Enhanced Performance

You never think it will happen to you, you are not going to become ‘that’ guy, you know the type, twisting himself in knots, going out of his mind reduced to a babbling drooling fool all because of some woman. Well my friends I am here to tell you it happened to me, and if it can happen to me, hell it can happen to anyone.

I’m young, healthy, fit, fairly attractive, I’m not that guy off the Quafe commercials all the women would kill to slurp the drink off his rock hard abs, but I do take care of myself. I’ve had my ups and downs when it comes to the dating scene which unfortunately includes getting pretty wasted and shall we say lowering one's standards significantly, however that is not the problem in this cautionary tale in fact quite the opposite. My latest conquest is a legitimate five star, 12 out of 10, total utter knock out. I don’t have a fixed type but I know what I like and man do I like her, for starters she has a body that has to be seen to be believed. These days with the clothing that's out there a woman can sucker you in by looking stunning but when you peel back the wrapping paper you find it’s all window dressing, bits of her are no longer in the place they were advertised previously and other parts seem to have grown in size dramatically at some point during the evening when you weren’t paying attention. Not this girl however, even completely, utterly, unashamedly naked she has a body that reduces me to animalistic noises in my attempts to describe it, just uuuuhhhhhh. Even better she has a devilishly naughty mind and brains to boot which seals the deal, after all I think we can all agree it's pointless having a shiny looking spaceship if you then scrimp on the fitting and it performs like shit.

Anyway back to wonder woman, and how she drove me crazy. Things were going great and I mean thought I’d died and found paradise great I’m not going into the details because I’d end up spending hours fixated on what she does with her tongue! Safe to say I had never had it so good. Problem is as I stated before she’s easily a 12 out of 10, even at my modest 7 that leaves a whole host of wiggle room and that makes a guy nervous. In a more shall we say balanced coupling by definition you don’t constantly feel you have anything to prove, there is no waiting for the inevitable moment she finds someone more in her own league. Feeling inferior in your intimate relationships is tiring work! You translate every communication as an ultimatum, finding problems that probably don’t even exist. She says she hasn’t seen enough of you, suddenly you’re clingier than a moist body glove, seeing too much of you and the next few nights you agonise into the small hours whether to message her if she hasn’t messaged you, will she message you? Is she messaging someone else? It is nerve shredding stuff. Luckily it became clear very quickly that there was only one area I had to focus scoring points in and that was the daunting arena of physical contact. Don’t get me wrong she appreciated swanky restaurants, flowers and romantic gestures, but I knew the real scoring occurred post sweaty, screaming session.

The points scoring system however that is a beast all unto itself, and most likely completely made up in my head with nothing to do with her whatsoever. Session time is a factor, but this isn’t a marathon or last man standing event, there needs to be substance, short sharp stabs of ecstasy that keeps both of you honest and not just going through the motions. Think sets at the gym, you want good intense reps but you are never satisfied with just the one go on the machine. Variation comes next, both of location and technique, the ability to surprise and to work in a confined space are definite bonus’ however do your homework you never want to come strutting into the room wearing just your smile or swinging your pants round your head to find she has invited her parents over for a chat! Finally never, ever talk about it, communication in relationship is healthy but asking after her sexual preferences is like using an autopilot system for you spaceship it is both lazy and indicates you don’t have a clue where you are going.

Back on track with the story, things seemed great, I was scoring major points in all areas, or at least that is what i told myself, but the effort of scoring all those points was taking it’s toll. She continued to be her awesome self, as naughty, noisy and amazing as ever but I felt my performance was slipping and if I continued to not perform I wouldn’t be able to keep her. I didn’t have a choice, I couldn’t tell her I wanted to slow down, what kind of man holds his hands up and says “sorry darling you're too much woman for me give the little man a rest before you ride it off!” That's how I found myself cold, scared and very much alone in a dark back alley trying to score some little pick me up pills for the main man. I had never done this before, never needed to, was an area I knew absolutely nothing about I’d just heard a rumour from a friend of mine I was to ask for blue pills. Turns out these things are apparently illegal, hence the dodgy locale and me feeling like I was going to be jumped and my organs sold for profit within the hour. I approached the first disreputable man I clapped eyes on but he didn’t have any, he pointed me in the general direction of where I might get some. The next guy along hooked me up. God! They were expensive, I pressed him for details and he looked at me like I was crazy. I told him I really needed them to make a difference and he offered me the strongest of the one’s he had to sell. Isk changed hands and he babbled something about a 30 minute duration, a sense of relaxation and euphoria and maybe something about possible side effects before he was off like a rocket.

Two hours later i’m naked in front of the mirror slapping myself across the chest working myself up and getting my game face on. She’d come over about an hour ago and something was up, I could just sense it, we normally just clicked, like two pieces of a gear that just fit together and rumble on. Tonight it was slow, slightly forced, just not in synch. Thus when the time came for us inevitably to get it on I got her worked up before stealing away to the bathroom to swipe the pills. For some reason I’m standing there shaking like a leaf in the wind, a palm full of these things in the flat of my hand, wondering how many to take. My first thought was literally, go big or go home, and being in the relatively unlucky position of already being at home, I downed the whole lot, relaxation and fucking euphoria here we come! Back into the bedroom, damn she looks amazing, the thin bed sheets while covering her modesty accentuate her nudity, defining her curves perfectly. Did I say she looked good? By the time I make it to the foot of the bed all 3 of her looked fantastic! The last thing I remember, to my infinite shame, is for some reason stopping at the foot of the bed looking down at my little guy and being confused at him still being definitely little. I slapped him, across the head informing him “come on big guy it’s game time.” Before I leaned forward, kept leaning forward and pitched unconscious down the side of the bed with a hard smack against the floor of my quarters.

