Life, the universe and everything

Sciolism

2010-01-20T09:19:00.006+01:00

Who the fuck? - singalong

Helicity called
when he got the word,
he said, i suppose you've heard
about Spectre
Well, i rushed to the window,
and i looked outside
But i could hardly believe my eyes
As a big Thanatos docked up
into the station

Oh i don't know why he's leaving, or where he's gonna go
I guess he's got his reasons but i just don't want to know
'cos for twenty-two years i've been having no clue about Spectre
(Spectre? Who the fuck is Spectre!)
Twenty-two years of not having the chance
To tell him who i am and maybe get a second glance
Now i've got to get used to not flying in a fleet with Spectre
(Spectre? Who the fuck is Spectre!)

We flew out there apart
two pirates in the dark
the clueless rookie
and the top shark
me and Spectre
Now he walks through the door with his head held high
Just for a moment, i caught his eye
As the big Thanatos undocked slowly
out of the station

Oh i don't know why he's leaving, or where he's gonna go
I guess he's got his reasons but i just don't want to know
'cos for twenty-two years i've been having no clue about Spectre
(Spectre? Who the fuck is Spectre!)
Twenty-two years of not having the chance
To tell him who i am and maybe improve my finance
Now i've got to get used to not flying in a fleet with Spectre
(Spectre? Who the fuck is Spectre!)

Helicity called back and asked how i felt
He said, i know how to help get over Spectre
He said now Spectre is gone but i'm still here
You know i've been waiting for twenty-two years
And the big Thanatos disappeared

I don't know why he's leaving, or where he's gonna go
I guess he's got his reasons but i just don't want to know
'cos for twenty-two years i've been having no clue about Spectre
(Spectre? Who the fuck is Spectre!)
Twenty-two years of not having the chance
To tell him who i am and maybe get a second glance
But i'll never get used to not flying in a fleet with Spectre
(Spectre? Who the fuck is Spectre!)

Reciprocations

2010-01-12T15:51:00.005+01:00

Cha raised her arms wide, and the fading moonlight brightly reflected off the datapad in her left hand, sprinkling fairy light drops dancing at her feet. She stayed relatively immobile for a while, her feet spread to stabilise the gentle rocking of the kayak, her decisions bouncing back and forth between throwing and reading.
The absurd juxtaposition of having a forgotten high tech gadget all lit up, while being in the tiny plastic boat in the heaving sea, absorbed the moment.
She had put space life to the side, and now it had come to retrieve her. The desire to be out there suddenly struck her with painstaking scrupulousness, and she leafed through it with a strange, almost guilty pleasure that had barbs and hurt her almost as much as it pleased her. She lingered over it, searching in vain for something that might keep her planetbound.

Six months ago she would have sworn that when she looked at the life down here from up there, she'd never return to it, because it was irrelevant in the bigger scheme of things. She remembered thinking her grandma's life had been absurd and pointless, but even more so was the fact that she had died, without ever having seen her granddaughter back. It left Cha with a nauseating, existential angst that plagued her being like a furball spiralling down the drain plied loose with unhealthy doses of Blood Raider Tonic.

The air was delicate with the moisty scent of the island woods mixed with the salt of the water. Now and then she heard an early gull, hung oppressively low in the heavens, screaming it's anger to the stalling dawn.

She ached for the tears to come, but they stubbornly refused, like they always had. The datapad stopped buzzing and she sat down, placing it carefully before her, avoiding to look at it.
She rubbed her hands together to stimulate the circulation and peered through the railings.
"Time for a wee dram," she thought. She unbuttoned her coat and removed a half bottle from the breast pocket, took a couple of sips and replaced the cap.
"I better not drink too much of this," she said out loud to noone, "otherwise I'll get lost again."

The cork bobbed, went under, moved sideways, and then stopped all movement. If she hadn't been trained so exhaustively by her grandma, she wouldn't have noticed the tiny ripple around the cork, and thought it false alarm. She snatched. The fish tried to shake the unpleasant hook out of his fish lips. Cha pulled again. He went motionless, and Cha relaxed. Suddenly he bolted towards the beach, over and between rocks and driftwood - Cha's fly reel whizzed as he took out line. She cursed. She couldn’t reel him back over the logs and rocks without breaking the line. "Outsmarted by a fish", she said to the gull, and she started laughing like a clown on weed.
She stopped abruptly, then hopped in the water and waded slowly down the rocks in the knee-deep water, reeling in excess line until she found the fish. It watched her, one-eyed, defiantly.
She grabbed it and unhooked it. The fishing was good; it was the catching that was bad. She knew it was torture, and unfair, and senseless; she didn't even eat fish. She was merely recreating the past, fishing for absolution and deliverance, baiting her memories like fish-hooks, casting them into reality, but they were sinking down through the cold, dark water of guilt.

She waded back to the kayak, and took the datapad. Standing in the water and leaning her elbows on the side, she went through the messages, skipping all the yadayada of polite condoleances. They were barracuda, all of them.
Two names caught her attention.
Eran Mintor, who, to her no small surprise, now worked for the Valklear Guard. Her very first fighting instructor now was a pirate hunter - the ways of the universe were inscrutable indeed.
The second name was Nakatre Read, now employed by PRETA. She pulled up one eyebrow. If she remembered right, that was Ghost Festival - and Ghost Festival, that meant Angels - pure and uncut criminal class.

And they had a job opening.

Apologies

2009-06-26T17:33:00.004+02:00

Yes, sorry, it's been a month since i wrote, and it'll be some more. Just consumed with real life, like finishing a master in fine art etc etc. But i'll be back!
And dang, i had this great idea for the next banter. Hmpf.

Blog banter 8: mentorship

2009-05-25T18:18:00.026+02:00

Welcome to the eighth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!
This month's topic comes to us from Ga'len at The Wandering Druid of Tranquility. He asks: "What new game mechanic or mechanics would you like to see created and brought into the EVE Online universe and how would this be incorporated into the current game universe? Be specific and give details, this is not meant to be a 'nerf this, boost my game play' post like we see on the EVE forums."

