EVE Fiction

The warp tunnel collapsed, setting him on the edge of the asteroid belt. A quick glance at the overview panel showed that he was alone—for now, at least. Visual scan confirmed the place where the incident happened; a discolored crater in the nearest asteroid matched the coordinates of the wreck, or close enough. The cleanup had been thorough; the scanner turned up only trace bits of debris.

Why didn’t they just stay? Life on Matar wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t so bad either, at least not within the scope of a four-year-old’s definition of “bad”. No doubt there were hardships faced by his parents that he couldn’t comprehend, yet any place, any option, would have been better than Brin. To end up here, in the armpit of the galaxy, hauling augumene so your body could deteriorate before you reached sixty standard years was a fate worse than poverty. What good did money do the dead?

Urac flipped the directional scanner to 360 degrees at quarter range. The Udorian had promised that he wouldn’t have to search for his foe, but then she’d promised a lot of things. In any case, it never hurt to be aware of what was out there, especially when dealing with the Amarr. He was ready for the trap, if that’s what this turned out to be, the Rifter aligned to the coordinates of a nearby safespot. But he didn’t expect it. Not after what she gave him. Besides, running from this fight was never part of his plan.

“Clear screen,” he ordered, before remembering what ship he was in. With a curse he dropped his eyes to the instrumental panel and searched for the overlay switch. It took half a minute to find it. Hemorrhage seconds like that during combat and he’d be dead. Why couldn’t the Udorian have provided a Caldari frigate like the ones he’d spent the last five years training in? Unless she never really expected Urac to stand a chance?

You can’t kill a god.

“Iramé. Will you be the one who buries me?”

###

Iramé Na Toyashowa was waiting outside the airlock when Urac passed through barometric acclimation. His friend looked the same as he had five years ago; same shoulder-length hair, same malnourished face, same stoic grin that was his attempt at a smile. He was of a height with Urac, but his perfect posture made him seem taller.

“Welcome home,” Iramé said, leaning in to hug him. The unfamiliarity of years passed made the gesture awkward. “I was worried when I got your message. It’s a warzone out there.”

“I don’t care about those vigilantes and their petty skirmishes.”

“You should. It’s easy to forget, living in hi-sec, what it’s like out here.”

“I haven’t forgotten.”

They walked together across the cargo deck to a waiting transport.

“I’m sure you’ll want to board a shuttle to the Kaalakiota station as soon as possible, so I had you pre-cleared with security.”

“Thanks,” Urac said. He hadn’t even thought about the procedural anathema he was facing. “Aren’t you and I going to talk first?”

“Yes. In my office.”

Iramé’s office wasn’t far, and there were sandwiches waiting for them when they arrived. They ate without saying much, other than the expected questions: how was the journey, how much leave were you given, what plans do you have for the funeral?

“Head of security,” Urac said, admiring Iramé’s Republic uniform.

“Assistant head of security,” Iramé corrected him. “Tiatulf Klortalmarl stills runs the show around here, not a day older than when you last saw him.”

“Amazing what the gene therapists can do nowadays.”

“And you?”

Urac hesitated. “It’s Lieutenant Lefor, now.”

“Congratulations.” Iramé’s smile was genuine, and Urac didn’t spoil it for him by mentioning that he’d earned that rank twice over, or that any Caldari pilot with his record would have made captain long ago. “That calls for something better than sandwiches.” Iramé unlocked a drawer in the faux-wood chiffonier behind his desk and pulled out a bottle of Gallentean vodka. “All the way from Caille.”

“I thought you didn’t drink?”

“I won’t. I bought it for you.”

The vodka was excellent, of course, though Urac couldn’t appreciate its smoothness this hour, no more than he could offer any critique to the anxious posture of his friend beyond a paltry, “It’s good.”

“Good,” Iramé echoed him, analyzing Urac with those Intaki eyes. “You know, I’ll never understand why you chose them over my people.”

Urac mulled over the words, eyes in his vodka. “They’re like us, in many ways. They had to fight for their independence.”

“Yet they ally themselves with an empire built upon the back of slaves.”

