– 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.

– by Lord Furio

We could feel the ground trembling beneath us as the fleet descended on our home world. Seconds before the first shot was fired, someone asked over the comms, “you think we even stand a chance?” I don’t know if it was out of fear or hate that I fired that first shell. The sound of the 1200mm ‘Behemoth’ cannon was, simply put , frightening. It was the highest pitched scream and the lowest roar I’d ever heard at the same time – something out of nightmares. HQ hadn’t given the command, but it didn’t really matter. No point in conserving ammunition at this point anyway. This was our last stand and if we didn’t put every last bit into it, we were as good as dead.

“The fuck do you think you’re doing sergeant?” asked my lieutenant.

“I’m fighting this war, sir!” I shouted over thunderous sound of the cannon.

“God damn it, sergeant! Carry on!”

I couldn’t help but laugh as I saw the remaining artillery batteries begin firing prematurely at the incoming drop ships. Every shot was a kill shot. One by one we downed ships filled with their elite infantry. It was of little use; we still couldn’t see what used to be a beautiful sunrise behind their metal clouds of destruction.

Soon after that little conversation, their ships actually began increasing in number. It wasn’t long before the shorter ranged flak artillery had to start filling the skies with their own debris. Hues of red, yellow, blue and black blotted the sky. It would have been the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen had this been any other day…

“Gorgeous,” I whispered under my breath as the cannon was reloading.

“Sergeant. Sergeant!” my lieutenant shouted trying to gain my attention.

All I wanted to do was lay down and watch as the scene unfolded. There’s a certain solitude to be had in knowing how you’re going to die. But back to reality… The worst part about all this is not knowing what to shoot. The thing about an orbital invasion is that even if a ship is destroyed, they stay rather intact and they don’t change course. One way or another, all they’re ships are going to land. Your only hope is that your position doesn’t become its landing zone.

“Hey, is that the sun?” asked corporal Barone staring at the horizon.

“Since when did our sun turn blu-… Shit!” the lieutenant exclaimed. “Command, this is Lieutenant Hickman, 82nd Artillery! We’ve got an incoming orbital strike from the main fleet, orders?”

“Lieutenant Hickman, this is command. No further orders.”

Our weapons didn’t have the range, let alone the speed to get past their defenses. The charge of their orbital strike was like a massive explosion just hovering in space. We were told that the strike was capable of completely eliminating our largest of provinces. The ship being on the horizon made things just so much worse. Instead of taking out a single target, it was just going to scrape us all off the edge of the planet, much like taking a blade to, well, anything. With all of the artillery batteries taken out, their drop ships would land untouched; and God knows not even our heavy tanks are going to match what comes out of those drop ship doors.

“What’s with the comm silence?” asked some private.

“Shut your mouth, command’s makin’ an announcement,” I snapped.

“Men, this is command. I’m not going to beat around the bush. That orbital strike being aimed right at your and it is going to kill you. Before you go, just know one thing… Your deaths will not have been in vain. Your brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers will continue fighting for what you and our ancestors died for millennia ago – freedom. By the time we’re done here, there won’t be a single bullet waiting to be fired nor a prayer waiting to be had. Before I go, men, remember one thing – waste not, want not. Don’t waste a single fucking bullet, shell or cartridge ‘cuz we sure was hell don’t want those sons of bitches missing out on any of what this planet has to offer!”

I don’t know what was more arousing, the tone of General Roderick or that I could actually hear the orbital strike charging literally half a world away. In just a matter of seconds it would all be over. Being so motivated to die is a weird feeling – it’s bliss. I aimed the cannon at the horizon, brought it up 10 degrees, and prepared to fire. I gambled all my life; the Republican Guard was the only real job I’d ever had. I knew this shot could never hit the ship, let alone destroy it, but what the hell did I have to lose? I closed my eyes, let out my last breath, pulled the trigger… and dreamt about tomorrow.

– by Ore Mut

Growing up my father told me of the legends of men and women who
traversed the wide openings of space. The Capsuleers, as he called
them, were wanderers, opportunist, thieves, privateers, and pirates.
We both feared and respected them. I have never met one myself, but
our livelihood depends on their services. What we produce would be
sent into space across New Eden to far off places that could only been
thought of in a dream.
However, our dream is soon to collapse into the void of nightmares.
For generation we have enjoyed the distant relationship we have had
with the Capsuleers, but soon the prohibition that has protected us
from their greed will soon be dispelled, and with it, our hopes of
continuing our peaceful lives.
First it will be explorers, then merchants, but after that there will
be blood. War will soon break out across the stars and there will be
no pity for those of us bound to a terrestrial existence. These cruel
gods will rain fury upon us that will have no end until we are
completely consumed and are worlds are depleted of resources. There is
no justice for those not numbered among the Capsuleers.
I spend my days now contemplating my end as I watch over my cattle.
The grassy hills sing an eternal peace to my heart that only come
short of giving me comfort because I know that they soon will be gone.
Their eternal song will give way to eternal silence.
There is one hope I suppose, if a Capsuleer exists unlike the ones of
my father’s stories. One that is not only kind, but strong enough to
stay the greedy hands of others. When the explorers and industrialist
give way to the warmonger, I can only hope there are Capsuleers strong
enough to stay their own greed and fight for supreme dominance in the
name of the people.
This fantasy is the closest thing to comfort I have. But I wonder how
one man or woman has so great an ability as to maintain such a hold.
It is beyond me. I’ve watched over my cattle most of the days of my
life and I know them and their needs, but it is difficult to think
that a person can govern worlds and systems like I govern my herd.
I hope that such beings exist among the devilish gods of New Eden. To
think a person with such power could come here and destroy all that I
hold close to my heart is a thought that penetrates so deep that it
fills me with fear and a belief that it may be the truest outcome of
what is to come. My world is coming to an end very soon and there is
nothing that I can do to stop it. I can only stand and watch as the
Capsuleers of New Eden decide the fate of my world and countless
others like it.
I fear the future does not look good for my family and I. I doubt that
I will have sons that will survive the coming turmoil that will carry
on the stories I will tell them. For their sake I hope that there is
good in the hearts and minds of those that sail the stars.