Cha did her utmost best to understand and execute what everyone was saying, in fleet channel, corp channel, alliance channel, Hellcats Pub channel, and kitten rookie channel, meanwhile also keeping an eye on the local channel and an ear to the audio channel. The fleet commander's voice was measured, firm and professional - each word carefully chosen but with a strong underlying tension that seemed to grow when she tried to keep track on every of Cha's actions, which were plentiful.

For starters, Cha warped to the wrong gate - everybody warped to Arnstur, and she went to Arnher. Then she warped to the right gate, only she should have stayed put. Determined to do better next time, she warped to the next gate and jumped - when she should have held her position at the gate. So she warped to the next gate and held, while the fleet jumped, and it only dawned to her that she should have jumped too when the entire fleet already was 3 systems further. She finally arrived at the killing spot only to discover she had forgotten her ammo - but that wasn't nearly as bad as that time when she arrived at the killing site to discover she hadn't fit anything at all. She forgot to untick the own fleet members option in her settings, which made her overview so cluttered that she couldn't find the enemy targets in it, tackling her own fleet members as a consequence and even once almost shooting one. She apologized abundantly, and when she finally did target an enemy ship it already was a pod and being ransomed, or killed.

She decided it maybe was better to learn some things on her own first.

She made warping spots all over Gultratren, only to realize afterwards that the nearest belt or moon was already beyond the reach of her onboard system scanner. So she decided to teach herself probe scanning, muddling and fumbling with the probe launcher that probably was family of her first hobgoblin drone, since it clearly showed signs of mutiny. She lost probes all over the place, without finding anything. She scanned for hours, only to find that when she finally had nailed someone's location down, her fuel, her time or her ammo was out.
She then decided she would skip all the scanning and just warp from belt to belt, smack right in the middle, so that a possible victim there wouldn't be able to escape. She herself almost didn't escape from some Angel bullies, without getting any decent kill. She vowed she would be more careful, and didn't jump the belts at zero anymore, but at a safe 30 km. Of course, the unexpected happened: she dropped on a possible victim when she warped into a belt. Although - it wasn't exactly dropping on, because she couldn't close the 30 km gap fast enough - he cheerfully warped out from under her nose. She found her victim had fled into the next belt, only right after those pesky Angels had gotten him.

On the way back she jumped through a gate, got tackled and shot to pieces by pirate hunters, was podded, and woke up in a clone bay with a light migraine and a lot less implants.

Still, she had a blast. Once out in space, somehow it just didn't seem to matter any more. The universe seemed full of possibilities; unexplained, undecided and only just around the corner. The pod goo felt fresh in her lungs, the many suns beamed down on her rifter and her whole body tingled with anticipation. She had not felt so good for years. She flew effortlessly, up and away, light as thistledown on a summer breeze. Soaring in an instant over rolling fields of asteroids, she plunged into dark and mysterious systems, then swooped up to dally in the sunlight of the next system. She would just warp from spot to spot and sat cloaked, enjoying the view.
But she sucked at the magnificent skill of piracy - and her flying hours didn't seem to coincide well with when most Hellcats and Bastards were ganging up.

There was only one solution: finding a one-on-one coach, a partner to teach her a thing or two.
Alas, there wasn't such a thing as a personal mentor search board or channel in the entire universe. She decided to put up a plain job ad instead.

"Seeking flexible candidates with a wide variety of experience, casual work atmosphere, duties will vary."
She thought of the perpetual chaos that seemed to surround her flights, and added "Upbeat personality: must neither threaten with any kind of lawsuit nor use drug & alcohol benefits." She hesitated a while, then wrote "Prior conviction of a felony or two no problem."
Okay, that sounded more like it. Although, maybe the job description needed more detail.
"Responsibilities include:"... she thought, and then thought some more, and then some. She eventually thought it best to be as clear as possible, so there wouldn't be any surprises from either side.
"Active, proactive, reactive, interactive knowledge of piracy business practices. Organizational talent for self-directed work team, to provide strategic, ballistic, and/or malicious leadership and bicoordinate fleet-wide planning and activities, including personnel management, both corporeal and incorporeal, along with pan-solar operations and information resources. Play a key role in the aforementioned spiritual guidance; continual management of the integrated coaching system. Instigate investigations into the new and unknown means and manners of exchanging acquisitions and ultra-graphic information between coach and pupil. Actively involved in national, international, interracial, universal, introverted as well as extraordinary piracy initiatives. Requires a demonstrated understanding of pupil's willingness along with knowledge of current trends in schemes, scams and operations. Participates in region-wide planning, policy-making activities, and fleet governance. Must deny vinegar wine. Be forgiving of equivocated and perfunctory communication skills; demonstrated experience as deus ex machina with senior level experience in modern clairvoyance; with progress-organic responsibility in technical services as well as humbuggery and miserly deceiving experience; ability to grasp and assimilate chaotic information on a dime; possess a commitment to serving the needs of an information seeking young woman, even when it's that time of the month.
Excellent planning, interpersonal as well as ultra-personal transcendence, with oral, written, and digital communication skills; the ability to please greatly and work with aggressive acquiescence in a dual team environment.
Instill a sense of piracy pride and fair play; behaviorally modify disruptive behavior, willing to tackle every possible ship without excluding any race, faction, corporation or size, except in cases of possibly suicidal outcomes, teach ransoming and raise self-esteem. Provide a safe learning environment, recognize signs of potential reckless behavior, offer advice, write letters of recommendation, encourage a respect for the cultural diversity of ships and their fittings.
Technical and services assistance for all aspects related to the acquisition of ships and ship fittings and materials in all possible, sizes, formats and amounts, including budget management, with the ability to communicate on a micro/macrocosmic level while providing guidance in the use of the technologies and skills yet to be realized. Teach the use of supplies, boosters, room decorations, duct tape, repair paste, glue, paperclips, note book paper, ship scanners, fluo markers and star maps. Knowledge of daily universal currency exchange rates and trends in fitting acquisitions, skill collection development; experience with the macabre nature of the market environment."

