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About the Lelanzani Pt 1
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Praezius Vheruk
Gozantii Industries
#1 - 2015-08-27 02:42:31 UTC
"...there's beauty in the bleeding,
At least you feel something...."

Three Days Grace "I Am Machine"


Turning to one side, standing before the mirror in his quarters in HLP-HW, Praezius again examines the cybernetic addition to his body--the arm that tells him he still exists for the sake of a corporation surrounded by the heavens. Ice blue eyes dart across the wires, bound in compound steels--he'd have chosen, were it him, a darkened shade rather than the earthen camouflage they had attached to his shoulder joint--a marvel of the capsuleer's never ending trials to survive, this. The dirty bastard to have devised the difference between the hardwire, the implant and the cybernetic replacement must have made a fortune...that is, if he has not been smeared across the hull of another man's ship.

Less than two months awake--since authorities upgraded his pod's cryo-stasis to honest life support, and his body has begun, again, to show the dangerous nature of the industrialist. He had been two weeks, or three, outside the gates of the Tribalist academy, with nearly an extension on his ship's lifespan to show for it, when he'd made the call. Uncertain of his ship's shielding, and wanting to know just where he could, perhaps, work himself to better ends, he had accepted a duel with another--in open space, he recall's the slight jostling of the ship, the crack of glass keeping atmosphere inside the vessel. The next thing he recalls had been waking inside the depths of that damned academy he'd worked so hard to get out of. Its infirmary smelled clean--too clean for the likes of him.

When he'd set foot into the hangar bays, he spent little time in outfitting a second of the same ship he had had, originally. Not that it was long after, when someone had gotten hold of him. By mistake, he'd said yes, believing it to have been the same cretin who'd blown he and his ship to bits. Too little, too late, he realized the truth of the matter, and his world took off like a rocket.

Within two days' time, he had learned the corporation into whose fold he had stepped had been working hard at stepping on the toes of a similarly named alliance; these two sets made it clear it was them--the corporation--versus the whole of the alliance. In retrospect, that should have made for a larger amount of individuals peering over the shoulders of the... then four.

Thusly, in the beginning, his task was simple--gather together everything he possessed, and get it moved to one place. Sounds simple, the route looks as simple as it sounds. Nothing in New Eden is ever as simple as it sounds, just like the best-laid plans always have that one percent chance of getting royally ****ed up. What started as a sixty-eight jump round-trip became a cruel game of cat and mouse. Two minutes here, ten minutes there; time was not an issue. Bringing all of his blueprints to one station was. A quarter dozen teases, the enemy corporation members had him locked, were bringing their warp disruptors and stasis webifiers online, when he just began to skirt out of their grasp. He led them on quite the merry chase, indeed, slinking here, and dodging there.

It was only via chance, blind and merciful--as much as it may not have been viewed at the time--that he and his foremost pursuer met at the same time, at the same station. One's eyes narrowed in victory, one's eyes widened in surprise.

He was in danger of having full lock set on him, when both of their velocities ended--each was on the opposite side of the station from the other; not waiting for docking procedure to take effect, Praezius kicked his thrusters up, forcing his ship into the station's docking bays; sparks showering the mouth of the bay as his ship broke through the hold of the station's tractor beam, the ship dropped into semi-locked atmosphere, dropping two dozen meters just inside the mouth of the bay. It bounced against the inner floor, thrusters and solar filament wings breaking free of the little beast as Praezius was knocked from his feet.

To discern faith from falsehood, first one must secure themselves to a lover. Raise the stakes from nightly, to permanent, and faith shall be found at the threshold of one's soul. ( Cup Size < Compassion's Depth, Love = Faith )
Praezius Vheruk
Gozantii Industries
#2 - 2015-08-27 03:11:23 UTC
Waking twenty minutes after having been thrown from the bridge of his ship, Praezius' first, real memory of the dangerous game of the industrialist was the demand that any industrialist be able to navigate his way out of danger. Staring up at the ceiling of his ship, trying to bat station hands away from where he laid, it didn't occur to him, then, that it was only his left hand that would respond to his brain's signals. Praezius started to sit up, and the dizziness of blood loss rolled him right back over, all the while, laughter ricocheted out of the speakers of his dying ship; the man whom he had narrowly evaded laughing as his ship's systems shut down. For the second time in an hour, Praezius passed out.