– by Herb Smith

TEN YEARS AGO
SOVEREIGNTY: AMARR
REGION: DOMAIN
SYSTEM:AMARR

A billion to one odds that Aron Kyoto’s sensor probes pinpointed the tiny cosmic signature. He had waited two hours, and continued to wait for the Concord escort. Aron maneuvered his ship closer to it. Wormhole technology had always been artificially created, and mastered by the Empires which allowed ships to jump from system to system, but this wormhole was not a jump bridge. It appeared to be a natural phenomenon. Procedure dictated that he wait for a proper escort, prior to jumping through. Finally! His escort arrived.

“This is Lieutenant Robert Farris, Concord, Reconnaissance division.”

Aron noted the distinct thick Gallente accent of the Concord agent.

“This is Aron Kyoto, and it’s about time, I was beginning to think you forget about me.”

“Not at all,” Farris dispensed with pleasantries, hoping that this poor scout had a false reading from spilling Quafe cola on his instrument panel. Concord’s data records of eager new scout pilots with seemingly innumerable discoveries usually boiled down to the inability to perceive the difference between asteroids and gas clouds. He just wanted to get back to his frozen dinner, and holo-vision. But now this nonsense had interrupted the play-off game. He did not bother to inform his section chief of this latest call, for fear of the standard reprimand, about wasting time, resources, etc.

Robert Farris believed there had to be more to life then this drudgery and like so many others, he believed he was destined for something better than a dead end job. His brother had just been recommended for some new elite Concord division – Dust division, something or other. His brother had always been the lucky one.

“You realize when we jump through, we will end up in Jita, Rens, or Dodixie, and then I will have twenty or jumps back my station,” Farris said.

“I don’t think so. It has been stable for the past two hours, and I am anxious to see where it leads,” Kyoto replied.

“I know you are paid by the size and composition of your ore deposits, but these things never lead to the pot of gold.”

“I am just covering my ass, and following procedure, otherwise I could have reported back by now and we would have mining barges out here already. . .”

Farris interrupted, “Let’s just go.”

“This is fantastic! I have hit the mother load.” Aron’s scan probes registered more mineral sites then he had ever scouted. Pot of gold was an understatement. This side of the wormhole had never been explored until now, and littered across its vastness, lay asteroids formed from the galaxy’s rarest minerals.

Aron performed the necessary mental gymnastics, calculating the number of asteroid belts, the mining yield, transport costs and market value of this future mining enterprise. His ability to quickly and accurately make these calculations earned him recognition as the top mining scout in his corporation. Aron realized that he needed to make a few other last minute calculations as well.

“Mr. Kyoto, I appreciate your excitement, but you realize your corporation will take months to not only get the man power in position to turn a profit, but also Concord will no doubt have a sizeable role in sanctioning this activity. Proper Concord reconnaissance missions will be necessary to evaluate fully the dangers of this unknown space.”

Aron Kyoto never fitted his ships in the accepted and approved format as dictated by his corporation, but his CEO, could never argue with his results in any undertaking, and so his CEO allowed miner blasphemies. He smirked at his scanner’s revelation as he continued his scan.

“It’s time to leave, Mr. Kyoto. I have noted fully your corporate claim to this space, and I need to get back to start the proper oversight procedures.” The big play-off game was almost over by now. At least he recorded it. There was nothing exciting here for him, just asteroids and a greedy mining scout. Robert Farris smiled as he saw Kyoto’s ship maneuver toward the wormhole exit. At least Kyoto bookmarked it, not a total amateur, he thought.

Farris turned his ship to follow Kyoto out of the wormhole. In a nanosecond, Kyoto’s ship halted, turned, and fired. A dazzling chromatic display of laser fire wrecked Farris’ small ship. Farris, surprised and stunned at his drastic change in position, simply skipped dwelling about Kyoto’s reasons for podding him, and went straight to crisis training, although Concord pilots seldom needed to exercise it.

“Two hundred million, Kyoto!”

“It’s a shame you didn’t put that money toward some inertial stabilizers and better shields. On the other hand, I prefer a ship scanner, and a passive targeter. They go great with inertial stabilizers, reversing ship facing suddenly, so that my lasers are perfectly aligned towards, oh say, a meddling Concord recon ship. . .correction, a Concord pod whose pilot failed to realize I had locked his ship for the last five minutes.”

“This goes down with you walking away with three hundred million, and no formal charges.” Farris upped the ransom offer, and had the distinct feeling that jumping through this wormhole severed his connection to his medical clone, or he would have never offered so much.

“Why did you contact me in the first place if you planned on shooting me?”

“Initially, I didn’t plan on shooting you. If this were just a standard mining scan site, things would have gone . . . by the book, but once I realized the implications of were we were I decided to make a last minute scan and take a calculated risk. Goodbye, agent Farris.” He fired.

Kyoto’s last scan was not of system anomalies, but of Farris’ ship of course, specifically, its armaments and defenses. Now the pot of gold was all his. However, he should have continued scanning the system, and maybe he could have left the wormhole before it appeared.

The ship was larger than any empire battleship, smooth and sleek, its hull pulsating with a billion motes of light as if alive. Aron Kyoto could not have known that the ship was very much alive but with intelligence far different from anything that the Empires had ever encountered.

SIX MONTHS AGO
SOVEREIGNTY: GALLENTE FEDERATION
REGION: SINQ LIASON
SYSTEM: DODOXIE

Tyken Nelvee, newly elected CEO of CreoDron, gazed across auditorium of disgruntled and panicked investors. “Ladies and gentlemen, I realize that combined, you have over one hundred trillion shares of stock in our company. I will not waste your time. We are here because my stock . . . your stock . . . our stock, has been declining. My proposal is a simple one. We are going to expand to planetside industry.”

He raised his hand in a grandiose gesture. The lights dimmed, the low vibrations of a grand Gallente symphonic composition began playing through the auditorium’s state of the art audio system. The auditorium’s giant holographic screen crackled to life. A galactic map appeared, first the systems, then a hexagonal overlay chart denoting current planetside industry, which was almost non-existent. He heard low murmurs from the audience of investors. A small section of the display depicted CreoDron space stations overstocked with millions of drones, tiny war machines waiting to be purchased.

“Ever since the empires ceased full-scale conflicts, there has been an ever decreasing need for the military industrial complex. Our corporation is like any living organism. All organisms are either in a state of constant growth or constant decay to the point of death. We shall never die!” His voice boomed over the symphonic music, and had the audience’s full attention.

The small section of display replaced the overstocked drone factories, with different inventory, nanite paste, cattle, water, Quafe cola, and other products. The main section of the hexagonal display focused on one of the thousands of planets, first a solar system view, second an orbital view, and finally an atmospheric view.

