EVE Fiction

The door opens before me and a squad in full combat equipment is ready to greet me. I had expected none the less, as that's what I would have done should some barely known capsuleer wanted to enter my ship. With my hand, I offered my military salutation to them.



-Very well, Corporal, I will follow you without giving you any troubles. As you can see, I'm unarmed.-

Something I would have to solve from now on, I'd have to start carrying at least a gun for situations such as this should they ever happen again. As I took my place between them, I couldn't avoid but taking a good glance at the ship around me. I had never been in a non-amarrian built vessel, and this one looked odd.

But who was I fooling? In this mess, everything seemed odd. Dodixie was a very active system, there was no way this could have gone unnoticed. And yet, neither other ships were undocking, nor CONCORD was coming to see what happened. And what was a seed ship covered in drones doing in Dodixie? Something was very strange here, we should have some kind of warnings or messages from the station by now, specially if it too had been harmed by the EM pulse. Maybe that was what had happened, that the docking bay was still trying to activate itself... and maybe the EM pulse had affected CONCORD vessels? If such was the case, this certainly was a very powerful and dangerous weapon...

Well, no point in losing time wondering about those oddities not now. My life was at stake, and that of those other three pilots as well. We were in space, with a drone-covered seed ship and an unknown weapon ship. Without FTL and the chance of cloning. This was not the time to think of tangent stuff, I needed to focus on the steps of the soldiers around me, and on the interrogation of our prisoner. I had been an Intelligence soldier in the Navy, this would be interesting... and hopefully, that man had the answers we needed, at least part of them.

It was strange to hear her voice with my ears and not directly in my head, but I didn't give it much thought. I nodded, as I knew she'd be watching through cameras inside the ship as I would have done. I was in her realm now, nothing I did would escape her attention.

-Corporal, I think I'll remain in the brig as your pilot suggested- I said, turning to the soldier-. I imagine your unit was the one to extract the prisoner just in case he was armed, no? If such is the case, I'd like a report on how it went, what you saw, and where. Every detail can be important, so don't leave anything outside even if you think it's superficial. I'll need the physician to come as well and report on the state of our prisoner, his wounds or any other sort of problem. Specially on his mental state.-

I took an empty chair in the bridge and produced a small keypad to take notes on what the Corporal and the physician would say.

Sam bookmarked one more sets of coordinates on the line from the sun to the seed ship. There were now three: the point on the warp path from the ship to the sun; one 100km from the sun; and this latest one, 500 km from the sun. The third one he did not transmit to the other ships. He'd keep that one as his own back up, just in case things went completely arse over teakettle. This place appeared to have odd environmental effects. He doubted they’d affect the bioelectromagnetism of human bodies, there was no way to know. It didn't take much of a disruption to one’s neurological processes to skew a person's moods and thinking processes. He'd keep one safe spot private, just in case.

He opened comm to AstraPardus and Sepherim, but decided to include the Thrasher pilot Adreena. That was based solely on intuition-- her voice over comms didn't reveal any of the traits of feigning sincerity. He'd been around long enough to detect crap just from the sound of a voice. Even people with the very best social chips couldn't keep perfectly fake sincerity. Besides, Adreena spoke in an accent and manner that was distinctly Sebiestor. One Sebiestor can't bullshit another one, he thought, with a mental grin. Sam, you know ethnic prejudice is not only ignorant, it leads to false assumptions. But if it's just positive prejudice, in favor of a fellow member of the tribe, is that so bad? That's a luxury you can afford yourself, this once. Pilot life isn’t so rough that we can’t give one of our own a little benefit of a doubt.

“Pilots, Sam here. Heads up that after this message I’ll be returning to my safe distances spot near you. You’re busy now with the frigate crewman now, so please just record the rest of this message to review it later.”

“These are the numbers and types of the drones on the seed ship: 12 frigate sized, 4 destroyer, 4 cruiser and one battleship. We don’t know anything about their weaponry or defenses. They are not rogues like the usual variations we see anywhere in our known cluster. I’m starting to think that we are outside of Empire, low sec, or null sec space.”

