EVE Fiction

“I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Na’deran looked at the girl again and realized he was scowling. He loosened the frown and did his best to sound civil. “It’s nothing you said.”

“That’s a relief. I’ve got a bad habit of saying too much. Valsint warns me he’ll leave at dock if I’m not more careful.”

“What do you do on this ship,” he asked before he could stop himself.

“I’m the engineer! Keep this rusty bucket running.”

“Aren’t you a little too….young, to be the engineer.”

“You mean a little too ‘Minmatar’ to maintain a Caldari-made ship?”

Na’deran shook his head quickly. “I wasn’t implying—”

The cut of her laugh reminded him of Matar, and how long it’d been since he left. “Relax, I’m not offended. It’s what everyone thinks. That, and that I slept with Valsint to get the job.”

Na’deran had to bite back the curiosity fueling additional queries—where she was from, how she’d ended up on the Cormorant. Was she Sebiestor like himself? No, better not to ask. Knowledge was just an added liability, and he had enough problems on his hands.

“Who runs the scanner?” he asked instead.

“That’d be Drusky, but he’s probably asleep right now. He always sleeps on autopilot.”

That’s when you need a scanner most, Na’deran silently berated her.

“I know how to use it,” she said, eyes intent. “Is it something I could help with?”

“No. I’d rather not upset your captain anymore than I already have.”

“He’s not that bad. All gruff on the outside, but he’s a pretty decent guy—for a Caldari.”

Na’deran stood in the mess hall with the girl, both of them silent until, after a lasting moment, he realized that he was looking for something to say, and made for the door.

“I’ve got to go….”

“No.” She stopped him. “Stay. I didn’t meant to chase you off from your breakfast.”

“You didn’t.”

“Thanks for the lie, but I’ve got to get back anyway.” She turned and started out into the corridor, then stopped and ducked back in. “I’m sorry, but I just have to ask—because it may be the only time I ever encounter one of you—what’s it like?”

Of all the questions a baseliner could ask him, it was this one Na’deran hated the most. This one that kept him from socializing with people aboard stations or starships. This one that gave birth to nightmares in the sleeping mind while riddling the waking soul with ecstasy.

It’s like being a god.

But he didn’t say that. He never said anything, if they asked. Instead, he threw the question back on the curious: “What would you sacrifice to find out?”

And the expression, always the same, crisscrossed the lines of the young, pretty face. They couldn’t understand, and most wouldn’t want to. Every answer had its cost. Every piece of knowledge it liability. He left his coffee in the mess hall with the beautiful, confused girl.


***


He’d lied to her about the nightmares. You never really dream in the goop. It’s too visceral to be a dream, too surreal to be reality. If there is a nightmare, it comes at the flashy end.

The Burn.

Bright and molten, some said. Others described a feeling of ecstasy, of freedom from every fear and worry. Na’deran didn’t know the nightmare himself. Despite his many years in the pod, he’d only ever lost ships and the lives of his crews—never his own. But he’d encountered many a capsuleer who had, and he suspected—he believed—the ones that described it as waiting. Waiting to wake up from a dream in the deep, cold black that follows the inferno.

He’d been lucky. He’d been careful. But in null-sec, there’s no amount of luck or care that can spare you the Burn. The test of his immortality was long overdue, as this last mission proved. Alone and outgunned in pirate space, he’d fought his way through the Cartel defenses and blasted apart the hidden Serpentis research station they were protecting. He’d recovered the prototype implant as his employer requested. He’d fought his way out of the system swarming with Guardian Angels only to get caught in an ambush by the gate.

And then he’d done the unthinkable. With his shield sinking and his armor melting away, he’d ordered his doomed crew to insert the precious cargo—a prototype implant—into the sixth slot of the injection module on his pod. Mere seconds before his hull was ripped apart, they did.

Na’deran Sehtu should have died that day, but his luck held out a little longer. A slipshod bubble placement on the part of the pirates allowed his escape from the gate, and he fled into the depths of null-sec, pursued relentlessly by the Angels and their determined captain, Tuo-Qua. Twice they nearly caught him, and would have if not for the unknown benefits of the implant juicing his brain. Even so, with each evasion Na’deran was pushed farther and farther the wrong direction. They were herding him away from Empire, toward his own, inevitable doom.

And then he found it—a small salvage ship whose idents turned up known ties to the Cartel, cleaning up the leftovers of some doomed Federation battleship. At a glance he knew it to be a trap—a ploy by Tuo-Qua to bring him out into the open—but then he saw the Cormorant warp to an asteroid field when the Angels entered local, and hope sprang to his mind. Independent contractors with a good enough standing could sometimes gain access to the pirate-controlled space without fear of attack. But would such a person be willing to risk the good will of their employer on a risky gamble? With few options left to him, Na’deran opened a channel with the Caldari ship and made an offer that he hoped would be worth their while.

Whatever the Cartel paid Captain Henegro Valsint, it must not have been as much as what Na’deran offered, because the next hour they were meeting in the dark shadow of a sullen moon, modifying their cargo bay to hold the pod of a hunted capsuleer.


***

“That’s the combat alarm.”

“Combat?”