Tyken gestured with his hands, and as he did so, a new display showed factories, power plants, and structures extending from the planet into space, giant heavenly elevators of a sort, moving the goods into space, all of this in perfect rhythm with the symphony.

The view panned out quickly, showing freighters and industrial ships moving toward the space elevators, picking up the goods, moving them from system to system. Now the hexagonal overlay expanded until all systems, of all regions, were covered with CreoDron’s hexagonal chart, and finally the CreoDron logo appeared over the galactic map. The symphonic music neared its ending, in perfect harmony with the holographic presentation. Letters appeared one by one reading:

CREODRON

WE SHALL NEVER DIE

What began as disgruntled murmurs, ended with thundering applause. Tyken had the investors. Now he needed support from the Board of Directors, or needed them out of the way.

PRESENT DAY
SOVEREIGNTY: CREODRON
REGION: LONETREK
SYSTEM: NRB-J66

Tyken, sporting his usual dark blue pin-striped suite with a sheen denoting luxury and custom tailoring , usually reclined in his leather-bound chair, overlooking charts of profit margins. Not today and not any day of the past six weeks since the accident involving CreoDron’s Board of Directors. Tyken had insisted the board tour NRB-J66’s production facilities. Tyken’s chief of operations, Nevin Krieger, had arranged the tour. Tyken’s chief computer technician, Dr. Tara Phelps, had retooled many of the surplus drones from obsolete military functions into production, just as Creodron had done with early conceptions for asteroid mining drones. As a junior executive, Tyken had suggested that in addition to military applications, drones could be viable for mining and other uses. His suggestion was tested, approved, and profitable. He had done the same for planetside industry, giving Creodron a major leap ahead of any of its competitors in the current galaxy-wide frenzy of planetside industry. CreoDron’s NRB-J66 facilities ran smoothly until the day of the accident.

The official reported stated it was a miniature drone, EC-547, as it came to be known by its serial number, that become involved in the gruesome affair. One day EC-547 was going about its usual business extracting superheated materials to make nanite paste. Apparently, some superheated material burned a microscopic hole in EC-547’s chassis, and disintegrated the circuit relays controlling EC-547’s extraction protocols. EC-547 reverted to its original military programming, coupled with some malfunctioning circuits, to track, lock and shoot objects registering a heat signature above a specified threshold.

The day the board of directors toured the facilities, EC-547 followed its original military programming. The perspiration of all fifty board members was certainly an obvious spike in heat signature. True to its original programming, EC-547 blasted them. Nevin as the tour guide was unharmed, as he was wearing the requisite Concord sanctioned heat absorption gear. The board members wore lighter versions of the same gear, suitable for guests touring factories producing superheated materials, but not suitable for keeping their heat signatures below a threshold that a malfunctioning drone’s military programming told it to blast. EC-547 was decommissioned on that same day.

Upon death, the board members should have all jumped into their medical clones at various locations across the galaxy. However, Tyken had altered the subspace frequencies of their clone jump routes into his own planetside clone vat bays, which happened to be offline for maintenance on that particular day.

“Mr. Nelvee, your 10:00 a.m. is here,” said his personal secretary.

“Thank you, you may send him in,” he replied. With some dismay, Tyken finished reviewing the hacked data file of his 10:00 a.m. guest. He noted the standard compliment of ships, a troop transport mothership with clone vat bays, heavy interdictors, and additional support ships. “Can’t be too careful,” he thought. The screen finally displayed the bio information of the agent spear-heading the investigation:

Special Agent: Paul Farris
Concord, Planetside Bureau
Division: Dust 514

Concord had an annoying tendency to investigate incidents such as the untimely death of the majority of the board of directors of one of the largest corporations in the galaxy. Tyken knew that his visitor was part of a new division of Concord which had to be routinely appeased for permits, and continued operations of planetside production. He knew that agent Paul Farris, would have a regiment of ground soldiers ready and waiting should they be needed to ‘help’ in Concord’s investigation. Concord creatively named its new planetside division, “Dust.”

“How clever,” Tyken mused to himself. He quickly scanned more of agent Farris’ file and smiled at a peculiar entry, something he had never seen before in the bio section of a Concord agent, “relatives: Lieutenant Robert Farris , Concord, Reconnaissance Division . . .deceased, no clone information available.” Another note of interest, Tyken’s lobby computer scanner revealed that not one of agent Farris’ hardwiring implants was designed for ship combat. He was one of the first to use all cybergunnery implants for personal hand-held weapons, such as pistols and rifles. One of agent Farris’ implants was unscannable and listed as “Zainou ‘Deadeye’ Z4000, model number unrecognized, purpose unknown.”

“Interesting,” he thought. Tyken shut off his computer, no need to appear distracted, besides he had all the information in his head. Tyken had an exceptional eidetic memory.

“Welcome, agent Farris, to my neck of the woods. Have you visited contested territories before?”

“Yes, I have. Why do you ask?”

“Because there are reports of Amarrian hit and run fleets trying to conquer nearby systems, I would hate to see anything happen to you, your team, or your ships up there.”

“Are you expecting Legions anytime soon?” Farris replied coolly. Legions had been reported in nearby systems. Many pilots considered Legions to be extremely dangerous because they sported some of the most advanced technology in the galaxy. The tech III technology as it came to be called, was now routinely taken from the inhabitants of wormhole space, called Sleepers. The empires’ best scientists and engineers could barely make the Sleeper technology work on cruiser class vessels. The reverse engineering of Sleeper technology was relatively new, having seen wide-spread use for only the past year.

“We are quite safe. The Amarrians in this area would realize that to make an enemy of me would cut off this area from my considerable supply of goods and services. As long as they don’t take an interest in my business, I don’t take an interest in there business, but interstellar politics is obviously not why you are here.”

“Indeed.” He pulled an envelope from his jacket pocket and handed it to Tyken.

“Ah, the injunction, I presume.”

“Feel free to scan it into the corporation’s database. Until further notice all CreoDron production is to cease and desist in this system. Further notice being the completion of my investigation and my findings, of course. My men are now stationing themselves throughout the factories,” He said smoothly.

“You realize I have many factories here.”

“And I have many men and many clone vat bays,” came Farris’ retort.

“I hope your men are not prone to wandering off and playing with the drone workers.”

“I hope your drones are not going to wander off and start trying to disintegrate my men. That would end badly . . . for the drones . . . and for CreoDron business interests in general.”

