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Dobie's Dubious Diary - Hunting the Akahoshi
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Dobie Mercault
Special Admirer Philosophy Club
#1 - 2013-08-03 05:50:08 UTC
Prologue – Kafak and Laundry

With an absent thought and another mental slip, the time appeared again; four large digits snapping into existence above the balding crown of the Intaki man lined up ahead of him.

14:34

The Gallente sighed, his left eye twitching as it fought back the urge to relay the transversal velocity between the waitress on her way to serve table four, and the Intaki’s shiny dome.

14:34

“I know what ******* time it is,” he grumbled inwardly. “And I don’t need that information. Go away.”

The implants slowly acquiesced; the crisp, transparent overlays giving way to the drab colors of a neighborhood Minmatar kafakstore again.

The Gallente shifted his gaze back to the barista. He was the new hire, a young Jin-Mei boy still learning his way around the machine. It was just a cup of kafak, but this was taking forever. He wouldn’t last another week.

14:35. The numbers appeared again, and this time he just let it happen. He’d clear his head soon enough.

14:35 meant there were 13 minutes until the laundry was finished, and 25 minutes before dinner would be delivered. Really, it meant he shouldn’t be lining up for another cup right now, behind three other people on a slow Tuesday afternoon, and with a rookie barista who was probably going to burn the **** anyways.

But what else was there to do? Getting home before dinner was probably going to be the biggest challenge of this whole day, and palatable kafak his biggest loot drop.

He let the implants have their fun, and tracked the transversal of the waitress on her way back, plotting an intercept maneuver on a 3D overlay that would lead him right in between those legs.
Dobie Mercault
Special Admirer Philosophy Club
#2 - 2013-08-03 05:59:00 UTC
Part One

15:11

Dinner had come and gone, another bland offering from a place he’d probably forget about and order from again in a month’s time. He had retired to the studio to work on the pottery wheel, and was contemplating the evening’s activities when the implants went into overdrive again, clouding his vision this time with friend or foe queries, distance reports, and weapons proximity alerts.

Someone had let themselves in the front door.

The Gallente focused on the wet clay slowly taking shape between his hands, lost somewhere beneath a mess of overlays and warnings. Pushing them aside, he could see once more the outline of an urn between his fingers.

A Caldari man stepped inside the room without a sound, taking in a large breath to announce his presence instead.

The Gallente fought the impulse to spin around, turning his head slightly, but keeping his hands on the urn as the wheel slowed, his feet falling limp on the pedals.

“The smell of Kafak, fresh laundry, and,” he paused, looking over, “Is that clay? You’re making pottery?”

“It is what it is,” the Gallente replied.

“Sounds like the perfect Sunday.”

“It’s Tuesday here,” the Gallente corrected, turning back to the wheel, feet pushing it into life once more. “And I hope you didn’t come here just to patronize me”

The Caldari laughed softly, the nervousness evident in his voice as he stepped further into the room, over to the wheel. “I just came to see an old friend.”

The Gallente lowered his shoulders and nodded in silence, motioning to a nearby stool. On the floor next to it, a few finished urns were stacked beside each other, waiting to be fired.

The Caldari wandered over, taking a seat, and one of the urns in his hands.

“I find it relaxing,” the Gallente offered.

The Caldari held it close, examining the decorations before letting out a small laugh. “Huh. Tiiro-Shu. I didn’t realize you knew how to make these.”

“I’m learning.”

“You know, my uncle was buried in one of these, somewhere.”

“I know.”

“That’s not a good thing, either. It means he was an enemy of the State. You know what these mean, right?” The Caldari held the urn outward a moment as he questioned, before placing it back on the floor.

“You didn’t come to discuss ceremony. Why are you here?”

“I’ve found a job you might be able to do,” the Caldari replied, leaning forward into the wheel with a smile.

The Gallente stared ahead he shaped the lip of the urn now with finger and thumb. “I very much doubt that.”

“Did you hear about Heth?”

“Hard not to. Everyone’s talking about it.”

“What do you think the Megas will do; now they can reestablish the status quo? They’ll go back to settling all those grudges that they put aside years ago.”

The Gallente stopped the wheel, still staring straight ahead. “Meaning what exactly?”

The Caldari leaned in further, producing a small card printout and placing it on the table next to the urn. “Meaning this.”

The Gallente’s eyes were drawn to the curving yellow logo watermark first, subtle yet unmistakable beneath the Caldari lettering.

“Our girl nabbed this last night while snooping around some unsecured networks in Korama,” the Caldari said, completely unable to hide the smugness in his tone.

The Gallente focused on the Caldanese lettering, slowly working his way through each word while doing his best to suppress the implant’s helpful translations.

Quote:
ISHUKONE WATCH HAS ISSUED A REWARD FOR THE CAPSULE BIOMASS OF SHINTOKO AKAHOSHI. SINGLE CONTRACT. TERMS NEGOTIABLE. FURTHER INFORMATION AVAILABLE AT MALKALEN WATCH HQ.


