– by Hitman xXx

When we last left our epic voyage through the void of space leaving our birth homes deep in the Caldari state, the start of the war begin soon after. We found and settle on a plante in 0.0 space deep enough that the Caldari or Amarr empires will not claim us. That what we wanted. This new home was paradise. The capsuleers are a power you cannot control. As they grow in numbers, Concord and the empires will have to give them things. Anything to let them keep fighting each other, and not get greedy enough to turn and outright kill there creators. In truth, all the empires and Concord fear the capsuleers for what they are. So when Concord finally let them control planets they want, to keep them killing each other, the counless trillions that will die so they can feel a bit safer for now. They soon came. Not at first, but the greed of these capsuleers knows no bounds. Not even death they fear. For it’s a way they learn to hate each other a littel more.

They landed large, huge buildings. Then the nightmare came. Ships, so many ships. Like a swam of locust blocking out the sun. Those buildings are yet to start even mining or what ever they’re suppose to do. So why so many ships? Then we see people coming out of those ships. A great deal of them, pack in there like they were proccess meat in a can. But the capsuleers greed sees no bounds. Why buy what you can take for free. At frist they tried to send the slaves after us. They took many of us but they were more like zombies then anything. Then the men with guns came. The soilders of the Mini god of new eden. They came, they saw, they conquered. Soon all of us were taken from our homes.

Now my home, that was going to be my last place for the rest of my life, in this paradise. One that I moved to live out my life away from the wars of the empires became a war zone itself. The mini gods, the capsuleers, fight over this planet so many times. I wish I was back in the Caladri state. I was a slave, a freeman and a slave so many times it makes me want to kill myself. So when it came for my shilft to end and the rest of the slaves and I were tired and wanting to sleep. I grabed my tools and bashed the head of the nearest guard in and took all his weapons, armor and gear. Everyone looked at me. But the only ones that looked in horrer were the guards. Like bees flying from their nest after a bear wanting its honey, all the slaves attacked the guards. Killing and torturing them to death. It only took us less then one hour before this factory was ours. Like a wild fire it spread to all the other subbuildings. Now the slaves numbering in the millions, we will take over the mini gods….. the capsuleers command centor and shut this place down forever.

When I killed that guard, I only wanted that armor to live long enough to kill as many other guards as i could. I only wanted his gear to be supply with ammo to have a stay in the fight. I only wanted that weapon to kill as many of those that guard the capsuleers greed as I can. To turn this into a full revoult was not in my plains. When we enter the command center, we took out many guards and soilders and merc’s. When it came to the main room, the only one left we found the god himself waiting for us with his best…..hired men. “You will kill these men and you will kill me, but trust me the skys will fall with fire and burn the grounds to time ever lasting. No one will know of your act today, no other planet will see or hear of these place.” Then they opened fire on us. We like so many other gave our lives and killed the god before us. Now him and his demons send fire on this planet. I write what happened on this data pad so somone, anyone will know what happened to us, and send it in the deep mines and seal it away.

– by Nukleanis

After five years of working with Gen and his slightly unorthodox methods of security, I still find myself in awe of how such an unhealthy frame can support the polluted mass he calls a body and move it at such pace. Most of the time he’s like a tightly-bound spindle of raw hate unleashed in careful measure for the good of our employers. Those who saw fit to invest in this marshy dump of a planet. Nothing ever fazes him. Not the rain, not the ceaseless expanses of grey that cloak the sky and certainly not the pain and suffering inflicted upon those we have stopped in acts of wrongdoing.

Like the man chained to the metal chair before us.

I don’t know his name, and neither would I care to. No part of me feels pity for him regardless of his crime. No part of my conscience prefers rehabilitation to incarceration, nor clemency in place of torture. It is necessary to inflict agony to meet my monthly targets and I feel no empathy or remorse about what I do. When I’m engrossed in such a task, I become a force of retribution and while I never feel like some champion, I do sometimes allow myself enjoy it.

Not as much as my colleague does, however. I can see him grinning as the sleeve of his dark overcoat cuts through the air, unveiling a tightened fist at the last moment that strikes a temple. Our guest has expended most of his energy shouting and screaming, and so only grunts at the impact. He’s used to this treatment by now. His body must be flooding with secretions and hormones to dull the sensations.

Four sterile, metallic walls enclose us three men inside this cell. There are no two-way mirrors, hidden recording devices or even a tiny window in the door. I suspect that the lack of chairs for officers is a ploy to antagonise us by the higher-ups. To keep us pacing, to build anger and frustration that can be vented upon the miserable scrap of humanity with the luxuries of a chair and a desk in front of him. The dull lighting casts no shadows, just a grey haze offering nowhere to hide.

The person under Gen’s tender ministrations was recently caught planting explosives near a launch pad just outside the city under cover of night. He may have escaped to a safe enough distance to set off the explosives had the capsuleer owning the facility not ordered a launch. The blinding light had cast against the ground, illuminating the heavy rain that soaked our clothes as we waited for signs of movement across the field. The officers and hounds tackled him to the mud without the need for fancy electronics or obtrusive drones.

Gen’s body is more animated than it is during a normal interrogation. He must be overflowing with adrenaline and, God forbid, burning more calories than he should. Something must be motivating him more than his love of his job. I can’t think what it might be, as he doesn’t have any of the normal clichés people use to exploit police officers. He has no loving wife or children awaiting him, nor any real regard for his continued existence in the universe and his apartment is a tangled mess of bottles and fast food packets. So what could possibly push him like this?

“Kel.” The voice resonates in his chest before breaking past his throat a split-second later. “Go to work on this nasty scrote. I need a break.”

I never received what others would call ‘formal training’ on interrogation techniques and I possess no qualifications or certificates for information extraction. I just have experience in the matter and a healthy imagination. As such, my superiors value the results I deliver. I close my eyes and yawn as Gen slams the door behind him. Close my eyes. There’s an idea. If I do that, he’ll have no recourse but to talk. It won’t be as if he could deny such a view.

My fingers grip the underside of the flimsy sheet metal desk and I shove it into the air to allow it to clatter against the wall for effect. I squat on the floor opposite him and flick him a mischievous smile. The cracks in the dried mud across his face have rapidly filled with blood under Gen’s ‘questioning.’ Behind his swollen and battered face his eye tracks my movements. I have his attention. Good.

He must think me inert as I have done little else than watch Gen go about his nine-to-five while leaning against a wall. I produce a small knife from my boot and look him in the eye. The type of approving ‘ooh’ I use when studying a woman’s curves escapes my lips. He doesn’t move. He just keeps looking at me as I saunter over to him and straddle his knees. The knife hovers in the corner of his vision away from a painful looking bruise.

“Would you look at this!” I exclaim. “Such a nasty swelling. Allow me to relieve it for you.”

I’m glad Gen’s not here. He’d stop me on principle. He prefers brute force and strength to the subtlety offered by my tools. I once argued with him that it was man’s ability to manufacture tools that allowed us to take to the stars. He argued back that it was man’s ability and unwavering vision backed by immeasurable strength of warfare that pushed us so far. We never finished the discussion. We were too intoxicated to continue after too long. Gen’s likely resting in the break room right now. Probably staring at the multitude of capsuleer’s installations across the horizon, each one belching black plumes that melt with seamless horror into this world’s sun-shrouding stormy season. Environmentalists care and protest every day on the streets outside. I’m indifferent to it all. It’s not my world, and it never was. It has always belonged to someone else. Since they came, our funding has increased and with it my pay. My pension is guaranteed, so I’m free to spend as much time and money as I can on women and drink.

