke me from my reverie. I got up from my desk and went over to see who it was.

Alan was standing there.

‘Hi. Um, Sandra’s in the infirmary, she wants to see you.’ He said.

My mind reeled. How could that be possible? There’s nothing in the cluster that could heal damage like that.

Even so, I went there, opening the door with some trepidation, expecting some kind of sick joke.

However, there was Sandra sitting in one of the beds, with bandages and a small medical device on her head.

‘Sorry if I worried you.’ She said to me as she saw me. ‘Had a bit of a rough landing there.’

All my powers of speech monetarily left me.

‘H-how are you still here? I saw the crash… you were dead…’ I said.

‘What?’ she replied, sounding almost as surprised as I was. ‘It just came down hard and I got a concussion. The shuttle was broken but all I did was hit my head. That’s all I remember.’

She then looked serious, remembering the last time something like this happened.

‘Are you ok?’ she asked. ‘I think you were hallucinating. Like that time a couple months back when you had that nightmare. Maybe on your next leave you should go and see a doctor.’

I didn’t know what to believe. I know I’d been wrong before, but I didn’t just wake up from this event. I thought it had actually happened.

That evening I reviewed the camera recordings from the exo suit I’d been wearing. To my dismay the moment before the shuttle crashed the image became corrupted, so I couldn’t prove I’d seen what I had. The repair crews had taken the old shuttle away for reprocessing so there was no trace of the accident at all except a few security and incident reports which confirmed what Sandra had been saying.

Something was now very wrong. I couldn’t separate fact from fiction, truth from fantasy. I feared that the rig had somehow driven me mad with its same routine over the long months.

Word had got around now that I had been seeing things. This time however, everyone grew more distant from me, stopping talking whenever I drew near and treating me like some kind of disease, even Sandra had stopped talking to me.

After a week of this, I’d had enough. I had to end it all. I’d probably never find out what was happening to me and I was beyond the point of caring.

As soon as my shift ended I went to the emergency weapons locker and took out a pistol.

I went back to my cabin and locked the door. If everyone out there thought I was crazy I could at least show them what they expected.

I put the gun to my head, and after a moment of reflection about whether I really was being stupid at this point, I pulled the trigger.

There was a flash of light right before my brains splattered all over the wall.

****

Darkness enveloped me. Was this it, the afterlife? I moved my arm and it hit a rubbery wall.

Where am I?

I realised I was inside some kind of small container, trapped. There was a tube in my mouth running into me, and I couldn’t breathe! The tube retracted and electrodes popped off of my scalp. I took a deep breath, only to choke as fluid rushed into my lungs. Lights turned on in front of me, and I realised I was looking out of a glass window. The fluid around me drained away and the window opened. I fell out of the vat, vomiting and coughing the goo out of my system.

I looked back at the cloning bay and saw my name and the facility I worked at on a panel next to it. On either wall of this corridor that I found myself in are identical bays, but with different names and facility numbers. I peer into one of the occupied bays and I was shaken by what I saw.

It was me. In every bay there was another clone, identical to myself, but with a different name and facility number. Before I had time to work out what was happening here a door at the end of the corridor opened and a pair of medical staff came in followed by an armed guard.

The guard told me to do exactly as the medics asked. I wasn’t going to argue.

The signs all over the facility indicated that I was in a cloning bay owned by the corporation I worked for, and so all of the clones were employees. It dawned on me that perhaps there could be other versions of me working on other gas harvesters, completely oblivious to each other. That thought chilled me to the core.

I went through the procedure that all capsuleers must go through innumerable times, having the cloning goo washed off and having a series of tests done to make sure that you are indeed alive. Although I doubt that most capsule pilots were treated as roughly or had an automatic rifle aimed at them at all times.

Within a short period of time I found myself wearing a medical gown and handcuffed to a chair in an interrogation room. I had no idea why I’d just been reanimated as a clone, although I wasn’t as surprised as I thought I’d be.

I wasn’t left to dwell on things for long, because the only door to the room opened and a guard entered, followed by a man in a business suit. He radiated power and confidence. He turned his back on me to close the door, allowing me to see the neural socket on the back of his neck.

My breath froze.

This man must be the capsuleer in charge of the whole operation!

He turned back to face me, the expression on my face betraying that I knew who he was.

