When the stars align

In space nobody can hear you celebrate. But inside this white and shiny little frigate were two men—or more correctly, one demi-god and one mortal, one projected as a hologram and one physically present—dancing around in the tight space between the drone bay and the massive container that took up most of the space in the cargo hold.

“Here’s to our first T3-dessie solo kill, Sins! Take that, you fucking Amarrian bastards! Your silly Confessor shredded to scrap metal by the Sister’s little sissy Astero!”

I raised my imaginary glass. Man, I was looking forward to getting out of my pod and kick back in the lounge area.

“Hell yeah!”

Bleak Sins, my mechanic and partner in crime, had to shout through the loud terran rock music playing from entertainment system. One time I visited the Eve Gate I found a terran artifact floating in space containing a huge selection of music. I love that old-time stuff. We were shouting and screaming for a couple of minutes, then we docked up to refit a salvager.

“We have a signature ready for fishing in Isenan, boss, remember that!”

I was damned proud of my mechanic. His transformation from a timid mechanic into a mean bastard of a pirate was something to be proud of. It reminded me of my own journey towards the life of freedom.

“Yes, I just want to know it there are some shiny stuff that can be salvaged from this T3 wreck first.”

There was not a lot, to be honest, so off we went to Isenan. And there we found a freshly graduated capsuleer going about his data salvaging, in our very own pre-probed little fish pond. We mopped the dance floor with him and sent him back to his cloning station.

“You know, Sins, let us show him the way of true freedom. I am transferring him 10 million ISK to show him our way of life is good one, a life of choices—your own choices. I am free to take whatever I want. I am free to give back. Nobody tells me anything.”

“You’re a god.”

I didn’t catch the sarcasm.

“Yes!”

And then I got a message from one of my planetside enterprises that needed my immediate attention. I ordered my ship to cloak and transferred my consciousness to a planetside neural communication gateway, a so-called Automated Flexible Keyway, often referred to by capsuleers as “being AFK”.

I did not catch the error message my neural interface sent me:

W4RN1N6
U R UNCL04K3D
0 @ 64T3

I mentioned some time ago that I was looking forward to waking up in a new clone. That clean shaven chin (not the upper lip, of course!) and the feeling of youth. Beeing 27 again, even though I have aged quite a bit since I became a capsuleer. I hate the headache that follows, and the goo you wake up in is disgusting, but after a spa treatment and some fine dining, I always feel good in a new clone.

But this. This was brutal. This was pure evil. This was punishment for my hubris.

I was not cloaked. I was, according to my systems log, sitting at a gate. While AFK. My long lived and very expensive customized Astero was gone! And my clone with implants. And Sins! Bleak Sins! Where was he? Had he survived?

An Astero that is clearly not cloaked.

I quickly checked my official report from CONCORD’s Loss Matriculation And Investigation League (LOSSMAIL). And thank you holy mother of god or whatever fairy that choose what to survive when spaceships explode: He was alive! *

I opened up my Neocom and quickly sent a message to the capsuleer, Distai, reported to be the cause of my recent loss. Would he be so kind to release my mechanic back to my service?

“Oh sure thing. It's not my place to separate you two. I’ll charge you 10.000 ISK for the release, though.”

Bleak Sins had survived yet another explosion!  And  now he waited for me to be picked up at the Federal Navy Academy in Vitrauze.

I was still butt naked and covered in goo. And I needed a new ship. But, first things first: A shower.

But before the hot water got through the stations subpar plumbing system, I was greeted in the local communications channel by a Yukio Wantanabe. It was the newly graduated capsuleer that I had shot down earlier! He sent me a short message thanking me for my contribution to his career and wondered why all the pirates he meets are so nice? I smiled and thought to myself: It is because we are the truly free capsuleers. I will have to send him a message to tell him that.

The hot water arrived. The cold water knob, however, was tricky and it was a choice between scolding hot or ice cold. Damned Concord plumbing. The local communication channel made a noise again.

“Saftsuze! How are you doing?”

It was Doctor Genocide. Terrible name. Good man. A free man. We shared corp for a short stint in R1FTA, and we have been in multiple communication channels over many years. He continued:

“This is where my medical clone is based!”

“Wow, and you just woke up here as well?”

“Yeah! I was warping out of a fight to a station for repairs as I burnt out my guns, but bounced off some guy; cancelled warp then the call went out to get the fuck out and align to top station…”

I could obviously see where this was going as we were both wearing our new baby skinned clones.