Maybe that explains Gen today. Maybe he’s getting a pay rise? Maybe he’s striving for employee of the month? Sneaky devil. I’ll see that doesn’t happen.

He’s only expecting a tiny cut. He’s probably expecting it to be painful as it nicks a sensitive spot. I spare him this perception as I squeeze the wound around his right eye. He grunts and struggles a little, but the point of the blade makes progress toward the bone unrestricted.

Blood wells from the cut excitedly. The swelling diminishes. “There.” I say. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

He spits at me. A tooth bounces off the blood he has stained my shirt with and clicks raggedly across the floor. I look at the mess and then back at him. He doesn’t show much triumph, although my being in such close proximity to him has given him a little vigour.

I grab his head and force the blood free from his face. I can feel the mound squishing and flattening underneath my thumb as he shakes and curses. “That’s going to cost you, friend.” I say. The knife carefully glides toward him. Edging into the line of sight. The shrunken obstruction and the opening of the eye in fear aids me as I land the tip just between the eyeball and the socket. His vision locks on me as he dares not look away. “Now tell me, who do you work for?”

He says nothing, so I play a little wildcard. I move my face bare millimetres in front of his so he can smell my breath. “Prosthetics are expensive these days.” Again, he is not forthcoming with information. My little reminder that his blindness would be temporary has hardened his resolve. He thinks that he’ll lose his sight only for a few days, but my plan is quite the opposite. I’d like my turn to last a little while I use his own senses against him.

The edge drives deeper into the cavity, worming between eye and skull with tiny crunching noises. Expectedly, he screams and jolts in his seat and I sigh in frustration. “Keep still. The more you move the worse it’ll be.” He stops and breathes in exaggerated puffs, bubbling blood on his lips. His eyelid flits and dances away from my tool, revealing cuts along where it has previously made contact. I can see the little organ straining. Tiny veins swell. A knot of resistance marks my stopping point. He is as primed as he ever will be.

It creaks a little and the screaming begins anew. I move my face away from his in expectation. With a little more force than I expect, I liberate it. My dear guest is frozen in his seat and I can hear him muttering. I think he’s praying. His brain must be struggling to process the difference in the positions of his eyes. Without his ability to stop looking wherever his eye may point, my real work can commence.

Yes, my work. I admitted to being a detective and protecting assets, but I never once mentioned upholding any law. Private security is my domain. The torment I visit upon our suspects is limited only by my employers’ ability to keep the real police at bay and their immeasurable wealth.

They’re quite coercive when they want to be. As am I.

– by Nukleanis

I’d first enquired about Nisha’s services a little over a year ago. A defensively humourous audio conversation stolen during a free moment at the office had led to me standing nervously at her front door one spring afternoon. The sun had emerged from the ceaseless expanses of cloud a little early that year and the foliage had responded eagerly. Deep green leaves draped gently over the ancient walls of her home, hiding the cracks in the brickwork from the cursory glances cast by those walking along the quiet street. My shoes crunched over the gravel on my way to her door, itself a serious marriage of deep red wood and black iron.

As I stood before the door I considered walking away and chalking the experience up to a foolish curiosity about things that were far too intricate for me to fully understand and best reserved to the domains of television or the fabulously wealthy. I decided, however, that this would not effect the change in thinking that I needed. Without intervention my plight would continue and my own personal downfall, invisible to the rest of the world, would avalanche unabated.

I didn’t wait long for her answer after knocking. Her fluid motions still belied her guarded demeanour. Until now I was a distant voice asking for acceptance from someone with more qualifications than I could ever dream of. She must have had her reservations about letting me into her home without knowing fully what brought me here or what I hoped to achieve.

“You must be Henser?” Her voice sounded understanding in a clinical kind of way. A little more rugged than our previous conversation, perhaps.

“Afraid so.”

And so our relationship progressed. I would sit in her office for fifty minutes per week telling her all about my problems, hopes and fears. I couldn’t ascribe noble motives to her due to my own twisted perspective on life, but still she persevered in her efforts – showing the endless patience and the utter lack of compassion demanded of her in her line of employment. Mostly I managed to speak about the relevant topics, but some weeks I rambled about larger issues that, while worrying, had little bearing on my issues.

Which brings us neatly, dear reader, to this week’s session.

Comfortable and interested. That’s how I would describe my mood as I sat opposite her, as her profession and ability to wed scripture and psychology always interested me. Faintly yellow beams of sunlight pierced the blinds, gently illuminating the dancing specks of dust as they orbited and danced across the room in a quantum ballet. Quantum ballet. I specifically remembered that during the session before I began writing this down for you, dear reader. I thought it sounded good at the time.

Every week she looks at me expectantly and raises her shoulders a little and gives this little false smile as if to coax it all to the surface. I picked up on that and told her that I knew her smile was fake and how to differentiate between that and the genuine article. I told her that I’d seen a lot of false smiles recently, as though the people had not had good reason to enjoy the coming summer. Predictably, she asked me what I thought was the reason behind my perceived downturn in the mood of the people. “Capsuleers,” I said.

“What do you think of them?” She asked, exploring the topic further. I immediately thought that this would be an easy session for her, but continued in an unnoticed peak of narcissism.

I told her that I didn’t understand them at all, and how could we? Themselves an obscene ménage a trois, (a Gallente word. Must stop using those) of humanity, technology and immortality. I told her that I considered them so far removed from the rest of creation that they were little more than a background hum to the average person immersed in their own life and struggling to make a decent wage. Nisha listened patiently as I ranted about people locked in a near-crippled state inside egg-shaped pods, and that it was heresy in the purest form to consider someone motionless and invaded by tubes and data cables as a God. She nodded as I reaffirmed my belief in God and his divine tapestry.

“You seem to have very definite ideas,” she said. “So why worry about it?”

From there I speculated for a good five minutes. Truly, if one had the power to spread their nerves to the extremities of a starship’s hull, then of what possible use would we be to them other than fodder for their machines? If one had the power to carve an asteroid the size of a town into tiny fragments to feed their insatiable lust for war, then why bother with the soggy marshes that covered out little world? They had enough money, I said. What about us?

“Do you ever think the rich and the powerful are ever satisfied by what they have?” She asked. I told her a firm no but said that surely such people retained higher reasoning abilities.

“Greed is a very basic instinct. No different from the instincts that have landed you in your current predicament.”

I countered that I was able to use logic and reason to find a solution to my problem, to which she informed me that capsuleers didn’t regard the eternal acquisition of wealth, material possessions and power as problems to be solved in a traditional sense, only that their problems stemmed from a belief that they never thought they had enough.

Suitably challenged, I followed that if this was the case, the recent change in CONCORD legislation would become a much worse fate than previously realised. Our world would not be reinforced with the promise of employment and infrastructure, but simply held hostage to a greed as grave as any sin, perpetrated by people who would take our resources and flitter them away on pointless wars. At least from our perspective as backwards peons. We would never see the gleaming behemoths they planned to create with our raw materials, save for a brief flash of light as they were destroyed before our very eyes on the evening news. If these people were Gods to the other races, I told her, we were making intolerable sacrifices to them.

I then wondered aloud where it would stop. Capsuleers owning land and property on our worlds would only satisfy them to a point. Could they then own entire continents and wage war with one another across the entirety of the planet? At least with our war with the Minmatar we have a purpose. We try and enlighten those wayward souls rather than work and fight and die for something laughably referred to as ‘corporate loyalty.’ What wounds would our planet bear as they mined every ore, uprooted every tree and polluted every sea only to cast those very riches at one another in vehicles and weapons that would destroy the cities and roads we had worked so hard to create?

Nisha’s nominal expression cracked slightly. “You sound as though you’re describing life in The State.” The words caught in her throat slightly.