Ouch! A fall of any length when you are unconscious is painful, especially if you are naked at any point during the falling. At the point you remember you were naked, and the fact you don’t remember getting yourself to the medical centre, you realise some stranger has likely seen the pale white of your ass. As my other set of cheeks reddened I cast a squinted eye around the room, My whole body ached but my soul soared when I saw her still unbelievably beautiful form curled up into a tiny ball trying to sleep in a chair next to the bed. Either the chair was uncomfortable or we had some secret sensory link I was unaware about because as I woke up she came around as well. She pounced on me, the tirade of being a stupid idiot and her leaving me was in fact her telling me she loved me ten times, TEN times, I know, I recount them frequently when I replay this moment. Each profession of love interspersed by a mash of her lips against mine. I must have looked as confused as I felt because when she finally calmed down and pulled back far enough to take in the slack, very relaxed, slightly euphoric picture of my whole face she asked me what was wrong. With a heaving sigh which hurt parts of me which definitely had no known attachment to my lungs I confessed I was worried we were not ok, that our usual flawless ability to click had begun to slip. She looked slightly embarrassed at that, head bowed she struggled to look at me as she began her own confession.

Turns out she was worried of admitting I was too much man for her, that our daily sessions were making her sore and I would look elsewhere to fulfill my ‘insatiable physical urges’. Well my jaw hit the floor for the second time that evening, I told her what I thought had been the problem and we laughed it off easily enough. Turns out it only took a booster overdose for me to realise that communication scores all the points, thus from now on I have vowed two things. Firstly I will never ever take another blue pill as long as I live and secondly I am inside my woman’s mind at least as often as I am in, well, any other part of her.            

The Blackheart

He kept his bowed head covered, avoiding the cacophony of humanity all about him. Luckily for them none crossed his path as he marched towards the confessional. Being empty the booths sensors automatically retracted the door for him as he approached, once inside the door slid back into place now locked for his privacy until he manually opened it from within. The light inside was artificial but the level was low a subdued dark place for the telling of secrets. He pulled back the cowl of his robe, letting his head rest back against the metal wall behind him. He closed his eyes, breathed deeply, unclenched his fists trying but failing to let go.

“How can I help you my Child” The voice floated in the darkness, deep, aged, experienced. He nearly ran from that voice, the insignificance of his personal problem shaming him to silence. Then his anger flared, his fury at the injustice imposed upon him kept him in his seat and made him open his mouth.

“I have loved and lost, I have loved and am lost.” His  throat felt raw, used up, just saying the words a fresh anguish.

“I am listening my son” The deep voice responded and so with every word flaring pain through his soul he began to tell his story.

His name was Valentino Astrum, he was a capsuleer but only for the past two years. Before that he had been, it was strange to have to label it, now he was immortal was he still human? Either way he had definitely been human before, he had also been complete. Her name was Jade and from the moment they first saw each other they had filled each others lives with a light that made the stars look tarnished. They had discovered each other, grown content and happy, she had made him better. The only problem was time, they had met close to the end of the prime of their lives the youthful carefree enthusiasm of their love had an inevitable shelf life and it was far too close for either of them. They felt cheated, why could they have not met sooner, had longer. Driven by the need for more he had found a way, they would have eternity to be together once they were immortal.

He couldn’t remember how they had decided who would go first, it was painfully clear that they simply did not have the resources for them both to become capsuleers at the same time. He went first, devoting every moment to raising the isk required for her to join him. Amazing things had happened to him, his clone body was at it’s physical prime, his mind and abilities expanding at an incredible rate with the ability to inject new skills as he needed them, but he didn’t care. His quest to earn the required capital forced him further away from Jade for longer periods of time, mining, missioning, bounty contracts, a rotation in the Amarr Navy defending contested systems for money against the other factions of New Eden. It mattered not to him where or how he got the isk, all that ultimately mattered was  that he got it.

Before he became a capsuleer they had never been apart, yes they both worked but at some point in every day they had been together. As often as he could Valentino raced home to be with her. His soul burned with being apart and he struggled with the separation. Things were different, she seemed slower, more ordinary, he seemed colder, less human. It had taken her an infuriating amount of time to get past the physical changes, she swore his clone body was different even though he was certain it was simply a ‘perfect’ copy of his original form. She hated the input jacks, could not bring herself to touch him near them for the longest time let alone look at them. Perhaps the worst thing was she didn’t seem at all enthused by the prospect that she would soon be joining him, even though he told her they had never truly been apart, soon they would be together forever.