She pondered on what she had to offer in return - health insurance surely wasn't one of them. She concluded with what seemed reasonable:
"Apart from gaining an interesting experience, salary will be based on the whimsical nature of the universe’s sense of fairness."

Hmm. Maybe she had expanded a bit too much. She deleted the superfluous and kept to the essential.

"Looking for experienced pirate who loves getting booty and wouldn't mind showing his prowess while escorting a young fresh female pilot into unexplored territories."

She pressed the "submit" button, opened a bottle of wine and leaned back with great expectations.

More blog banters:
CrazyKinux's Musing, EVE Blog Banter #8: Care for a little game of SecWars?
The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, Wow, that new thing is so shiny!!!
I am Keith Nielson, EVE Blog Banter #8 - Return of the Top Gun
Once More from the Beginning, 8th EVE Blog Banter May 2009 Edition
A merry life and a short one, EVE Blog Banter #8: In the Year of Our Awesome
Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, Planets
Helicity Boson, Bantering the blog
Achernar, Unique adventures
Ecliptic Rift, OOC: EVE Blog Banter 8: Standings and secondary factions
The New Edener, EVE Blog Banter #8
Journey to New Eden, Eve Blog Banter #8: What new mechanic should be added to Eve?
Life, The Universe and Everything, Blog banter 8: mentorship
EVE Guru, EBB 8: Yarr! Prepare to be boarded!
The Ralpha Dogs, Greed Is Good, Greed Works
Rifter Drifter, Blog Banter 8: Strategic Gunnery
More to come...

Atrocities

2009-05-21T19:32:00.002+02:00

More than anything else (someone on Youtube posted a very amusing comment) this is about self relativation - it's not meant to be "good".

Equanimities

2009-05-17T14:59:00.014+02:00

All good things arrive unto them that can wait - and don't die in the meantime, and so Cha sat eagerly upright and started learning the noble arts of piracy.

The piracy manual spoke of qualities like "good awareness, the ability to make snap decisions and being able to gauge your opponent and the risk he presents to you", and although most of her previous time was given to reading chivalric novels, singing forlorn love ditties, and coping with drone subordination and defying fedos, she knew it was time to gather information in order to detect any anomalies. Caution and secrecy being of the upmost importance, she proceeded to do the bravest thing that can be imagined, a thing to make one shiver when one remembers how the piracy world is given to resenting shams and affectations: she started to look around the room. She took great caution in acting casual, glancing only occasionally - as if she had nothing more important to attend to (which, as we know, was the case anyway, but that's besides the point). In fact, it was a source of fascination to glimpse into the private lives of those in power.
And so Cha observed discretely the public in the Hellcat's Pub, and that public was of great variety. Trim built, handsome, graceful, neat, bright, educated. Experienced, industrious, ambitious. Or of slow and sluggish bearings, but with a soft heart. There: one homesick and crying. Next: huge and good natured. A dopey headed, lazy, sentimental fellow, full of harmless brag. A grumbler by nature at the back. And an extremely unwilling bartender.
From all this merry diversity Cha drew her first conclusions. In her notebook she wrote first: "There aren't many Hellcats in the Hellcats' Pub". Secondly: "There are plentiful gentlemen waiting for a Hellcat to show up in the Hellcats' Pub." And third: "When a Hellcat shows up, it causes a good deal of unsettledness in men's minds."

Cha's knowledge on piracy grew exponentially those days, for yes, the minutes grew into hours, and the hours into days. Patiently Cha waited amidst the idle nonsense and laughter, the holiday frolic and horse play. It was a pain to get a Quafe; kafak stayed non-existant. She hadn't been prepared for these difficulties, yet she wore the burden of neglect brave, and in silence.
How she longed for that first kill! Occasionally she tried to catch the look of a rare Hellcat, the way one does an Interbus flight attendant in turbulence: her smile was all Cha had. Invariably the Hellcat in question - all impeccable garmentry, flair and devastating elegance - would hurry by, nod friendly, and brightly say: "Soon."

She discovered waiting was an art that takes great skill. She learned why pirates sometimes don't do anything and also the process by which they don't do anything. They would be waiting "just a couple more minutes" regardless of how much time had actually passed already; those monotonous minutes were just a fact of piracy life.

Time ticking away, as she gazed idly into space turned out to be some of life's most quintessentially human moments. To wait is to stop reacting to the external world, and to explore the internal one. It is in these times of reflection that people often discover something new, whether it is an epiphany about a relationship (she came to realize that it wasn't going anywhere, but who cared? She was free, he was free, and inbetween his bedmanners were of extreme quality) or a new theory about the way the universe works (what if all of this was merely an illusion, a grand web of random data she was caught in; where she was no more than a digital toy, randomly exploited by some bored superentity with universal power and an aptitude for wasting time?).
Yes, many people emerge from boredom feeling that they have accomplished nothing. But is accomplishment really the point of life? Those were the days she was content with growing old here, withering away in the grip of her own thoughts, stuck like the oatmeal to the bottom of her daily bowl, the only minor setback being the absence of kafak. How time flies when one has fun!
"Soon" became a word of lesser relevance. One day soon she would be dead. People would look back at her life, and they would tell each other how her path to greatness had laid in total sacrifice for the greater good. So sure of victory at last is the courage that can wait.

