WARPATH: Purgatory

Gravel crunched under the armored boots of the Kaalakiota Home Guard as they fanned across the artificial park. Intended to serve as a hub for the station's residential area, various synthetic plants poked out of the rocks. Ryushi's visor HUD picked out each individual leaf and pebble, giving them a faint blue outline. The residential section's lights had been shut off to disorient the Gallente citizens and the black-clad Home Guard were essentially invisible in the pitch black of the station's interior.

The Kaalakiota sergeant took a knee behind a polycrete bench and motioned for the others to assume firing positions. Ryushi dropped prone along a path leading to a corridor of hab modules and flipped out his the bipod on his plasma rifle and disengaged the safety. Somewhere to his left, the sergeant was priming his CMTAC exoskeleton's weapons. All around the park the Home Guard were establishing firing lines and kill zones into every hab corridor and positioning themselves between the residences and the park exit.

When all the troopers had confirmed their readiness, the sergeant issued a subvocal command to the station computer and the fire alarms in every hab module triggered simultaneously, illuminating flashing strips along the wall directing residents to the exit. The panicked Gallenteans poured out of their hab-modules and a loudspeaker urged them towards the park exit. They saw nothing of the Home Guard crouching just meters away as a 'safety officer' across the hub beckoned them over.

The Gallenteans made it about halfway across the park when the firing started. The Home Guard emerged from their cover and showed no restraint. Bolts of blue plasma scorched holes in dozens of bodies and the stench of burnt flesh began to spread, only to be dispersed by the station's air scrubbers. The dual repeating railguns on CMTAC belched out bolts of metal death, ripping apart any unfortunate enough to be subject to their wrath.

Ryushi swiveled his sights back and forth across the corridor, cutting down any who dared emerge from their hab modules. It was ridiculously easy. Like shooting feral slaver hounds in hunting exercises. These weren't people. They were monsters. Each and every one of them was individually responsible for every bad thing that had ever happened to the Caldari people. Even now, they were trying to find ways to steal back Caldari Prime, a world they had no right to.

After what seemed like an hour but in reality was no more than a few minutes, the order came to cease fire. The Home Guard stood and spread out to examine their handiwork. A short Achuran man entered the park followed by a retinue of security officers. His uniform labeled him an officer of the Provist Directive. The security team began to set up recording equipment and the Home Guard sergeant ordered the survivors brought out. Ryushi clipped his rifle to his back helped the other troopers drag the few screaming survivors out of their hab-modules, and into the center of the park.

For one man, the carnage was too much. The second Ryushi relaxed his grip on the man's shoulder, he collapsed to the ground and assumed a fetal position, his body quivering and strange wailing noises coming from his mouth. The Provist officer strode over and pulled a disproportionately large pistol from his hip and put two slugs into the man's head with no more effort than one would exert to stomp a bothersome bug. He gave Ryushi a curt nod before returning to the 'camera crew'.

The survivors were bound with zipcuffs and assembled in the middle of the room. One of the security officers had tied cloth armbands to their shoulders, each bearing the emblem of the Templis Dragonaurs, a super-radical Caldari militant group responsible for a large number of terrorist attacks on Gallentean citizens both inside and outside Gallente space. Several black market Minmatar assault rifles were laid at their feet. Behind them stood the Home Guard, completing the picture.

"Are we ready?" asked the Provist officer, "We still have another station to sanitize before the day is up."

"Aye, sir." came the reply, the security team 'camera man'.

"Then begin."

***


"Citizens of the Caldari State, Gallentean neighbors, it grieves me -- and rightly all of the Caldari people -- to deliver this news. It is with a heavy heart that I must announce an attack by the terrorists known as the Templis Dragonaurs on the Deep Core Mining Medical Station in a system that cannot be disclosed until investigations are completed. The terrorists first assassinated the Sukuuvestaa Peace and Order officers assigned to protect the Gallenteans, and then massacred the helpless citizens in their homes.

"Fortunately, a Home Guard unit was able to intervene before the militants could escape, and a number of the Templis Dragonaurs were apprehended."

The Provist officer motioned with his hand and the camera cut to the scene in the middle of the park, Gallente prisoners on their knees while the Home Guard firing squad prepared to eliminate their 'terrorist' prisoners.