Sitting down opposite me, he smiled coldly.

‘So then… David? Yes it is David. I see you’ve stumbled across our little secret here.’ The capsuleer spoke as if he were talking to a child. ‘And, according to my security team on your rig, you decided to redecorate your quarters with your head. Now that wasn’t very nice, was it?’

‘What are you doing here?’ I cried. ‘What are all those clones doing back there?’

The capsuleer’s face grew serious at my outburst.

‘I run a business, and it is my business to make profit. Gas harvesting makes me a lot of ISK, but it is also incredibly hazardous and requires some of the best technicians in the cluster to make it work. Now, to get around the first problem is simple enough, fit cloning devices to personnel so when they invariably die they can get back to work with minimal fuss. After such an accident occurs the handful of people ‘in the know’, so to speak, cover up the accident and the clone’s memories of its previous demise are wiped. This stops any pesky state or concord safety investigations.’

‘But what about all the other clones, with the different names?’ I asked. I’d pretty much worked out his first answer, but this is what I really wanted to know, and dreaded at the same time.

The capsuleer smiled.

‘Do you know how difficult it is to recruit and train dozens of crews for this kind of work? Why not clone the same team, alter some of their memories so there aren’t any unpleasant issues if they meet each other, and change their names so CONCORD doesn’t get suspicious about having the same name in the payroll a dozen times? It’s so much cheaper!’ He exclaimed.

I knew then that this man was not a demigod, as I had once believed his kind to be, but a monster, treating humans like laboratory animals. I was sick at the thought of MY crew scattered throughout space, over and over again.

‘You can’t do this!’ I yelled, trying to struggle against my bonds. ‘It’s wrong! I’ll expose you!’

The monster sitting opposite me laughed, and laughed until tears ran from his eyes.

‘But how can you do that, if you don’t remember a thing?’ He nodded to the guard.

I felt a hypodermic needle plunge into my neck. My vision started to fade and I felt weak. All I did was kept telling myself to remember, remember, remember…

Everything went dark.

****

The gentle shudder of a barge undocking woke me from my slumber.

I was trying to sleep in my quarters before my next shift. I had a headache and my vision swam. I must be coming down with the flu or something.

There was something nagging me in the back of my mind. Like I needed to remind someone about something, although I didn’t have a clue what it was or who to remind.

‘It doesn’t matter.’ I mumbled, as I rolled over and drifted off back to sleep.

-by Blicero Weissmann

The lights in the sky were back, and seemingly brighter than ever before. In recent years there had been more and more, sometimes individual ships sailing through the night, sometimes whole constellations winking and burning in the night sky. Sometimes they brought luck, occasionally even “starmetal”, alloys raining from the sky over the horizon, to be harvested and used for tools and structures.

Umas Mackleby watched them in the night sky from the balcony of the Main Council Building, and hoped that the lights were a good portent for the Founding Day Festival tomorrow. None of them ever seemed to bother the colony on Rocorra at least, and surely these would soon flit away into the darkness as well. Since the ships had first reappeared centuries ago, only the occasional com messages were exchanged with the colony; space was rich and vast, and the burgeoning interstellar civilizations above seemed to have no interest in a rough desert world.

Rocorra had always been a harsh word, mostly jagged rock outcroppings and vast oceans of sand. Umas’ ancestors had come here from the stars centuries ago, limping across space in a converted cargo ship. Their once-prosperous homeworld, a bounty of lush forests and rich oceans, had turned poisonous and deadly, beginning to falter soon after the collapse of the Eve Gate. The mighty terraforming machines had stopped and lay still, and the cities choked while the fields around them turned to mud in the driven acidic rain. Millions had died; a few thousand refugees had packed the holds of an ore-hauler with the last of their provisions and set out for the nearest star, hoping to find a habitable world. They found Rocorra; barely in the habitable range, covered in desert, and lit with the faint reddish-glow of a dying star.

They had died by the hundreds in the first years and decades, struggling to plant crop in the salty red soil. There had been many who believed this world would defeat them, and rows of grave markers cast long shadows on the other side of the stark iron ridge. But their ancestors had survived, crafting rough greenhouses and shelters from the remains of their crippled ship at first, then slowly crawling out to conquer the surrounding valley. From where Umas stood now, he could see the towers of the large moisture condensers spreading out from the settlement, feeding the greenhouse complexes and the network of irrigation tunnels that now laced the valley. Centuries of hard labor had built all of this, and now Rocorra was a home, not just a refuge.