Occasionally, she would jump out of her glassy-eyed drooling state of nothingness. Then she wanted to saturate these empty moments either with kafak (which always was impossible), or with productivity, communication, and the digital distractions offered by her less than slick mobile device. She then found herself amazed of the advantages that waiting actually could offer - so many practical benefits that she couldn't even begin to list them all.
She cleaned out her bag. She unearthed an array of peculiar things she didn't even remember what they were for, why she had kept them, or how they had gotten into her bag in the first place.
She made plans to relieve the murky economic climate of her wallet. Saving money on food by growing her own! She drew extensive plans for her very own greenhouse, right here at the bar. She was sure she could find plenty of sod around here, although she would have to collect it at night.
She polished her table so shiny she could see her face in it, and installed a daily tour of emptying all ashtrays, fruitlessly hoping an indebted bartender would bring real kafak.
She unsuccessfully explored all possible means of attaching the orphanaged heel back to her boot; duct tape of course proved to be withstanding the longest to the extensive tests she consequently subjected the boot to.
She made lists of Advanced Pirating Techniques (for instance: "during a fight, fighting insults are required. In the event both participants are still alive at the end of the fight, the participant with the superior insults shall be declared the victor." Or "no pirate shall attend a movie with less than an Arrrr rating", and "a pirate may tell any tale of swashbuckling without being called on the details, as long as at least 51% of the story is true".)
She practiced incorporating pirate terminology into her everyday speech. She learned that a pirate does not use the word "Fabulous". Ever. Furthermore, pirates do not say "please" or "thank you" - no sir, the phrase "yarrr, i'll probably kill you tomorrow" is an acceptable alternative for "thank you". Hmm. She scratched that, and clarified: "yarrr" seemed to be a perfectly acceptable answer to any question.
Finally, she learned to knit.

Waiting can have devastating effects on good people, causing them to go astray morally. Cha too fell victim to this truth.
One time, she jerked awake. She sat for a moment, and then realized that a/ before her was placed a mug of real kafak and b/ she had found, totally unexpected, a suitable victim for her first kill.
The coldness of the kafak slowly drifted to her dulled synapses. This was truely unforgiveable. The adrenalin began to rush through her veins. She grasped the rubber grip of her pistol (she always carried this with her, from ever since her childhood days when her grandma had taught her how to make apt use of it), and creeped slowly and singlebooted around the room. Nobody paid even the slightest attention. She jumped up behind her seated target and screamed: "Heat it, or i'll shoot!" The bartender indeed stood up, slowly turned around, hands in his pockets, and as Cha squirted the water at his chest, she knew from how he towered over her she had made a grave mistake. "Forgive me! Forgive me!" she cried, her hands clasped in an attitude of prayer. "I swear, i swear by everything holyl I'll drink it any way it is served!".
It was the only incident that she caused there, blinded momentarily by arrogance. The bartender never made any allusion to her error after that. She didn't dare to move away from her table anymore regardless, and never objected to the various states her drinks and meals were delivered in. Her politeness derived not from a recognition of the bartender's cooking qualities or serving virtues but from the fear he instilled in her. If so inclined, he could, and would probably kill her. Luckily he has not abused his power. In the exercise of his sway over Cha he was moderate, not the least bit capricious, and, one might even say, constitutional. He might have dismissed the idea of doing away with Cha - so long as she gives him no cause, which she up until this day doesn't plan to.
Cha lapsed into a slightly petulant silence as she pondered the implications. Waiting in great humbleness - such is the fate of Hellcat applicants. Soon.

Then, one day, the unthinkable happened.
Mynxee walked in, and said "Let's go." Yes, she simply said "Let's go", just like that.

Cha took a deep breath, shook off the giddy whirl of contemplation and, with detached countenance, stepped out of the bar, and into piracy.

Parleys

2009-05-12T14:50:00.010+02:00

The barroom Cha entered was huge and lavishly furnished with sofas, couches and all manner of soft furnishing, with some tables rearmost. The plush pile on the carpet deadened the sound of her bare feet. It was very crowded.
Cha caught an escaped hairtress back into her ponytail, settled herself down tidily at a table - and started getting extremely nervous.
Perhaps a casual trouser suit would have been more suitable for the interview. Less fussy and constraining than the slim line knee length skirt and white blouse she now wore. She crossed her bare feet back under her chair, in hopes noone would notice. Ahh - she should have just been sticking to her pilot suit, just like most of the visitors here did - more appropriate for an action lady. She put on the serious professional smile she had been practising in front of the mirror and waited.

Clearly the Hellcat's pub was one of them fancy, newfangled social networking sites. She sat in a cacophony of conversation, with her future colleagues immersing themselves in subjects as wide-ranging as the prospects for the total annihilation of a rifter to the pending eradication of an aeon. Nope, she definitely wasn't surrounded by a flock of mildminded sheep.

She smiled at the person next to her. When he asked what was wrong, she told him she was glad he was her new friend. He smiled so happily back to her, that Cha wondered whether she had worded that in the best possible way.
There was another gentleman all over her, blaming on his boots the faults of his feet. "Ahoy me hearty!", he grinned. She thought of an appropriate answer, like "Avast, young brigand, is that a yardarm in your dungarees, or are you just glad to see me?" or "You are giving me the desire to haul some keel in vacuum space", but she refrained. She smiled sweetly.
Another person, clad in a somewhat disorganized uniform, walked up to her table and pointed to her in unsteady manner. "Real pirates have chest hair. If you cannot grow chest hair, you are either a cabin boy, or a Hellcat." Dousing oneself in beer obviously was a perfectly acceptable replacement for a shower. If the stout fellow's breathing would increase even more, then Cha would run screaming for the exit. She informed him that he was a scurvy dog.
When the bartender told her that he was out of kafak, she felt a terrible rage build up inside her, spreading through her limbs; and when it would get to her fingertips she was going to jump out of her chair and start hitting him again and again and again. She told him a Quafe would do.

