EVE Fiction

Cloned Blood

Saskia Abelen sat in her quarters. Her head was bowed slightly, allowing her short red hair to hide her face as she stared down at the small altar before her. A single holo flickered at its center showing an older woman with long white hair clad in the white and gold robes of a priestess. Before the small altar was a single vial of congealed blood.

Most did not understand the Sani Sabik faith. They saw them as being the same as the Blood Raiders, a group of killers that stole children in the night for their bloody rituals.

At its most basic form, the Sani Sabik felt that blood was life. To use blood in a ritual was to anoint it in the very life of those that gave their blood. It was just that the Blood Raiders had perverted that, stealing the blood of children and clones for it's purity in their rituals.

Her mother had been an Amarrian Priestess for over thirty years, ten of which she studied the Sani Sabik faith which had captured Saskia, her daughter as a teen. Two weeks earlier, she had been executed by the Amarrian Priesthood for blasphemy. How her supporters had drawn the small vessel of blood from her lifeless body, Saskia did not know, but in those two weeks, it had become a prized and cherished possession.

She wasn't mortal, not in the same way that others were. In her small quarters was a scattered array of other possessions. A Viziam Laser Rifle sat in one corner, its inner workings sat atop a dirty rag for cleaning. In another corner her amarrian dropsuit sat, looking battered and worn.

The holoscreens that filled one whole wall showed a vast array of images, bounty listings, incursion warnings, advertisements. In irritation, she keyed it off and the room plummeted into darkness, leaving only the single light of her mother's holo and the candle beside it.

"What do I do? They killed you, it's all my fault... they can't even kill me anymore." She huffed before wiping her eyes. "I'm sorry mom."

The universe did not care, maybe there really wasn’t much out there beyond the flesh and this thing called life. Did she keep going? Even death really wasn’t an end anymore. Her neocom pinged and a message flooded her brain.

Leam Aconi: Blade? You okay? We haven't heard from you... Are you still on Angur III?

Maybe it was time to start working again. Life was too short. She sighed and walked over to her armor. Her thoughts suddenly switched to the neocom as she decided to answer.

Saskia Abelen: I'm still at the station, why?

Leam Aconi: A contract just popped up at the station, sounds big...

She frowned slightly at that and started to pull on the armor, piece by piece. Here? Why would there be a contract on a station?

Leam Aconi: It's a priority contract, Saskia... Some terrorists just seized control of the docking control room. The station manager is offering a lot to clear them out.

Saskia finished donning her armor and sighed as she began to reassemble her laser rifle. Her neocom scanned the contracts until it found it amongst the thousands of mercenary support requests all over New Eden. The weapon hummed as she finished snapping the last of the components into place and she checked it once more before grabbing her sidearm.
She picked up the small vial of blood, kissed it, and slipped it inside her armor.

Saskia Abelen: I'm on my way, did you sign up for this gig?
Leam Aconi: I'm in another system waiting for a shuttle, Blade. It could be awhile before I get there.

She frowned at that and checked the systems of her armor before stepping through the door and into the corridor. The dim lighting and bronzed metal of the amarrian station surrounded her as she pulled on the helmet and activated its systems.
Saskia Abelen: Guess I'm on my own then, unless someone else shows.

She walked down the corridor to a turbolift cluster and punched in the coordinates for the docking bay.

She checked the power on her laser rifle as the car accelerated. Through the composite polymer windows she could see the car leave the habitation ring of the station with it's three enormous statues. Then suddenly the car screeched to a stop, and the lights flickered and went out.

Saskia scowled before punching the controls with her fist and scowling. When nothing happened, she activated her neocom and keyed into the local channel.

Saskia Abelen: Does anyone know what’s going on at the top station? I'm stuck in a turbolift at the moment, and power went out.