"All of New Eden must rest assured that the Caldari State will not tolerate disunity, unlawfulness, and dishonour. Threats to any citizens within Directive-controlled space will be found and eliminated with extreme prejudice. For every action against our nation, there will be an opposing reaction of infinitely more force and fury! Let it not be said that the Caldari shy away from justice, for justice is swift! Justice is unforgiving! And justice will be exacted!"

All's fair in love and war... except everything.

Short update (not really). I met a nice girl in the Guristas bar in Ishomilken by the name of Viella. Civire, like me. Hell, we even had matching tattoos. Weird coincidence. Turns out she'd dropped out of the State War Academy to try and make a living hauling between Jita and lowsec for the Guristas. It sounded boring, but she technically didn't have friendly status with us so even I could get away with shooting her up.

I bought Viella more than a few drinks and she was ordering another when I decided to ask her for help. The music blasting out of strategically placed speaker drones was all encompassing, some weird fusion of Caldari parade music and Minmatar mindfuck percussion. I swear I picked out a few notes from Icharugi's Sixteenth Odyssey for Kalaakiota. Anyways, I managed to drag Viella out of the bar and into the corridor where she was just barely retaining enough sobriety to speak. I wasn't much of a drinker myself, and had to speak slowly and simply for her. I asked her if she could acquire some Rifter hulls as well as weapons modules and ammunition back in empire space. I offered to pay her of course, but for whatever reason, alcohol or something else, she said she'd do it for free. All I had to do was cover station tariffs. Not bad.

We returned to the bar for a few hours, back to the eternal party of the Guristas, and I considered trying to coax Viella back to my bunk but she was already sobering up. Stupid capsuleer metabolism. When I reminded her of our agreement as we parted ways, the rather angry look in her eyes told me she likely wouldn't have made the same agreement fully sober.

***

Viella got back with the hulls today. I threw a couple million ISK her way despite previous arrangements and at this her eyes lit up. I tagged her in my NEOCOM for future business and she hurried off. Something about a shipment a Manticore that needed to be in Providence soon. I watched through the station windows as her Iteron III ripped open a warp tunnel and disappeared. Something about a girl with her character flying the giant space phallus that was an Iteron amused me.

***

I had the hangar crew fit one of my new Rifters and I stripped down and slipped into my pod. The hangar cranes lowered it into the ship and I initiated the undock sequence. Seconds later I realized I had neither insured nor named the ship, and I scrambled to do both. I shot a line to the station's insurance office and Aura connected me to the automated systems. Probably better than dealing with the seedy businessmen that ran it. Not feeling particularly creative, I designated the Rifter as Misericorde like every other Rifter I fly, and undocked for real.

Jumping through several systems, I spotted no potential targets. Mara was well populated, by scanning revealed that most pilots in the system were piloting battlecruisers and were engaged with a Pithi fleet somewhere in deadspace. I moved on, eventually ending up in Aurohunen. A number of the battlecruisers appeared behind me on the gate as I uncloaked and I asked in local comms why they were going after a lone rifter with so much firepower.

The Drake pilots explained that a Gallente battleship had engaged them and they were fleeing. I felt some sympathy towards them, they were Caldari afterall, victims of Gallente hypocrisy and double standards just like me, but they were still loyal to the State. Oh well. Their loss.

Just as I was about to head back to Isho, I identified another Rifter pilot and following my usual strategy, initiated a fleet link with him. To my surprise for a pilot of his age, he accepted. I forced a fleet warp to the system's star but his ship was nowhere to be found on the overview. I ordered Aura to locate and warp to his ship, and my warp tunnel collapsed in an asteroid belt, revealing his rifter firing on a number of Gurista 'Wreckers'. Apparently he couldn't compete with them, and was burning away with his afterburners. I locked him and began my pursuit.

The Wreckers returned to their patrols near the asteroids as I took matters into my own hands and proceeded to engage all modules when I had spiraled into range. But hold on a second... He'd dropped fleet and tried to scramble me first. Weird. Okay. No big deal.

We orbited each other at speed, autocannon slugs and rockets filling the space between us as we danced in the name of death. I noticed my shields were dropping significantly faster than his, but a lucky rocket strike near his pod evened things out and as our shields failed and armor began to strip away, I saw myself pulling into the lead. I tried to engage my armor repairer but the adrenaline coursing through my body made it difficult to formulate coherent commands for my ship. As the last of his armor melted into the void I managed to initiate the repper, and it looked like the fight was mine.

It wasn't.