Tyken, bored with the verbal duel, changed subjects, “I have arranged standard accommodations for your stay. I just hope you enjoy your stay more than the late CreoDron Board of Directors. Tyken studied Farris carefully for a reaction to this last comment, discerning what if any underlying agenda he may have brought with him, along with his sidearm, and cybergunnery implants.

“I have arranged for you to meet with my chief of operations, Nevin Krieger and Dr. Tara Phelps, my chief computer technician. She oversees the drone programming and retooling operations. I am assuming you would like to begin your investigation presently, beginning with the area of the incident?”

“I would.”

The Amarrian commander viewed with pleasure the data on his screen. The employment history and current location of Tyken Nelveen was neither easily, nor cheaply obtained. The locator agent had been worth every bit of money, and the payment hardly troubled the commander’s gargantuan bank balance.

“I trust you are satisfied, commander.”

“I am most assuredly satisfied, why don’t you drop by in person so we can finalize the contract.”

One did not argue with the commander of a fleet of Legions. Though the locator agent preferred arms-length and electronic fund transactions, he knew that this Amarrian commander was quite eccentric. “I would be happy to pick up payment within the hour.”

“I look forward to it.” The communication channel changed over to fleet command.

“Commander, we have a new development,” said the junior wing commander with alarm in his voice.

“What is it?”

“Sir, our scanner probes have just detected a Concord Dust fleet in the CreoDron system.”

The Amarrian commander calculated his options. He had spent months carefully setting up his presence in this region, so that he could take the planet’s resources quickly and efficiently. The fact that the resources belonged currently to CreoDron troubled him not in the least. He had run-ins with Concord before. He smiled. The junior wing commander waited for his response. “Set course for the CreoDron system and hold just outside of the Concord fleet’s scan grid.”

“Yes sir.”

Paul Farris took in the panoramic view. Miles of grazing land spread before him, suitable for the millions of cattle that CreoDron shipped across the galaxy. Toward the edges of the pasture, he saw the space elevators stretching into the heavens. In the distance, he saw massive volcanoes, with the attached extraction factories, clinging to them, like mechanical parasites. Graviton propulsion tubes, identical to the one in which he currently traveled, connected the factories and pastures to the space elevators.

“CreoDron transports millions of metric tons of products from this planet into those space elevators to be bought and picked up by millions of clients and we have facilities like this all over the galaxy. This system primarily produces high grade cattle and nanite paste,” said Nevin Krieger, director of planetside operations.

“I can see why CreoDron is leading the competition,” said Farris.

“So what’s it like being assigned Dust division?” Was there a hint of jealousy in Krieger’s voice?

“The landscapes change, but the criminals are the same whether they pilot ships, or shepherd cattle,” Farris stated pointedly.

If that was some sort implication or bait, Krieger let it slide which was unusual for a Minmatar. The Minmatar race was considered crude by many in the other four empires, Krieger apparently less so. They had arrived at the volcanic extraction facility.

Farris spent the day inspecting the facility, listening intently to Krieger explain the production operation. He noted Krieger wore a heat absorption suit. In light of the incident he was here to investigate, he insisted on a suit of the same type. He saw the drones, thousands of them extracting superheated material. He watched as they drilled into the planet crust and lava beds, taking the material to the processing areas to be refined. After refining the material, the factory’s automated conveyor system moved it to an area where human ingenuity with computer aid made the necessary adjustments to transform it into quasi-sentient nanite paste.

Pilots throughout the galaxy realized early on that in addition to the enemies they faced in space combat, another type of enemy showed itself on their own ships – heat. The heat that resulted from pushing their ships to maximum and dangerous performance levels needed a solution. Long ago, engineers combined artificial intelligence with mechanical properties, thereby solving the heat issue in the form of nanite paste. Pilots released the paste throughout their ships and it would spread to the overheated modules and components of the ship, repairing the heat damage. CreoDron now mass-produced this paste on planets and had scored a huge financial windfall.

“Mr. Krieger, where did the actual incident take place?”

“Right there,” Krieger pointed to wide platform overlooking a lava bed. “They were standing there observing the drones, when one of the drones, EC-547, stopped extracting material, turned toward the group and began blasting.”

“Curious that no surveillance recordings are available.”

“EC-547 damaged the cameras during the incident. It was strange too, because EC-547 went back to work like nothing had happened. That’s when I was able to take it off line and bring it to Dr. Phelps. She saw the fried circuits, ran a diagnostic, and decided it was better to scrap it. After disabling its heat shields, I tossed it into a magma pit. You know that one of the dead directors was Dr. Phelps’ father?”

Agent Farris had reviewed the directors’ files as well as the employees’ files well in advance of the investigation. “I would like to meet Dr. Phelps now.”

“Sure thing.”

The two men left the extraction area and headed to the nanite manufacturing plant. Farris waited outside Dr. Phelps’ office only a few moments before she appeared to greet them. Her dark hair and blue eyes did not district his ability to read her body language. His instincts told him that she was suspicious about the incident. Understandable since her father was a victim.

“I will leave you two, now. I have a factory to run.” Krieger turned to leave and Farris saw a bit of discomfort in his demeanor.

“Agent Farris, I am Tara Phelps. Tyken told me to expect you and help you in any way I can.”

“Thank you doctor Phelps. So what do you find particularly troubling about this incident?” He wanted to quickly follow up on his observations of her demeanor.

“You Dust boys do not waste time. I like that. Well for starters, it does not make sense that EC-547 would have been equipped with any type of blasters. The retooling process is thorough. It’s not possible that someone in my department would have let a retooled drone into the field equipped with blasters and targeting equipment. I talked to the engineers myself and reviewed the logs. Nothing indicated that any drone had its targeting equipment or blasters installed.”

“So I start with the obvious question. Who would have wanted the board of directors dead? Tyken perhaps?”

“Let’s go into my office.”

Dr. Phelps’ office was sparsely furnished. Her furniture, metallic and sleek, perfectly matched the modern artwork on the walls. The windows stretched from floor to ceiling. “Computer, enable security protocol two.” If anything changed, agent Farris had not noticed. “A safeguard against corporate espionage. You never know when a competitor may try a sneak peak from an orbital satellite, stealth probe, etc. No type of probing or recording equipment will function in here when the security screens are activated.”

“Like if Tyken might be trying to monitor your conversations?”

