A Busy September

The last few weeks had been very busy for Erun, and he'd gotten quite a lot of things done he had not expected to.  The thing that had surprised him the most as the month progressed was simply how much ISK he had been making.  He suffered nominal losses after replacing a ship every time he was unsuccessful in his combat effort, which was a often.  But somehow through his various combat and industrial activities he'd acquired nearly half a billion ISK, more money than he'd made in a month, ever.  The best part in his mind is that he'd been actively engaged and interested in all of his activities, rather than performing them as a necessity as he had been before he had joined the Intaki Liberation Front.

The biggest change for Erun though was that he no longer considered himself what many in the capsuleer community derided as a "carebear," or a pilot whose only purpose was to make more ISK by actively avoiding confrontations with other capsuleers.  He now saw himself as something he had affectionately dubbed a "care-badger," an industrial minded pilot willing to use deadly force to protect his interests.  Personally he thought his combat skills were only getting marginally better as time wore on, but the kill-board seemed to suggest differently.  He found his position at the top of it for the month of September to be particularly startling, assisting in or personally seeing to the destruction of 7 vessels.  In the same time frame he'd lost 8 vessels, many of them Maulus-class frigates that he had decided to stop taking into solo engagements. 

The losses he took while engaged in his combat activities were easily replaced with materials he acquired while combating the local Serpentis menace.  What modules he didn't use for the fittings he had lost were reprocessed into materials he could use to make new ships and modules.  His other industrial efforts had been highly successful, completing several of his personal projects and starting on some new ones.  He'd also worked on some larger scale building projects for the corp that he hoped would help in their efforts to bring peace and civility to the Intaki sovereignty.  More so than ever, Erun looked forward to what the future might bring.

All endings are also beginnings

Phalad Sahantun.  It meant "patient shield" in the language of his ancestral  homeworld, the embattled planet of Intaki.  He'd picked the phrase as his designation upon beginning the training to become one of the new breed of immortal mercenaries being drawn to the battlefields of New Eden.  He was filled with a sense of trepidation as he contemplated his last assignment, possibly his last assignment ever.  As the final act of their old lives, and to complete the process that would turn them into immortal clone soldiers, each candidate had to take their own life.

The purpose behind this act was twofold, the first was to complete the physical portion of their transformation.  Cranial implants which they received at the end of months of mental and physical conditioning were designed to record their consciousness up to the moment of death.  The second, and more important purpose was to test the candidates' willingness to face their own deaths and to overcome that fear.  The form of this test would differ depending on the group or government issuing it, but the candidates were all given a finite  amount of time to perform the final act of their lives. 
Talking with other clone mercenaries had revealed numerous grisly methods.  One had been led into a room with a table, a chair, and a gun.  Another who had also received a chair and table, but was instead greeted by a glass of water and inconspicuous but near instantly lethal medical capsule.  Phalad had even heard tales of a paraplegic who had turned down the gun, instead throwing himself off of a skyway. 

He'd been given the better part of three days to make his decision, and told it would be better if he didn't do extensive damage to his cortex beforehand.   Never being fond of the mind altering, and generally mind damaging substances his peers were fond of, found Phalad wandering the streets reading the latest news on a handheld datapad.  His fascination with the rising tensions between the Gallente and Minmatar almost kickstarted his career as a mercenary, just barely being being able to dodge the speeding vehicle of a joyriding couple.  Thinking to himself as he leaned against a nearby building for support, he realized that he didn't want to lay his life at the feet of someone else.  He'd much rather his death came as a consequence of his own thoughts and actions than someone else's, or worse in his mind, Mother Nature's.  

Returning to his training base, Phalad told his trainers he was ready.  He was led to a blank room with a pill and a glass of water waiting for him.  Leaving a shoe to jam the door open he grabbed the pill and water before turning back around.   Never hearing the door close his escorts had turned around to see him walking back out.  Moving to restrain him they stopped as their eyes glazed over, and upon receiving their new orders they escorted him back to his quarters.  As they left him alone he quietly said to himself, "Suprab Nahi..."  The guard on the left nodded his head respectfully, while the one on right who looked eerily similar simply gave a thin smile before they both turned and walked away.

Slipping out of his remaining shoe and then all but his training shorts, Phalad moved to sit on the side of the cot in his nondescript room.  He grabbed the pill and water the guards had left on the side table and quickly downed them both.  Lying down and folding his arms behind his head, he closed his eyes and fell asleep for the last time, wondering what the future might hold...