My point exactly, but not the Amarrian way. We as a people are lucky to be united under God and move forward in faith. The State, however distasteful, works for the Caldari and their misguided motives yet still they do so slowly with shareholders and a government that only recently has begun to scrutinise their activities. Such power in the hands of people who hold no value over life (jumping as they do from clone to clone) would spell doom for those of us helplessly looking at the stars.

“I pray to God.” I said. “That I have the strength to do something about it.”

– by Casparian

I had destroyed my race.

I say ” destroy ” but maybe I should be a bit clearer.Each of my brethren ,was found a new home , a home that is at a constant core temperature of absolute kelvin, a dead ice planet , a dead planet for a dead people.Now you may be thinking that this wouldnt be good for their health and that life expectancy on a ” dead ” planet at absolute kelvin is going to be pretty short, youre wrong, I know , I know ,” absolute kelvin” I hear you ask, followed by ” well they have to be dead , dont they “?

We are the Jovians.

First and foremost amongst the races.Whilst the others were grubbing in the dirt, we were colonising the stars.Even in the early days of space travel the Jovians were way ahead of the other races, for some reason space travel was like a old ability just rediscovered, even in those early days our technology was godlike.Like all people who think themselves godlike we started doing things that maybe only god was qualified to do, but hey , who was there to stop us, not god certainly.Our technology had brought us the stars and all in between them, we truly were masters of the universe and as such, arrogance was our downfall and your savior.

Honestly , we didnt set out to remake ourselves, it wasnt until the best and brightest of us was taken by lord time to their death beds that we started to consider such things.All people want to be remembered when they are gone, we just went one step further , we didnt want to ” go ” . Eternal life is a tempting mistress, we had tried to break the mystery that is time travel but whilst all the theories were solid, the results were not, all that was left if we couldnt travel time ,was to exist utill the end of time.

We started gently, changing our bodies first to further enhance our space capabilities, first of all we made ourselves so that we became part of our ship , our senses interfacing with the ship directly, our first real taste of godhood.After this we made a truly remarkable breakthrough, not only could we now interface with our ship but all technology was opened to us, we became one with the technology that set us apart, nothing was denied us, with our altered bodies and enhanced state we truly had become “gods”.

My title was “First” , simple , direct , tells you all you need to know , I was the leader of the Jovian race, as such I was the person responsible for my people’s sucess’s and failure’s . With our new godlike powers came godlike problems, as I have said before, arrogance was our downfall, but not in the way you are thinking, in our arrogance my people believed that as gods we should have races to serve us and pay homage , entertainment if you will,the only races in this universe were the ones who came with us , the dirt grubbers.You were chosen, you did not have any say , we are gods and you were just as ants to us.Youre technology had just advanced to the spaceflight era again , and already you warred on yourselves.I have to say for my part I was against this decision, you deserved your chance at godhood like the rest of us but my voice was one small drop in the ocean of arrogance, preparations were made to ” take you under our  wings  and guide you”, pathetic for a race as advanced as ours that we would use a excuse such as this to condone slavery.

As first I spent more and more time watching your races in the guise of choosing a people to own I came to the conclusion that youre barbaric, driven by hate and jealousy, greed pushes you into the stars and death follows you, it really would of been for your own good if we ruled, except in what was left of my soul I knew our excuse for slavery was wrong, we were wrong and as First it was my duty to take steps to correct that wrong.I killed my race, I killed almost every being in the Jovian race, as First I was also the most powerful of the Jovians , all it took was a thought, you may think me a monster, committer of genocide, that is true. what is also true is that for your continued existance, I killed my own race.

I am Jovian , I alone knew that nothing else would stop them, judge me as you will but do not attempt to understand me for I still am a god.The best of my race I saved , the brightest and the greatest, they fought me but I am First and would not allow them their petty revenge, each of them I overcame and put into stasis.

I have known of your peoples and their first steps into space, how could I not, you spread like germs through the air, taking over what you cannot subdue, It was myself who put into place the injunction on planetary exploration that has protected you these past millenia but now in your infinite wisdom as the new gods you are looking at planets again and you have woken the old gods, us.

I can feel my remaining brethren out in the stars, as your ships come close to their prison they are awakened by the call of your systems as was I when the first mining ship came to my prison and after all this time they are , well to put it in a way you can understand, pissed off.I am First and could still end their existance but after all this time let us see how the new gods greet the old gods, I have been alone for many many years , perhaps I am now insane but feel in the need of a little entertainment and to be honest I am still arrogant and pridefull and you are after all only grubbers in the dirt, what gave you the right to subvert our technology in such a way and to try and enslave other races, that was our downfall not yours.

Your downfall shall be US

– by Undefined Anomaly

The devastation… I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t experienced it in person.  I still don’t understand the people in this city or how things went this far.  A few days ago, I found a journal amongst the rubble:

Entry # 1: Starting our new life…

At the town-hall meeting this afternoon, the Mayor broke the news… CONCORD lifted their restriction limiting capsuleer interference with planetary life.  At first the room was filled with silence, but quickly fell into chaos as shouts of anger filled the room.

“By what right?  Aren’t there enough resources in the belts?”

Entry # 3: Protests in the Streets

They started arriving a few days ago.  First it was just a few prospectors looking for carbon compounds.  Now, their minions are absolutely everywhere!

I took a walk into the hills this morning and everywhere I looked, there were extractors.  All you hear on the news is how non-intrusive these extractors are and that people will barely notice them… lies! Pipes from a single extractor appear to cover an entire mountainside.

– by Lhun

A young man lounges on a bed of red tendrils, slowly glowing in the night air. The stars are bright, numerous and inviting.

Asbjorn longed for the days when they were mysterious points of light that children wished on, and when a red white ball of some mighty celestial object would streak across the face of the two moons he didn’t wonder if his school’s modern history curriculum would be changing again.

At 15, the young Minmatar was coming of age. His grandmother was pushing him to “reconnect to his roots” but, like many other Thukker children, he didn’t care much for the lengthy and painful tattooing process. As soon as he was old enough to choose, the small smattering of family milestones streaked across his tanned olive skin were made possible with tiny Galentian nanomachines, genetically (and much to Asbjorn’s delight, painlessly) altering the pigment concentration of his skin into complex and artistic patterns.

It was the last night he would look at the stars with wonder and a sense of safety.

The warm, red creature below him shuddered. A silicon based “simple lifeform” the holoreel in his environmental hazards class explained. Most likely carried as cargo on Amarr transport ships, they spread across his planet rapidly. They absorb particles of carbon and silicon – extremely useful for the tiny bits of dust nanomachines and drones spew out during hull restructuring processes – keeping the people onboard from having horrible lung failures. A cheap solution for slaver transports, which would spare the expense of complex filtering systems. As for his planet’s indigenous life forms, they were mostly carbon based, and have been nearly choked out of existence when they made their way onto the surface. The rich mineral deposits proved a boon for them, and, as Asbjorn was soon to find out, others as well.

His planet was nestled in what used to be a quiet pocket of space far, far away from CONCORD and other prying eyes. His grandmother, Dagrun, would go on and on about how wonderful his parents were, and how he should aspire to be just like them. The rest of the galaxy considered them nomads – but, according to Dagrun – they were seeking a new dawn. 135 Years had passed and she was starting to show it. Born near the end of the rebellion, she had seen it all – but she seemed distracted lately. He wondered if her memory might be fading on her.