Umas glanced once more at the dancing lights overhead, then retreated inside. He had to finish writing his speech honoring their ancestors’ sacrifice. He would also announce the colony’s planned expansion into the neighboring valley; work teams had already begun clearing sites for the first condensers. Rocorra was still a rough world, Umas pondered, but it had a brilliant future. Below in the near-deserted town square, workers strung streamers and garlands in preparation.

The next morning, Umas Mackleby again stepped onto his balcony. The scene had changed from the night before; the square was filled with colonists, most with bright decorative sashes covering their grey and brown work clothes. Around them the colony sprawled; lush green plantings everywhere and sparkling greenhouse windows stretching to the valley walls, a fertile contrast to the sharp black ridges on the horizon and to the pale red sky above. A haze of clouds hung high in the atmosphere; maybe there would even be rain today, a rare occurrence and a true blessing on this dry world. Good luck indeed. Umas smiled at the crowd while he called up his Founding Day speech on his datapad. He opened his mouth to speak, but his first words were cut short.

A series of dull thuds shook the valley, a sound that had not occurred here for over a thousand years. Stark white contrails slowly tracked high overhead as the sonic booms reverberated against the iron rocks on the far side of the valley. Rocorra had visitors, the first since founding. While the crowd stared at the sky, Umas felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Councilman, I think you need to hear this.” It was Nelby Groton, the colony’s chief technician. Umas followed him back through the Main Council Building and across a narrow street to the Coms Building. A low lying structure, it had been constructed from hull plating, and the old ore-hauler’s main antenna array jutted from the roof. Barely used, ancient communication consoles filled the structure, and cables snaked their way through the roof to the makeshift spire above. Coming through the speakers was a harsh voice.

“…. claimed by the Unified Industrial Combine Corporation in accordance with CONCORD sovereignty regulations. All capsuleers are advised to maintain 1 AU distance. All transgressions will be met with deadly force.”

“Attention. Attention. This world, designated as 1X3P-3 V, has been claimed by the Unified Industrial Combine Corporation in accordance with CONCORD sovereignty regulations. All capsuleers are advised to maintain 1 AU distance. All transgressions will be met with deadly force.”

“Attention. Attention. This world, designated as 1X3P-3 V, has been claimed by the Unified Industrial Combine Corporation in accordance with CONCORD sovereignty regulations. All capsuleers are advised to maintain 1 AU distance. All transgressions….”

“It’s on every channel, every frequency.” Nelby looked grim. “We’ve tried sending a response, but we’re not getting anything at all back. We’re not even sure the antenna is still able to send. We’ve got a team looking at it now.”

“Is it even aimed at us?” Umas asked. “1X3p-3 V? Do they mean Rocorra?”

“Attention. Attention. This world, designated as 1X3P-3 V, has been claimed by the Unified Industrial Combine Corporation….”

“I’m not sure. What should we do about this? Who is Unified Combine Corporation?”

“Attention. Attention. This world, designated as 1X3P-3 V, has been claimed by…”

“Keep trying to contact them. Rocorra is ours, and we need to let them know that they’re in for a fight if they want it, or at least find out who we’re dealing with here.” Umas stood straight. “I’ll go back out there and alert the people, then talk to the rest of the Council. Let me know if there is any change here. We’ll start raising a defense force too; there are some old laser rifles in storage, and we know the land here better than anyone. Hopefully they just won’t notice us, or care”

Umas turned and strode purposefully out back towards the Main Council Building. This was a new challenge, but one he was sure the colony could face.

“Attention. Attention. This world, designated as 1X3P-3 V, has been claimed by…”

Far overhead, the captain of the Unified Industrial Combine Apocalypse Resolute Vengeance hailed the captain of a nearby Chimera carrier.

“FC, we’ve completed landing of our command center and have begun on-lining operations. We’ve also begun landing our extractors, but there is a problem: one of the largest deposits of aqueous liquids appears to be covered by a collection of structures; scans just come back with “Miscellaneous Civilian Structures. No known type. We hadn’t expected to find anyone here.”