Damp Experiments

Erun was nervous, anxious even, to the point where his pod's medical suite had already offered him a mild sedative to soothe his nerves.  The reason for his current state of anxiety happened to surround him in the form of a Maulus-class frigate.  More than the ship itself, it's designed purpose as an electronic-warfare platform was throwing him for a loop, he had literally no experience using e-war modules.  He'd experienced their effects before - range dampening, electronic counter measures, even tracking disruption - for all the good these all did once his drones had a valid target for their aggression.  But he'd been in situations where he'd been unable to give his drones targets and then couldn't bring his own armaments to bear against the offending craft. His continued theory-crafting to improve his PvP had led to thinking about combining his drone expertise with this ability to prevent an opponent from targeting him back.  Taking one more minute to ready himself, he finally undocked from Intaki 5-5 to begin looking for viable targets.

Long range directional scanning quickly resulted in a potential pirate at one of the many faction warfare sites the Empire Navies left scattered across the Viriette constellation.  Erun kept his d-scan running as he approached the site at high warp, identifying the ship in the site as an Imperial Navy Slicer.  He felt some hesitation as he arrived at the acceleration gate into the complex, but quickly gathered himself and broadcast  the activation signal, sending him hurtling towards a possibly violent end. 

As he landed on grid Erun ran a quick background check on the pilot flying the Slicer, a Teens in Jeans with a marginally criminal security status.  They quickly targeted each, with Teens firing the first salvo allowing Erun to engage at will.  The four Hobgoblins he had deployed when he landed immediately streaked towards the Slicer as Erun activated his E-war suite and attempted to get to a longer range.  The Slicer's lasers lanced through his shields while his drones and artillery made quick work of the Slicer's.  His ship began to shake as the minimal armor plating on his Maulus began to ablate under the concentrated hail of laser fire.  The drones had only gone through half of the Slicer's more reinforced armor when his own began to fail, sending structural integrity warnings racing through his mind.  Aligning to the first point on the Escape section of his Overview, he felt the nanofiber enhanced structure collapsing as it ejected his pod into space which quickly reached warp velocity and raced off. 

Erun bounced off his escape point before docking in Intaki 5-5 and attempted to calm his rather frayed nerves, now taking the sedative previously offered by his pod's medical suite.  He offered his congratulations to Teens in Jeans in local and got a "good fight" back.  Erun was curious to know how effective his Dampeners had been and asked Teens, who responded that he'd been reduced to a range of less than 13km.  Teens told him that it had been very close, the drone damage had been "sick" getting him down to 3% of his armor.  Wondering what he could have done better, Erun asked, and was told that if he'd kept past 13 kilometers and kept his speed up he might have won.  Laughing, Teens told Erun he would probably just run the next time he saw a Maulus, and that he'd gotten lucky this time.  Teens soon left the Intaki system, and Erun wrapped up his own business resetting his PI and market orders before turning in for the night...

Several days later...

Mentally sighing in frustration as his pod warped away from yet another lost Maulus, Erun tried to think of what he had done wrong this time.  This would be the fourth Maulus he'd lost this week either due to his own errors, or just landing into a situation he couldn't handle.  His first loss had been his informative battle with Teens in Jeans.  The second he'd been torn to shreds by a nearby Thrasher before he could even get his drones out.  This loss taught him that warping to zero wasn't always a good idea, and that he should immediately start burning away from his target.  He'd unfortunately landed on his target again which resulted in him losing his third Maulus, although this time he'd managed to get away long enough to deploy his drones.  This fourth loss he'd once again been unable to get to a safe range before his opponent's rockets ripped him apart.

Almost unconsciously Erun made his way back to Intaki to fit yet another Maulus, the fitting process itself was relegated to another unconscious part of his mind as he pondered his next course of action.  As his pod was transferred to the newly constructed E-war ship he decided to continue with his current plan of trying until he succeeded.  He'd stopped taking even the minimal crew out with him on his combat roams once he realized he'd be losing so many ships, so he wasn't putting anything at risk he wasn't willing to lose.

Undocking from Intaki 5-5 Erun ran a quick D-scan and found no valid targets so he headed through to Agoze.  The D-scan showed clear but there were numerous valid targets in system, so he headed to Agoze 9-2 which offered him a better "view" of the system.  A nearby faction warfare complex showed activity so he decided to head there, and engaged his warp drive.  As he landed on the acceleration gate he saw a hostile heading into the complex followed closely by a blue named Xander Lehman.