A small point of light, growing in intensity, distracted Asbjorn from his musings of family history. It appeared to be concentrated slightly above the wobbling point of light he associated with the university anchored to the largest moon. From his vantage point, it appeared to be at the very top of the large, inactive volcano that was the figurehead of this region. A great climb to a point of light he considered his hope of getting off the pile of scrap-metal and arid air his grandmother oddly clinged to. To that day, he could never understand her feverish need to own property here.

The glittering station winked out.

Streaks of red and blue and white, followed by thick, oily black smoke began to pour from the the night sky. But, this wasn’t the volcano.

A series of sudden and sharp claps, slow, at first, maybe once per second, began to roll like thunder across the field. The tendrils of his temporary bed retreated into the rock rapidly, dropping him onto his back. Asbjorn quickly stood, all his attention focused at the tip of the mountain. The station was gone, and the debris was falling towards him, growing in size. More claps. The sound was getting louder and more rapid, like the gods had pointed the wind at a bonfire, and all manner of ash and ember was rushing towards him. Screaming, somewhere behind him, being drowned out by the sound of the debris from the station breaking the sound barrier as it entered the atmosphere. The boy couldn’t dare turn away. Transfixed in horror and wonder, he stared as a sizable chunk of Caldari docking bay grew closer and closer.

“GET INSIDE, CHILD!”

Dagrun screamed to her grandson across an acre of grains but to no avail. He wasn’t moving. Soon enough, her attempts to shield him from the outside would be undone. She had been warned days previous that the invading alliance was coming to put who-knows-what matter of refinery near the volcano, the gasses trapped under the rock soon to be freed to build it’s machines of war. Her hands were behind her back, her fingertips brushing the cold metal edge of last connective implant on her spine. Memories of the attack on the Hurricane she piloted flashing through her mind, her own children screaming through the coms for her to eject the tiny emergency vessels to save them and members of their crew. They fell on deaf ears. She had given up. Being chased relentlessly had worn her thin, and even as she operated a ship full of hundreds of lives, her only thought was of the station which housed her clone. Would it still be there? Or would she end up somewhere in Matar, an emergency information transfer because the station she once called home was blasted to dust.

Her fate, it seemed, was not to die so soon. The trajectory systems on her capsule failed, and, blasted towards the surface of the planet, she waited for death. It seems that capsules, however, are much tougher then they seem to be when blasted with the most powerful of lasers in the known universe. Unscathed, she emerged in a sea of fire and rubble, disconnected from the datastream. Several ruined escape vessels surrounded her, many destroyed on impact. One housed her eldest son’s infant child. Too young to be cloned, born in the traditional way – this was a life that would be over soon if she didn’t protect it. That moment changed Dagrun’s outlook on everything.

The scene about to play out was not unlike the one 15 years ago. A rebirth in flame. As the huge bits of station crashed to earth Asbjorn was shook to the ground. One last rumble and everything would be silent, forever.

The crash of the station bulkhead had taken it’s toll on the young boys fragile eardrums. Blood poured down the sides of his face, making a sick red line along his angular jaw. The pain was insane. He might have been screaming. He felt himself being lifted by a harvester drone and rapidly driven to the small, round home across the wheat field which was now burning. The night sky was streaked with orange, purple and white light: they were the capitol laser cannons finding their marks, oblivious to the inhumane scene below.

Asbjorn awoke with Dagrun rushing around the small, stainless steel room that housed the remains of the former capsuleer’s pod. A row of containers with tiny labels was along the northern wall, behind a thick glass plate. Some containing liquids, others with the fine powder of refined minerals. Dagrun’s facial expressions changed from one moment to the next, her mouth moving silently. The only sound he could hear was a screeching ringing in his head. His arms were bound to a soft bed, where he could see a tiny trail of blood droplets leading to his head. “Oh fuck, what happened…” His thoughts trailed off as the tiny machine beside him clicked, and a small amount of what he could only imagine was a illegal drug pumped into his veins. “White.”, he thought, “everything is white.”

Dagrun rushed about, gathering tiny vials of nanomachines. All the ones used to heal flesh were long gone. The best she could hope for was some sort of implant. Her hands brushed across a tiny deepspace FTL communications implant. This was the beta of the one currently feeding her information about the southern alliance’s push against her planet in the north. Her gnarled hand picked it up, rolling it gently in her palm.

“Stupid child.” She muttered. The truth was, the child was brilliant, but with no sense of self-preservation. ‘Makes sense’ she thought, just like me. When death only means that you have to towel yourself off and hop in another pod, the part of you that feels finite all but disappears. Dagrun’s grand plan for her young charge’s future was falling apart. Re-connecting to the global community was a tough decision, but if she was going to raise the ISK to put Asbjorn on the path to immortality she had to let someone friendly know about her discovery. Far more valuable then the well known gas deposits on the planet were the minerals tucked just under the soft clay surface of her farm. All she had to do was charge her pod, and send a short message to someone of diplomatic importance and tell them of her discovery. She only hoped she wasn’t too late.

Watching the interstellar news network for the first time in 15 years was jarring. Her implants and skills were now out of date – she couldn’t fly anything better then a frigate, even if she could somehow afford one, and her drone interfacing was far too dated to operate the complex machines of the war. Her body was frail and weak – no tiny nanomachines to keep her beautiful and healthy. It was far too late anyway. She set the EMD drones to work on Asborn’s head and back, building interfacing for implants, making him, at least in body, more like the people she had grown to loathe.

While the drones did the work, she put all her efforts into cutting a deal with the beautiful Gallentien fellow from across the stars.

“War has broken out between the two factions in the pure blind regions…”**STATIC**

“Both sides are reporting heavy capital lossesQUAFE. YOU NEED IT, YOU WANT IT. IN THE WAR AGAINST THIRST THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE VICTOR.”

“Tritanium 1.3456billion, Mexal…’And then the Amarr Priest says… CHECK UNDER MY ROBE!’ (Roaring laughter)”**STATIC**

A sound like machines scraping against each other combined with a horrible, ominous buzzing sound filled Asbjorn’s head. A feeling of dread crept over him, a sense that millions of … something… working together… were trying to get inside his head. A vision of a orange white… hole… appeared before him, with tiny red lights peeking out. Abruptly it faded, and the silvery metal of the small room came into view. Every hair on his body stood on end.

“I’m sorry, it’s going to take a while to adjust the communications channels to the ones you’ll need. The data stream has grown far too complex for the tiny photon co-processor I was forced to use in that implant to handle. We’ll upgrade it soon… i hope” The voice was familiar, but carried a distortion like a digital feed that had too much compression, or when one of his holoreels after it had been banged around in his bag a little too much. It was only when she turned around and began speaking again that Asbjorn realized it was his grandmother.

“I had to replace your inner ear with a acoustics simulator. It’s the kind used in Minmatar battleships. It can ‘Hear’ things which would normally be silent in space…” Dagrun trailed off, small puddles of tears forming under her eyes; “Oh my child; I’m so sorry. No one expected this so soon” She held his hands and began explaining that there had been a discovery of gasses at the base of the volcano. Concord lifted the ban on capuleers to industrialize colonies on worlds, The pod pilots we vying for the planet’s resources and fighting it out in space – Asbjorn soon realized that his grandmother was not getting slower over the last few years… she was DISTRACTED.

“What they don’t realize is that I’ve discovered something far more valuable then they realize, and only I have the locations. But… since we’re not officially part of the colony here, finding someone to buy the information has been… Difficult. I wanted to use the money to send you away from here, away from the war.” Dagrun’s eyes quickly darted to the jars of material locked away in the cabinet on the wall.

“It’s time you made your own fate – I told you to go through the rituals and become a man but you-” The frail old lady was interrupted suddenly. Her eyes darted back and forth at something beyond Asbjorn perception… Her spine stiffened and she gripped his hands ever tighter. A buzzing sound of crosstalk crept it’s way into his mind, tiny chunks of syllables in a language he didn’t understand like a whispering in the centre of his head.

