EVE Fiction

The shrill trilling of the alarm smashes the pre-dawn silence like a hammer blow, its mechanical buzzing ringing through the apartment like a dreadful scream from the bowels of hell. The apartment is small and cramped with a low ceiling and a carpet of mechanical detritus scattered across it. Tools and parts litter the floor like a carpet, empty bottles of oil lie broken and leaking across the metal decking. The scene is lit by the low crimson 'night light' glow of the emergency lights, casting a strange, surreal glow across the scene. A solitary desk lamp burns at a desk, its bright light illuminating the sleeping form of a woman sat at her desk, her head pillowed on her forearms and her short inky blue fringe flopped down over her face. Her skin is incredibly pale, her cheekbones and nose marking her as a woman of Sebiestor stock. Her skin is streaked with oil, soot and dirt. A soldering iron is loosely clasped in her oily hand, leaving a steadily growing black mark upon the steel surface of the desk, a desk piled high with technical gadgets and the guts of disembowelled computers and weapons of varying sizes. The woman is dressed in a simple undone leather flack vest and a tan coloured singlet that rides up around the waist, revealing a trim taut waistline. She is wearing battered and worn rusty brown fatigue trousers and dull tan combat boots. A photograph is pinned to the desk in front of her, a flickering hologram of two Sebiestor girls arm in arm smiling and laughing.

The girl suddenly gasps and opens her eyes, dragged in an instant by the alarm clock from the world of sleep back into the world of wakefulness. Bright blue eyes flick around the room as the girl yawns, reaching out in a stretch and kicking out her booted feet. She stretches out, blinking as the lights, upon detecting movement, snap from emergency lighting into full brightness, casing thier harsh halogen glare into the tiny room and the girl winces, snapping a hand up to cover her eyes for a few seconds as she returns from the world of sleeping into the world of the living. The Sebiestor grunts eventually, putting the tool she had fallen asleep holding down on the desk as she looks around the tiny cell she calls home and slowly massages the back of her neck before navigating her way through the treacherous maze of machine parts and computer bits and pieces. The rich aroma of silicon and lubricants of varying types hang in the air like a miasma. The woman makes her way over to a relatively clear portion of the apartment, to an old 125mm ammunition crate that has been converted into a larder of sorts. The woman grabs herself a semi-clean bowl lying on the table and pours herself a bowl of cereal, still only just half awake as she takes a slug of whiskey from an open bottle propped on the table.

The buzzing of the comm unit however snaps the woman out of her groggy torpor. She quickly puts the half eaten bowl of cereal to the side, swallowing quickly and taking down another slug of whiskey to calm her nerves and still her shaking hands. Only one person has her comm code, and he wouldn't call her unless it was important. Unless it was the answer to all her hopes, or the incarnation of all her nightmares. That's the reason she's been cooped up here, in this tiny room that she calls her living quarters, aboard the Republic Military School's station in orbit around Pator. She quickly picks up the comm code, trying to hide her nervousness as she picks up the call. This is it, the culmination of years of planning, of months of training and weeks of praying, all culminating in this moment. Interviews and medical tests, field testing and command training. Studying in hundreds of disciplines from advanced psychology to weapons manufacture and operation. Running through the desert sands of republic military worlds with a rifle on her back, standing on bridges of hundreds of starships, all of it has come down to this one moment.

"Andrastera" The gravelly voice on the other end of the line says coolly "You're sure this is what you want, once you've done this, there's no turning back, understand?"
"Yes General" Nicolla Andrastera responds, her heart leaping as she realizes she's not being packed off on the next shuttle off the station to a military tribunal, or worse back to her homeworld.
"Good" the general's voice is cold and hard as he lets the word hang for a few seconds "You're a good woman and whilst I'm sorry to lose someone of your... talents, the Republic can always use more capsuleers like you... that's the only reason you're still here... after what you did, anyone else would be put up against a wall and shot"
Nicolla bites back the retort, knowing that the last thing she needs is to antagonize the man who could veto her transfer to the Capsuleer wing of the Matari Fleet. She knows that she has to get this, has to get herself transferred to the capsuleers if she has any hope of finding her sibling and dealing with the man who rent her family apart.
"Yes sir" She snaps quickly into the comm unit and there's a sound almost like a chuckle from the other end.
"get your things together and report to the medical centre for transfer"
"When sir?" Nicolla asks, her heart leaping in her chest as the fulfilment of years of hoping, months of training and weeks of testing hangs before her, dreamlike in its tantalizing closeness.
"You're still there?"
The only sound is the bang of an opening airlock door, followed by another bang as it closes.