There wasn't any response and she scowled. Was it possible her neocom had been jammed? She checked her helmet seals and ran a quick systems check. Everything was intact. Everything was functional, for the moment at least. She activated the emergency seals on the suit and lifted her laser rifle toward the composite glass.

Holding down the trigger she cut a meter wide hole with the rifle and braced herself as the atmosphere was torn from the car. As it cleared, she checked her suit and nodded, the vacuum seals were working. She swung the laser file over her shoulder and clambered through the hole just as a frigate shot by below her, its dark grey, almost blue, hull glinting in the distant light of the star.

She crouched low on the access walkway beside the turbolift and headed toward the central core of the station. Her helmet mounted display counted the meters to the access hatch.

She nodded to herself, lifted the device back over her shoulder, and checked the laser rifle's charge. Then she opened the hatch and stopped. There was a small office filled with blinking blue holograms and various displays. At the center of the room was a desk which three men clad in amarrian security uniforms were huddled behind, their hands clasped around a variety of weapons. Further, another scattered selection of desks lined the way to an access hatch marked with the words: Docking Control.

Three of the terrorists were scattered around the room, popping up and firing assault rifle rounds toward the security team hiding behind the desk. Every few seconds one of them would lean around the desk and spray a hail of scrambler rifle shots at the enemy.

Amateurs, she scoffed as the laser rifle thrummed in her arms and she charged forward, screaming at the security team. "Keep down!" She yelled as a green beam lanced from the emitter of her rifle and speared one of the terrorists. A scream of pain filled the room as his two comrades stared at the flames that had shot from his armor at the laser's impact. The man went down and she swept her laser toward the second foe and caught him dead center in the chest. The laser shut off, it's charge exhausted.

The last terrorist ran for the hatch when she ripped out her scrambler pistol and fired, obliterating his head with the shot as the hatch opened.

Assault rifle rounds tore through the air and she slid into cover. She reloaded the laser rifle and flinched as one of the security team dropped from a round that ripped through the desk itself. "STAY DOWN!" She shouted as a second man stood and let loosed a volley of scrambler rounds, but rifle round found him and dropped him to the ground.

Saskia snarled. They were idiots. Surely, they hired people better than this for station security. She grabbed an M1 Locus Grenade from her hip and tossed it through the open hatch. When the blast echoed from the hatch, she leapt to her feet and charged toward the hatch. Her eyes went wide when a man stepped round the hatch in a scarred and battered set of heavy amarrian armor with the blued metal they seemed to favor and lifted a forge gun toward her, its tip glowing with malevolent heat.

She dove to the side and tumbled out of the way, as the shot tore overhead and hit the desk the security team had used as cover, blasting it apart and killing the last of them. Saskia slid across the bronzed deck platting and banged against the wall beside the hatch. She pulled out her scrambler pistol again and swung around to face the guard. A single shot blasted through the man's helmet and dropped him to the ground.

Then she rolled into the control room. Bodies were scattered all across the room as she stepped forward, her pistol at the ready. A moment later, she came up on the main control station and tapped its holographic interface just as a familiar name appeared in her mind.

Julius Valorum: I found the information you're looking for. Link follows...

As her mind accessed the link, her implants absorbed the information... essentially a basic operation manual for the device. It was a weapon that operated on the same principal as void ammunition for larger ships. When activated it would create a massive quantum singularity, tearing apart its surroundings before its generator was destroyed. At maximum yield, it could have evaporated half the docking ring from where it had been placed killing hundreds, maybe thousands.

She swung the device off her back and dialed back the yield to minimum, but even at that setting, it was powerful enough to destroy a ship or most of a docking bay. The device's timer was still counting down and couldn't be deactivated without a password, but a manual trigger and deadman's switch was included as well... making it a favorite of terrorists all across the cluster.

Saskia Abelen: Thanks for the info... the docking control room is secure. What bay are you at? I can release the tractor clamps so you can slow boat out.

Julius Valorum: Bay 231... Thanks for the help.