“You’ll want to see this.” She said finally. “Come outside”

The farmer drones were busy picking up chunks of metal debris and dropping them into a container. As the metal hit the bottom, tiny nanomachines would break them down to their atomic basics and were starting to stack them side by side in bars of refined materials.

“What are you building?” Asbjorn asked – still jarred by the sound of his own voice

“Not building, child, repairing” she offered, her distraction was obvious.

As they rounded the side of the house, the young Minmatar stopped dead, mouth agape, at the sight before him.

A enormous blue-steel object, was slowly lowering itself to the surface. Swarms of something… trailing blue flame zipped around the structure. A static buzzing crept into Asbjorn’s head again, not unlike the frightening one hours before… but this one seemed… controlled, subdued.

“What is that sound…” he asked… almost a whisper, under his breath.

“Drones. Hundreds of builder drones”.

Dagrun’s voice jarred Asbjorn out of his shocked stupor. His technology classes explained in great detail the absolutely staggering technology involved in building ONE drone, and was clear to point out that the costs associated with building even one drone was impossible to all but the elite. And there were hundreds of them. Right in front of him.

The thought was cut short as the launching pad collided with the surface of the small planet. The vibrations seemed small at first… but then… something larger roared from beneath their feet. Something uncontrolled. Primal.

The first dark wisps of smoke appeared at the edge of the volcano. They had disturbed it.

“I would never have put that there. Not in a million years.” Dagrun said, almost chuckling, a thin smile on her lips.

Over the following months their plan was laid out. Asbjorn learned about interstellar transport, communications, learning things faster then he ever thought possible. Trade, spaceship command… All the while wondering why he had been denied access to this information before.

Dagrun’s cache of skill manuals was quickly being consumed. Things she had planned for herself that she could no longer use that somehow survived the crash. If Asbjorn knew the value of these books he would likely go wild with greed – Dagrun realized long ago, however, that giving her grandson a chance to live forever was beyond value. Slowly, Asbjorn began to realize the scale of his grandmother’s knowledge, and a deepening respect began to form.

They laid out a plan to get Asbjorn on-board a returning rocket with the first load of material – starting with a job at Lai Dai Cooperation.

Eyjafjallajokull shuddered and burst, throwing smoke far into the sky. Lightning streaked across it’s anvilhead, and thick ash rained down on the new colony below. The forcefields surrounding it glowed a hazy blue every time a dust cloud was blown across it’s surface.

“This is going to hold us up at least a week” Aivira Ogimo said coldly, tapping the metal casing of the implant on the side of her head.

She was not one for appearances. The Caldari woman had opted for expensive implantation in her early years as a pod pilot but couldn’t afford the cosmetics to hide their obvious locations. As she worked her way to production manager in the early days of Lai Dai Cooperation her rough exterior and no-nonsense attitude was further bolstered by her frightening visage. They became her trademark, she couldn’t remove them now.

The new colony at the base of the now erupting volcano was bustling with activity. Workers walking in organized lines down to bunkers to sleep for the night under the watchful guard of the military that followed them everywhere.

“Some locals are trying to join the company, they want access” Her secretary said offhandedly. “Others are warning about the fury of their gods” She giggled. “They say the volcano is a sign that we shouldn’t be here.”

“Whatever.” Aivira remarked coldly. “The original plan was to scorch the people down below. Mostly lost dirty Thukker tribesmen and some Amarr defectors seeking to be free from the empire. I’m not even sure how they got here, they’re not on any official colonization lists that I have access to.”

“You know doing that would have been horrible for diplomatic relations…” The secretary seemed jarred by Aivira’s inhumanity.

“CONCORD does not see much that happens here. Besides, we thought they were Blood Raiders. No matter. Let them in, but offer them HALF what we pay the tube children. Soak the costs in housing, demand that they live in the colony. It’ll cheapen production costs.” Aivira waved her subordinate away with a flick of her wrist, while simultaneously opening eight huge holoreel projections hovering above her glass desk. The image of a military production station rotated slowly, anchored to the first moon of the planet.

Asbjorn felt sick with confusion. The skills to control things he had never seen before felt slotted into his head. Like on the top shelf of an impossibly high cupboard. They were there, and he could access them, but how did he get up there? They didn’t belong. They didn’t make sense. HUNDREDS of camera drones? What exactly is a Jump Drive?! Dagrun knew that cramming the skills into her grandson’s head out of order might be hard on him, but it was all she had. She hoped that she had chosen the correct ones.

Protesters lined the outside of the entrance to the central hub. Many wore masks over their faces to guard against the ashes from the volcano. Red carbon eaters were pulsing rapidly – their tendrils reaching towards the volcano hoping to catch bits of dust raining down on them. They looked hungry.

Asbjorn had a small text window in front of his field vision only he could see now. A gift from grandmother… A way to communicate once he was inside the complex. A small group of Minmatar youth was camped off to his left watching and commenting on the people signing up to join the Caldari.

‘Oh no…’ Asbjorn thought as he passed by. ‘they’re in my class.’

“Hey Thukker!” a heavyset tattooed boy shouted. “What are you doing?! They’ll work you to death, and you’re going to piss the ‘cano off. Better to stay out ‘ere, don’t you think?” He seemed angry.

“Where’s your ‘Matar pride?!” Another scoffed, as he picked up a chunk of scrap metal.

–A gray overview snapped into place-

The chunk of metal flew towards Asbjorn. In one swift motion he grabbed the heavy chunk of bulkhead, using it’s momentum, spun and flung it back at the boy. It collided with his chest flatly.

–The trajectory and speed of the hunk of metal was reported in his field of view-

His new implant could hear a wet thudding with the sound of a rib cracking in more then one place.

“SHIT!!” The first boy shouted.

Asbjorn ran quickly while the youth tended to their fallen friend to the line of people signing up to join the mining operations, shoving several out of the way in the process. He thought the text: “What did you do to me?!” into the console, to which Dagrun replied: “Your perception and awareness has been increased tenfold. You’ll need it where you’re going”

Dagrun felt out of place with most of the damaged pod’s connections in place, but without the warm fluid surrounding her. She had placed a simple wooden stool in the middle of it’s open face: A interesting contrast to the hyper-advanced system she was accessing. The deal with Megnyve Charis was done. Get the materials locations and blueprints she had created in her long stay on the planet, and her Grandson would be guaranteed entry into The Republic University with a transfer to the University of Caille and safe passage into empire. It was up to Asbjorn now. Locked away inside his head was everything he needed.

Asbjorn quickly found his way into a job in the the chemical reactions department of the Caldari hub. With his new skills and new Caldari Citizenship he was soon free to wander the departments as he wanted.

It almost felt good to belong to something, but every time he looked at himself in a mirror he was reminded of the boy he hurt outside. The stars no longer gave him comfort, just cold fear. The smoke from the factory and the volcano was starting to take it’s tole on the environment outside, the stars were harder to see and the trees were withering. A thin line of lava now snaked down the volcano, towards the launch hub. The workers whispered about how long Aivira would keep production going.

Dagrun 0:23>“I need you to find out the launch date”

The private chat window suddenly snapped into view.

Asbjorn 0:23>“Grandmother! I was beginning to worry!”

Dagrun 0:24>”Don’t worry about me. Listen, the R&D department should have codebreaker modals in storage. They use them to reverse engineer some… things. I need you to grab one and see if you can discover the first rocket date.”

Asbjorn 0:25>“I’ll try.” Asbjorn closed the window, and headed to the corporate hanger array.