“They despise us, no doubt,” Urac conceded, “but I’d rather face open prejudice than the patronizing double-speak of the Federation. At least with the Caldari I know where I stand. Besides, there’s always a chance their minds will change. They are a people built on merit, and if they see what my people can do, if we can prove ourselves, perhaps just maybe we’ll have stripped the Amarr of another ally.”

“Wishful thinking. Another glass?”

“Maybe later.”

Iramé set the bottle aside. “Urac, I know why you stopped here first instead of traveling straight to Kaalakiota.”

“Then don’t me make me ask.”

“There are...limitations...on our jurisdiction.”

“I know the Caldari Navy doesn’t want to get involved, but this is Republic space.”

“Technically, we fall under the sovereignty of the Empire now.”

“Until Jamyl Sarum sends her fleet to destroy this station and every Minmatar within it, this is Republic space and you know it.”

“Even so, my hands are tied.”

On the window-screens around the bar, views outside the station simulated openness, tricking the gloomy patrons into believing they weren’t really trapped inside some steel coffin in the middle of a dismal system at the edge of civilized space. Urac stared at the place where there were no stars, into the black of the nameless moon he’d befriended as a boy, and lifted the glass to his lips, drinking the distillate straight.

Kaalakiota Corporation. What a ******* waste, he thought, and slid their measly insurance payout under his glass to use as a coaster.

“I’ll buy your next drink, unless you would prefer to drink alone?”

It took Urac a moment to realize that the woman speaking was in fact speaking to him. It took half as long to realize what kind of woman it was speaking.

“I’m in no mood for whatever it is you’re trying to sale, Khanid.”

“I’m Udorian, actually, and I wouldn’t be trying to sell it if I didn’t already know you wanted it, Lieutenant Lefor of the Caldari Navy.”

“Should I let security know there’s a hacker in the station?”

“I’m no hacker,” the yellow-eyed Amarr said as she sat across from Urac. “I’m a collector.”

“Lady, I’m not going to ask you again.”

“Dolbani Maru,” she said, and there was no doubting she was beautiful. The kind of pristine, disgusting beauty you didn’t find amongst Urac’s lash-scarred ancestors. “And don’t give me that look. My people were made slaves long before yours. We’ve just learned to handle the Empire from within. Cooperation can be profitable.”

“It’s not cooperation if you don’t have a choice.”

“As your parents had when they moved to this station?”

The woman was just out of reach, else Urac might have throttled that smirk right off her porcelain face.

“Pity the higher-ups in the State declined to share the truth of what happened out there,” the Udorian said quickly, sensing his temper. “If you knew the reason they didn’t react to the assault, you might be more inclined to hear what I have to say.”

“What do you know about it?”

“To start, I know that when the Kaalakiota security force went to retrieve the wreckage, they encountered the assailant. The perpetrator identified himself and admitted what he’d done, yet was allowed to escape. When Tiatulf Klortalmarl and your Intaki friend showed up, the Caldari corporation instructed them the matter was closed.”

“I’m supposed to believe Kaalakiota would turn a blind eye to something like this? Sorry, but I lived in this corporate shithole for thirteen years, and if there’s one thing I learned, it’s that Kaalakiota doesn’t like to lose money, be it salaries or sabotage.”

“And supposing their hands were tied?”

Urac was quickly getting tired of that phrase. “By what?”

“By someone higher up in the political structure, for instance. There are many powerful agents within a mega-corporation like that, and they all intermingle directly with the State.” Suddenly she leaned forward. “I know for a fact that the person responsible has ties to such people, within Kaalakiota and even the Caldari Navy itself.”

“Who?”

“A capsuleer, of course.”

Urac’s voice lowered involuntarily. “A capsuleer did this? Why?”

“If you have to ask that, you don’t know much about capsuleers. In any case, this one used to be part of the 24th Imperial Crusade before he turned on his brothers and went rogue. Now he terrorizes the remote systems of Metropolis in a heavily modulated Eris, doing the dirty work of both Kaalakiota and the State. But he’s a loose gun, unreliable and dangerous. He’ll turn on his own if the mood strikes him, confident that his security status with the powers that be will rescue him of consequence.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Because I was once one of his agents, back before he betrayed me.”

Urac weighed the liquor left in his glass, setting it gently to the table. “They said it was classified. Why lie to me? Why not hunt the bastard down and be rid of him?”