“Some thoughts: The immobile Gallente is carrying a partially assembled gate. Apparently its mission is/was to open a gate to an area previously inaccessible by jump, that is, somewhere off of our cluster map. The presence of the seed ship may indicate that somewhere outside of Empire-mapped systems.”

“The drones I encountered must have had some human technology as their original source. But perhaps the technology didn’t originate with the four Empire factions. Perhaps Jovian technology? And thus, perhaps we’re in or near Jove space?”

“Three things seem to somewhat relate to each other: We’re affected by FTL failure. We were apparently brought here by a failed jump attempt. I believe, but I’m not sure, that jump ability and FTL are closely related. There’s a Gallente seed ship here with a partially built jump gate. Another connection to FTL and jump capability. We may need to consider these things in conjunction to resolve the FTL comms problem, and/or to eventually jump out of here.”

“Just some speculation for your consideration and comments. Good luck with the efforts with the Venture crew member.”

He aligned to his safe distances spot and initiated warp to zero.

[OOC - I’d like to compare the information on the drones against the databank’s information on Sleepers, known Jove ships/drones/technology types, and any info from the Arek’Jalaan project. A roll against Knowledge?
I’d also like to check database information on the relation between FTL comms and jump capability (via gate or jump drive).]

I nodded to the corporal as he relayed his report. All seemed pretty straight forward and with little twists. I liked it when things were clear, but usually clarity only hid the unknown better. So Caldari... could be important, could be nothing, but it was good taking that into account. Theoretically at least, we were allied, so maybe that would make him talk to me.

-Thank you Corporal. In your report you don't mention seeing any other bodies lying around, was the ship flying without crew? It seems like a big ship for it to fly effectively without any kind of internal support, but I'd need to analyze it propperly to confirm it and that may be impossible given the state the ship is in. What would your take be on the subject?-

The doctor came in to relay his report next, and I appreciated that she talked in amarrad with a nod. Another nod on my behalf indicated that I was interested ni the belongings of the pilot, and we walked over to them as I replied.

-[ì]Ave[/i], doctor. Fifty to sixty years you say? Hm, I take it he's not a pod pilot, then? And I agree with your captain, lets let the prisoner recover a bit before we interrogate him. As long as they won't take long, we don't have much time in the present set of circumstances. What would be the estimated ETA for the nanites to finish their work on the body?-

So, there they were. Clothes, datapad, pills, watch, credit-stick, knife. Doesn't appear to be anything special to them, and the medicine was for the eyes, consistent with the age of the pilot. Very well, time to start with the obvious, the datapad.

-Doctor, I'll need to get access to the prisoner, as there seems to be a fingerprint scanner on this datapad that won't probably allow me to access it's information without the hand of that Caldari. I hope I can crack the code with some time, specially if you have some portable computer I can use to accelerate the attempts on the system... introducing codes manually is slow and ineffective.-

I start working on the datapad without waiting for the reply, but paying atention to what the doctor may say. Maybe I should actually use my neural implants to access the datapad, though I'm wary of connecting anything of unknown origin to my brain, you never know what defense systems it may have. Better try first only with the good old classical methods ((a Knowledge test?)), I had never been much of a hacker, but I should try with that. Analyzing the other objects in detail afterwards would probably bring nothing new, but it would be tried as well.

Meanwile, on the other side of the cord that tied the Brown and Baggin' It and the INS Wraith, my ship replied to Telegram with the same automated message it had sent to Adreena. And on this side of the cord, Astra's voice came on.



-I'm on it, captain AstraPardus, but I'll need some time. Cracking the datapad may be complicated, as this is not something I often do. The other objects don't seem relevant at a first glance, but I'll go over them in detail again when I finish with the datapad, unless our prisoner awakes first.-

( I made a few presumptions in this post. As always, If you disagree with any of the actions I had your character do, I will easily change it.

Remember Reasoning is used to figure out puzzles. Knowledge is a measure of your memory ant the things you know.)

Sepherim:



“Actually sir, There were no other bodies. I can’t account for what may be out on the wreck but the bridge section you detached had only the one person on board. I don’t have much experience with smaller ships (0, 1, -1, 0) but I doubt the ship would get very far without at least a minimum crew.”