Another pilot appeared in local comms and seconds later a Cylone dropped into the belt. Shit. Shit. Shit.


It crossed my mind that I might have time to finish off the rifter before the cyclone manages to get a lock on me. Experiene with my drake had taught me that battlecruisers took ages to target frigates.

Not so, in this case.

Just seconds after he arrived a number of drones spilled out of the belly of his ship and began racing towards us. I tried to warp out but even as the other rifter exploded and I began to accelerate towards a safespot, the Cyclone scrambled me. His drones made short work of my rifter, and lag with my control systems prevented me from escaping with my pod.

I woke up seconds later, feeling a strange absence of something as my new body had not been exposed to high levels of adrenaline for several consecutive minutes. I don't even know how to describe it. The emptiness was quickly filled however, as I seethed with rage.

Not at the loss of a ship, no. I overcame the sense of despair at losing a ship long ago. But I was angry at the Cyclone pilot. The first equal fight I've been in where I matched my opponent in both skill and firepower is interrupted so close to it's finish. It doesn't really have anything to do with fairness. I mean, camping the gates into Jan is hardly fair for our victims, and half of the pirate spirit in a fight is ensuring you have some sort of advantage (Unless your some crazy bastard like Kane Rizzel ) but I can't help it. It's embarrassing to listen to battle stories in the bar while the only kills listed under my name on the corp charts are some unfortunate novices in ships hardly fit for combat.

I killed a man.

Ugh. Been awhile. Intensive skill training has left me fried for quite some time but in the pasts few weeks I've managed to sneak in some ship time. At some point I scored my first kill against an unsuspecting Merlin pilot in an asteroid belt. He didn't put up much of a fight, from what little I remember. I podded him shortly afterwards. I don't think it really occurred to me at the time that I'd killed a man. I mean, he was an immortal, but for all intents and purposes, I had killed him.

I also managed to lose three Drakes in a number of embarrassing incidents I prefer not to talk about, but to put it bluntly, I need to pay more attention to my security status relative to what systems I'm going into.

But these things are all irrelevant to what's been on my mind for the past 24 hours. While taking part in a minor TGA fleet operation in Mara yesterday, I spotted a Condor on scan. Despite relatively new to flying Merlins against other pilots, I figured this would be a one-sided fight.

The NEOCOM network tagged it under the pilots name and further inquiry showed him to be newly registered in CONCORDs databases. I closed my link to the TGA fleet and quickly initiated communications protocols for forming a new fleet network with the young pilot. Rapidly scanning my list of locations to warp to, I selected a nearby planet so I would arrive before he would, and initiated a forced fleet-wide warp to a point about 100km off the location. As soon as he appeared on my overview I began to lock and attempted to scramble his ship.

Aura let me know of my failure to acquire a lock as he warped off. Damn it. I check comms. He's asking me to hold on so he can grab a skillbook one system over. Wary of a trap, even from a new player, I follow him into Dantumi.

Before I go on, allow me to put this in perspective.

The guy entered a low-security system, obviously disregarding the CONCORD warning when he gated in. He then proceeded to accept a fleet uplink from a pilot who is both in negative sec status and a pirate corporation. Then  he remains in the fleet after I've attempted to engage him in combat.

I allow him to dock up and retrieve his skillbook, and then the moment he undocks, back to action. Force a warp to a safespot and scramble target. Burn into a tight orbit and start firing. His shields flare briefly before failing as my blasters rip apart his defenses. Eager to drop my security status to the infamous -10.00, I disband fleet communications and prepare for the imminent explosion.

Just as Aura's diagnostics show him peaking into structure I shut off all weapon modules. I'm not sure why. I offer to let him go for a paltry sum of 1 million ISK. It was easily exponentially more than the worth of his Condor, which probably cost less than my cheapest module, but new pilots tend to put a lot of sentimental value on their ships. I didn't expect him to pay, and after 30 seconds of no response, I started shooting again.

I wonder what was going through his mind. What was he thinking as this seemingly friendly fellow was shooting apart his ship? I dunno. Whatever it was, it was interrupted by a lone rocket arcing towards his hull. Light from the explosions rocking his ship reflected off the rocket's cold metal body, momentarily illuminating an airbrushed Guristas emblem. Maybe the rabbit-eared skull's toothy grin was serving as a mockery of the whole situation.