After some time and varying entertainment like described above, she started wondering where the Hellcats were. Or rather, that was not the question. "Why am i here, that is the question," she asked herself. But she was blessed in this, that she happened to know the answer. Yes, in this immense confusion one thing alone was clear. She was waiting for Mynxee to come.*

And as if those musings were a heavenly sign, the pub bar doors slid automatically open and she swept in, nodding queenly greetings about when being met with various forms of adulation.
Cha raised half from her chair, trying to decide if she would have to curtsey or not. With a swanlike assurance, effortlessly and swiftly covering the distance from the entrance to her table, Mynxee glided towards her as if being carried along on a magic carpet, rounded the table and graciously shook Cha's hand.
Cha was truely dazzled.
Mynxee was in a very good mood, full of energy and smiling expansively when she turned to Cha. Her grey eyes focussed like a bellicose on hers. "I am nothing more than a little heap of bones in the presence of a legend", Cha knew in all modesty. Mynxee cocked her head and scratched her chin. She was of undefineable age, and had an accent straight out of Evati. Her voice soothed like a lullaby, but Cha sensed that she could beat one silly if she had to. She interrogated Cha briefly, questioning her about her capacities and many other things, and at the end she told her she could not let her in yet.
"Just because the job's a bit unusual doesn't mean we shouldn't observe proper procedure", she said, and Cha completely understood.
"You will be picked up in due time, and you will get some proper educations", she said, and Cha nodded.
"We will know soon if you're a true pirate", she said, and Cha agreed - indeed: you arrr, or you arrr not.
Mynxee abruptly rose from the table: "And now, i go shopping!"
Cha knew she just had learned her first code. For it is clear that a pirate does not "go shopping". Unless by "shopping", you mean remorseless bloodshedding.

Soon, Cha would go shopping too. Soon.

* paragraph and boot problems shamelessly stolen

Braveries

2009-05-10T10:49:00.003+02:00

A pirate does not ask for directions. He relies only on his gut feeling, a compass, or a treasure map. Cha packed all of her possessions, leaving her Gerek quarters utterly bare, and set course to Evati, sneakingly relying on her ship comp instead. It wasn't that far off in distance, but it would turn out to be a travel of epic dimensions, culturewise at least.

You can't spell pirate, without "irate". There's a reason for that, so Cha thought it wise to not anger the steadily growing amount of vessels flagged with white skulls on red fields when one after the other targetted her. She felt like a toy being picked up, tossed along and caught by the next one, waiting at the following gate. Twice an angry cloud of hornetslike ammunition rained on her armor, but she made it alive and well, and crashed rather than docked into the first station after the Evati gate.

She hummed contentedly as she made the short journey down from the docks to the Hellcats' pub, happy with the sound of her booted heels clicking on the floor. She didn't know if it was really important to wear boots - in fact she knew not much about pirates, except from the stories her grandma had told her, but there always seemed to be boots involved. And swearing. "Pirates shall always wear boots. Flip-flops are right out", her grandma had said, and so Cha wore boots.
The station turned out to be a gordian knot of endless corridors, stretching ahead in a perplexing amount of directions, with one common factor: pirates of the male kind criss-crossing her path. An abundancy of them, and all she could do was hope that they wouldn't physically act on the whims of the flesh, expressed in the most vivid wordings. On her polite inquiry a tall blonde ponytailed Gallente, his eyes remaining fixed on everything below her face, made the gesture of sweeping his hand in the direction she was supposed to go, and Cha complied hurryingly.
She tried to make her moves swiftt and elegant like a cat that knew her alleyways, but she tripped regardless. No pirate shall discuss his feelings, unless his feelings include gutting a man from stem to stern and spilling his entrails, and thus she did her best to ignore the rise of shameless comments. "Bastards!" she seethed.
She scrambled back on her feet and tried to act breezy and casual, wiped a rebellious dreadlock out of her face and looked down in shock. Her left heel had given out. She grunted, zipped both her boots down and off, and pushed them in her sack with most needed belongings. Barefooted, but in control, determination welling up inside her, she went ahead. Pirates do not cry, except in the case of the loss of a shipload of rum.

Blog banter 7: Just three?

2009-05-04T12:51:00.016+02:00

Cha leaned back in her chair, her feet on the desk, the solo combat manual in her lap and a glass of wine within reach. She had sent in her application letter 5 minutes earlier, and now was very pleased with herself. "To new endeavors", she said, and raised her glass to herself.
She thought of all the things that were to come, new things she had never done before. There were the obvious ones of course.
She had never tried making a fortune in trading. Or that wasn't entirely true: her trading insights probably made someone else's fortune.
She had never been in a fleet war. She could be useful though - being bait or such. A quick certain death ensuing and a slower dizzying clonesome recovery after that. Hmmm. Better wait some more time.
And she had never flown a titan - hell, never even seen one.

Still, those three weren't really why she had chosen (and worked hard) to become a pod pilot, rather than settle for a seat on the Interbus. There were many other things she hadn't done or seen yet, and yes sir, she would do and see them all. It wasn't enough to just read about all those marvels out there, or see them 3D on the holoreels. Nothing ever satisfied Cha but actual demonstration; until she would have seen the wonders of the universe with her own eyes they would remain but untested theories.

For starters, she hadn't indulged enough yet in extravagant decadencies.
Like, for instance, the seemingly simple prodigy of wine. She frowned at the glass in her hand, turning its sparkling reds and oranges in the dim light of the room. She had once overheard someone going on in lengths about "muscular," "tight" and "rakish," and she thought the man was talking about Chribba . Turned out he was merely talking about some spicey Amarr wine. Not that she actually knew how Chribba looked - for all she knew he could be a bald fiftysomethingsomething with a more than generous beer belly. Anyway, "opulent" was the only legitimate wine descriptor Cha could come up with when she thought of Amarr wine. Only it referred to the price.
Speaking of price, despite having ventured into different gustatory perceptions of several off-world condiments of varying legality she had never experienced the presumably noble and splendrous taste of Hanging Long-limb roe. Being capaciously expensive, the happy few who actually could afford it were determined to abundantly emphasize the oomphness of slime.
Which reminded her of the serious kewlness - and plushness - of a real Egone. Sure, tuning into the regular streaming music channels wasn't bad. But it wasn't like the straight-to-the-brain awesomeness the Egone waves provided. Someone had showed her 'Crazy Disco' on his Egone the other day, and it had blown her away. And as if that wasn't enough yet, he then had shown her the Wooo Button. She instantly had felt like she had lost for the day. She comforted herself with the idea that at least this company didn't trace her merry whereabouts. Yet.