Then the day came, the greatest day of his life, it had taken him nigh on a year to raise the funds but he had them. He had not seen Jade in almost two months, so consumed by his zeal to finish the task and collect the isk. He rushed home to her and his world crumbled to dust at his feet. She had changed her mind, she had been looking at problems and side effects of the procedure, she didn’t want to die young. He called her a coward, unwilling to risk something so small and insignificant for a chance at eternity. He screamed at her for conning him, this had been their plan not just his, she had let him take the risk but now would not join him? She told him she was scared of him, he had changed, become a cold hearted, calculated, driven machine, she felt she had lost the man she loved. He reasoned, pleaded, they had everything before, they could have everything again, surely she could see that their bodies were nothing more than vessels to hold their personality, love and memories, replace them with clone bodies and they could love each other infinitely. He would never know if she simply agreed with him or she changed her mind because she felt guilty for making him go first, maybe despite her words she still loved him enough. Regardless of the reason, come morning she had agreed to go through with the procedure.

Maybe in his desire not to be different from her he had rushed her through the process, maybe she had not conquered her fear and reluctance but only hidden it away for his sake for it to doom her mind. Whatever the reason she never came out of the procedure. The medical staff told him the neural jacks had been fitted flawlessly but on testing the viability of the connections before releasing her from care she had become mind locked, trapped inside her own body, locked away from him forever.

At first he had raged  and cursed before his anger cooled, he then searched for institutions or procedures to free his love and return her to him from within her own body. Every attempt was fruitless, every isk he spent chasing his hopes wasted, he returned after every failed venture to cry endlessly at the foot of her bed her cold hand pressed between his own. Her body began to deteriorate, the unused muscles would atrophy and her prison would waste away with her locked inside it. He could have maintained her forever, they could have taken a mind print of her mind locked state and transported it into a fresh clone body as her original body died but he didn’t. The loss of her from his life had turned him bitter, cruel and dark but he was none of those things to her. He railed against the impossibility of his choice, if there was any part of her left inside her body then there was a chance one day he could save her, yet if there was any part of her left how could he torture her for eternity by keeping her ‘alive’ in her own internal prison.

Valentino drew a ragged breath, his head was lolled forward his hands clasped at the back of his head, he felt a twitch in his fingers an urge to claw the neural jack from the back of his skull. He licked his lips, ignoring the tears that fell between his knees to the metal floor below. Throughout the retelling of his tale the voice had not interrupted him and it still waited for him to finish.

“She died this morning, now I am alone for eternity in a universe without light. My heart is cold, black and lifeless.” He brought his hands off his head and punched the adjoining wall with his fist preferring to feel physical pain to contrast with the emotional torrent raging inside him. The voice was silent for what seemed like an age before in a level tone he began.

“Only through many hardships is a man stripped to his very foundations and in such a state devoid of distraction is his soul free to soar and in this he is closest to God.” A seconds pause before he added “There will be obstacles and difficulties. That’s his test. We must make his gift deserving.”

Valentino rolled his head back and laughed, his mind snapping to the sound. In coming here why had he expected anything other than the pointless rhetoric of scripture. He rose, drew the firearm from his side and left the booth. He indiscriminately executed the first person he saw, then the next and the next. He had loved, he had lost he had eternity alone, the universe would burn as he suffered.

   

Uncertainty of Immortality

If the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, does that make immortality a blessing or a curse? Millions, if not billions, of ordinary people strove to accumulate the wealth required to accomplish the dream of becoming a capsuleer, as he reached the bottom of yet another bottle he could not stop wondering how many of them understood the double edged sword that made up this existence. Compared with the myriad of benefits gained from becoming a capsuleer a mere mortal existence was nothing but a wretched pitiful thing, or was it? He reached for another bottle sneering at his morose mood, surely a sick sense of purity could be taken from the brief, bright spark of the mortal coil, to have one’s purpose, deeds, feelings, every attribute of a person’s character coalesced, concentrated and distilled within the insignificant amount of time which they had lived was a heady proposition indeed. He burst out laughing the first swig of the new bottle spurting from his lips as he did so, a hollow, harsh sound  that lacked humor. The weakness of the human condition condemned both capsuleer and mortal alike to dream of owning what they could never obtain, as a way of running from current reality, faced with the dubious gift of old age and death, the chance to cheat both and in doing so discover your real destiny was surely too good to pass up, yet with an eternity to fade into obscurity and uncertainty what could be more intoxicating than the possibility of not living long enough to be found wanting, the finality of death drawing a line under a heroic life committed to history with pride and recalled with fondness. Flinging the half empty remains of the final bottle across the room in disgust he cast his head among the pillows behind him. The drink had been unable to quiet the maelstrom of his thoughts as was so often the case of late, he hoped it fulfilled the more simple purpose of allowing him to sleep quicker than usual. His final melancholic thought as he drifted into the black void of sleep was that while he could easily be considered a god by virtue of his endless lifespan, it was an altogether more difficult assumption that he had escaped the trappings of his origin, in these moods he felt distinctly human.     

The Massacre of Maut

As requested by corporation high command please find below my recollections of the engagement the members are calling “the massacre of Maut”

I remember my pulse was racing. We were at war. We had been losing and this was a chance to show we had pride, skill and a determination to fight back. We lived in Osmeden back then, they lived next door in Maut. They were pirates and low sec scum, we were new recruits learning the ropes and hoping for a promotion to the parent corp further down the line. We flew thrashers, easy to skill into, cheap and deployed in 15-20 man groups like we flew them, able to devour larger targets like a swarm of stinging insects.

When you get out there, what you need to remember is most things are not what they seem. They had a bait mining barge out in one of the belts. We had an interceptor tackle it and two of our thrashers played with it for a while, enough damage to put it in jeopardy but not enough to kill it too fast. We knew it was bait, our initial strike was bait, we wanted them to escalate so we could have more to kill, we just didn’t know if they knew our opening move was bait.