“I don’t trust Tyken. Neither did a majority of the board, my father included. He told me that they were going to downsize the production of cattle and nanite paste. The board felt that Tyken was taking CreoDron in the wrong direction, and should have stayed with military production. In fact, they had already voted to reduce funding for cattle and nanite production. Tyken insisted on having the directors meet here so they could see what he had accomplished, to try and persuade them not to cut his funding. After the ‘accident’ the remaining board members who were unable to make the tour and sympathetic to Tyken’s view, voted in replacements from enthusiastic investors. It was like shooting Velators in a barrel.” (As sport and for fun, veteran pirates routinely shot and destroyed Velators, commonly used by rookie pilots.)

“I take it you can’t prove that Tyken arranged the accident.”

“No I can’t and I have reviewed everything I could about the accident. All data available to me backs the official report.”

“So that’s it then? Dr. Phelps, as chief computer technician of CreoDron, are you officially signing off on the death of your father and the other board members as an accident?”

She paused, “Officially yes. . .”

. . .and unofficially?” Farris needed to know where her intentions truly lay.

“I said I based my ruling on all data available to me but Agent Farris all the data available to me may not be all the data available about the accident.”

“Where are you going with this, doctor Phelps?”

“It’s not where I am going but where you are going.”

“And where is it that I am going, good doctor?”

“If you want to know what happened, you are going to have to get access to Tyken’s personal data network. His data network is not linked into the planet wide network and I have no access to it.”

“Let me guess, his office computer.” Many of agent Farris’ investigations required some degree of skulking. He was fully prepared to deal with any obstacles in order to close his investigations. He could take a squad or even a platoon of dust soldiers with him to secure Tyken’s office computer, but subspace commands, such as to erase files on a personal data network node like an office computer, travel infinitely faster than Dust troops. He thought it better to not arouse suspicion.

“I can disable the security systems in the corridors adjacent to his office, but the rest is up to you. I don’t know what electronic security Tyken may have inside his office.” Her voice was a bit anxious.

“Well I suppose it’s about time I earn my paycheck.”

“The security network has downtime every morning at 12:00 for a few seconds to refresh the servers. I can create feed loop and cause extended downtime for approximately five minutes. After that, Tyken will likely be aware of the intrusion and by able to delete or transfer any data to a secure offsite data node.”

“So, we wait.” He wondered what type of security measures a man like Tyken might have in place to prevent intrusion. If they were anything like security protocol two in Phelps’ office, he would be fine.

The Amarrian commander’s fleet entered the NRB-J66 solar system, just off the grid and undetected by Farris’ Concord fleet. The scan of the Concord fleet showed the standard array of vessels, frigates, cruisers, battleships, interdictors and a mothership which contained space fighters and ground transport ships. He also scanned planet six. The sensors revealed suitable resources for cattle and nanite paste production. From the long range orbital scan he could actually see the space elevators extending through the planet’s atmosphere into space. Fantastic!

The locator agent’s information proved accurate. It was unfortunate the locator agent died tragically due to a ship malfunction, as ships tend to malfunction when blasted with tachyon modulated energy beams. Loose ends needed to be tied up. That’s what the Amarrrian commander’s mother had taught him. She had referred to shoe laces. He doubted she would have liked his current application of that lesson to his locator agent.

“Sir, I have additional information. Take a look at this,” his junior wing commander patched in.

The Amarrian commander appreciated the eager morale of his junior officer. He knew that a Concord presence usually meant a planetary injunction against further production, but there they were. Twenty-four unidentified blockade runners had only appeared for a moment before they cloaked. Blockade runners could maintain invisibility from sensor scans and warp while doing so. Ships with this ability were in high demand for transporting valuable cargo. He wondered why they were here – surely not to pick up cattle and nanite paste. For the next hour he watched the system scan and calculated his options.

He contacted his wing commander on fleet channel. “I have a special assignment for you. . .”

The corridor leading to Tyken Nelvee’s office was quiet. Farris could hear the barely perceptible hum of the dim lighting overhead, as he approached the door to Tyken’s office. Tara Phelps had given him a subspace transceiver so they could maintain contact. She had disabled the surveillance devices, motion and thermal trackers, pressure plating in the floor and other security measures. He had four minutes left before these systems would come back online. He approached the door and looked down at the handle. “Tara, there is nothing I can see that needs to be disabled to open the door.”

“Give me a second.”

He had a standard issue decoding device with him, but there was nothing to decode. “Tara, hurry it up.”

“There’s nothing I can do.”

He was about to pull out his sidearm to blast the handle when a novel thought occurred to him. He turned the knob and effortlessly opened the door with a chuckle.

“I’m in. I guess with everything else you disabled he doesn’t feel a need to lock his door, code it, or electrify it.”

“You have three minutes.” She said in a hushed tone.

This being his second visit today to Tyken’s office he quickly spotted Tyken’s personal computer. Tyken had left it active. The words, “CreoDron We Shall Never Die” flashed slowly across the screen. He tapped a button and the operating system appeared.

He found the port he needed, plugged in a small portable storage device and began his download. If he had triggered any intruder detections in the office or the computer itself, he could not tell.

“Two minutes left,” She warned.

“Almost done, just another minute or so.” He began scanning the screen while the data downloaded. It flashed some employee profiles. One caught his interest. This part of this employee’s profile was not contained in the materials he had reviewed prior to his mission. It only flashed for a second but he read a small part:

Tactical Evaluation: Subject has passed all physical and tactical testing. Subject has superior motor functions. Subject has passed all Dust planetside warfare and crisis scenarios. Subject has achieved a perfect score of 514 points.

Psychological Evaluation: Subject has passed all base-line psychological screening. However, subject has failed the Dust Moral Imperative of achieving all planetside military objectives while minimizing loss of life. Subject has inflicted unnecessary casualties which achieved neither tactical, nor strategic advantage while completing military objectives. Subject has achieved a nonperfect score of 513 points.

Recommendation: Nevin Krieger is to be discharged from Dust 514 immediately.

Farris looked up from the screen. Nevin must have moved with incredible agility and stealth in a position behind Farris. “Oh you like reading about people on the computer screen, eh.”

“You must have taken a bath today. I couldn’t smell the usual Minmatar stench.”

“Ha! Didn’t know Dust had a comedy division.”

“You wouldn’t know anything since you washed out of the program.” Farris needed to keep Krieger talking, hoping he would not notice as Farris reached for his sidearm.

“Let’s see if your Dust buddies will enjoy reading your obituary on the Scope news channel, funny boy!” He fired at Farris.