You begin to work on the pad (Reas 2 + -1, -1, 1, -1 = 0) as the Physician brings you into the cell where you see the Caldari man lying on a medical gurney. His arms and legs are bound but that hardly seems necessary. The bruising and abrasions covering his body are indeed severe.

“Captain Pardus, If you think it is prudent I can provide Captain Catillah with a data jack to the main computer. It would also permit you to assist in accessing the device?”

Sam:

You warp back to the safe distances spot and see that the Thrasher has come back online as expected. The on board computer has a limited amount of available data but you look through it and dredge your own memory for an answer (Know 3 + 1, 0, -1, -1 = 2). When you compare the drones you saw to the specs of sleeper drones and typical rogue drones you determine that there are no evident similarities to sleeper drones. They behaved just as you would have expected a rogue drone to, the static of their communications and the ID tags were obvious. However the material they were made of and the weapon mounts showed a distinctly Gallentean flavor. On a hunch you compare the scans to specs of common Galente ships and finally get a solid hit. Several of the frigate drones look like modified Navitas hulls. The rest of the drones are less clear in their origin but you do see a continuation of that pattern.

Astra:

You do what you can with the datapad (Reas 1 + 1, 1, 1, -1 = 3). Working with Sepherim to boot it up in base mode and trying to bypass the operating system you are finally able to access a list of files on the device. Most are background files used to operate the various apps or have names that mean nothing to you. However there are some that stick out.

Most prominent is a name the pad is registered to, a Doctor Grant Arataka. There is a group of files that have sequential dates as names going back as far as November YC109. They are small files only a few megabytes each and the file extension is one used for audio recordings. You recognize the proprietary file format of several SCOPE news articles. There are a series of files titled Modification1.0 Modification1.1 and so on through modification 3.0. Lastly you see an executable file with the name Modified_Micro_Jump_Drive_Activation. By the time you have finished this (about 45 minutes); your Physician tells you that the patient should be regaining consciousness momentarily.

Without any more tools you and Sepherim doubt you could access more of the contents than you have.

Adreena:

You sit there waiting for a response from the others mulling over your thoughts. Doubt preventing you from expressing them to the others (I want to invoke the aspect “Almost pathologically low self-esteem” (Know 3 + 1, 1, 1, 0 -2 = 4*) however each time you run through the scenario you come to the same conclusion. The seed ship has to have FTL transceivers.

A seed ship is a rather archaic way of making a foothold in a new system. In fact the use of seed ships went out of favor nearly 600 years ago. The contemporary way a connection to a new system is made is through an existing jump gate. The existing gate will lock on to a gravity well within a distant solar system and send over the machines and equipment needed to build a new gate. The catch is that the stuff sent over will land at nearly any location within the solar system without another gate to link to. Once the new gate is constructed in the desirable system it can act as the target of the first gate. This is how entire new regions can be established in a matter of years. However there are not always suitable gravity wells in a desired system. This is where the old style seed ship is used. The gate brought over by the seed ship will both connect to a gate in the already settled system and it will act as a target for the other gate.

You contact Telegram Sam and ask to have copies of the scans he took sent over for analysis. Looking at the information you can easily see that the decay rate on the seed ship is closer to 20 years than it is 600. The only place you can think of that would have had Gallente seed ships 20 or so years ago would be the Spectrum Breach Expansion Program. Otherwise known as the Rogue Drone Regions. You run your thoughts by Sam and he (Know 3 1, 1, 0, -1 = 4) agrees. Working together and cross checking the star patterns of the area you both decide that you are in a system somewhere between Etherium Reach and Cache.

Astra & Sepherim:

I would like to know what you will be asking Dr. Arataka. Obviously you will have new questions in response to what he says. I would also like to know if you include Sam and Adreena in the interrogation somehow. For the purposes of the conversation we can post questions and answers back and forth as needed.

Reaching my ship would be complicated... well, not complicated, it just required me to get back into it. At least the code was broken and some starting infomation had started to pour from it, yet too scarce yet to make a clear picture. I disconnected the pad from the link to the computer and turned to the soldier.