It comes back over the fleet communication frequency that directional scan has a Maelstrom, Tempest Fleet Issue, two Dominix and an Armageddon within range. They are pumped up on their war success so far, they are flaunting their hulls on the station undock. Either bored or arrogant they commit the Armageddon to the field, it begins to neut out the interceptor to allow the mining barge to retreat off the field. Probably a large amount of overkill for that particular task but it is going to do the job. That is no longer relevant, we are told to jump into system, the interceptor has a warp in on the newly arrived Armageddon and that is our first target.

It is later revealed the enemy had scouts on the Osmeden gate in Maut watching for our fleet size and composition as we translated into the system. We however can from the Adacyne gate, too many of our counter attacks had been foiled by early enemy intel and the fact we had become predictable in our approach. Changing things up by coming in the side door from Adacyne allowed us to get on top of the Armageddon before they knew what was going on.

Twenty thrashers nipping and biting a battleship to death is a beautiful thing, twenty thrashers mopping up five enemy battleships while losing only one of their number is like watching a dream unfold around you. Each of our pilots was driven and ruthless executing the fleet commander's instructions beyond the best of their ability, driven on by a desire for revenge against the enemy. The Armageddon was gone before the next enemy ship made it out of warp. The two Dominix were on field a different proposition, the enemy is known to deploy these ships are close range remote repairing drone damage nightmares. These ships would allow have allowed the enemy to gain a foothold on the field from which their other battleships could push an advantage. This time however favour was on our side. One of the Dominix took an unlucky bounce off a chunk of Veldspar upon landing in the asteroid belt it forced the ship out of remote repair range initially and our Thrashers pounced.

Already in warp the Tempest Fleet Issue and Maelstrom landed as the first Dominix exploded. The second Dominix was buffer tanked with no self repair, reliant upon its partner for logistical support. It did attempt to engage a micro jump drive in a last desperate attempt to flee but  was quickly shut down. We mobbed the remaining battleships one by one, Dominix, Maelstrom, Tempest held until last, the fleet commander savouring leaving their most expensive ship helpless on the field the longest. The remaining Dominix did manage to account for our only loss of the conflict with a lucky salvo from it’s Gardes.

Overall I feel morale, performance and pride were greatly improved in this engagement. We have outnumbered our enemy from the beginning a fact they are keen to remind us, that we only get kills when we swarm them with superior numbers. In this engagement we finally out thought them, we were patient and changed our tactics to force an advantage. I look forward to the continuing of the war as a chance to learn more about both my own capabilities and those of my corp mates.  

Purity at all Costs

Slaves do not buy themselves, even so, when the discrete personal notification went off he made his excuses, moving to find a private terminal. After positioning his security personnel to ensure he would be undisturbed he quickly found his way to a newly received data package. After further checks he was indeed alone he opened it with increasing interest.

///////*********ENCRYPTED CONTENT DETECTED

DECRYPTION PROTOCOLS RUNNING…………..

MESSAGE FOLLOWS*************\\\\\\\\\\\

THE IMPURE BITCH HOLDS GOLDEN THRONE.

CAPSULEERS INVOLVEMENT HAMPERED IMPERIAL GUARD STRIKES.

EXTERNAL TARGETS SHOW PROMISE.

SIMULATION FOLLOWS.

AMARR MUST BE PURE.

He read it twice to be sure he wasn’t hallucinating. His pulse was racing, finally, movement towards affirmative action. At the bottom of the message an icon blinked to indicate the proposed simulation was ready to start. He almost forgot to look round to check he was still alone before clicking the icon, almost, he wasn’t that excited just yet.

A video begins playing, at first it is a star field impossibly unidentifiable from any of the 4,999 other star systems in New Eden. Then the angle changes, the camera pans down to reveal an L shaped station, blocky and hard edges, thin at each end and chunky in the middle, that horrible Caldari grayish blue metal with a Perkone logo stamped on the exterior. Before he can begin thinking of the number of potential systems with such a station in them, if indeed the simulation is using an actual station, the angle changes again. More stars, nothing but stars, then a cyno lights illuminating a lone Ibis previously lost against the enormity of the nothing behind it, he quickly reduces his list of systems to low security space. Seconds later the angry orange circle of a capital ship jump tears through the fabric of space in the upper right corner of the frame. The expanding halo shock wave recedes leaving in its wake the glorious gleaming shape of an Ark. At the opposite corner of the screen two lines of text stand out in stark relief from the star field beyond.

For within it

Salvation is carried

The Ark turns, aligning towards the station before it leaves the camera shot warping off screen. Text in the bottom hand corner of the screen begins to appear and scroll downwards off the bottom of the screen. It lists alignment, velocity, and a timer counting down. The perspective is back on the station. The timer reaches zero and the text reads.

Explosives detonated

It hangs there on the bottom of the screen drawing the eye until it is replaced by text informing the viewer that the simulation is no longer running in real time. As the blue white flash of a warp termination draws the eye upwards the Ark reappears in shot. Even with the video running at reduced speed it is clear to the naked eye the jump freighter has not completed a controlled warp exit. The Ark is simply moving too fast. As it silently screams across the screen it seems to be dragging a burning red line of fire behind it. The entire engine section of the Ark is a blazing ruin, detritus is ejected from the back of the ship and flung wide in it’s wake as it hurtles towards the station. As the pointed front of the Ark bears down on the station it looks like a 2,484m long spear wreathed in flame.