She hadn't become famous yet.
She wasn't named yet on The Scope, the galactic news network. Sure, it was supposed to be the most far-reaching, depth delving public news agency there is. But still, they clearly hadn't discovered her dormant potential for glory yet. Every time as she closed the distance on a jumpgate, she couldn't withhold from eagerly soliciting the billboard near it, being slightly disappointed every time. Hitherto no illustriousness. The DED wasn't on the lookout for her. She hadn't found the cure for the Kyonoke Infection either, let alone curtailed the Jovian Disease. She hadn't defeated Joelyn Donalokos in the Mind Clash Intergalactic Championships. She hadn't climbed the stairs of society stardom like playgirl Liberienne Houlliente had - or down, depending on your viewpoint. Which thought made her look down and compare features. Nope, it was not that she didn't have both the capacities. She just didn't want to transgress horizontally into the stammering illuminations of fame.

And she hadn't traveled real distances yet. There were so many places out there that weren't just there for the scenery, places that were made for something. She had never been to the City of God yet - the ruins of someone's dream into godhood that ended with sheer painful mortalness instead. The Amarr hadn't liked that guy - all the more reason to go see.
Oh and those other ruins - the underwater Gallentenean cities at Caldari Prime. Nouvelle Rouvenor, and especially Paix Azur because that sounded so extremely exotic - she didn't know what they used it for now; it had been in the news some time ago but she couldn't remember what it was about. She did hope there would be some guided tours there - she wasn't entirely fond of the idea to just be boldly plunging in the ice cold water and holding her breath until she'd find something.
As for the more creepy stuff: she wasn't sure she would ever dare go jump the gate between Dom-Aphis and Iderion, even when nobody was looking. Normally she considered that a sufficient justification for chancing any dangerous thing, but in this case... She might end up like that ship that went into the jump, but never got out. Who knows what those people were doing in it now. Maybe doomed to play chess eternally.

And of course, there were other threesomes she had never tried. But that, she mused, wasn't of anyone else's business.

Realities

2009-05-04T12:39:00.009+02:00

Woaaaaa. I have just been put on CrazyKinux's Eve blogroll. I feel like i'm for real now!

What's more, i dived into the blog banter adventure too. Not that i lack inspiration - Eve is full of random sillyness. I see the blog banter as a challenge: can i come up with something Cha-ish within the boundaries of a set topic and time limit?

Welcome to the seventh installment of the EVE Blog Banter , the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux . The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month's topic comes to us from CrazyKinux himself, and he asks: "What 3 things haven't you done in EVE and why? Would you be willing to try one day? Why so? Why not?"

List of participants:

CrazyKinux's Musing, EVE Blog Banter #7: Eh, nobody told me you could do this in EVE!
One Man and His Spaceship, Blog Banter 7 - Expanding My Horizon
I am Keith Neilson, EVE Blog Banter #7 - What do you want to do today?
Rifter Drifter, Blog Banter 7: Trinity
Roc's Ramblings, Blog Banter #7 - The me I am not
Morphisat's Blog, Eve Blog banter #7 - Treading waters unknown
Sweet Little Bad Girl, Blog Banter 7 - Roads Not Followed
A Mule in EvE, DD, defend against a gank & POS gunning
Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, Choices
The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, "One, Two, Three...three things....hahahahaha"
The Ralpha Dogs, Road Not Taken... Or Not
Melindhra's Universe, EVE Blog Banter #7 - Where no one has gone before
Life in Low Sec, Blog Banter #7: Possibilities
EVE Guru, EVE Blog Banter 7
Diary of a Pod Pilot, [OOC] EVE Blog Banter #7: Stones left unturned
Flashfresh - The Pirate, EVE Blog Banter #7: This isn't me...
Nefchast’s Gaming Blog, CrazyKinux’s EVE Blog Banter #7
A Merry Life and a Short One, EVE Blog Banter #7: Syphilis Doesn't Count
Rip Lacunae, Past & Future (Eve Blog Banter 7)
Broadside, EVE Blag Banter #7: aspiration
Into the Unknown, Eve Blog Banter #7: What haven’t I done?
Diary of a Space Jokey, Blog Banter #7: So much to do, so little time
Life, the Universe and everything, Blog Banter#7: Just Three?
More coming as they are posted!!!

Enjoy!

Voracities

2009-04-29T11:04:00.005+02:00

Cha laid down into the curve of his arms, feeling the faint breeze of his breath against her face - eyes shut, the memory still burning between her legs. She opened her eyes again when she felt his warm hand brushing against her waist.
She liked this room - the warm glow of colors that were muted by the darkness, and the tapping of the rain which had started to fall hard on the large window. Not often they had the chance to be together like this, little islands of stillness in hasty times. They were the only moments that made sense to her, that she didn't feel slow or clumsy. The only moments that mattered.
She nestled herself close against him, feeling his warmth.
It was the last day.
"I have to go work again tomorrow", she said slowly.
"You always were edgy and bursting, ready to go for a chase, eager for life. And now... what is happening?"
Staring at the ceiling, she said: "I run missions. I mine. And then mrs Read asks how i'm doing, and i say "fine"." Life is strangled with polite lies.
"You will be able to fly decent ships soon," he smiled, "be patient. That wormhole space doesn't go anywhere."
She rolled on her side, looking into his deep pensive brown eyes, and brushed his hair lovingly from his forehead. "It's not about the bigger ships," she said. "It's about the adrenalin."
He didn't answer immediately, words tumbling in his head as usual, settling mostly in shades and seldom in tenderness, and even then they were like thorny roses. She still was learning not to get all panicky about that. There was just too much happening in his head. He was of an intensity that lured her like a moth towards a flame - she just hoped he wouldn't burn her wings eventually.
She traced his jawline with a finger.
"There is a name", he said. "in Evati. Maybe she has what you want." His eyes warmed her soul, making her tingly all over.
He rolled to the side and grabbed a pen from the sidetable, writing something on the napkin he took from the plate. She watched him move, and how she loved his moves. Desire rushed through her veins. He groaned as she ran her fingers over his side, straight to where she wanted to be, and turned to push her on her back again. She completely forgot what she had wanted to say when his mouth and fingers started doing very distracting things.