The time Krieger took to utter his last comment was all Farris needed. He spun low around the desk, drew his weapon and fired in one smooth motion. He not only fired at Krieger’s current position but also in the trajectory path that Krieger would have most likely dodged, had his first shot missed, which it did, as did Farris’ next ten shots.

“I’ve got Dust training too, Mr. 514 perfect score funny boy.” Krieger said from behind a metallic conference table now turned on its side serving as Krieger’s cover.

The laser fights in the old Zazzmatazz movies dazzled audiences and lasted for a good twenty minutes or so, but those were movies and this was real life.

Krieger and Farris traded shots and tactical advantages for another twenty seconds or so. The conflict would be over in the next ten seconds. Both men moved at accelerated rates, as their cybernetic implants gave them godlike speed and tactics suited to melee combat. Moreover, they were both fully trained in Dust planetside tactics.

Farris did not think he needed to use it and it was only good for a few uses. He actually tried to take Kreiger alive. Having complied with the Dust Moral Imperative, he now saw that decision was a tactical miscalculation in this situation.

Krieger had now positioned himself behind a statute composed of the planet’s rarest and extremely dense volcanic material. It was worth hundreds of millions. Tyken would not be happy that a piece of his art collection was taking Concord laser fire, but Krieger justified the statue’s current use in light of the circumstances. Besides, he was Minmatar, and this kind of art really wasn’t his thing. Tyken would just have to dock his pay.

Farris moved in and activated it. Kreiger never saw it coming. This was the first

Zainou ‘Deadeye’ Z4000 implant to see true field testing. The implant which Tyken had initially scanned upon his first meeting with Farris which had an unknown purpose now made its purpose known. As Farris moved, Krieger thought he was crazy leaving himself very exposed. In true Minmatar fashion, he open fired, fifteen shots at least. Farris timed his move perfectly. In the split second before his death, Krieger wondered how Farris positioned his pistol in such a way as to severe cleanly his head from his body at point blank range. Farris deactivated his personal barrier shield. Those guys at Zainou really knew their stuff. He was pleasantly surprised that it worked. The Zainou ‘Deadeye’ Z4000 had successfully been field tested against a barrage of fifteen laser blasts at nearly point blank range.

With less than a minute left before the security features would come back online, Farris grabbed his storage device, and raced back to Phelps’ office.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

“It turns out Tyken had a security feature in his office after all.”

“Did you deactivate it?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

She gave him a dubious stare and let the question drop. “Well let’s see what we have here.” She booted up the data. Farris and Phelps examined the data. They saw standard journal entries and corporate contracts, memo drafts, nothing indicating any sinister plots.

“I can’t believe it, there’s nothing here. It looks like my father’s death may really have been an accident.”

“If what you said earlier about the drones not being equipped with blasters and tracking computers is true, then we have got to be missing something.” Farris was puzzled and fairly certain Tyken was up to no good, in light of his recent encounter. Krieger was protecting something for him.

They studied the data again, starting with the financial transactions. Agent Farris almost missed it because he did not have much bookkeeping training but he caught something peculiar about an entry.

“This cattle production entry doesn’t match up with the outgoing shipments. See. Here. The metric tonnage of cattle being produced should equal the metric tonnage being picked up by the cargo ships from the space elevators, but it doesn’t. Could it be just a bookkeeping error?” He asked.

“We can find out for sure.” She programmed a simple formula into her computer. “This is interesting. I programmed a pattern recognition formula to search for similar entries and its showing these discrepancies have been occurring for the past six weeks, almost to the day of the drone accident.”

“So how many cattle have been unaccounted for?”

“According to this analysis, hundreds of millions of metric tons of cattle are missing.”

“It doesn’t make sense that Tyken would be skimming cattle. The net worth of the missing cattle would be ten or twenty billion at most, and Tyken is already a multi-trillionaire.”

“Can you check the nanite paste shipments?” He thought maybe there would be more from this angle.

“Sure.” She analyzed the journal entry for nanite paste. “No discrepancies whatsoever. The amount that is produced is the same amount that is shipped out.”

“The cattle are individually microchipped, aren’t they?”

“Of course, I should have thought of that!” She stated excitedly.

“Let’s find out what’s going on with the missing cattle,” he said.

Phelps punched up the microchip tracking chart and eliminated the tracking signals of all the cattle within the last six weeks that had been shipped out to CreoDron clients. The remaining microchip signals broadcasted from an area miles beneath the planet’s surface.

Tyken knew that somehow the cattle had a connection to the malfunctioning drone accident of six weeks ago. “That’s weird, why would Tyken be housing the cattle below the surface?”

“I have no idea, but we can certainly find out.” She punched up a three-dimensional image of her office, zoomed out to full view of the CreoDron production facilities on the planet, and placed the microchip signals on the map. “The nearest surface entrance to get us down to the location of those signals is here.” She pointed to the map. “It’s an old maintenance elevator, one of thousands, used to gain access to service some of the automated volcanic processing factories. Some areas of the planet’s temperatures are too extreme even for extraction drones. So we use automation where it’s feasible.”

“If it’s too hot for drones, how are we supposed to survive?”

“The elevators only lead to areas safe for humans so the maintenance workers can make necessary mechanical adjustments to the factories from time to time. Besides, the missing cattle are living down there.” Farris was going to speak, but thought better of it, and said nothing.

Farris contacted a Dust troop detail to meet him at the elevator entrance. He and Phelps arrived twenty minutes later. He knew he was getting close to something because thirty of his troops lie dead. He drew his pistol but whoever killed his men had apparently gone.

He and Phelps took the elevator to the lowest level, and this level corresponded to the broadcast from the microchips. The elevator opened into a wide corridor of tunneled rock. Phelps continued to track the signal with a portable device. “This doesn’t look like any sort of maintenance access point, Tara.” What it did look like was an obvious trap, but had he told Tara to stay at the elevator entrance or go back to her office, he knew she would insist all the more on coming with him, and he would have been right.

At the end of the corridor they saw a massive industrial strength door. Beyond the door, they could hear the grinding noise of machinery in operation.

“Any idea what’s going behind here?”

“No, it doesn’t sound like extraction machinery, but the signal of the microchips is coming from behind it.”