The simulation shows a mass of various ships around the exterior of the station. The passage of the Ark through them is like a gunshot through a crowd. Anything caught in the direct path is simply annihilated resulting in a flash of light illuminating the bow and a fizzle of impact against the jump freighter shields. A myriad of ships disintegrate in seconds like a festival launcher celebration illuminating other luckier ships slightly off the Ark’s path that are bumped wildly wide by the sheer brutality of the Ark’s advance and the displacement of it’s shields. It’s next target is the station.

The Ark doesn’t just hit the station it dissects it. Shields that held against the smaller craft have no hope of withstanding striking such a physical mass. They sheer off instantly as a blinding flash of blue light marking the jump freighters first impact upon the station. The ark is still moving, punching through the station as it collapses behind it. Captain’s quarters, repair docks, factory spaces, entertainment suites are all voided to space by the ship’s passage. The station is lacerated, gas and debris bleeding from both sides of the wound. The momentum of the Ark flings debris off at all angles causing further damage to the stricken station as internal explosions begin to blossom along the line of impact. With failed shields, reduced velocity and a hull buckling under the impact with the station the Ark explodes. The strain on the noble vessel is so great that the majority of it simply vaporizes only a few large chunks of it escape the final explosion, lacerating out through the bowels of the wounded station dragging ballooning explosions along behind them.

The Ark is gone, in real time it’s flight would have been almost instantaneous. As the video reverts to standard speed the after effects of its journey are all too clear. The station is cracked into four separate pieces. Explosions continue to pepper the interior. Debris, bodies are littered everywhere some of which is alight. Then something rather surreal happens, ships are falling from the exposed edges of the station. Looking like normal undocking ships at first, they have no engine power, some of them are falling away from the station backwards. Others are incomplete, shaken loose from factory docks in which they were being assembled. Text begins to roll across the bottom of the screen in a sick parody of a Scope news bulletin.

Intelligence on ships under construction accurate. Ability to undermine her rule by striking at her allies is credible. Use of slaves and willing martyrs for the cause as crew approved. PURITY AT ALL COSTS.

The video dissolves to static and he licks lips that feel dry and cracked. He is committed, he knows the punishment for a lack of support at this stage. He has no choice.

Purity at all Costs.   

 

Freedom ain't Free (There is always a bar tab)

Eve online is by far the greatest game I have ever played for the simplest of reasons, it has evoked the strongest and most emotional responses of all my gaming experience. I will admit, in my formative years to rushing outside my house to find and hug the first person I came across after finally killing some dragon in some other MMO. However that was a singular experience expressed after thirty days of pent up frustration that the damned reptile just would not die.

Eve on the other hand has made me laugh, cry and despair at the dastardly humans who populate this universe all while wishing I could develop a little more dastardly of my own. Eve has made me feel and no where feels better than The Price of Freedom. What at first felt like walking into an old western saloon filled with a bunch of hard ass americans who all stop what they are doing and stare at you (and spit in the spittoon) quickly changed into something very different. It became family. For the pure and simple reason that, like any dysfunctional family, most of them drink like fish. There is a copious amount of alcohol related lore surrounding this corporation, so much in fact that the phrase “So drunk I declared my undying love to Price” is not just something I coined but a state that many a member aspires to reach. Ships have been lost, asteroid belts have been slept in, the spice has flowed dangerously on numerous occasions. Many fantastic stories, many fantastic members but the one I always remember first happened in Outer Ring, and goes along the following lines.

We came out to Outer Ring harder than a grandfather on viagra. We took a moon a day for the first fortnight of ops. Which is great, until muggins here has to fuel and empty them all (thanks guys!). We pissed somebody off because a whole host of surly Russians descended upon us like a vodka drinking hornets nest. We held out for probably another fortnight but we were stretched thinner than a bride wants to be on her wedding day. The dispro we fought for, well we formed for, three times, but it fell to more Cerbs than I’d had hot dinners. Members began to do more drinking than gaming, we had pushed them hard and we had grown softer than a grandfather without viagra, picking on people who hadn’t really fought back. All that was going to change, Lord declared he would “Save that tower!”

Now Lord in this instance is not some made up entity the Amarr use to justify talking to themselves in dark rooms because they are still scared of the dark. Lord is a man, he’s a man with a Thanatos and the semblance of a plan. He is enraged, out of his mind fuming that our tower “empire” is crumbling because, well he logged in and fired his lasers at things to make that happen. It’s not like he went from blowing things up to researching, producing, collecting and delivering fuel blocks. It's not like he has eaten, drunk and slept moon goo for the last month. Honestly I am not bitter about this experience at all! Though if he had been drinking moon goo he might be slightly more sober. Lord is drunk, he is past undying love to Price drunk, Lord can’t see past his nose, that is how drunk he is. If a girl was as drunk as Lord I would probably look like a cross between Ryan Reynolds and that guy who plays Thor that my Girlfriend won’t stop going on about (yes I just capitalised the G in girlfriend to emphasise that I do indeed have one).