There were two rough Caldari Navy Midshipmen standing outside the hanger doors. They were talking in hushed tones about someone named Fatal.

“What are your orders here?” One barked at Asbjorn.

“Research on drone propulsion chemicals” He lied.

“You’re a bit young aren’t you?” The solder poked Asbjorn in the chest with the butt of his rifle.

“Graduated at the top of my class!” He lied again.

“You’re Minmatar too. I don’t know…”

The private chat window blinked feverishly at the bottom of Asbjorn’s field of vision.

Megnyve>“TELL THEM YOU OVERHEARD THEM TALKING ABOUT FATAL.”

Asbjorn didn’t have time to ask Dagrun who Megnyve was.

“Listen, let me in and I won’t tell Aivira Ogimo you guys were talking about Fatal” he said in the toughest voice he could muster. Even at 15 years of age, his Minmatar heritage granted him a measure of height over the burly soldiers.

The second officer grabbed the first by the belt and pulled him off into the corner.

Even though the two were whispering, Dagrun’s implant heard everything:

“If the Rabbit finds out about this we’re dead. Worse, he’ll lock us up on a rock somewhere in deadspace forever. Do you wanna end up in a bloodsport arena? Let the fucking twerp through”

“Five minutes!” The second officer barked.

Asbjorn nodded and ducked in.

—

Asbjorn 2:54> TWO HOURS

Dagrun 2:54> What?!

Asbjorn 2:55> They launch in two hours. The volcano is predicted to explode in three. They don’t care about the people below, they’re going to leave the station here and bring down the shields.

Dagrun 2:56> you have to get out of there. Find a way onto the rocket.

Asbjorn 2:57> I can’t leave all these people! They’re innocent! What about you??

Dagrun 2:57> There’s no way to save us.

Rage boiled inside the young tribesmen. He punched the screen, his fist harmlessly passing through the holographic projection in front of him. The projection winked out for a second before flickering back into view showing a rapidly declining rocket countdown. ‘There has to be something else here’ he thought.

Asbjorn flicked through station logs, corporate wallets. Billions of isk moving from place to place. Corporation hangers… “Wait… What is that?” Nestled in a hanger marked “READ ONLY” was something called “Aivira Ogimo’s Rhea” A statistics readout popped up beside entry along with a progress bar indicating “pilot requirements met”. Whatever it was, it was big, and important, and new. ‘They wouldn’t leave something like this behind’.

He ran towards the hanger.

So early in the morning, most of the colony was sleeping. Asbjorn ran from hallway to lift to hallway, heading towards the corporation hanger array. The young man’s mind was swimming with fear and anger.

Strangely, the two navy midshipmen were nowhere to be found, when he reached the locked gateway. Fighting to pull his codebreaker module out of his white labcoat pocket he punched code after code into the gateway. With a snapping series of clicks, the doors opened, and he saw something he’ll never forget.

Huge

was the only word to describe the Jump Freighter hovering over the repair platform. The ship was so large he couldn’t see the end of it in his field of vision. The ship seemed to warp around the curvature of the planet closing at a point some hundreds of metres away. Shaped like a giant slab, tiny armor repair drones buzzed and walked all over the surface of the freighter, preparing it for launch.

Asbjorn 3:30> What do I do?

The person who responded was not who he expected.

Megnyve 3:31> Look to your left. There should be a row of doors.

Asbjorn heard voices from the hallway. He didn’t stop to think, rushing along the gangplank a series of white metal doors marked with hanger numbers came into view. One was lit. He rushed to it and it opened automatically. He ducked inside and was grabbed by the metal hands of a preparation drone.

Aivira Ogimo walked swiftly to the hanger. If she was going to get the first shipment on time she had to get into space now. Her secretary followed close behind, flipping through space bookmarks and plotting routes to the proper orbit to pickup the materials can, all the while uploading them to the Rhea’s computer as vouchers.

“And what about the colony?” she curtly asked.

“I’ve received intel that we’ve been compromised by Guristas pirates. I’ll use them as a scapegoat when the hub goes critical. Everyone will blame the pirates and we’ll come back later to mop up.” Aivira rushed to the undock platform and reached her hanger bay.

The light on the rhea’s pod access door was red and flashing.

Aivira’s face flushed red with anger and fear. “What the fuck is going on?! Get this fixed. NOW!”

Asbjorn struggled slightly confined in the tight connection port implantation chamber. The tiny nanomachines had bored holes into his nervous system and was putting the finishing touches on the series of plugs in his back. With a short buzz, the straps holding him to the table lifted, and pushed him out into plain blue steel room. Before him was a platform, surrounded with a pod. It looked exactly like the one in Dagrun’s room. Realization swept over him.

A pod blasted out of the array and into the waiting port of the Rhea. Systems information flashed before his eyes. There was a jump drive on this thing. He somehow knew what that meant.

Someone had tipped the colonists off. A growing group of angry people were outside the station doors being held back by a larger group of Caldari Solders. Asbjorn could hear them shouting. He could “feel” the drones walking about the surface of the Rhea. He felt like a giant… but he couldn’t understand half of what he was controlling. Bays would open and close randomly. A warm, mechnical female voice spoke to him softly. “There is not enough power” “There is already something in that location” Asbjorn was frustrated.

“Ow!” A tiny prick, like a beesting struck Asbjorn somewhere… below. The soldiers were firing warning shots. The crowd below was getting rowdy. “OPEN THE CARGO HOLD. LET US GET OUT WITH YOU!” a man was shouting. “HAVE SOME COMPASSION!” A woman shreaked. Asbjorn could see almost everywhere at once. Camera drones.

Asbjorn grouped a bunch of the tiny drones together, and, with a thought, swept them into the soldiers as fast as they could go. The drones smashed into their bodies, flinging them like a great hand sweeping away ants. The power was sickening. Every now and then a drone would break on someone’s helmet, against his chest, or against a wall, leaving a still image of a face in horror before the image winked out. Terrified, groups of colonists huddled together. His communications window flashed. Rows and rows of data were flying into Asbjorns head. Concentrating, he managed to make out a few lines.

Corporation:

Aivira O> Someone is in my Rhea. What kind of sick joke are you trying to play?!

Raustilo Nesenoilen> No indication of fowl play yet, it was someone belonging to the caldari state. Whoever it is will have to undock and get into space before we can deal with them. The callsign is coming up garbled. Something’s weird with his implants.

Local:

Rustbucket> There’s about 40 Dread Guristas battleships two jumps out, you guys might wanna get safe.

Private Chat – Dagrun, Megnyve:

Megnyve> I’m not sure how he’s inside the JF, but he is.

Dagrun> Asbjorn! IF YOU CAN READ THIS, FEEL FOR THE CARGO BAY. GRAB THE CIVILIANS!

Asbjorn concentrated. Cargo. Cargo. Cargo. He could feel the hot station air wafting into an empty … stomach. There was no other way to describe it.

The colonists began you shout “It’s opening!” Asbjorn could feel the feet of hundreds of people filling the cargo hold of the mighty jump freighter.

3, 2, 1… LAUNCH. The entire station shook down to it’s foundation. Aivira found herself on the floor of the gangplank, climbing to the first lit pod bay. Behind it was a Caldari Shuttle, and salvation.

A rocket lifted itself over the station and out of sight, a trail of spent fuel in it’s wake. The sun was raising to shine down on planet, rays of light peeking through the smoke of the rumbling volcano.

Asbjorn could hear the fear of the people inside the ship. They were running to stations now, peering out windows, running to observation decks. “Time to go!” Was the frantic thought in his head.

The ship groaned and didn’t move.