Hours later, when Praezius awoke, in another infirmary bed, in a different station--his thoughts were quieter. Subdued--"Like trying to sedate an Amarrian Vedanyr.... strength of an animal, him...." Sedated, then. He'd had to be sedated. During the moving of his body after passing out, as "heavier than a missile launcher" became a favourite amongst the doctors and orderlies trying to get him transported. His gaze had turned one way, and then the other, trying to figure out what was going on. Lights were kept low, the curtain to the endless dream of space kept pulled tightly closed. He'd reached for a support on the bed; again, his right arm didn't respond to the call, and his gaze turned down, as his left hand wrapped and began to pull himself upright.

Praezius dropped back to the mattress when his eyes touch the bandaged right stump where there should have been an arm. His eyes roll away from the bandages, turning back across the room, looking around it--anywhere, but where his brain tells him nothing's wrong, but for the emptiness of a missing... something.

While he had lain there, he recalls the passing-through of a body, and one body that became many over the following hours. A man in a white lab-coat who tried to have him reconcile to the loss of limb, going on to speak on a replacement, paid for by the owner of the corporation he had been inducted into. How these replacements were meant to be fully functional within the first twelve hours of placement, and what to expect as far as these replacements were concerned--maintenance, care and repair if something should fail in their function. Everything a machine needs, right? Praezius, back then, had leveled a stare on the man that had him backing away from the bed, and the orderlies relieved that they had locked away the crude weapons Praezius had gotten his hands on since leaving the Tribalist Academy.

Eventually relenting, Praezius underwent the surgery paid-for by the CEO of his corporation, coming out of that surgery as close to new as he could be.

Not that a cybernetic replacement can replace destroyed flesh and bone.
Neither can the loss of utility be tolerated.

To discern faith from falsehood, first one must secure themselves to a lover. Raise the stakes from nightly, to permanent, and faith shall be found at the threshold of one's soul. ( Cup Size < Compassion's Depth, Love = Faith )
Praezius Vheruk
Gozantii Industries
#3 - 2015-08-27 03:32:58 UTC
"If without a hand, a man may become an artist, then without an arm, does he become an elemental force of nature?"

Ten hours after his surgery found Praezius taunting his enemies, as they taunted him. Their silence was the beginning of a glorious friendship, ironically enough. Praezius would speak, as he moved through the station, taking time to stop in one place, or another--testing this newfound grip of a hand not familiar to his body. Around a smooth-textured railing, his fingers registered cool, and heat, although they, themselves, did not feel warm, particularly. A new thumb registered the smooth of the metal. Fingers drummed against the surface, as he spoke through a communicator to the men outside the building. He'd leave where he was standing to wander through the station, stopping at sundries and hangar vendors.

His own ship, he learned, had been deconstructed and reprocessed; its remains were to pay for the damage to the hangar bay and the burning-out of a tractor beam motor. Out of all of it, he received only seventy-three isk, and his own possessions still on his body when he was transferred to the infirmary. Luckily, the damages were minor, seventy-one thousand isk, in comparison to having lost the full collective of blueprints to the blasted buster floating outside the docks.

His stowages remained intact--blueprints remaining numbered amongst 200 or better. His ores and his minerals, his manufactures--only a fraction of those profits went into reparations. Free to buy a fresh ship, he took his time in choosing. Something to make the world turn, as far as he desired.

The Probe was what had just been destroyed--he had named it Tsar's Eyes, for it had allowed him to see to the horizons, as had an animal companion been wont to do on many an occasion. He firmly believed it had been the spirit of that animal that had allowed him to kick his way through the tractor beam's staying hold, to get out of the line of fire. So he would not take another Probe.

No, his allotments now allowed for greater choice in his chosen bridges to navigate. One of those bridges became, of all things, the locally reviled Venture; a ship of ORE's design and make that allowed for swift industrial procedure, and ease of staying out of harm's way. And for its title....

"Lelanzani Vrilata... that is what she'll be named." His voice rang, between he and the dock master, who tipped his head to stare at Praezius as though he had lost his mind. "After a woman I knew, who didn't have a problem getting as greasy as the men she worked beside. Lelanzani was a different kind of Gallente, you realize...."

The woman had a pair of hips to make a man shiver with every step she took across the deck. Her fair skin sullied by grease and oil, she didn't have half the hesitancy many Gallente men had, when it came to stuffing themselves waist-deep into a dead engine to try and resuscitate its working gears. Praezius had thought about it, and said he'd take it. The Venture. Money changed hands, and the title to the Venture changed hands, as well. The Venture became the Lelanzani I, and the next in a growing line of ships in Praezius' Vheruk's possession.