Lord is drunk, he is armed with a Thanatos, a tower timer and a raging justice boner. Remarkably he is somehow able to remember the tower timer even though he can’t type better than a five year old. He is on time. He is repping, he is ten minutes away from war hero status. I am in system with him, I am weary from tower responsibilities and marvel at his piss into the wind bravado. I don’t quite start whistling disney songs but even the task of taking down remaining towers before they get blown up doesn’t taste as much like defeat as before. Lord you crazy mofo local is filling up and you are still repping! Are you even aligned? Are you even awake?!?! No response, Russians crash the grid, time slows down, I no longer feel like I am playing Eve, I’m stuck in a Max Payne combat sequence and I was never any good at that game. Lord is out! He’s not there anymore, it takes me a second to realise he’s warped off and not got himself blown up. From the safety of the tower shield I may have giggled like a schoolgirl. We have a second tower in this system and he has warped inside it. Seconds turn into minutes and the enemy, frustrated at missing the dangled carrier, unleash their fury on the tower I am hiding in. Lord finally speaks, about ten minutes after I warned him local was filling up, his words of wisdom? “Dude you could have warned me!” I swore at him, not like a schoolgirl.

The plan to rep the tower is dead, roadkill dead. At least it is to me, Lord takes some more convincing, I fear he might warp right back and start repping again. He doesn’t, convincing him to leave is like pulling teeth, every last one of my teeth. The plan, as far as I can tell, is to get him out of system so he is within cyno range of his alt and can jump to safety. Why I am taking strategy advice from a man who is three sheets to the wind and or tying one on is beyond me. It is also beyond me why we didn’t simply move the cyno one jump closer. I do score one major victory, he agrees to let me scout the out gate for him. He agrees, then 30 seconds later leaves system, even I know a Thanatos doesn’t warp that quickly, Lord you arse! You’re a legend but you’re an arse!

“They’ve got me” I warp to the gate, quite what I intend to do in a blockade runner is unknown but the man is drunk, he might not even be tackled, a sober pair of eyes could still carry the day. He starts laughing, hysterical, tears down his cheeks laughing. Hope springs in my chest like a wild hare running across a road. “That was awesome!....” The hare is going to make it! “.....I’ve never been doomsdayed before.” BOOM! The hare is no more. “I may have been drinking” Lord suggests with what sounds like a verbal shrug, if a shrug can be slurred, he then logs off.

I have verbalised that story many times, mainly to friends who are scared to give themselves to the altar of awesomeness that is Eve. That story is the perfect example of how real life antics synergise with online sci-fi to create a memory that makes me chuckle over a year later. I only have one regret regarding the drunken flight of the Thanatos. I am still yet to see a doomsday fire.

 

Figments of the Imagination

She can taste blood, her blood? Of course it’s my blood! Not like anyone else is in the pod with her. She can hear screaming, was she screaming? Is the ship screaming!? She opens her eyes to make sense of her battered senses, she can’t see, inside her mind, inside the pod, outside the pod, everything is over exposed, whited out, harsh light, unnatural, bright light is bleeding out of everywhere. Devoid of any other sense, she stretches out, hands and feet searching for orientation a way to gain perspective, her foot bumps up against something solid inside the pod, that’s not possible… The something, uncoils, nothing but a light blur in an ocean of blinding white, but it is there, no doubt, no escape, the ship is screaming around her and now she is screaming too.

Space is huge, when things vanish in space they have a tendency to stay vanished and although your day to day spaceship pilot is light years removed from historical sea going ship captains both in terms of distance and technology used they still have one thing in common, they are nothing if not superstitious. Pirates, Sansha, Sleepers, the list of potential reasons for a ship vanishing without a trace is endless, pick your favourite poison, the rationale that allows you the most sleep at night and never, ever look beyond it. Space monsters, unexplained phenomenon, undiagnosable technical glitches, simply, hell no! They don’t exist, because they just don’t. Nobody in their right mind wants to be Sansha’s new drooling corporate nobody, but at least you can see him coming on your overview and run in the opposite direction, space monsters, what overview setting are they under? How do you fight what your ship can’t see and your mind doesn’t want to believe in? Good job they don’t exist then! But… what if they did?

His head felt like a couple of amenable young women had convinced him to spend his month's pay all in one night. That analogy held up for the whole second it took him to notice he was bleeding. He was also missing a tooth. He liked feisty women but that was taking the piss. With a superhuman effort and a few choice curses he heaved himself up into a sitting position. He was slumped like a sack in a corner of his cabin. The air smelt of burnt wiring. The light, he blinked, the light was just weird, oozing out of the walls and round the buckled remains of his door. What the hell happened to his door? The wall panel for the door controls had blown out, scattering its innards towards him across the floor, the door, usually retractable from the roof, hung like a guillotine blade descended two thirds of the way. A pair of legs burst past clanging along the metal gantry outside, the hollow sound of the footfalls breaking a silence he hadn’t recognised had existed until it had gone and left him with a horrendous throb behind his eyes. Hauling himself up by the wall behind him, he felt uncomfortable, more than just the mother of all headaches and an inability to remember how he found himself in this predicament. Spaceships were not silent, a myriad of different systems collaborated to make a cacophony of noise regardless of the time of day, a lifetime of working onboard would create a tolerance, an ability to shut out background noise, but this was different, this ship was silent like the grave. Hoping to quiet the growing sense of unease within him he hobbled across his quarters to his personal computer terminal, he needed answers even if he wasn’t entirely sure what the questions were.