Erun hurriedly broadcast the activation sequence and followed only to be jarred violently as his warp bubble collapsed!  The vector for the attack was determined in an instant and he threw his ship in the opposite reaction as he activated his microwarp drive.  He targeted and damped the hostile vessel, a pilot named Rivika in a Thrasher who turned her attentions to Xander who had begun attacking her.  Erun's drones were launched and sent after Rivika as he closed back into disruptor range.  A quick stock of his bearings showed that the single volley had overloaded his shields, ablated most of his armor, and damaged the struture to the point the ship was barely holding itself together.  As he approached the maximum range of his disruptor and activated it he saw Xander's ship explode under the fire from what he assumed were Rivika's artillery cannons from the alpha damage they were doing.  Bringing his own artillery to bear, Erun began firing on Rivika's Thrasher while keeping his remote dampeners active, rendering her unable to target him.  With the damage Xander had already done to her shields, Erun's drones and artillery fire were able to get through Rivika's defenses and destroy her ship, but he was unable to capture her capsule.

Another hostile ship landed in the complex and Erun pulled in his drones and took his leave, his Maulus was barely holding together as it was.  Once he landed on station he alerted to be ready in case the ship fell apart, he'd already vented the ship's atmosphere to stop several small fires onboard.  Station services dragged the ship to his hangar before they gave him an estimate on the cost to repair it.  He signed off on the estimate without even thinking, waiting the few minutes it took the stations nanonic repair services to put his ship back together.   "Good fight" was tossed in local by all the involved parties, with Rivika lamenting as Erun's damps had left her helpless.

As soon as the repairs were complete he sent his thanks to station services before undocking again and making a beeline for the Intaki gate.  Once on the other side he ran a cursory scan before setting a course for Intaki 5-5 and docking up for the remainder of the night.  He was soon decanted from his pod, toweling off ectoplasm and relaxing on his couch with a warm bowl of ramen in his lap.  As he got up to pull a second bowl out of the commissary unit he called up the schematics for the Maulus, looking to see what he could do to improve it.  Maybe if he swapped out the damage control for another drone damage amplifier... It may have saved him today, but he wasn't supposed to be taking fire in the first place... Or maybe he'd...

Panicked Elation

The hum of the mining lasers thrummed throughout the hull of Erun's Retriever as they chewed their way through a sizable rock composed of Dark Ochre. He'd taken to mining more often after the last Neocom update had included a significant improvement on gravimetric triangulation.  This allowed all capsuleer vessels to quickly find what were now being dubbed, "Ore Sites." The materials available from the asteroids in these Ore Sites had been a major boon to his production of sub-capital vessels and their accompanying modules and ammunition.

A flash in the corner of his eye drew Erun's attention to the ever present local window, two suspects had entered the Intaki system.  Quickly ascertaining their security status, he began aligning his ship back to Intaki 5-5.  Running a directional scan within 14 Astronomical Units of his position gave him the suspects' ship composition, a Rifter and a Griffin.  A small gang, but more than capable of reducing his Retriever to dust.  A mote in the distance off his starboard bow grew quickly into a Rifter 14 kilometers out.  A thrill of panic ran through him as it started to target him before his warp drive kicked in, whisking him away to the safety of the Intaki Astral Mining Station.

Docking quickly, Erun had his pod transferred to the waiting Tuhvrakh, a Tristan he'd made ready for just such an occasion.  Undocking just as quickly, he aligned and warped back to the ore site, cycling and then overheating his guns and electronic warfare modules in preparation for when he landed.  And what luck!  His opponent had moved closer to his bookmark allowing him to land within less than a kilometer.  Tuhvrakh began targeting as soon as it landed, weapons deploying and e-war bringing the Rifter to a standstill.  Erun's T2 Hobgoblins began working through the Rifter's shields a moment later.  Alarms went off as his own shields were quickly evaporated by a hail of autocannon fire, followed by the ship shaking as the armor began to take hits.  As the Rifter tried to break away it's own armor began to fail, the occasional shot getting through to the vulnerable superstructure beneath.  Almost a third of Erun's 200mm armor plating had been ablated when the Rifter finally succumbed to the hail of fire from his own blasters and the almost mindless fury of his drones.  Heaving a mental sigh of relief Erun halfheartedly attempted to grab the pod of his opponent before it slipped away.  He was distracted however by the arrival of the Griffin he'd forgotten in his excitement!  Staying at range it promptly shut down his targeting capabilities before it began firing on him.  Fortunately Erun had yet to recall his drones, and sensing an attack on their creator had automatically streaked toward the Griffin before they began tearing through it's shields.  It could only withstand a few seconds of the brutal assault before it wisely disengaged and followed pod of it's partner. 