Asbjorn> What do I do!?

Dagrun> He can’t fly the ship! He’s never been in a pod before! You’re going to get him killed Megnyve!

Megnyve> You’re the one who said he was ready! What kind of pilot are you, anyway Asbjorn?

Asbjorn> I’m NO KIND OF PILOT. I’m not even sure what you mean!

Dagrun> Child. There is one thing on that Freighter you can operate. You’re running out of time. Hit the jump drive and set it to a random location nearby. The university’s pilots will pick you up when you’re safe.

Asbjorn> The volcano is erupting. You’re going to die.

Dagrun> We all die.

Dagrun sighed and slumped over her stool. The drones were buzzing away on her pod but were only 1/3 of the way completed. She wondered what parts worked and what didn’t. The debris was a lucky find for the old pilot’s drones, but too little too late. There was still a huge hole in the outer structures, and even if that was fixed, she had no fluid. With no clone and no way to get off the planet, this death would be final.

Dagrun turned her attention to her grandson and the hundreds of innocent people in it’s hold. At least she could save them.

Dagrun> Turn on the jump drive. Go.

Asbjorn> Where will I end up?

Dagrun> Far away from here. It’ll be safer, I hope. The communications systems will still work once you’re out there, but you have to go fast.

Asbjorn, timidly felt in his mind for the “switch”. The stars laid out before him, in glorious detail. Planets wizzed around them. Jump gates blinked and were marked clearly. Overwhelmed, the student pressed a random spot in space and closed his eyes.

1111111010101001000000000000000000000111111111111111111111111111111111111111111!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The screaming sound of thousands of drones turn their attention to the huge object occupying their space. Asbjorn opens his eyes. The roar of his engines nearly deafens him, and the screeching of drones is blasting in his ears. He can hear the people on the observation decks screaming. “Rogues! WHAT IS SHE DOING?!

‘they must still think I’m Avira’

Red flashes fill his field of vision. ‘I’ve heard this sound before’

Bits of the station hanger float about in space with the Rhea, along with the bodies of several soldiers. The jump drive took bits of the things around him with him

Doing the only thing he knew how, he pressed the button in his mind again, picked a random location in space, and closed his eyes.

Without anyone on deck to operate it the Hub’s protective field falters and drops. The seismic disruptions from the launch and a jump drive going off next door pushed the volcano over the edge. Great plumes of lava rain down on the station, it’s reactors heating to supercritical levels.

Dagrun stands outside her home, watching as the building in the distance takes the full force of the planet’s fury. Her small army of drones carry on working on the ruined pod. Tiny bursts of light begin to appear at the refinery’s upper decks, and, with a crack, the structure explodes. Radiation and heat wash over the planes.

Inside the ruined pod, a red light flashes towards Dagrun as the shockwave crushes everyone, and everything in it’s path.

Asbjorn opens his eyes. He’s being toed into a station. The trauma of the day must have caused him to black out. There are ships everywhere. A sign reads “Welcome to Jita”. Hundreds of people inside the damaged Rhea are cheering.

Somewhere in Matar a beautiful woman opens her eyes. Pain, searing pain in the back of her skull. Wet, naked… a woman in a labcoat is here and tapping a clipboard.

“What… Wait…”

“Dagrun Thukker. I’ve taken the liberty of following your training program to it’s completion since you fell off the grid. I have a list of the completed skills. I’ve upgraded your clone over the years. I’m not sure what the Republic had you doing, but the previous model was lost. I only got enough information to transfer your thoughts, not your current appearance, So I had to go with old data and even that seems to be somewhat incomplete. The data was all garbled. I’m not sure I understand why “Farming drone operations” Is in here, but no matter. There’s a fully fitted Reaper in the hanger array. Enjoy your afterlife.”

– by Gigaer

Some people say I live in the middle of nowhere. I told them I’ve been to nowhere and it’s a lot more interesting than the planet I come from. The planet my family and I live on is in a place nullsec. I heard some barge captain say that once. Providence was also a term he dropped. I have no idea what any of it means. All I know is that we never got many visitors from the core regions. We’re just a farming planet, after all.

That was then. This is now.

Now, instead of hooded Amarr slavers dropping off copies of the Pax Amarria as well as leaving us only a small ration of our output (and sometimes taking some of us to be sold into slavery), we have Minmatar freedom fighters dropping off refugees and ex-slaves by the ship-load to be put to work. I always thought all pod-pilots were alike. I never cared one way or another who they fought for.

That was then. This is now.

They leave us mostly to ourselves. They request what they need and actually pay us for it. We now have the ability to barter with other planets and in other systems with what surplus we have. With all this extra manpower, we can even harvest more of this world’s natural resources like ores and gases. These poor people brought to this place have been given the chance to lead honest and free lives and they’re putting their blood, sweat and tears into it. Our villages are turning into towns and our towns are almost passing as cities.

We have a little piece of paradise down here. Wide fields of grain and clear blue skies. We’re mostly Gallente down here but the Minmatar population seems to be fitting in well. Not so much a culture clash as it is an exchange. We’re learning from each other. You see new moms at the parks watching over Matari kids just as much as Gallente. Gallente men sharing pints of homemade brew on the porch with Minmatar neighbors while their wifes gossip in the living room. We build roads, we build schools, we build homes, we build lives… together.

The pod-pilots up there can take whatever they want, but what they’ve given us is life. They give us their broken, and we teach them what it is to be whole again. Up there it’s dark and cold and deadly, while down here it’s warm and bright and alive. Up there you can’t hear the screams of the dying, and down here the sounds of laughter and music are deafening.

Immortality be damned, we’re happy. We’re just a farming planet, after all.

– by DOC Minor

Excerpt from the Audio Journal of Farakeen Don, rebel leader, Rens VI
Exhibit c1, translated by DOC Minor, requested by Vengendolf Emblard

Audio Journal entry 103.32.1

My mother always told me to worship the ground and fear the sky.
I never really understood her. The transport that we use to ship grain from our farm to the city is an airship. I was even promised to fly it once I got old enough. Even she flew in it without fear. But at night, a finger would point to the stars after a few glasses of mead and warn us all: fear the sky.
We thought it was funny.

And then they came.

My brother and I were playing a game of Cist, when we heard a massive explosion. The game itself is pretty noisy with explosions and gunfire coming from the visual prompter. Mom hates the game. Dagmar was getting his butt kicked, and, just as I launched the final missile to destroy his ship, a premature explosion rumbled the house. It was like thunder that came from all directions. We dropped our controllers and ran outside where the skies are normally a blue-green haze with clouds as white as pearls. But now, the sky was covered in a dark shadow. We had never seen anything like it. As we gazed, our jaws dropped as we saw a massive ship envelop the horizon, blocking our life-giving star. We hopped on our rovers, and hit throttles full steam to try and get a closer look.

I just landed close to a mountain. I have no idea where I am. I had to stay inside the cloud to avoid being caught. That was a while ago. I think I’m 4 hours in distance – cloud speed- from the farm.
Hungry too.
So, just to keep a record of things, this is what happened:
Just as we were being put back in our cage of a camp, I noticed the guard in charge of the gate was drunk. He had a bottle of spiced wine on his desk in the guardhouse. There was some sort of tournament on his teleprompt, and, since their celebration, the guards have had more free time I guess. Anyway, he didn’t lock the gate. I didn’t even need to use the tunnel. I waited until he passed out, and quietly got to the air transport. As soon as I ignited, he came out to see, and set the alarms just as I flew away. Within minutes, they were trailing me. But they don’t know this planet the way I know it, so in a cloud I ducked. And now, I have no idea where I am. Who cares?! Now I can search for mom and Dag. But I have no idea where to begin.
Damn the Brutor Tribe.