Frightened of what he might learn and unsure where to start he tries use the terminal to determine the ship's current location, unknown, access camera drones to get an external view, unavailable. Next on his list is the capsuleer pod status, his fate as a crew member is inexorably tied to the viability of the ship as a whole and that pod. The pod is there which is always a positive but that is where the good news abruptly stops, the data flow between ship and pod is severely compromised with the terminal unable to decipher any meaning from the generated data stream. Head spinning and not getting anywhere accessing current data he decides to access historical data and try to piece together what exactly has happened. It only takes a few minutes and for once he gets exactly the answer he asked for, to say he doesn’t like it is an understatement. Rocking back and forth in a state of shock he pitches sideways at the last second to avoid vomiting all over the terminal screen.

The Dominix Crystal of Caille had been doing what she did best, persecuting enemies of the federation when she had been set upon by opportunistic bandits. What first appeared as an overly aggressive and doomed assault developed into a holding action as a larger force had appeared on directional scans. Luck seemed to be with the Crystal however, the inbound Sabre misjudging its interdiction bubble placement and just missing the Dominix as she fought to extract herself from the escalating conflict. However a closer look at the archived camera drone footage told a different story and spelt the doom of the stricken battleship. The interdiction bubble, though shockingly poorly placed did just kiss the forward engine housing of the Dominix ensuring by mere metres that under normal circumstances she would be unable to warp. These however were not normal circumstances, a warp engine failsafe that would prevent engine power up in prelude to warp speed fails to engage. The engine caught in the interdiction effect of the bubble and thus unable to provide warp power quickly overloads as it fights to comply with the overriding order to warp away. The taxed engine implodes unable to contain the power build up inside of it. Engine housing and surrounding armor plating blast outwards from the hull like confetti at a wedding. An engine deck is voided to space. People die. The remaining engines not confined by the bubble do what they are designed to do, warp speed is reached and the battleship punches her way clear seconds later, just not to safety.

The disparity in engine power and resulting explosion has put her into a sideways spin and Crystal enters the warp tunnel at an alarming angle. Alarms sound, shields flash and gutter like candle flames as one side of the ship grinds along the edge of the tunnel, the differential forces threatening to tear the ship asunder. Under extreme pressure pressed against the side of the tunnel a second engine succumbs and blows out, this goes some way towards correcting the horrendous trajectory of the ship but creates a new problem. Smoke, ship debris and the bodies of crew are ejected from the rear of the ship, invisible against the blackness of the space around them until they block light and are thrown into ghastly silhouette. Speed is falling, the Crystal looks less like a wonder of Gallente engineering and more like a rock with every passing second as she drops towards the floor of the warp tunnel. With unwavering inevitability the hull impacts the floor of the tunnel. Like a stone lacking the inertia for one last skim across the tranquil surface of the pond it drops below the surface. Yet this is no tranquil pond, this is a raging torrent of uncontrolled energy, forces the ship was never designed to battle against rampage across her hull. With a screech of tortured metal and a blinding flash of light the ship falls all the way through the warp tunnel and vanishes from view.

Falling through the warp tunnel isn’t what has him hurling his last meal into the corner of his cabin. Logically, unless the random firings of his dying synapses are generating a very realistic hallucination, the ship survived the event because it and him are still here. What has him one step removed from soiling himself is the final set of sensor readings that accompanied the last part of the historical datastream. The ship is stationary, there is nothing but gibberish coming from the capsule diagnostic system, the remaining warp engines are jammed at maximum output, sensors cannot triangulate a position due to there being no cosmic entities for them to triangulate from and the self destruct was initiated five hours four minutes twenty two seconds ago and counting. He dry retches into the corner again unable to process any of what he has just read but getting the feeling he couldn’t be anymore fucked if he was in a Seven brothel. Another set of footsteps thunders along the gantry outside which shakes him from his forlorn mental state, the scream that accompanies them does nothing for his shredded nerves but he is no longer staring off into space while rocking in the corner. More than slightly dazed but clinging to the fact he’s still alive he ducks under the remains of his cabin door and out onto the gantry.

She must have passed out from sheer terror when the thing had started coiling itself around her leg. She comes around with the frozen panic of a victim, burning to move, terrified that moving will give away the fact she is conscious and haunted by the fact she probably moved and gave herself away in the split second between regaining consciousness and regaining her wits. She dares not move, not breath, she doesn't want to look around, until she looks the thing isn’t there but if she opens her eyes it could be right there in front of her face waiting for her. The panic burns inside of her till she feels she will explode her skin must be so hot she’s about to flash boil the amniotic fluid she’s suspended in. Eventually she is forced to breath, nothing happens, seconds drag into minutes, nothing happens, the sound she took for screaming earlier penetrates her senses and spikes her curiosity, her eyes twitch to open and investigate. Crippling fear recedes. By the time she opens her eyes the thing has vanished from the pod because she is no longer thinking about it. Instead she is focused, determined, she is immortal and there is nothing that can defeat her.