“... and a Proteus point got me, no chance of burning from that one. So, do you have anything in station? ”

I was butt naked. And a quick glance over at the inventory told me I had one Velator.

“Nope. I need to go shopping.”

The station's personal trading interface gave a quick notification about an incoming offer.

“Which do you want?”

In front of me my neural HUD-interface displayed a wide selection of different shiny frigates. I tried to be modest, opting for the Firetail. But a wealthy capsuleer like the Doc won’t let you take the cheap stuff. I could hear the noise from the stations docking drones as my hangar overview presented me with a new ship: A shiny new Garmur was now parked outside my captain's quarters! I ran out on my balcony completely forgetting to even grab a towel. I just hope there were no camera drones around to record my ere… reaction from seeing that ship.

The Friend Ship

“Hey, Doc: I'll send you the report from the Loss Matriculation And Investigation League.”

He laughed. Not a laugh like what you might expect from a person named Doctor Genocide. More like the likeable chap at the pub.

“Cool! I hope you get some good kills in her before she meets her doom!”

And off I went to pick up Bleak Sins in Vitrauze.

Yeah, I never bothered to take that shower. I just jumped straight into the pod goo again.

* I have Bleak Sins registered as a janitor because of a lot less paperwork in regard to work permits and such when crossing the different empire's borders. You won't believe the shit you have to do to bring a licensed mechanic into Caldari space.

The Stranded Whale

The most common species to mass strand are pilot whales. Potillot Mumnier, researcher at University of Caille, says until more research is done on the behaviour of pilot whales before and after stranding, these events are likely to remain a mystery. "It is an enigma. This is the word that best describes it," says Mumnier.

Clipping from Journal of Temperate Planet Sealife Research, University of Caille

As I undock from Hulmate station, I have already concluded that the not yet graduated pilot must be somewhere in space, based on the guest registration list in the station. My hunch is, based on this pilot's short history as a capsuleer, that she is in a Venture class mining frigate, trying to grab some jaspet with the false sense of safety this warp core stabilized ship gives inexperienced pilots. Most youngsters don't have enough knowledge about tanking or spaceship physics to actually make good use of their stabilizers, so I often enjoy them as a sort of light snack for my hungry demons. I was expecting such a snack as I undocked.

Huh? No Venture? A Moros? What is a Moros? Is that one of those new specialized haulers? What the hell! It's a dreadnaught? Where is it! Where is it? In a belt? Warp drives active. No. On a gate? Yes! On a hisec gate? Yes! What The Fuck Is Happening Here?

A dread can't jump into hisec. I know that. Hell, can it even use gates? I desperately ask in all my open channels.

I close in, align towards the closest belt, fire a swarm of rockets and warp off as the gate guns start targeting me. I send a blessing to those who managed to hack CONCORD's central memory system so that gates now forget your most recent transgressions. I land among the asteroids, turn my Kestrel around and initiate warp at once. I am shaking. I ready my emergency call in all the pirate channels as I am in warp back to the gate: “Moros tackled on Deninard gate in Hulmate! Need more damage!”. Locked. Scrammed. YES! Scramble your spaceships, fellow pirates! Come to Hulmate!

And vultures start pouring into system. They all want a piece of this stranded whale. At a hisec beach, caught in a lowsec surf. Not able to swim or dive. Slowly dying from the scavengers thousand bites.

And we all wonder why. Why? It is an enigma.

Then we all leave in peace. Our demons have feasted on the carcass of a stranded whale. They will be satisfied for days now.

Footnotes:

1) A look at the official report of the incident reveals that I could have soloed it. I COULD HAVE SOLOED A DREAD IN A T1 FRIG! If none had interrupted and my associates had brought ammo, that is... What a battle report it would've been! But of course it wouldn't have been possible. I did the right thing, calling for help. I did, didn’t I?

2) A possible theory to why this whale stranded could be the following: A young pilot amass huge amounts of ISK. Either through selling PLEX or from a friend. But she does not acquire the same amount of information on ship classes and abilities. She has many many ISKies, and sees a Moros for sale in Hulmate. This is the most expensive ship she can buy and she rush out from the comfort of hisec to get it. But she wants to get it back to hisec as soon as possible and warp to the gate she came from. That is when she realizes it will not jump through. And that is when I undock. With her head buried in the very complex user manual that is hidden in the Moros glove compartment she suddenly realizes there is a tiny little Kestrel buzzing around her outside. Strange, she thinks, why would such a small and cheap ship attack an expensive giant like me? Then she gets a lesson never to be forgotten. But will she learn from it?