Farris pulled a lever, and the door retracted into the ceiling. Farris and Phelps did not expect anything like what they saw when they opened the door. A high-vaulted warehouse contained thousands of meters of conveyor belts winding their way around railed platforms. At the center of the maze of conveyors, a large grinding machine made loud high-pitched churning noise. Throughout this network of conveyors, hundreds of industrial drones, attended to the moaning cattle which stood on the conveyors. These drones had not been programmed with volcanic extraction protocols, but with a different set of instructions all together.

Farris and Phelps could see the long needles attached to the drones, and they watched as the drones moved systematically among the bodies of the cattle, injecting them with the content of the needles preparing them for the grinding process in the central machine. Farris and Phelps saw the complete process. The drones injected the cattle, the machine grinded the cattle into pulp, and a machine on the other side of the grinder, packaged the remains for shipping. Farris saw the packaged cattle remains move toward a space elevator. “Tyken is directly shipping from this room, but do you have any idea why?” He asked Phelps.

“Whatever the reason, he wants to keep it secret, but I have no idea why.”

Farris saw a graviton propulsion tube protruding from the wall, like the ones used to move people around a planet and transport products from the planet to the space elevators. He watched as cattle came in from the graviton tube to the conveyors. The drones entered the conveyor area from another room in the distance.

“That must be where the content of those needles comes from,” he said. He and Phelps entered the smaller room. The drones continued their functions, not distracted by the intruders.

This smaller room contained giant vats of green fluorescent fluid, and automated computer equipment. They saw the drones extracting the fluid from the vats. Phelps moved to one of the computers, but it seemed inaccessible to her. There was a window in this room beyond which they saw a desk, a chair, and a computer. They walked into the room. There was a hanger behind the door holding one of the heat resistant suites that he and Krieger had worn earlier. She moved to the computer. To her surprise, Phelps successfully accessed this computer and started examining files.

“Look at this!” she said.

Farris, looking over her shoulder, only saw mathematical equations on the screen. “This is your area of expertise, doctor. You’re going to have to explain it to me.”

“These equations are almost identical to the ones we use put the artificial intelligence into nanite paste, but these have been modified to make the AI dormant.” She began downloading the data onto portable storage device.

“This doesn’t make any sense. Those vats in the other room contain a liquefied version of nanite paste.”

He tried working it out. “So, the drones are injecting prepackaged meat with dormant nanite paste, trying to poison steak lovers all over the galaxy. . .”

“Not quite, Agent Farris,” said Tyken’s voice over the computer’s speaker. His broadcast appeared on the computer screen.

“Tyken, what is going on down here?” Farris knew he and Phelps would shortly be in a predicament.

“Oh you want the clichéd diatribe of my plans. Very well. You won’t live long enough to tell anyone. You were right about one thing. The drones are injecting the cattle with a modified dormant nanite AI. But it would hardly be fitting that the cattle be wasted as mere dinner for the pilots in pleasure hub stations. No, this product has a more long term goal.”

“and that is. . .?”

“. . .a very expensive goal, which is why I couldn’t allow the CreoDron Board of Directors to cut my funding. So I had Krieger place EC-547 in with the other drones. It had never malfunctioned and performed well in blasting the directors out of my way, literally. With enthusiastic investors just waiting for board appointments, my funding continued for cattle and nanite paste production.

I have engineered these cattle to be placed into the biomass of the major cloning corporations. Once they have intermixed with the biomass, the dormant AI will awake and everyone in the galaxy using a jump clone, or medical cone from that point on will be infected. I have twenty-four blockade runners waiting in orbit above this planet to pick up this last batch.”

“But where did you get the technology to do all of this?” Phelps cut in.

“Oh, about ten years ago, I met a man, named Aron Kyoto at the entrance to the first wormhole ever discovered. He tried to kill me on the other side. But the inhabitants of the wormhole had other plans for me. They saved me just before Kyoto blasted my escape pod. They captured Kyoto too, but let him go for some reason. Anyways, the inhabitants, which the galaxy now refers to as Sleepers, are doing anything but sleeping, and they have plans for us . . . for all of us. Welcome to the dawning of a new age, brother!”

“Robert, you are Tyken Nelvee?” Paul Farris was stunned, Concord told him that his brother had died ten years ago, but the circumstances of his death remained classified.

“It turns out that my life as a bored and insignificant Concord Reconnaissance Lieutenant, always living in the shadow of my brother, has lead me to the means by which I will alter the destiny of the galaxy.”

“You can stop this, Robert,” he barely got the words out.

Tyken ignored the comment. “I lived in your shadow, and you will die in mine. I have rerouted both of your subspace clone jump routes into my clone bays, which happen to be offline for maintenance at the moment. Oh yes, and I have overloaded the extraction factories’ power plants to blow open the planet’s tectonic plates beneath the volcanoes. In a matter of moments, you and your contingent of Dust 514 troops on the planet will be incinerated. As they say in the old Gallente movies, Au revoir. Oh yes. I almost forget. While you and the good doctor wait to burn alive, there is an old friend of mine that will keep you some company just in case you get creative.”

Farris saw the glass window of the small office shatter first. Then 2 more laser blasts hit the area where his head had been, a second before he ducked. He heard the low buzzing and then saw it in the vat room. He could see the small digital read out on its front panel:

EC-547 Online and Engaged

“Tara! Get down!”

“I’m trying to shut off the power plants from overloading.” She continued to work on the computer. EC-547 seemed unconcerned with her for the moment. Farris leaped through the window into the vat room, landing behind a row of vat tubes, hoping to keep the drone’s attention on him. The injection drones continued coming back and forth from the conveyor room to the vat room carrying out the injection protocol on the cattle.

Farris moved from behind the row of tubes and tried to get to the into the conveyor room. EC-547 blasted the tubes, causing the green fluorescent nanite liquid to splash everywhere.

“I hope this stuff isn’t toxic.” He only had a second to think about that before EC-547 fired again. More tubes shattered, more liquid spilled. He was running out of vat tubes to hide behind, and had not yet been able to return fire. “This thing was much faster than Krieger,” he thought. He now saw a way to get to the conveyor room, where he would have more space to maneuver. His timing had to be perfect. He watched the drones coming and going, and made his move. A line of eight drones had just come into the room, he sprinted toward them. EC-547 blasted the eight drones, as Farris used them as cover one by one to make it into the conveyor room.

EC-547 followed him in with blasters lighting up the conveyor room. Drone parts and cattle remains flew everywhere.

“Tara, any ideas how to stop this thing?” He yelled.

“It’s tracking you by your heat signature.”