Saskia shrugged as she keyed the docking release. Then she froze as a blue-steel shape rose into view out the forward ports. It must have been about twice the size of a man, and it's two enormous railguns were swinging her direction. A scout drone, she swore and glanced around the room for a second before grabbing her laser rifle and slashing an X into the carbon glass. She ran toward it as the drone fired sending two shot smashing through the carbon glass and tearing through the control room just as she smashed through the weakened glass and sailed out into the void. She tumbled for a moment and stared down at a docking bay just as it seemed that the station's artificial gravity became aware of her.

She plummeted for a moment before activating the inertial compensators and slamming into the deck platting. Gasping for breath she looked up and swore as the drone backed away from the destroyed control room and started sweeping the area with it's guns, searching for her.

"Displace!" A commanding voice roared and she looked down just in time to see a security team operator scramble out of cover just before a grenade exploded from where he'd been. The man dove behind another crate as assault rifle rounds ripped through the air.

Damn. Saskia thought as she ran for the cover of the crates and dove down beside the security operator.

"Who the hell are you?" The man asked as he ducked down behind the crates to avoid a volley of rifle rounds.

"Does it matter...?” She glanced up over the crates and swore as a forge gun shot skimmed just over her shoulder. "Damn!"

"The control room is ******." The operator swore as he lifted his scrambler rifle and let loose with a volley that dropped another of the terrorist soldiers. "Are you our help?"

The bang of rifle rounds filled her ears and she felt pain fill her chest as the first round struck her. She gritted her teeth and growled as a second round struck her in the gut. Her hand slammed into the activation stud and she saw the device's systems wink to life. A dull blue light came from the center of the bomb and she looked up at the priest.

"Go to hell." She spat as she could feel the very space around her distorting and twisting from the device. Then there was a blast of brilliant light and then... nothing.

She opened her eyes and blinked. A single white light shone down from above her and she took a deep breath.
"You're awake?" A voice asked in the gloom and she glanced up to see a man clad in a caldari style suit with a couple amarrian cufflinks lean into her field of view.

"Yeah... I'm awake." She blinked her eyes and sighed. "What happened?" She asked as she felt her body. It was intact, unmarred... fresh.

New... Her clone must have activated the moment the bomb went off, but why had it taken so long to wake? Normally she'd be in combat again within seconds and she would have woke with a full combat loadout.

"It seems that blowing yourself up with a graviton-impulse bomb has a bit odd effects... It's been three hours since the bomb detonated. Apparently the subspace and temporal distortion of the warhead slowed the transfer of consciousness." The man said with a faint smile. "Instantaneous at the moment of death, but when did you die? You were at the epicenter of a tiny black hole's formation... You see the time dilation slowed the transfer as you died very slowly in the time dilation of that... device."

Saskia nodded. Then she tapped her chest and frowned, she'd forgotten... the small vial of blood from her mother, it was gone. Her eyes grew a bit clouded at that and she sighed. "I understand..." She said after a moment. "But who are you?"

"A friend..." He said with a faint smile and pulled a small chain from his pocket along with a vial of coagulated blood.
Saskia stared. "How..."

"Cloned tissue, if we can clone a human being why not an organ? Why not blood?" He chuckled faintly and handed it to her. "Maybe next time you won't carry it into battle."

Saskia flushed as she took hold of the vial and slipped the chain over her neck. "Thank you."

"Not a problem..." The man said with a faint smile before he stood. "We'll have to work together again sometime."
She blinked... "Did we… Who are you?"

"Oh... my name is Julius Valorum, I was a friend of your mother's." He grinned at her. "You saved a lot of lives today... if that bomb had gone off in the habitat section..." He shook his head and sighed.

"Are you... a follower?" She asked quietly.

He nodded slightly. "May your life and blood bless your future, Saskia Abelen." Then he was gone out the door leaving behind only a bit of contact information in her neocom.

Great read indeed!