EVE Fiction

[Had this sitting around for a while and thought I'd pop it up to see what everyone thought]

Captain Atash of the strategic Cruiser Ravage was relived. The strain of the last two weeks was starting to show on his weary crew.
Despite the fact that every member of his crew where hand picked, despite the fact that they had all been with him for years doing the same kind of work, extended operations in Wormhole space took its toll on everyone at some point. For two week solid they had been on high alert, each and every crew man pulling watch and watch, four hours on duty, four hours off duty, not counting the uncountable times where all hands where called for combat operations. The crew of the Loki where tough, but they where also merely human, not plugged directly into the ship like himself, not being sustained by the ship. He knew Captain Logar of the Unrelenting, the Vargur in fleet with him, worked his crew the same way when in Wspace. Atash also knew that his crew didn’t mind the harsh conditions. Fighting Sleepers was hard. Put the rewards made it all worth it.
And now they where back in High security space, less than two hours from home. Atash ran his mind through the inside of his vessel. The watch below had been dismissed now that they had come back through the Wormhole, and he noted that almost to a man they were in their racks asleep. The rest where in the mess halls, only twenty or thirty out of the two hundred and sixty not on duty. The tones he heard coming from these men and women was exultant, as it always was after such an operation. They where discussing how they would spend their pay when they got into dock.
His crew made vastly more than the average ships crew, because of the high level of expertise he required, and the huge risk they took just by working on a Capsuleer vessel that made its money by raiding Wspace. Atash smiled to himself. He knew that at least one quarter of his six hundred man crew would drag themselves back to the ship when their leave was up flat broke.
His attention was brought back outside as the little cruiser started to slow down and come out of warp. The deceleration masked by inertial dampeners, a jump gate sprang into his view, increasing in size exponentially. Anyone not used to travel on a Capsuleer ship would have believed that they where going to collide with the jump gate, but so precise was the Capsuleer warp calculations that the deceleration process was completed with the vessel only a little over a kilometer from the gate.
Atash saw the huge bulk of the Vargur come to rest two kilometer on his starboard beam. The jump gate activated and spat in the face of general relativity as it transferred them almost instantaneously to the next system of their route home.
“How go the repairs, Logar?” he asked as both vessels moved into warp. He could see for himself that the large sections of armor was buckled and bent. Large blackened gashes had been torn into the battleship when the Sleepers had broken through his shields. They hadn’t gotten through the armor, but it had been a close thing for a while there.
“Bah” was the disgusted reply, “we have those decks cleaned up and sealed but it’s going to take the station facilities to sort out the external damage. My chief engineer says we’ll have to replace all the plates on the port side from the stern to the main chains.”
“Just as long as the money is safe” said Atash, only half joking. The Unrelenting, with salvagers fitted, had duty searching through the wreckage of the sleeper ships to find the rare and highly valuable components that brought them to Wspace in the first place.
“Don’t you worry” Logar said, “I’ll keep this haul safe if I have to climb out of my pod and fight hand to hand”.
Atash smiled “You could spend your share on some nice faction shield hardeners. That would be money better spent than on repair bills every time we get back into station”
“Humph” was the rather grumpy reply.
Atash’s own vessel had faired much better than the larger battleship, in part due to its maneuverability, partly due to the expensive shield modules that had been fitted to it. The dependability of his crew also played a large part. He relied on them to keep his ship running. And not just for his sake. The crew knew that if the ship where destroyed the Captain would wake up in a new body. For themselves, even if they survived the ships destruction in an escape pod, they knew that they would never be rescued. There where no inhabited planets in Wspace, no space stations, just emptiness. For this reason they worked as hard as they could to ensure that every auto cannon, every shield generator, every power conduit, every powered door, everything, was in perfect condition.
Two weeks in a Wormhole, thought Atash. Once the ship docked the crew would disperse for three days. It would take him that long to get his share of the salvage to the local trade hub and sold, using a different ship with a different crew. He would pick up more ammunition and general supplies there and return. Maybe have a day or two out of his pod to complete some administrative work then organize his small fleet and disappear into the unknown again.