He moved toward the central grinding machine. He could see that the last batch of cattle pulp had made its way into the space elevator. The conveyors were slippery from the remains blasted by EC-547. He had to be careful not to slip and end up in the grinder. He dodged a few blasts and landed behind the grinder, hoping his heat signature would be masked by the grinder. Unfortunately, his plan worked. EC-547 moved back into the vat room, toward its secondary target. Damn! The thing was fast.

Farris moved from behind the grinder and fired. He missed. He made his way to the vat room just in time to see EC-547 kill Tara. His training prevented an emotional burst. He moved toward the drone and fired, but it continued to dodge and return fire. He wished he had a heat source that moved with him to keep his heat signature masked. Maybe he did. He activated his barrier shield implant and moved to the office. EC-547’s shots ricocheted off his shield buying him time to slip the heat suit on which he had seen behind the door earlier. He looked at the computer to see what Tara had been doing. He saw two readouts on the screen. One was an unsuccessful attempt to stop the planet’s power plants from overloading, and the second was a scan of his Concord mothership in orbit above the planet.

He stayed still, and EC-547 hovered a bit, trying to find him. Having lost its target, it moved back into the conveyor room. Farris’ last use of the barrier shield had drained his implant to the point where it had only a single use left.

He needed a way out of here and fast. He cautiously moved into the conveyor room. He saw EC-547 heading toward the space elevator. EC-547 apparently planned to leave the planet via the elevator. Farris saw that the space elevator opened and closed in short cycles. He knew these space elevators worked on the same principles of propulsion as the graviton tubes that whisked people and products across planets throughout the galaxy. He timed the space elevator’s cycle and when it next opened, he sprinted past EC-547 toward the elevator. Farris activated his barrier shield one last time and hoped it would hold. EC-547 acquired a target lock on Farris. Though it could not detect Farris’ heat signature, it had fantastic motion tracking. CreoDrone engineers designed their drones with a host of redundancy systems. It fired, but Farris’ shield held its integrity.

Once inside the elevator, he closed it before the drone could follow. A few seconds passed and the elevator started its transport cycle. Agent Farris headed into space with nothing more than his barrier shield to protect him, hoping that one of his ships would see him on scan. The elevator lifted him into space in only a matter of seconds.

The Amarrian commander rechecked his computer scan. First an unidentified frigate class ship left the planet’s orbit, and now one of the space elevators had apparently jettisoned a live human into space. He wanted the pilot of that frigate or rather something the pilot had stolen from him. He moved his fleet toward the system. The Amarrian commander hoped his junior wing commander had been successful in the task assigned to him earlier.

The unidentified frigate hailed his ship. He put the hail on his screen. “Commander Kyoto, a pleasure to see you again. It has been, what? Ten years, since our first meeting at that wormhole?”

“Tyken, or should I say Lieutenant Robert Farris, you have something that belongs to me and I want it back.”

“I am afraid I cannot acquiesce to your request. I am leaving this system and my fleet will be attacking you momentarily.”

“You don’t have a fleet anywhere near here, Tyken.”

“I underestimated you once before in that wormhole, but not this time. I have had a fleet at my disposal for the past six weeks or so. My fleet just happens to be piloted by your men but not any longer.”

Multiple comm. channels began appearing on Aron Kyoto’s screen. The messages stated that several of his pilots had lost control of their Legions. Most of his pilots had at one time or another within the past six weeks used nanite paste purchased in the local trade hubs near NRB-J66 to repair overheated ship components. Little did the pilots know that Tyken had seeded these trade hubs with his own modified nanite paste. The nanite paste had similar dormant programming found by agent Paul Farris and Tara Phelps moments ago in the underground vat tubes on the planet below. Somehow the nanites had allowed Tyken to gain control of Kyoto’s tech III cruisers and ordered them to attack him. Fortunately, Kyoto piloted a command ship, not one of the tech III Legions. Currently he piloted his command ship away from his own Legion fleet.

“Commander, I am in a system one jump away from your current position,” said his junior wing commander.

“Good, I am on my way to you with our own damn fleet in pursuit.”

He jumped his ship into the neighboring system, his fleet close behind him. Technically, Tyken did not have direct control of Kyto’s fleet of Legions, but rather he communicated his commands to the sentient Sleeper intelligence which had spread to the ships by means of the nanite paste. The ships themselves maintained their own free will when they encountered the waiting fleet of Amarrian battleships. Kyota had earlier ordered his junior wing commander to gather reinforcements, which he thought he would need to help him make Concord retreat from NRB-J66 and to ensure a smooth siege of the planet. He had not anticipated he would need his battleship division to engage the tech III Legion cruiser division of his own fleet.

Floating in space, Farris saw the fleet of Legions warp into the system and leave almost as quickly as they came. He did not have much time left before his barrier shield would fail. He still needed to somehow get the Concord fleet away from the planet before it exploded. His subspace transmitter activated. It was the one Tara had given him just before breaking into Tyken’s office, but she was the only one who knew he had it.

“Agent Farris, I have your coordinates and we are on our way to pick you up.” It was Tara. How did she survive?

Back aboard his ship, he ordered his fleet to warp away from the planet just before it exploded. He could do nothing to save his Dust 514 soldiers on the surface. There just hadn’t been enough time to get them back to the ships.

“How in the hell did you survive, Tara?”

“Back in the office there was nothing I could do to prevent the planet’s power plants from overloading, but I was able to reroute both our subspace clone jump paths to clone vats here on your mothership.”

“I’m happy you’re alive. Now let’s get Tyken.”

He entered the bridge of his mothership and issued the standard capture order for Tyken’s frigate. The interdictor ships in his fleet moved toward Tyken’s frigate, and deployed the interdiction spheres to prevent Tykens frigate from warping. His frigate entered the spheres . . . and warped.

“Sir, look at this.” Said an ensign assigned to scanning duty.

Tyken, along with twenty four blockade runners had warped. Farris examined the last scan of Tyken’s frigate before it warped. The scan read, “power grid output – Tech III equivalent.” Among the ship’s various module fittings, Farris saw one of the frigate’s subsystems that allowed his brother to escape, an Interdiction Nullifier. His brother escaped in a tech III frigate, complete with subsystems. Not one of the five empires possessed this technology yet.

After his frigate jumped from the system, Tyken Nelvee opened a communication channel into wormhole space. “Guardian, the first phase of the plan is a success.”

The Sleeper’s response came, “Proceed with the second phase.” The channel closed. Nothing more needed to be communicated. He knew what to do next.