“Anything particularly hard to remove?”

“No sir. Nothing military-grade; I don’t even think it’s capsuleer.”

“Then take it out, and continue with your landing. Don’t bother me with everything that comes up on your overview. NBSI”.

The captain adjusted his overview, adjusted his targeting for planetary bombardment, and toggled his “fire” key. There was a slight hum from beyond the capsule wall as the massive turrets tracked into position. He watched as beams of pure light streaked through space and into the atmosphere below, burning away their target. He always had thought laser-light was beautiful. This time, he noted a particularly interesting effect, one he had never seen before; a multicolored arc of refracted laser sprang from where the beams met the high cloud-cover.

A large bright rainbow lit the sky of Rocorra.

– by Simvastatin Montelukast

3 a.m. LST (local standard time) in some God-forsaken part of the universe. Stuck on watch during yet another painfully long, 23 hour mining op. As I look out the port viewing glass, I see the fleets Orca and three other Hulks. Every few minutes, I hit a couple of buttons and transfer the minerals from our hold to the Orca’s hangar. Man I wasn’t made out for this.

Three months ago, I graduated from the Republic Fleet University second in my class. I felt sure that I was going to be accepted into the Concorde Protectorate Officers Program. The interview went fantastic, or so I thought, and soon I was telling everyone that I was getting into CPOP. One night out celebrating with friends, and a drunk podding charge later, here I am. Stuck in parts of space that no one wants to be in, doing a mining op that no one wants to be a part of. Hell, I don’t even get to be part of the protection group. At least those guys get the chance of seeing some action. Running around, looking for pirates and other dangerous groups roaming through the system.

Then it happened. So fast it’s almost a blur now. Alarms started going off, and the comms channels were filled with warnings. “Warp to station”. Yells and screams. My arms raced quickly across the console as I started to align the Hulk. As the beast of a ship finally hit align, I started to punch in the warp command, my biggest fear was realized. Uncloaking 25km from me was a Taranis class Interceptor. I hit warp seconds before he was in range to scramble me. My mate Schrempf wasn’t as lucky. His hulk was the last to try to jump, but the Taranis caught him.

Over the comms channel, I kept hearing shouts and targets being called. Every couple of minutes, I would hear one of our pilots call out his loss. Our 20 man security force was down to 10 and getting overwhelmed quickly. Though the enemy had only jumped in with a 15 man recon force, you could see that they knew what they were doing.

After being swept away by the furious speed of the voices running through my headsets, I remembered Schrempf. “Sim, get your ass back here and get this guy off of me”. He yelled.

“Dude, give me 20 seconds to switch ships and I will be right there. You gonna be able to wait that long”?

Schrempf answered “Yeah, as long as this guys friends stay busy on the gate. But as soon as they warp to me, I would be better off flying a can of quafe than this target”

As we pulled up to station, I quickly spoke with Scotty about jumping into my Wolf. My personal pride and joy, it had been given to me as a graduation present from my father (one of the few things he had ever done right). Finally cleared to head out, I called out to my mate

“Man hang on a bit longer, I am running that way. How far away from you is he?”

“Dude, he is so close to my ship if he was any closer, we would have to be married for my mother to approve” he said with a snicker.

“Alright, don’t go making wedding plans just yet. Warping to you. I am going see if we can’t change that ole boys plans. Make sure you are aligned, we will need to get you warped before those gate crashers can get here”.

I jumped on scene 5 km from Schrempf and 2 km from his dance partner. He was spinning around him like a top, but I could tell that his orbit was way to close. I locked him up quick. Hitting my web and rep fleet warp scram at the same time, he slowed so fast it looked like the ‘Ranis hit a brick wall.

Clicking on my 220mm autocannons, the inty went down faster than a drunk girl on prom night.

“Alright Schrempf, get out of here quick, I am going to head to the gate and see if I can help out”

“Fly safe out there man, I will dock up this beast and pick up something more usefull. Don’t kill them all before I get there” he said.

Switching freqs to the war maneuvers channel proved to be a test of my ear drums. As I first switched over, all I could hear was Admiral McGee shouting out orders and leading the troops. Since I had last heard, the odds hadn’t gotten any worse, but several pilots were on their second and third reship. Currently the enemy was trying to take out Kryss, who also happened to be our best pilot.