There was a flash and then his Condor was no more. For several seconds I made no effort to stop his pod from escaping, but it didn't seem to be moving. I locked it and offered again to let him go for 1 million ISK. He might still need to pick something up from a station, and his clone could be dozens of jumps away.

Apparently it didn't matter, and I let my blasters wipe all traces of his pod from existence. Feeling just a little bad about destroying the ship of such a young pilot, I tried to initiate comms with him to offer some future survival tips but he didn't want to talk.

I know this isn't the first time I'll question everything I do with the Guristas, but I can't help but wonder: Why did I blow up and kill the poor guy? It's not like I could've made any real ISK off of it. So why?

Passive Aggressive

The cold water runs down my back and washes off the last of the neuro-embryonic fluid, and I palm the shower off. I'd been in Isho for less than 72 hours and station maintenance were already proving how inefficient they were. I pull on a pair of gray fatigues and a shirt before heading for my desk to look over fittings and review the events of the past few days.

***

Well, first of all, I applied for membership to The Black Rabbits Academy, and after an interview with one of their agents at some bar in the seedier parts of Amarr, I put in a request to the dock crew to pack up my fittings and prepare Misericorde for storage and transport. The Tribunicia had been pulled into the hangar by the time I made it down from the bar, and I could see the loading crew trying to squeeze the last components of the Rifter into the hauler. For a moment I pondered how much faster Caldari MTACs could do it before stopping myself.

No more pondering how well the Caldari State works. Mostly because it doesn't. The State War Academy didn't give me anything but a nice jacket with a fancy graduation patch. Maybe when everything collapsed, and the Guristas were still going strong, the Caldari people would see who the real betrayers were.

***

I can feel the vibrations from the Tribunicia's engines despite my half-sleep as the cheap skeleton crew did most of the piloting. The fluid inside a capsule has strange quantum properties negating the kinetic effects of high-speed space travel, but my neural connection to the ship itself brought every little tremor to my attention.

My lieutenant says something about pirates on the other side of the gate ahead. We're about to detour, lengthening our trip to Usi/Isho by another few jumps before he receives a transmission from the other side of the gate. Conveniently enough, anti-pirates had intervened at a perfect time. But weren't anti-pirates just pirates who won't admit it? Too afraid to show their true faces? These thoughts slide across the forefront of my mind as I drift back into oblivion.

***

My Rifter hovers above the docking pad in the Perkone factory station in Isho. We've been sitting here for hours, my lieutenant tells me. I was napping in my pod, worn out by the journey. I'm barely probing out into the nets to see what I missed when an invitation to a fleet communications network scrolls across a Guristas Associates channel. I key in and tactical systems place me in a fleet network under command of a Black Rabbit, from TBRA's parent corporation.

They've begun sieging a POS tower in the system next door. Despite knowing I won't be able to do much in my frigate, I scramble the crew to undock. They obey without question. Crewmembers with less flexible morals than I were jettisoned in cargo containers several systems back.

Misericorde gates into the next system and I warp into the siege, locking the station and engaging weapons for a time. I know full well my autocannons won't have any effect, but it helps crew morale (and even I found some small entertainment in it) to see our weapons live. In the interest of ammo conservation, I disengage and gate to the next system to make sure no uninvited guests attempt to crash our 'business reception' with a mister 'POS', leaving the real work to the pair of Gallentean dreadnoughts pounding away at the station's shields.

There were a few moments when we suspected a counter gang by the Monsters corporation, and one of them attempted to probe my out of my safespot watching the gate, but none of it ever came to fruition. After an hour and fourty five minutes of scan after scan after scan, I get the green light to warp back to the siege and just manage to target the POS and get a rocket away before a small sun appears where the tower had once been anchored.

At the same time, a number of battleships begin to close on our system, and another Rifter pilot and myself play babysitter to the dreadnoughts recharging their capacitors as the rest of the fleet warps off to hunt down these new arrivals, eager for blood after the one-sided engagement with the POS. I don't know all the details after this, because I'm still not privy to all channels of communication, but the dreadnoughts got the location of a raven near our home station and engaged it, popping it just as I warped in and aligned for the dock.

***

All in all, the whole deal with the POS was pretty exciting, and my first fleet op with the Black Rabbits. That said, I didn't engage any live targets the whole time. I'm determined to catch an unsuspecting pilot tomorrow and score my first kill. I've noticed a novice (even more so than I am) Caracal pilot in and out of Isho and the surrounding systems several times, and he seems like as good a start as any.