Dissimilarities

2009-04-24T15:22:00.015+02:00

Cha generally was a mild mannered woman. Never said a bad word in the local channel, usually. Kept her contributions to meetings with Meanies to shaking her head in disapproval when another rupture would disappear from around her pod. That, and nodging the evildoer's status down to -10, but that was performed really without ever having any substantial hope for getting due revenge, at least not in the near future.
But that day, something snapped. That day, the meanie had said of her rupture, just like that, as if his remark was as innocent as a butterfly drying its bedewed wings on a sunny spring morning: "they all look the same anyway".
She had become almost tearful as she heard this, but she managed to regain her composure the next moment, bristled with resentment at the barbarian's judgment. Because the casualty was not just any casualty, that rupture not just any rupture. It was her rupture. It was special. And so, she felt she had to do something to emphasize the uniqueness of her ship.
The day to paint had come.

Her immediate first thought was: red. It's a bloody colour, and bloodthirsty she felt; it was also passionate, and passionate she deemed herself as well; and quite hellish too. But Stillwater was a civilized corp, and all about quiet civilized industrious working, albeit intertwined with some civilized drugs smuggling and some whitecollar crimes here and there, and thus she felt she had to suppress this more devilish side of her. No red.
Other colors passed the review. Orange (good camouflage near the sun, but some suns weren't orange, hence some to be foreseen sillyness next to a greenish sun), yellow (but a rupture definitely wasn't supposed to look like a gallente banana shuttle), green (but that reminded her of a very jealous boyfriend who never would walk his talk anyway - dont ask -), blue (but she simply didn't like blue) and purple (and who on earth would paint a rupture purple?). No, all in all it was quite obvious. The only sensible color was pink.

She had dwelled a bit longer on coming up with the exact hue. No baby pink, that was certain. Crimson, or would that already be too red? Palevioletred maybe then? Or mediumvioletred. No - hotpink. Or hmm deeppink, or rather darkmagenta, if not lavenderish orchid. Or thistle plum violet. And what about fuchsia? Definitely not mediumorchid. Plain dusty rose or rather very light dusty rose? Marshmallow rose? And there were so much pinks between pinkish vinaceous and pinkish white...
And then Cha thought of poison pink. It was the only pink that was exactly right. It was a fierce kind of pink. Pink-with-balls, as it were.

If she had presumed the hardest part now laid behind her, she really had to come around and think again. If you want the unquestioned and tragic facts which reinforce this blunt statement: noone was selling poison pink paint.
There wasn't even a paint category in the market browser. Well, there was the target painting stuff, but that wasn't quite the same.
She roamed the corp hangar. No paint.
She asked Eran. His big black eyes seemed to be taking her in detail by detail, and she withered slightly under his scrutiny. He stared at her for more than a minute, and then erupted in a loud rolling laughter. "You're not getting any of my cocktails anymore, Cha," he snickered, "I didnt know they actually cause brain damage", and she hadn't insisted any further.
When she inquired with Pau, image and sound fell away somehow. It came back after a while, and Pau looked almost mediumvioletred. He stayed polite, although the corners of his mouth seemed to twich somewhat. No, there was a lot he sold under the counter, but poison pink paint wasn't among it.
Agustus couldn't withold from making a tutting noise to indicate his lack of approval, using up his entire vocabulary for the year. She shrugged. He probably didnt like pink.
She caught Jasuur and Camp at a "tavern" (Camp's words), and the entire setting of the entire bar looked real hotpink, with all them pinkishly scarcely dressed ladies at the poles - and so were their cocktails, of which they clearly already had too many. Soon Camp was expanding on the many excellences of painted ships, although she wasn't sure if he was quite serious about it, hearing how he once had seen a giant pink titan over at the wildlands after some more than moderate alcohol intake. Jas was wiping his tears when he said: "Cha, you could have excitement, adventure, slaver puppies, fine wine, great sex, friendship, ice cream and waffles, battlecruisers and love – you could have it all, and instead you choose to pursue… pink paint?".

Ahh, men, they would never understand what was really important in life. She turned to the women.

Casiella seemed to understand the need for decoration somewhat. Then again, Cas understood everyone's need, as long as she was paid for it. She actually dived into her extensive blueprint collection, but the closest she could come up with were nanotattoos, and the succes of those depends on emotions, like we all know. Now, it is true that Cha believed everyone of her ships simply went emo when they considered Cha's ideas of warfare inappropriate for the circumstances, seeing how they all had prolonged the execution of some of Cha's more adventurous commands until it was too late already. And once the ship had turned emo, Cha knew the ending of both of their existence was imminent; sending her into a pod and itself into oblivion.
If only she could find a non-emo ship.
Cha sighed. She knew nanotattoos on ships wouldnt exactly work like they should. And it would be a real big tattoo too, if any.
Ember waxed so eloquently over the many pink tints of roses she had seen once on an Amarr planet in a faraway solar system with an unpronouncable name that it left Cha baffled on how sometimes some women couldn't get to the point when it came to important matters.
Niki had the grace to look only slightly abashed. She was all amiability and smiles when she referred Cha a name. It was not a paint maker like Cha had hoped though - she suggested a mix of fuzzy healings, wuzzy prayers and a lot of medication.
After ninety seconds of eternity, Mrs Read had let out a long sigh and allowed herself a smile when she said "Cha, lay off the wine."

Cha tried drawing up a public contract, but the database refused to accept her entry, claiming that ship paint didn't exist. Nonsense. The gallente had yellow ships, then why couldn't she have a pink one?

Science has made bewildering strides in many directions during recent ages, but pink ship paint seems to belong to the domain of miracle rather than to scientific achievement.
Somewhere, somehow, there must be someone out there that can produce 780 litres of poison pink paint for spaceships. If you hear of someone that does, please contact Chacacha, being quite nomadic out there while still performing exhaustive paint investigations, but sporadically residing in Gerek.