-Corporal, I'll need to get back into my ship to issue the orders your captain asks for. Will you accompany me?-

I started walking without waiting for the reply, as I didn't expect a negative answer. I wasn't trying to defy his authority, just trying to save time: Astra's shower wouldn't take long, and I wanted answers as quickly as possible. A doctor, huh? Well, names in sequential organization could be patients, maybe. The modification files would be interesting, no doubt. But certainly, the most interesting would be the one on the changes done to the microwarp drives, and it was that file I started checking in detail as I walked to the cordon that bond together both ships.

As soon as I was on the other side, Wraith greeted me as usual and relayed both messages that were being stored in its memory. "Do you wish to reply to them?"`

-Yes, but first remove the target on Madeveda's ship and cancel orders to shoot on it. From now on you will only shoot in case someone shoots the other ship besides us, or if you are targeted. Relay this new status to captain Madeveda. To captain Sam, confirm we have received his report, and space is still secure on our end if he wishes to meet us before we decide what to do with the seed ship and the drones on it.-

Where the hell were CONCORD? As always, late for anything of importance. I couldn't help but sigh as I headed back through the cordon to Astra's ship. She trusted Telegram to board her ship, but Adreena? We barely knew anything about her! Well, not that we knew much more about the others in this situation, but Adreena had been silent too long, maybe abalyzing the situation in search for a weak point or something.

As I once again entered Astras' ship and was being escorted again to the bridge, I couldn't help but realize that we both were now at the mercy of Adreena and Telegram. Both the Wraith and the Brown had their pod pilots outside their pods, we would be easy targets. So, as I headed to the interrogation, I couldn't help but smile... once again in the hands of fate.

T. Sam very carefully considered AstraPardus's invitation to board her battleship. The pros: It would be a show of good faith, not just Astra, but to everyone. He would have a chance to participate in questioning Dr. Arataka. And perhaps investigate his datapad. The cons: He'd completely be under the power of AstraPardus and her large crew, which included marines. His little crew of two couldn't effectively navigate his Jaguar in his absence; it was a just frigate designed for pod pilot control, not a large ship with a bridge for tandem control by the crew. If he didn't get back, his two crewmen would be virtually helpless.

He heard Adreena's acceptance of Astra's invitation over comms. "OK, what the hell, let's go," he thought. He briefly went over his inventory of prior what-the-hell decisions. Most had resulted in the loss of a ship and maybe a pod; one had resulted in a two-year commitment involving a lot of hardship; one had resulted in being stalked for a month by a very obsessed young woman. But probably it was just the regrettable decisions that stuck out in his memory. The successful what-the-hell ones just got lost in the shuffle. Yeah. Anyway, he thought the chances were better than even that Astra was just as trustworthy as she seemed. Even though gaining people's trust and then backstabbing them was considered a kind of a sport and sub-profession in the capsuleer community. Still, he'd take the invitation at face value and accept it.

"Thanks for the invitation AstraPardus, I'm navigating to board." He vacated the pod, and quickly showered. As he dressed [OOC- as in the avatar image], he caught a faint whiff of the distinctive smell of pod fluid on himself. "Oh well, they're eggers too," he thought. "We'll be bonded as the siblinghood of the pod goo smell. The olfactory sense creates the strongest subconscious impressions of the five, and also pulls up the deepest emotional memories." He put on his unstylish old leather utility belt, with its holsters and its compartments for little tools and testing equipment. He slipped his datapad into one holster and a small projectile firearm into the other and headed for the umbilical to the Sin battleship.

[OOC- T. Sam will cheerfully surrender his sidearm if asked. But he wants to keep his datapad and his other tools. He'll observe AstraPardus's and Sepherim's questionning of the doctor. If they can't unlock the doctor's datapad, I'd like to invoke an Aspect/Fate Point to try to unlock it. When it's unlocked, T. Sam wants to transfer its data to his own datapad as a backup or for future use.]
[Edit: Added the OOC sentence about the firearm and tool belt].