{years worth of entries to follow-but this gives the reasoning for the rebel leader’s actions-and hatred-to our tribe}

– by Vincent Ikari

A young woman sits beneath the trees in a twilight shade, the water about her bare feet is warm with the pleasant heat of the rainforest, small creatures dart between the puddles, eagerly snatching up the bread that falls from her hands before hurrying back into the safety of the dark tree roots, their glowing eyes might seem frightening to someone who’d never seen them before. The girl smiles, watching two of the furry critters wrestling over a large piece of bread that was soaked in the warm water near her feet, she wore faded overalls that were at least two sizes too big, the logo stamped across its back had long since rubbed off. It was a scene of blissful tranquility, she remembered playing here as a child, back when life was simple, back when Gods were just something you prayed to when the teachers told you, and never quite believed in.

Soon the air grew denser, a low hum resonates through the trees and the ground began to rumble, the woodland creatures fled into their holes in terror, soon the humming turned to a violent blast of unending heat and furious noise, the girl sighs and turns her eyes skyward while donning the ear protectors slung around her neck as several hundred million tons of metal thundered overhead, the trees thrashed as though they would fall but soon the noise was gone, replaced by a crackling voice.

“First freighter of the day Anni, get your ass back here already, breaks over”

She sighs again, turning to the edge of the forest and gazing down into the landing fields, burnt into the heart of the woodland by the new settlers two summers back, with the Charon class freighter high overhead, a great streak across the sky behind marked its passage, unloading craft already heading up towards it as though on intercept course. Even here, several miles away, she could smell the sickly scent of oil and fuel, boiling water, the smell of progress she remembered her old boyfriend remarking when the corporation had first arrived, a month before he was burnt to death by an exploding fuel silo. She wondered if he’d take those words back if he were alive now, somehow she thought he would.

Higher above the Charon still, you could see the orbiting fleet, they looked like a tightly packed formation of stars from down here, she wondered how many shooting stars she’d wished on from this very spot years ago were simply spaceships too. Anni took a deep breath, leaving her childhood self behind in the forest to begin the trek back to the landing fields, she thought about how the world had changed since the coming of these people from beyond the stars, of course she’d heard the stories, spacefaring nations, immortal heroes, incredible wealth and fame, famous and infamous characters alike, but it had all seemed to surreal, so far away, it wasnt real, it couldnt be. But then they’d come, she remembered standing behind her parents in awe with eyes wide as the first ships made landfall, she remembered the bottle of drink given to her by a smiling pilot, though she’d long since forgotten the name, Quafe perhaps, she remembered the promises of
medical and industrial progression far beyond the relatively primitive facilites that existed before, of course the government had signed on the dotted line eagerly, letting their irreplacable rainforests be burnt away for landing fields, their children hired into dangerous and low paid jobs and their folklore and history replaced with faceless corporate adverts and institutes.

It wasnt as bad now as it was, at least, eventually people had enough and there was revolution, unfortunate that a desire for free will was not the ideal weapon to use against soldiers and spaceships, and both her parents had been killed in the fights, the fires burnt for days, napalm torpedoes delivered by stars high in the night sky had sent entire cities to hell in horrific firestorm, it must have been the shortest war in history, and it was a time everyone would rather forget. Though it got worse before it got better, for Anni.
The battles hadnt been entirely one sided however, and angry soldiers hungry for vengeance for their fallen comrades fell upon the ravaged cities like a pack of wild wolves, she spent what felt like weeks in a cold cell after having been dragged from the wreckage of her home, naked and screaming tears for her lost family. When they eventually let her out, it seemed like a different world, the cities were gone, paved over
and replaced with efficient pre-fab housing flown in from off-world. She guessed the rumours of a change of management high up in the corporation had actually had some effect at least, for once.

Anni found work as a dancer at the local bar, one of the few remaining buildings from the old city, it had been a poorly built place before the war, and now looked even more decrepid alongside the efficient corporate constructions. Displaying her desirable body to people who had often been aboard cramped starships for months earned a decent living, but it wasnt until she became involved with a young caldari navy officer that her less entertaining talents came to light.
She was a gifted engineer, able to fix just about anything, with a mind that instinctively knew how something should work, and why it wasn’t, she hung up her dancers bikini and joined the auxiliary engineers corp, working with the navy to repair damaged ships and modules with the occasional malfunctioning toaster, she seemed to have found her calling, oil and dirt, just another day on the job. Not that much different from dancing you might say.

She was close to the landing fields now, the taste of fuel in her mouth snapped her from the daydreams, watching the crews scrambling about like ants, she could see the commanding officer also, clad in his pristine uniform as he directed the workers, she lowered her goggles over her sparkling blue eyes, pushing her unwashed blonde hair aside.

“Back to work”.

– by Czar Marcus

I was only fourteen the day they took my father away. Angels from the sky they were called; bringers of hope to a ravaged world in desperate need of saving.

They lied.

For hundreds of years our planet was fraught with war and strife. Brothers would kill each other over it, fathers would abandon families in search of it, and hope was forever lost because of it. What is this strange affliction that struck our planet one might ask?

Zydrine. Like the ancient blood diamonds of a lost era our planet was being driven to the brink of destruction over a simple mineral. Millions were lost due to both war and famine. The dream of making a quick fortune if one could find even a fist sized nugget was enough to drive an entire population to madness.

When it became too dangerous for even Concord to keep the peace it was determined that these “Angels” would be allowed to descend upon our world to restore order. To reward them for their aid it was determined that they would be able to mine for that rarest of minerals. It was a win-win for both Concord and our government. Concord was finally free to leave our world and the capsuleers promised our nation peace.

We would have been better off dead. These “Angels” showed their true colors as nothing, but demons.

It started off with a smile and ended with a massacre. The first act of this new era was complete dissolution of our government. It was for our own good they said, to protect the people. What government could be allowed to remain if they had failed to prevent war? The officials that dared protest were executed.

Then they came from the sky in their ships en-masse. At first it was a simple message urging our people to cooperate during this tough time, with the promise that things would get better. We saw propaganda on our screens day and night. It showed happy families living in peace. A loving father greeted his children, a happy child going off to school instead of wondering where his next meal would come from, and it ended with a message, “Cooperate and this can all be yours too!” What they forgot to mention was that cooperation meant slavery and resistance meant death.

At first there were a few cities that attempted to raise arms against our so-called saviors. They were quickly made examples of. A meager rebellion amounting to nothing more than a few laser pistols and hope was put down by a torrent of hell fire from an orbiting capital ship.

What happened next was worse. They came for us during the night. Anyone that spoke ill of the mine was grabbed in their sleep and forced to work in it. Children never saw their fathers again and sometimes even the children were taken. High walls and force fields prevented anyone from seeing what happened, but they could not prevent the screams from telling us.

Those that were lucky enough to volunteer to work the mines weren’t much better off. They weren’t beaten to death, but they were given barely enough food and water to survive. We were considered an expendable resource. Medical care was almost non-existent. The lucky ones were told they might live to see 30, but what did they care about us? They were the immortals for who time no longer held meaning.

I am now barely fifteen and learned that tonight they would take me to work in the mines for my inquiries on the whereabouts of my father.

I have nothing left that they can take from me except my life and I’ve chosen they can’t have it. I was hoping to end my life as an old man recounting my cheery youth. It seems a far cry from the pistol I now have in my hands. In one final act of rebellion I’ve placed this note on an old probe and sent it deep into space.

If you’re reading this, I’m already dead, but there are still others like me. Please help us.

– The boy that just wasn’t strong enough.