McGee was directing reps from some of the ships, and pointing firepower at our opposition’s weakness. That was the hard part. These guys were skilled and well organized.

They did make one fatal flaw though. They started aggression on a gate with guns. This allowed us to make a push through their skill and organization. One by one, we were able to bring down their ships. Eventually they warped off, leaving us to lick our wounds.

Admiral McGee came over comms “Well boys, it wasn’t a win, but it wasn’t a complete loss either”.

“McGee, can I chase em down and try to get a couple of kills”? I asked.

“Sim, I have seen your stats, you’d be better off docking with the rest of us”.

And so my life continues….

– by Xercodo

Many years ago, Farnek vowed to make his mark on the universe, to make a name for himself, to be respected, and to earn it rightfully. Those years ago, he became a capsuleer, forever leaving his friends and family behind to the cities of Amarr Prime. He made promises to come and visit but he quickly became overtaken by the joys of being a capsuleer and his escapades migrated him further and further from the system of Amarr. He was finally living life and enjoying every moment of it.

But one faithful day, the corp he had joined started falling apart. His infamy was nothing. He was just another pilot. The respect he had garnered as one of the heads of the corporation evaporated. The members went their separate ways and with no corp initiative to drive him he was wholly alone and without purpose.

He depressingly wandered around and soon came across a band of pirates. He had nothing left to live for so drove full force into the gang. The gang pinned him down and was attempting to ransom him but with every tiny bit of cap his ship could muster he continued to fire, determined to kill them with his pent up anger for him self and his loneliness, or die trying.

The pirates respected this and surprised him by instead inviting him to join them. Just as with the corp before, he grew quickly and became one of their better warriors. He was again respected but was left bitter by the old corp. He never really made any good relationships with any of the gang to avoid the sorrow of what he saw as an inevitable break up like the last group. But this lack of relationships ate at him and made him cold and secluded.

One day while cleaning through his quarters he came across and old photo of his family. To his horror he came to the realization that for all these years he hadn’t once gone back to visit. He had to get back some how…but the pirate gang was dead set on winning the current war and didn’t want anyone straying off, they needed all the fire power they could. For Farnek to go and take the vacation to see the family would be considered disloyal and might even make him an enemy.

But a light revealed itself to him. He caught wind of CONCORD waving the laws disallowing capsuleers from controlling planets. The pirate gang he was with was running low on funds. They needed a passive income and this was just the thing for them. He told the leader how he had contacts with some people on Amarr Prime that could make the money making even better and that if they moved the war to Amarr they could sustain it much easier.

The leader agreed and started moving out. The gang started preparations to move the products around safely from the war and so the building of the planet side infrastructure began. In the midst of this construction Farnek sneaked his ship passed and headed planet side.

He was finally returning home.

– by Egwenne

I can still hear it. The Concord holovid announcing the repeal of the age old ban that kept Capsuleers from controlling planets. I still wonder, why are the heavens not enough for these Demi-Gods of New Eden? Even through the questions and doubts, one thing still resonates, change. All things change in the passing, I guess how we, the citizens of New Eden, will enteract with the Capsuleers is changing again. I am almost looking forward to seeing how things will change for our planet, out here far from ‘Empire’ space. Just a small seemingly insignificant planet on the border of Catch and Providence. A war zone from the reports and holovids we see about what the Capsuleers are doing. I am hoping they do not destroy us, fighting for control of the planets as they seem to fight for our system. I am also hopeful that this change, will allow me to change, go beyond the life I have known here. A chance to travel the stars, see the things I can only barely believe from the many reports I have read and holovids I have watched on life away from this place. Maybe I can work for these Demi-Gods who some say have more wealth then can be spent in 10 lifetimes, if they have such wealth I hope they will be willing to pay eager workers well, maybe well enough that one day I could become one of them, or if not maybe one of my desendents. I guess one of the old sayings really is true, the only thing constant in our universe is change!