(Adreena, I forgot to address your idea of analyzing the fluid hydrogen router. You think it would be possible to do so, but it would require a bit of time in your ships machine shop and probably a good connection to the database)

(Sam, the crewman who escorts you to the others (0, 0, 0, -1 = -1) didn’t notice the firearm tucked into your utility belt. remember that unless you are invoking one of your aspects the fate point only gets you a +1)

(By the way everyone, remember that you have those uses of the +1 or +2 do declare. These are based on the last part of character creation we diddnt cover: Advantages

Advantages are the special skills possessed your character. They represent some measure of training and/or natural talent. They cost one Advantage Point (AP) each and usually grant one of the following benefits:

+1 bonus on rolls to a certain type of action, no matter what Ability is used. When rolling to perform a task, such as engaging in a mental conflict to seduce another character, you gain a +1 bonus.

+2 bonus on specific uses of an Ability. This bonus should only apply to very specific uses of an Ability that’s likely to only occur rarely, such as a +2 bonus to Perception when attempting to read lips.

Substitute one Ability for another in specific situations. A character’s training in one Ability may bleed over into a field normally associated with a different Ability. For example, a martial artist may use Agility instead of Strength to attack unarmed or with melee weapons.

Special. Any small benefit the character may have, such as not forcing you to suffer the ‐1 penalty for taking a certain action as a supplemental action. These benefits should be small and function without the need of an Aspect.

There is a chapter on it in the book. For those who have read it you have the three points and can select any of the "Expert Advantages")

I enter the interrogation room alongside Atra and the rest, but she is the one to take the first words at the waking Doctor. I wait for her to finish her introduction in silence, in the dark. It was strange to be in the same room with the other pod pilots, not speaking through the interestellar comunication channels. I kept the datapad hidden behind me, it wasn't time yet for him to see it, it would help break him if nothing else worked. But only then.



-No, I don't think he does, captain. I think he's a fool, he's angered four of the deadliest foes he can anger: four pod pilots. Plus our crews. So he either is a fool, or he's an enemy. I think he's a fool. Don't you agree doctor? Aren't you a fool?-

I grin as I take steps towards him. I know my style of interrogation wasn't pretty, but my time in the Intelligence sector had tought me fear was very useful. Some liked the basic strategies like "good cop/bad cop", but I wasn't one of those. It was fear that brought men to their knees begging for their lives. Fear, humiliation, submission. It wasn't pretty, it wasn't nice, but it got the job done.

-So then, little fool. We got some questions for you, and I'm sure you'll like to answer them quickly. That might save you from meeting a good friend of mine, I'm sure he'd buy you off my hands at a good price. And I'm sure you're not fool enough to like that path... nine generations would curse you, probably...-

I grinned again, the threat of the unpronounced slavery dancing on my lips. I had seen stronger may cry for less.

[My questions:

"Explain what you did since you undocked?"

"What sort of weapon or equipment produced the EM pulse?"

"How long will it last?"

"Did he know it would have this effect?"

"Who installed such an element?"

"Does he know anything of the seed ship or the drones?"

"Does he know why CONCORD hasn't appeared yet?"

And more will follow here surely as well]

After exchanging greetings with the other capsuleers, T. Sam took a position behind and to the side of AstraPardus. He made eye contact with the doctor and attempted to convey an attitude of patience and empathy. He believed that the doctor would provide clearer, more rational information if he didn't feel trapped and surrounded by only aggressive, hostile people. He probably had a great deal of useful information, and they needed him to communicate it accurately and precisely. Any detail could help in their analysis and trigger beneficial insights in to the facts of the situation. If the captive was overly traumatized, he might respond out of emotion and desperation, rather than rational thinking. So for the moment T. Sam would remain quietly in the back and leave the aggressive interrogation to Astra and Sepherim. While attempting to convey to the doctor that there was a way out for him, and that that way was too cooperate and fully disclose all significant information.

He produced his datapad, made a show to everyone of commencing a video and audio recording of the questioning. He also began making entries (apparently of text) into the pad. At Sepherim's hint about the possibility of permanent enslavement, he briefly but meaningfully looked up. "Hmm," he thought, "No tact there, Sepherim. Oh well, he's military, and of the Amarr type. Not a diplomat, and maybe not even a trader." He smiled to himself and continued his datapad entry, while listening closely to the interrogation.

[OOC - I've sent SF a message about some additional content. A roll or two against Knowledge might be needed. I don't want to disclose information to everyone until I know whether or not Sam would actually have it].