The Gallente smiled broadly, handing the card back to the Caldari man with a chuckle. He turned back to the urn eagerly, taking a small wooden skewer out of a jar as he began decorating the wet clay with flowers, reeds and kresh branches.

“You’re worried about this? This is why you came here?”

The Caldari nodded sternly just once.

“She’ll take care of them.”

“I don’t want her to.”

“Um...” the Gallente shook his head, trying to finish before the clay dried further.

“I want you to work for them, and take on the contract yourself.”

He drove the skewer through the urn’s lower section, accidentally carving a deep and ugly line through the base and weakening the structure irreversibly. At this point it would not be salvageable.

“Even if I could do that, even if I wanted to do that, what the hell makes you think-“

“I found you a clone. One you can use for a while; a few months if you take it slowly. Maybe longer.”

The Gallente turned to face the man, his expression shifting markedly. “Go on.”

“He’s a completely fresh rookie. Never wanted to be an egger in the first place and knew he could sell the license for a lot of money once he was out. Our girl found that too. Got to him before he even really knew he wanted to sell. He’s now a very rich retiree, and we can get you back in the capsule under the radar.”

“The clone?”

“He’s not done a lick of training. You’ll be able to plan how to fit the most you can into the Alpha. You still can’t take it further than that, of course, but if you stay under that threshold, you could be good for months, maybe even years.”

The Gallente stood up. “Just like that, huh?” He stared around the studio. The rest of his evening was now accounted for, possibly a lot more than that.

“So what do you need me to do exactly?”

The Caldari rose with a smile, placing a hand on the other’s shoulder. “I need you to go pick a fight with Shintoko Akahoshi.”

“And lose.”

“Convincingly so!” the Caldari glanced sideways at the misshapen urn, falling in on itself by now. He tried his best not to grin. “But you shouldn’t have any problem with that part.”
Dobie Mercault
Special Admirer Philosophy Club
#3 - 2013-08-03 06:03:59 UTC
Part Two

“You only have about five minutes on this channel before we have to close it, are you sure you want to be calling me right now?”

“Yeah, I am. Listen. I didn’t even mean to. I didn’t even think it would work, but I just ran a level one locate on her, and got a hit.”

“And?”

“And? And the agent I used was Amateri Likkuni.”

“Ah. So the hunt is on? I assume they’ve bugged your ship? Are they listening now?”

“Every module and sensor.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“Well, I did exactly what you said and it worked, but maybe a little too well. We’ve got her curious, so she came, and being fresh meat here, she’s brought a frigate of her own just like we hoped. I waited it out like you said, and she docked up and went stationside. That brings us to today. Now I’m outside the undock, 1.5 from where she’ll be coming out, with all of them watching.”

“Put on a good show then, yes?”

“She’s in a Breacher. I’m going to be right on top of her at range, she’ll be expecting autos and get whacked with ions. I’m actually kind of thinking I--”

The Caldari paused for a moment, considering his words and smiling patiently. “We’ll see. Just, you know, make sure you sell it to them. Call me after.”

--

The light on her portrait in his Neocom flashed a bright green, and just a second after, he felt the familiar and oddly welcome sense of nausea as anti-adrenal chemicals worked their way through his body over a few heartbeats.

It had been maybe ten seconds. He knew exactly what was happening. She was checking local. There he was. Was he on the undock? Had he been waiting? She’d be ready to dart off, he expected. The crowd at the other end of all these listening devices was murmuring in excitement, unable to believe that somehow a rookie and his stupid plan might be able to bear fruit for them. 20 seconds now. She’d be out any second.

--

The Breacher ejected and drifted for a long moment, holding in the undock vector as it passed the Slasher, now turning and approaching in a slow base velocity pursuit. The Gallente was frantically trying for a lock every nanosecond, but station sensors were overriding any and every attempt.

In one fluid movement, the Breacher aligned and warped. He stopped his Slasher, watching as she flew off.

I guess that’s it, he thought, but the Breacher, now hundreds of kilometers from the station, was exiting a short-range warp into a point far, far from docking range.

She wasn’t running away, she was readjusting the battlefield.

He remained on the station for a long moment; the first inklings of who he was fighting were starting to take root in his mind. Pushing off the station, and those thoughts, he accelerated towards the Breacher determinedly. He knew it would be a long approach, and an even longer time before he could close that range again.

There was still some fear, and in a prideful way, some hope too, that he would turn the tables, and despite his rising shield damage, as he closed to visual range and started to see the shields on her own ship fall to just a single shot, he still wondered. He was already into armor on a shield-extended scrapheap, so it was doubtful, but still. He was at lethal range now.

As another barrage, what would be the second to last, tore large sections of armor from the ship’s outer plating, he finally began to notice warnings, flashing bright red things that he’d grown so accustomed to ignoring. Something about tracking disruption, and how the Ion cannons were –