“Two unrelated questions. I would venture to guess the answer to both is that he’s a capsuleer. Maybe someone values your life as much as they value their own.”

“He’s a man—or was, once. If he breathes, he can be killed.”

“Not by you.”

“I’ll take my own damned ship out there and determine that.”

“You don’t have a ship, you have a shuttle. In fact, I believe you’re due back with the fleet in a few days. That doesn’t leave much time to procure the necessary licenses to purchase one and outfit it with sub-standard armaments off the black market, provided you have an enormous store of wealth secreted away somewhere.” Dolbani grinned, watching her words deflate Urac’s resolve.

“Why tell me all this? You expect some sort of payment for this information?”

About every ship piloted by a capsuleer, there exists multiple camera drones whose sole purpose is to provide stereoscopic visualization for the pod-based pilot, providing him or her with a realistic exterior field display, as well as the necessary scopes and overlays needed for navigation. These camera drones are tiny and fast-moving, and much too small to target individually. The electromagnetic field that secures them in place can’t be disrupted short of a mass interscission event, nor can they be hacked, remotely re-programmed, or otherwise tricked into malfunctioning.

“A capsuleer has no eyes,” the Udorian had told him, “except what his ship sees.”

So when Urac activated his black market weapon—an EM pulse similar to the kind utilized by private security firms, but on a much larger scale——and fried the camera drones circling around him, the capsuleer effectively saw nothing.

You cannot kill a god, Iramé. But you can blind one.

Now the Eris came to a stop. Urac sucked in a breath and held it.

“It worked,” he said, letting go the held breath. “It really worked...”

Shards of plasma crisscrossed the space before him. The blasters tore through the remaining armor and punctured the Rifter’s left wing, sending smoke into the cockpit. Somehow the Eris was behind him now. Urac coughed helplessly, cutting the engine before his hull ripped apart. The Rifter shuddered, then pitched at an angle of its own making, lilting slowly toward the next-closest celestial body.

The orange light of his com lit up blinked to life.

Urac ignored it. Outside his cockpit window he could see the Eris, a dark wing hovering not two kilometers above him. Still the com blinked.

He flipped it open, and the voice of a man filled his cockpit.

“Who are you?”

“Lieutenant Urac Lefor, of the Caldari Navy. My parents were on that ore boat.”

“Did you really think that ‘thing’ you’re carrying would have any effect on me? Every pod pilot worth his salt keeps a hold full of camera drones. Is this a joke?”

So the Udorian had tricked him. Or else she herself didn’t know. Either way, it didn’t matter now. He was dead. “Go ahead then, you bastard. Kill me like you did my parents. I’m sick of your gloating.”

The Eris began to move around him, circling out to a five kilometer orbit.

“Oh, the bathos of vengeance, boy. The hollow disappointment when your heart quivers and your member retracts, having thrust so virulently into revenge.”

The com clicked off. His eyes widened in dread anticipation. A breath...

Out of the stars it unfurled, a grey, volant hull, cruiser-sized, its tumblehome bow pointed directly at the Eris.

Urac stared through a dream, fire and light dancing across his constricted vision. Hybrid turrets flashed to life and were answered by a hail of missiles. The interdictor’s arsenal was no match. The capsuleer fired his thrusters, and made a mad dash for life.

The ballet rose above him, a small fish dogged by one much larger. No matter which way the Eris turned, the cruiser matched his maneuvers. Assault missiles—unerring fingers of death—bent around the fatal sashaying, reducing the capsuleer’s ship to a smoking hull in heartbeats. There was a flash of light, followed by the glint of a metal capsule, stridently attempting to escape. And failing.

Urac drew slow, heavy breaths, watching the cruiser float toward him. It looked like one of the Caracals the Navy sometimes employed, but he knew it to be something much more dangerous. No wonder the Eris was obliterated.

Another capsuleer.

The heavy assault cruiser sat twenty kilometers off his bow, waiting. And him, in his shattered Rifter, breathing. Doing nothing but draw breath.

The cruiser turned away, aligning toward Arnstur. In seconds he was gone, and Urac was left alone to drift.

###

Nicely done.