With every step he takes a plan is developing in his mind, he still feels sick to his boots and thinks he is doomed to die wherever here is but such thoughts are yet to stop him from moving forward. Gather more crew members, secure a working engineering deck, find a way to override the self destruct system and engine damage, go home, sell his story to all listeners and finally, profit. His positive attitude is rocked as he rounds a right angled turn as the gantry follows the edge of the block of living quarters. A body is slumped against the gantry railing. Hair matted with blood struggles to cover the remains of a face blown in at extremely close range. Wisps of smoke like residue rise from the dead man’s body as though he pulled the trigger only moments ago. He bends to inspect the firearm, a pistol, tightly gripped in the man’s outstretched hand. He heard no shot and the weapon isn’t silenced. Furthermore as he blinks the wisps vanish. He can feel the uneasiness simmering away in his gut the flickering flame of his fear threatening to bring it to a full rampaging boil. He fights it back down swallowing hard as he tears the pistol from the dead man’s hand. The wisps are back caressing the dead body as they play across his prone form. One passes through his hand as he fumbles for the pistol. As it touches him there is a flare of light a rainbow explosion of colour and the wisp begins to grow in size. He jerks back as though electrocuted, only just maintaining a grip on the pistol as he grasps the hand the wisp touched as if it burnt him. There is no pain, just a realisation the dead body is suddenly a writhing mass of pale thin tendrils growing out of it and straining in his direction. He bites back a not very masculine sound and vaults over the dead body forcing himself down the gantry at speed. Not looking back.

The thing is back, doubt had come first, creeping into her mind accompanied by the light. Thin and ghostly pale slivers trailing away from her body until it seemed that light not amniotic fluid supported her in the pod. The lighter it gets the harder it is for her to retain a connection with the ship. She had been attempting to disengage both the self destruct and warp engines, but every system she accessed was sluggish to the point of unresponsive. The fear came back then, trickling in from the corners of her mind. She needed control, her immortality was for naught if she was trapped in the pod. She didn’t remember initiating the self destruct but no-one but her could have done it. The thought she would sacrifice the hundreds of crew just to escape her prison didn’t even cross her mind. SHE WAS IMMORTAL! She should not be trapped like this. For a second her anger burned brighter than the light surrounding her eclipsing her fear with its cold righteous fury. The fear crawled back and the thing came with it, her worst fear made real, trapped with no escape with a monster unimaginably in the pod with her. The thing could kill her. She would die with the pod intact. She would die here alone, beyond the rescue of her clone, all of her power, all of her time. Those thoughts smashed the final remnants of her hope. The fear conquered her. Paralysed by her terror, screaming silently, the thing pounced.

He had abandoned his plan whatever his plan may have been. His life was nothing now but blind sprints down dark corridors till his fear could drive him no further and he collapsed exhausted. Though how can you outrun your fear, escape your terror, sooner rather than later she found him. The first time he had seen her he didn’t believe it. Seeing your dead mother is disconcerting at the best of times and would have provoked a more instant reaction if it wasn't just another on a long list of unexplainable sights. He had stumbled across a man, laid on his cabin cot a look of pure bliss on his face. His cabin door was fully open, a ghostly light flickering into the corridor. The man was surrounded by three unbelievably attractive women, naked, ghostly pale to the point they glowed under the cabin light. They were all over the man, literally, wherever they touched him his skin, his clothing burned away, crumbling to ash. The man had his head rolled back, mouth open, eyes open, tears rolling down his face as he dissolved into a pile of ash on the cot. He had run from that room aroused and terrified in equal measure. His blind dash had led him to the canteen, whether looking for company or sustenance he didn’t know. He found neither. She was there, in the middle of the canteen between the tables, her body glowing like the women from the room. Her eyes met his across the distance the pupils dancing like candles in a breeze. He might have soiled himself then, already exhausted from the mad dash here, he turned tail and bolted once more. He had sought respite in a munitions storeroom. The door had been blown out so he charged straight into the storeroom without needing to slow. He skidded to a halt almost losing his footing on a strangely textured floor. Only then did he notice he hadn’t been the first person to attempt to hide here. He has slithered to a halt ankle deep in a carpet of flesh, bone and clothing. The floor is slick with blood. Something drips from the ceiling and splatters across his shoulder. He looks up. Gravity is slowly removing crushed body parts from the ceiling. They are smashed into the ceiling like insects trapped beneath a boot. He has nothing left to retch up but he tries anyway his head bowed between his legs brings him closer to the floor and only intensifies the urge to purge. He breaks once more into a run slipping on the floor is what saves him from running straight into his mother as she stands outside the munitions room. He turns the slide into a sharp turn and with dwindling strength he once more runs for his life. Now he’s laid in a dark corner of an unknown room sobbing away the tattered remains of his sanity. Light breaks breaks across him, he doesn’t look up. She has found him, in truth she never left him. Yes, she died, she abandoned him when the capsuleer ship she was a crew member of was destroyed. He had carried her with him since then, first as hatred, then when he had a family of his own she re-manifested as fear. Fear he would become to his family everything she had been to him. Had his greed for the ISK that came as a crew member blinded him? Had his pride that he was nothing like his mother convinced him he was somehow beyond risk. She was here now, her ghostly glowing hand stroking his forehead, silently soothing him as she whispered a lullaby he hadn’t heard for years. His skin is burning away, he is dying, he will be with her soon.

The bandits found the guttered wreck of the Crystal of Caille only a few AU from their failed attempt to tackle her. She was drifting, dark and dead in space. They salvaged the wreck and left hastily an unknown anxiety palpable around the wreck. As they warped away one final transmission flickered from the site of the wreck.

The only monsters in space…… are the ones we carry inside us.