A sense of elation filled him as he realized he had just won his first real battle against another capsuleer!  He posted his congratulations on a good fight into the local chat, a sentiment reciprocated by his opponents before both pilots left the Intaki system.  He scooped out what he could salvage from the remains of the Rifter before heading to dock for some repairs.  Tuhvrakh has lost almost two thirds of it's armor plating, and one of his drones had been damaged at some point in the battle.  As Erun was decanted from his pod and toweling himself off, he realized he was shaking.  Whether from fear or the remnants of the adrenalin from the battle, he was shaking like a leaf in the wind. Tossing his pod fluid soaked towel into the recycling system before he flopped into the now thoroughly worn couch. He'd taken to sleeping there instead of the provided bedding, which was obviously intended for some with a much smaller frame than his own.  Noticing one of his more combat oriented contacts was awake he asked about the problem.  This got him laughed at before they explained the feeling was normal, especially for the first such engagement.  After ending the conversation he looked down at his still shaking hands before making a conscious effort to stop them.  He felt an odd tightness in his chest before finally bursting into a fit of laughter that eventually exhausted him into an easy sleep...

When Diplomacy Fails

A disgusted sigh escaped Erun's lips as he closed the comm on yet another unsuccessful attempt to ingratiate himself with the Reasearch and Development agents of the Amarr Empire... His standings with the theocratic hegemony had deteriorated so far in his assignments with the Gallente and Minmatar governments that even the lowest grade agents of the Amarr refused to even speak with him. His efforts in aiding the Sisters of EVE had cooled tensions to the point the the Amarrian Navy wouldn't shoot him on sight anymore, but he'd apparently been blacklisted in their research community. Looking out over his hangar he made up his mind and decided to pack it up and head home to Intaki. He'd spent the last week or so doing mundane tasks for the few Amarrian agents who would even speak to him, and it had been getting him nowhere quickly.

A quick thought sent a substantial severance package to the small crew of the Cormorant destroyer he'd cobbled together for his work, as well as an order for the vessel itself to be mothballed for potential future use. Another thought sent the random bits and bobs he'd collected to the station's reprocessing facilities. He'd take the resulting  higher end materials like megacyte and zydrine, with him back to Intaki. The piles of low end materials comprising of tritanium and pyerite were simply too large to fit in the Ishkur Assault frigate he would be flying home, so they were quickly shortsold on the market. All of these preparations were completed while Erun was reintegrated with his pod and inserted into Sura K'Yevpeyshaara. The name of his Ishkur was a MCI translation of the ancient Gallentean god of storms who gave the ship it's name. A curious reminder of Erun's interest in cultures both ancient and modern.

Final preparations were completed and after being given the all clear the ship navigated it's way out the bottom of the station before aligning itself on the outgoing gate to the Cleyd system. There would be a short hop through lowsec to get his adrenalin going before the long trip back to Intaki sovereignty. The warp drive came online and the beautifully crafted golden facade of the cathedral-like station shrank to nothing behind him as Erun's thoughts turned to some no less serious, but perhaps happier news. He'd received notification that Suresha Saxon Hawke had resigned his post as CEO and elevated Sakaane Eionell to fill his place. Already the corp channel was filling with ideas on how to celebrate the new Suresha's well deserved promotion, ranging from fireworks and laser shows, to a race through the Viriette constellation in her honor. Mentally grinning to himself, Erun could only laugh at the likely fun and interesting times ahead.

Flying High

Erun relaxed on the sofa of his quarters as he accessed his Neocom through his cranial implants.  Besides augmenting his already above baseline mental abilities, the implants allowed him to access the fluid router network operated and maintained by CONCORD.  The ever-present Local, Corp, and Alliance communications channels were open to him, as well as those run separately by the Intaki Liberation Front and the Intaki Prosperity Initiative.  All was quiet at the moment, one of his corpmates , Anais, had retired for the day after helping him harvest several clouds worth of material.  The material in question, Viridian Mykoserocin, was formed in the intense pressures of asteroids and moons, and was useful in the manufacturing of numerous electronics and weapons. 

