Time and Space Organized

“Ready information evacuation!”

Angelita was shaking heavily.

“What the fuck?”

Sins was probably on his way to the escape pod. But I was worried about my recent work.

“Transmit all work to corp mainframe!”

“We have 10 percent armor left. Fuck the research work. Do it yourself. You’re a capsuleer. I am going to my escape pod. I want to live.”

Sigh. The timid and shaking mechanic I recruited several months ago was no longer a pushover. I liked that. But I was still the captain.

“No! You secure the research now, or I will get a contract out on your sorry ass. I will make sure you get to the pod. Do. It. Now!”

I overheated just about everything I had. I had been taking a bait and now I paid the price. I could have escaped earlier, but I was so close to getting the Ishkur. I had decided to get it and then escape. Bad choice.

“Information secured. I am leaving ship.”

A bright flash. Then everything was quiet. And I was in a warp tunnel.

“Sins? You hear me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good to hear your voice, Sins. I’ll get a rescue team to pick you up. Catch an interbus shuttle and meet me back at HQ. And get a new Astero ready.”

I think I heard another of his rapidly increasing amount of sighs on the comms. But it might have been cosmic distortion on the channel.

“Yes, sir.”

2 weeks later. Upper Lip Finesse office somewhere in Placid:

“Your Astero is ready for shipping. And your finance guy tells me to let you know you are running out of ISK with your habit of exploding expensive Asteroes. At this rate you will be broke in a few months.”

Sins sat down in the sofa. The Scope was reporting some news about a Drifter autopsy report in Yulai.

“Bah! Tell him to mind his own busin… Hey, turn that up!”

The broadcast from Yulai was scrambled and the signal lost.

“Wow! Get me linked up to all alternative news channels and give me a report about the status in Yulai. Then fire up the login procedures for the Terran networks Slack and Twitter. I need to get my research published. We need a comprehensive timeline to grasp the magnitude of what is happening now. These Drifters... I wonder...”

Sins sighed and got up from the sofa. 

“I’ll get it for you. By the way, that container with tinfoil you ordered arrived today. It’s in the hangar. To the left. Behind the delivery of books from University of Caille.”

The Monolith in Dead End. I went there just to see it and did not get one single killmail from the trip. Something strange is happening to me.

The Old Man and the Universe

My blood was boiling. And my head spinning. And was not even in my pod. I was at my newly installed study, inside the Angelita - the very customized Astero that Sins had prepared while I was ... ehrm ... incapacitated for a few months by expensive bubbles from Luminaire VI. Or Gallentia as I’ve recently started calling it.

How could this be? How could being in my study be as exciting as a battle? Yes, I was as surprised as Sins. Well, he wasn’t surprised. He was shocked. Almost disappointed and angry, especially when I had asked him to remove one of the jacuzzies from the spa area and instead install an office with the latest technology for historical and scientific research. I could barely convince him by ordering a cryogenic wine cooler for the desk as well. I don't blame him. I was like that when I first discovered the freedom of a pirate's life. And Sins used to be a low rank crew member of an Astero dedicated to archaeology. I had freed him from that. And now he was worried I was giving up life as a pirate. Am I?

No. But I am getting older. Not in the mortal sense. My clone is the same sexy beast. But my mind, my mental state, my consciousness and awareness—my very soul—is getting older. And it has made wonder. Who am I? Why am I? What is the purpose? Until now, my life has been an effortless breeze of enjoyment with no time for questions only craving for more instant gratifications. Be it explosions in space or of the more intimate kind. 

But now I have time. And it is time. It is time to tell the story about me. And my place in this universe. And to do that, I need perspective.

“Sins!”

I could hear a yawn from the cargo hold. 

“Yes, boss?”

“Get me a copy of all the official historical records archived in the Imperial libraries, the libraries of The Society of Conscious Thought and try the Jovian Directorate as well.”

“How the fu…”

“Just get it done, will you?”

He grumbled. I think I heard him say something in the line of “You want me to fit that relic analyzer instead of the warp scrambler as well?”

But he was soon out of my mind. I was buried deep in an interesting story about how Quafe once negotiated between the Gallente Federation and the Ammar Empire. I almost wanted to taste that sugary crap. But thankfully I had the new cryogenic wine cooler from Gallentia.

I poured myself a glass of dry bubbles from the foot of the Kaalakiota Mountains and continued on my work.