Such is the way of Eve--such an easy materialism, that the things we miss the most are, in truth, the most-easily lost.

To discern faith from falsehood, first one must secure themselves to a lover. Raise the stakes from nightly, to permanent, and faith shall be found at the threshold of one's soul. ( Cup Size < Compassion's Depth, Love = Faith )
Praezius Vheruk
Gozantii Industries
#4 - 2015-08-27 04:13:55 UTC
It is, then, with his thoughts shifting aside, as the whoosh of the door opening at the foot of his quarters, that Praezius turns away from his own vanity, hand wrapping about the grip of his pistol at his right hip before he has a chance to stop himself. Tensed, waiting, a moment passes before the young ensign, Letty, lets herself inside, pausing to giggle at the sight of him shirtless and ready to fire on the first creature stepping through the door into what he views as a sanctuary. Letty is another of those, left to rot in space because they didn't fit into their natural environment. An Amarrian woman not of nobility, Letty--Leticianna DeVisconei IV--loved digging around in anything that ran on gears and parts. She proved to be exceedingly awesome at it, really; her happiness rode on making something tick that didn't tick, before.

...and on her degreaser. The woman makes a degreaser agent that'll tear the lining shell off crokite faster than a reprocessing lab, or dissipate the shell casings of most projectile and hybrid rounds if one is stupid enough to drop them into the bucket. Because of the addition of an amino acid selection including several yeast formulae to increase its potency, it also makes an incredibly powerful liquor. Letty carries a bottle of it with her, now. "Oh, boss; ye're a silly one, na aren' ye? Pu'da' 'way, na; 'ave a sip, an' ye'll b'fine as day..."

Imperturbable, unmovable in her own right, Letty on her worst day is bubbly, laughing and always ready to tear a smile out of the people around her. On her best day, she'll send the toughest pirate running for the nearest window with her bright and bubbly antics. Somehow, no pirate ever wants to find a scrawling happy stick figure dominating the bridge viewport, and not be able to get revenge on the idiot that made it.

Praezius jams his pistol back into its holster, barely registering that his right hand feels almost too normal to be a replacement. Turning about, again, he glances at his blank, dark chest in the mirror for a long moment, then leaves the mirror behind to head after Letty as she saunters about to look at his sparse station home. He catches up with her, snagging the bottle and taking free the cap to take a swig, when her springy voice rattles its way into his hearing, and he pauses in his drinking--not sipping, "Don' chug, Boss, ittel g'down jus' as easy iffin ye sip't. An' d'je ye spea'tae 'dem 'bou' gettin' intae 'de Jenner pos'?"

Coughing into a sputter--it's a rare time to find him unable to take something easily; he's capable of drinking it, he has found, but he used to be a teetotaller with that stuff. Used to be, he couldn't function without it. But that was an entire body and, if Letty's not joking around, three years ago. "N..." Croaking amidst a breath of fiery air, he coughs, clears his throat despite tears springing to his eyes, and coughs again. "Nae... 'dey won' tae a man o'is eyes, an' nae mor'..."

Clucking her tongue, Letty saunters around the room, noting its absolutely... bare... symptoms. So unlike another place she knows. At least there is a range of heavy barreled pistols lying on a counter, signs of basic modifications having been done to each of them. It's a start, but far from the bastard she remembers. "Jus' as well, 'den. Praezius... izzit, na?"

"Yea... Praezius Vheruk... 13th Company...Wulfen..." That phrase has come a little too easily in the last couple of weeks. At least, since he'd swtched over from his prior corporation. Ironic, that the same man who cost him an arm was now his CEO in a different corporation. "'Dey're real' a goo'set'o'bodges, Let; ye'd dae well tae le'im tae ye in...." Capping the bottle off and setting it aside, Praezius walks up behind the golden-skinned woman. His hands wrap about her shoulders--the digits of the metallic hand softer in their grip than he would have thought. They mix and match according to the impulses his brain sets out. Thumbs rub over her collar bones, and he pulls her back, in a motion at once familiar, and foreign, to him. "'Sides, nae a one wou' knae hao t'tae ye, an' yer shinin' smile, La'; ye'd'ave'em on 'de run'n shor' order...."