Anais was also helping Erun become more familiar with the nuances of combat with other capsuleers.  He had quickly learned that combat against other pilots was very different than combat against the numerous pirate factions, and even the well-trained navies of the four empires.  The empire navies,  and to an extent the pirate flotillas all followed general doctrines that allowed their tactics to become predictable.  This could not be said of capsuleers, who by the nature of their existence are unpredictable and constantly evolving their tactics and strategies.  Anais' first lesson had been to teach Erun how to take advantage of an enemies' speed and turn it against them.

This "Kite and Tackle" technique assumed the user was in a fairly nimble vessel, usually a frigate or destroyer, which suited Erun just fine as they were his preferred size of vessel.  The technique required the user burn away from their target, then once the target was following them, turn and burn back toward them in order to get in close.  This technique was best used by craft utilizing blasters and autocannon which were most effective up close and personal.  Erun and Anais had taken out an Atron class frigate and a Stabber class cruiser to run their exercises, which had gone very well.

A notification from his Neocom roused Erun from his musings on the day, he'd received a message from a recent client.  Specifically the one who had bought all the gas he'd mined that day.  The client was interested in setting up a more direct transaction of materials than the more publicly browsed markets maintained and moderated by the Secure Commerce Commission.  Erun's right eyebrow went up as he ran a shallow background check on his prospective client.  He'd always heard about the "underground" drug production cartels, but he'd never actually been in contact with one of their agents before.  Besides being useful in legal production practices, Viridian Mykoserocin was also used in the manufacturing of the borderline legal Synth Drop Booster, a drug cocktail that that improved the users ability to track objects in space.  Erun had never indulged himself but he had heard horror stories from the capital ship pilots while in nullsec, about stronger variants that had horrible side effects.

Erun shrugged before sending off a positive response to his new client, pleased to have found another source of reliable income.  Erun didn't have any moral quandaries with selling his gas, the drugs produced by the  cartels were not intended for public consumption, being specifically tailored for capsuleer use.  The additional income would supplement what he was getting from his factories based in and around the Intaki solar system.  These were geared toward the production of products necessary for the maintenance of Pilot Owned Structures like robotics and coolant.  This income would do a great deal to alleviate Erun's worries about combat against other capsuleers. The replacement of ships, and getting more costly, clones, had always been the limiting factor for Erun when it came to combat.  Hopefully now he'd be able to get in the thick of things without having to worry about whether he would be able to replace the ship he was flying in...

Some New Homes, Are Also Old Ones...

Erun used the large holoscreen to gaze upon the verdant blue and green planet below him.  The equatorial oceans were too hot to support anything more complex than thermophile bacteria, therefore most life tended to cluster around the more temperate polar regions.  The polar regions also supported the human population of the planet, with towns and villages nestled in the mountains and valleys.  They were a stoic people; calm in their demeanor, collected in their thoughts.  They were also his people.  Though not born on the planet of his ancestors, Erun had traveled far to return to a place he had oft only visited earlier in his career.  His wanderings had finally led him back to areas of space where he had first started his life as an immortal capsuleer.

Having born witness to, and participated in, the endless and often pointless wars that raged in nullsec, he was eager to do something worthwhile once again.  Out there he had been nothing but a cog in the massive war machine of a major alliance.  Even then he was only occasionally able to fly with the fleets due to his inability to fly nullsec fleet doctrines consisting of primarily Amarrian and Matari battleship designs.  Now that he was out he was free to fly the ships he knew and loved best, the nimble but deadly frigates and destroyers of the Gallente and Caldari.  It was one of these that had brought him here, a newly fitted Condor-class frigate that had allowed him to bypass the meager gatecamps that had impeded his path to lowsec. 

In it's hold had been the blueprints he needed to start up mining and production in this mostly lawless area of space.  Blueprints for the production of Tech 1 vessels and and the modules that went with them.  Combat vessels with the incumbent railguns and blasters, rocket and light missile launchers, and all the defensive and electronic warfare modules that go with them.  He was also going to start production on the new Venture-class mining frigate recently developed by Outer Ring Excavations.  He'd experimented with the nimble but highly effective mining vessel while out in nullsec and was eager to see what it could in lowsec environs.

Turning away from the holoscreen Erun walked to the couch before draping himself upon it.  The quarters provided by the station were spartan but cozy, something he hoped to improve on over the coming weeks and months.  Shutting down his Neocom, he pulled up some of the information and procedures used by his new corp before slowly drifting to sleep with a blue-green marble filling his minds eye...

His new home...

Intaki...