Together they ran out into the hall, to the nearest com panel. The girl mashed the channel button and the voice of a young man burst through the speaker, “They’re targeting us!”

“Aye, and you can be sure Concord’s targeting them too,” Valsint’s growled.

“Val?” the girl spoke into the com. “What’s happening up there?”

“There you are! Why aren’t you down in the engine room? We’ve got a Tornado boxing us right now and—”

“We’re locked!” the boy at the helm shouted.

A second crew member voice said, “They’re opening a channel with us!”

“Punch them through,” Valsint ordered.

The com clicked open loudly for all on the bridge to hear, and the voice of a man broke through the com, calm and cheerful. “Hello! This message is for your passenger, Na’deran Sehtu. Is he around? I would very much like to speak with him.”

“I’m Henegro Valsint, captain of this ship. Stop targeting us if you want to talk.”

The cheerful voice giggled. “Let me rephrase—I would very much like to speak with him before I blow your ship to pieces.”

For a moment, only static struck through speaker, then Valsint retorted. “Fire on this ship and you’ll follow us to the grave. Now who are you, and what do you want?”

“Who I am is of no consequence. I told you, I want to speak to Sehtu. I want to hear his voice so I can deliver a message to him.”

“Stop targeting us and I’ll let you speak with Sehtu.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

Na’deran and the girl listened at the com. “Will he fire on us?” she asked suddenly.

“Yes. He’s only stalling to close range. The moment Valsint starts aligning to a gate he’ll scramble your warp drive and unleash a volley from his turrets—be assured they’re already linked to fire in unison.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he’s a capsuleer, sent here to kill me.”

To his credit, Valsint must have suspected something of this nature, because he hadn’t tried to run yet. Instead, he was trying his luck at bluffing. “We’re delivering the pilot you request to some friends in Curse. Maybe you know them?”

“Angels don’t concern me,” the capsuleer answered, “nor does Concord. Last chance.”

The bridge was silent.

“He’s gonna run for it,” Na’deran said.

“What do we do?”

“Get me off the ship. He’s only got one shot before Concord melts him – he won’t waste it on you if he sees me trying to escape.”

Without a word they ran for modified cargo bay where the pod sat—a perfect oval of a capsule, modified over the years from its original Jovian design to look like a steel egg. Inside, the bio-nutrient stew of Na’deran’s last stint had festered and the fishy reek of burnt electrodes spilt out into the cargo bay. Not first-class accommodations, but it would suffice until he could get to a station outfitted for pod pilots and have it properly flushed.

“Do you know how to hook me up?” he asked her.

“I’m the one who unhooked you.”

One misplaced wire would fry his brain but he had no choice but to trust her. Mere heartbeats since they left the open com, but there could be only seconds left before the Tornado opened fire. He’d never get fitted in time. “Patch us through to the bridge channel—I’ve got to try and stall him.”

She did, bringing up the voice of a very scared Valsint. “I promise you he is onboard somewhere – I don’t know where he could have gone!”

“I haven’t gone anywhere,” Na’deran yelled toward the com.

“Ah, there you are, Sehtu,” the cheerful voice returned. “Guristas send their greetings.”

Guristas. So, his employer had caught up.

“If they wanted me dead all they had to do is wait an hour. I’m on my way back to the Angels.” Na’deran climbed a step ladder and practically jumped into the goop, sinking in the stink all the way to his neck. The girl was right behind him. She reached for a cable. “No, attach those last,” he told her. “Grab the ear sockets.”

“They may not care who kills you,” the Tornado pilot was saying, “but I do.”

“Of course,” Na’deran answered conversationally. “Must be a nice bounty to blow a Tornado. Big money, easy target—is that what you told the crew you’re about to kill?”

“You’re a strange one, Sehtu. I’ve met capsuleers that bribed me for their ships, begged me for their pods, but never any that showed concern for the lives of their crews.”

She had the tubes over his ears and up his nostrils, but the neural jacks were giving her trouble. “You should get out of the pod more.”

“Spoken like a dead man, Sehtu. You know as well as I do – never leave the pod.”

“We’re not going to make it,” he said. “Just get to an escape pod.”

“Almost have it,” she said.

“It’s time for us to go now,” the bounty hunter squealed, his voice filled by the maniacal glee of someone who was about to cheat death. “I would say see you on the other side of the Burn, but alas, not this time….”

“Don’t do this,” Na’deran pleaded. “I can come aboard….” Something was wrong. She was wiring him out of order. “What are you doing?”

“I almost have it.”

Na’deran yanked his half-wired head around as much as he could and glimpsed her efforts—she’d foregone connecting his vitals and focused solely on patching his neural jacks to the burn scanner. A buzz whirred through his mind, the mind-scanning hardware booting to life just as Vaum and Drusky ran into the cargo hold, their guns drawn.

“He’s getting back in the pod!” Drusky shouted, never realizing his error.

No…

“Get us to the nearest station,” Valsint shouted, but it was too late.

“They’re scrambling us!” the boy at the com screamed.

Great read! I loved it!

Wanted to add - there's a discussion raging here about the 'pilot-in-a-pod' lore, that I think you also address nicely with your story.