To discern faith from falsehood, first one must secure themselves to a lover. Raise the stakes from nightly, to permanent, and faith shall be found at the threshold of one's soul. ( Cup Size < Compassion's Depth, Love = Faith )
Praezius Vheruk
Gozantii Industries
#5 - 2015-08-27 05:11:04 UTC
Shivering underneath his fingertips' glide, Letty at first relaxes--all the signs are there, that he's right there. The ease of transitioning between the energetic rockeater, the loyalist and... the.... But it's a different skin, even if she is the one that wants him to remember most who he had been. He's done a good job of it, so far; the problem lies where the heart of the matter remains in space. Tattered and frayed as ribbons of an aged mass of cable and tritanium plates. Wriggling out of his grasp, she pivots on a foot, planting a finger on his chest as she snaps back, "Ye're a deck'and, 'den? W'en ye'd ne'er gae d' tha' road sincin' Outlaw? Yer psyche, yer 'ands, Praezius... ye p' a stop tae 'is rule 'gainst us; led us tae a rich we'd nae been 'sposed tae, 'fore. Ye ain' 'de min't o'a 'and on a deck, n'ye'll 'ave tae mae 'mends wi'da' 'fore ye kin brin' mesef intae yer fol's 'gin."

Sliding to a side, walking away from Praezius where he stands, turning to watch her with a growing glare on his face, Letty pauses at the edges of the view screens, putting her eyes on them as though they were something she were actually interested in. Tongue moving into the pouch of his cheek, then out, then in and back out, he stops his turning, heading for the little sofa across from the screens. "Ye'll stop 'dis badgerin' w'en I's been ou'dere, yae?"

"Mebbe I will, mebbe I won'... ye ne'er knae....
"Ye jus' needs tae go, tae see wot'appened... tae un'erstan't't weren' ye 're ye're faul'...." Her voice fades, after; remembering the sight of the La's scout, of his Dragon Harvester, too--the pillars of flame that shot out from each as the belt destabilized during their passing-through of the system. Tears sprung to her eyes, but Letty sniffed hard, blinking them back as she turned around.

"Ye've tol' m'de story, Let', an'dis jump shite's s'posed tae be a wil' ride. I weren' knae'gable innit 'fore I mae 'de leap; nao I's gettin' 'dese picters, sights, in me'ead, whedder I's wantin' re nae. Iffin ye're t'inkin' 'dis'll bring'em back, 'dat I'll nae haef tae wai', 'den I be 'de one tae dae it. If." Plopping down onto the cushions, Praezius looks up at her, his face falling to half impassive. Half; he can't be emotionless around her, no matter how hard he tries. She's too trusting, too loving, to be left in the dark.

Letty sniffs again, hard, turning back to the view screens. Though she hates watching them, she forces herself to, if only to drag her mind out of the dark recess that threatens to envelope her concerning the loss of Nialla's "Beetle" and his "Dragon Harvester." She and twenty two hundred men had been piloting five harvesters in the distance following them; seven hundred perished in the flaming wreck the harvester became; of those men, her father and her uncle each had been on the Dragon. Though Nialla's "Beetle" claimed only seven, they were seven men and women well-loved in the corporation.
So, staring at the screen, Letty watches its channel programming slither through the Concord favourites, starting with an advert for the Caldari Navy, replete with that hussy with the legs. Letty smirks, despite herself. Praezius, as his former self, used to lust after that dirty, rotten war monger. Said he'd have had no trouble finding a way into her circle, if he'd been of a mind to do so. That had been before the assignment in Ammold. Before the assassination he would've made a flat trillion on, to stage the accident on that single planet, at a hotel pub in atmo. That was before the twists and turns that led he and his brother across the multiverse, and before New Eden really began pumping out its ends; before the war, and... it was before he lost his first mate, and her father, to an anomaly in the heavens.

Squaring her shoulders, Letty turns around, putting her worst face forward--a dashing smile, despite her moist eyes. "'Den ye g'tae it; I'ma b'ere w'en ye g'back."

She hates to have to, but when she must, Letty puts her foot down. Tonight, she puts her foot down, leaving Praezius to stew in his thoughts, and consider the options he has available to him.

To discern faith from falsehood, first one must secure themselves to a lover. Raise the stakes from nightly, to permanent, and faith shall be found at the threshold of one's soul. ( Cup Size < Compassion's Depth, Love = Faith )