– by Lucia Ferragano

Rens, Minmatar space.
Rokh class battleship “Fire Tornado”, Strategic Command room

Mrs. Beraha Kaanaetan, or Lady K. as she now demanded to be called, strode regally into the room. It was highly usual for capsuleers to fly a ship without being locked into a pod and she tremendously appreciated the opportunity. Most people in that room, in bodies or tridimensional avatars, were her trusted advisors and partners. They had worked together for over five years now, in the most dangerous and demanding situations the cluster offered. They had built an empire spanning from Minmatar space to Khanid space, and way beyond into the wilds. They had brought their lands and dominions to the common cause and made their best efforts to allow people who trusted their capsuleer wisdom to live their earthbound lives. And now, that was threatened by that single ridiculous planet in Querious, offering supplies to their enemies. Something had to be done to ensure nobody ever made that mistake again.

Kaanaetan sat in the simple brushed steel Caldari executive armchair and powered up her datapad. Something was going to be done.

Querious, AZ7C9 constellation, planetary settlement

The fiery colors of burning skies rival the bloody skin of the Bahani Hound, but tonight, nobody had any time to watch the sun setting. Bahani, also known as GOP-GE III to CONCORD, had been settled for less than half a century. Lao Pai had come from Timudan 1, 47 universal years ago. He had been 19 when he left the small colony in low security space to “make a fortune”. Make a fortune indeed… he looked at the wrecked roof of the Caldari housing that the Bahani Colonization Authority had provided him 40 years ago, after 7 long years of harassing work creating a spaceport in such a low pressure atmosphere. The planetary year was so much shorter on Bahani that he had seen 173 winters come and go. On the other hand, winter was only one month long here. But now, the roof was gone, as most roofs in the settlement. Orbital lasers had targeted the housing in retaliation for providing supplies to a capsuleer alliance, turning the burning skies to real flames. Pai had lost dozens of friends today.

The underground supply depot was probably the most unhealthy place to be in, with the numerous Uranium pallets piling up, even though the lead walls were supposed to contain radiation. Dozens of people were nonetheless huddling there, women hugging young children, crying softly for the deceased. It had been a tactical decision from the capsuleers to hit the nevralgic centers of the planet, and this meant the victims had been mostly young men at work. Of course, death was no stranger to such a danger ridden community, and people thought themselves hardened to pain. Sometimes, families lost people to depressurizations, tunnels caving in, or simply radiation induced cancers. Dangerous beasts would kill workers in the wild or on the ocean, However, it was quite different today. Not only had this fire storm come as unavoidable and unpredictable as God’s wrath, but it also had destroyed the living heart of the colony. The satellites had been left alone by the attack fleet until the end of the attack, allowing ground control to send out emergency signals. Commissioner Helden looked at Father Rentar squarely in the eyes and told him the truth.
-“If they had wanted to destroy them utterly, they could have sent foot soldiers or used nuclear weapons. This was more devious. They left the satellites up for two reasons, first to allow us to call for help, so that we may serve their terror agenda, and second, to allow us to see their might. They know we have streamed footage of their fleet to the Kingdom, but they don’t care, why should they? At worst, their corporation will lose some standing, which can be bought with some work. Anyway, maybe they’ll just pay handsomely for the damage to our royal shareholder. This was a message to our clients, not to the Kingdom. We’ll probably receive relief shipments in a few weeks, and the Kingdom will send new settlers later on. We’ll just have to keep your flock together during this dark time.”

Pai sat on the concrete floor. Father Rentar had preached tonight, and told them of the hard times to come. As if it was not hard times already, he guessed. Father Rentar was but a young man, 26 only, and he could not imagine how hard life had been for Pai. He came from Khanid Prime, and had attended the Imperial Seminary. The priest always had been a bit out of place to the workers, even if they put up with his high class mannerisms because he spoke the Word of God. But to Pai, this was the final straw. God had never willed this. Fate, God, or the spirits as the minmatar slaves used to say when he was young, had nothing to do with that wave of destruction. Capsuleers did. Hubristic, egotistical, monstrous capsuleers who live forever among the stars. His son, however, would never live another day. But he would have revenge. These capsuleers thought they were gods among the stars, but they were men. They jumped from clones to clones, but they were men. They used boosters that rendered the earthbound unconscious, or mad, or simply killed them, but they were still men. Pai had worked for 15 years in Bahani’s booster manufacture. He knew why, sometimes, boosters-using capsuleers did not make it to their new clones during a fight. He knew people who knew people on capsuleer’s ships. He would get his revenge. Or he would die trying. Anyway, he was already dead.