Air castles

2009-04-21T09:04:00.004+02:00

"Boredom is rage spread thin," said Cha out loud to the ship, but the ship wasn't in the mood for philosophy. Nor was Cha, actually. In fact, she was seriously doubting what she was doing there, working stupid mining jobs just to pay off her debts. "Oh lord," she rolled her eyes, "wont you give me something to kill". A silly little melody started forming in her head.

oh lord wont you buy me a sweet hurricane
my friends all fly drakes so i must make amends
worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends
so oh lord wont you buy me a sweet hurricane

oh lord wont you buy me a jag or a hound
jumping out of stargates, a devilette-in-a-box
("surpriiiiiiise!")
blast away them shippers coz i think that rocks
so oh lord wont you buy me a jag or a hound

oh lord wont you buy me a fully fitted claw
blow up, steal and ransom, without any remorse
make a mountain of isk just by using blind force
so oh lord wont you buy me a fully fitted claw

(inspired by this)

Casualties

2009-04-16T21:53:00.006+02:00

The impact of the missile took almost half her shield out in one leisurely hit.
Cha startled out of her dozing salvaging. She had been totally oblivious of the clearly once more proven to be dangerous universe around her.
Before it dimly started dawning on her what was happening, the ship already was fraught with recurring alarms. "'I wasn't asleep," she said in a hoarse, feeble voice, apologizing to the ship, but it ignored her and spit out the battle data.
She cringed. Gah! An Angel! They were everywhere, as if they owned the damned place. And not just any Angel - good heavens - a battleship! She had never seen battleships roaming this part of the solar system; there simply wasnt any fun to be had here for battleships. Just small bait and relatively worthless stuff, like Cha in her rupture. Hmmm. Not that she was worthless - in fact Cha valued her own life pretty much, thank you.
"Go away!" she yelled into the communication channel.
It stayed silent for a while, and then she heard him laugh loudly.
"Oh, come on, it was just a little missile" he chuckled, and immediately another little missile took the other half of her shield out. Cha did not at all like the casual tone of this remark, and thought it would be as well to introduce some other subject of conversation.
"What in heaven's name are you doing here? This part of the universe is for the little people!"
"You sound real cute when you're angry, you know", the voice came back, unperturbed. Cha found him decidedly uncivil.
The targetlock alarm started bleeping again. "Dont you know your people know my people!", she insisted, "we are supposed to be working together!" but the lock stayed on. She braced for the impact, but the blow didn't come.
"What does he think he is doing", she mumbled, and frantically started giving defense commands. She wouldnt go without any slashing back, no sir!, even if it would only scrape his surface. She would get close to him and do her utmost best to be at least annoying. She locked him and turned the ship, pushing the microwarpdrive to its limits.
"You're in trouble now!", she warned him, praying the capacitor would hold.
He answered with a rattling salvo, but to her great delight it was miles off. "Awww," he said, "i missed you."
The missile she sent to him as a reply fluttered off in space, hitting nothing but stardust. "Splendid!", she sighed displeased.
"Come on babe," he said, "let me take your shiny shields down, and then that sexy armor, so i can reach your sweet little hull."
She was genuinely shocked. "That's not at all a proper way of expressing yourself," she answered with some severity, "it's very rude even."
A strain of unbridled laserbeams broke out from his ship, eating her armor away in a really alarming fashion. Truely exasperating behavior.
"You really expect me to roll over and play dead?", she hissed haughtily. He bursted in laughter. "No," he said, "that wasn't exactly what i had in mind. At least not the dead part."
Well, at least he wouldn't pod her. She came to her senses. It didn't matter much which way she put it: no way she would be able to hurt him before she would be hurt a lot worse. She could still try warping out. Probably the only sensible thing to do, since it looked like he was toying with her, that impetuous sadist. He would slowly, teasingly, mockingly take her hull and then wham, there would Cha go.
She resolutely gave the warp command. The crippled rupture gave all it could, but she didnt get anywhere. On the contrary - he was reeling her in, like a fish on a hook.
"Doooon't! C'mon! C'mon!", she yelled again, "i'm trying to get some space between us here!"
He basked in amusement: "It must be fatal attraction."
Hmm. She noticed the numbers. Within autocannon reach. She acted quickly. The sputtering rupture shook around and her four autocannons blasted right into his shield.
"Nice thinking," he sounded appreciative. She checked the damage stats. Dang! He barely had a scratch.
The rupture shook again and Cha felt queasy for a moment. His guns had cut through her armor like a knife through butter, setting off a multitude of other alarms.
"Still alive, baby?" he actually sounded a little worried.
"That hurt," she gasped, and then, "You'd better not do that again!"
She calculated. His turrets wouldnt be able to find her fast enough if she now moved into orbit. Ha!
She gave it all she had, and saw with great satisfaction how his shield finally started to show some red. It was uncannily slow, but he couldn't hit her.
His voice sounded unscathed and unshaken. "Come on," he said, "at this rate you will never have enough ammo before you have to give up anyway." She generally gave herself very good advice, though she very seldom followed it, but yes, she might get out of ammo and patience. True that.
"And you know i can push the button any time i like", he added soothingly. She sighed. That, she knew all too well.
"Okay," she gave in. "What do you want?"

"Sweety," she said much later, stretching lazily right before she fell asleep in his arms that she knew so well, "i wish you wouldn't keep vanishing and appearing that way. You make one quite giddy."

Hygienics

2009-03-21T10:49:00.012+01:00

"Okay", Cha mumbled, "let's consider all possibilities".

One: she could maybe ignore it was all there. Just go on gathering dust, cans, unspeakable biomass and icky tricky selfgrowing goo from the kind that doesn't belong in pods and ships. She
could just leave her crap on the floor so she couldn't see the dirt. It would pile up of course. It would get a bit akward moving around the ship. But at least the docking crews would start looking elsewhere than through her interface suit. If there was no afterlife, then maybe this was her only opportunity for leaving some legacy. She would get some type of immortality, albeit not of the heroic type. Hmm.

Two: she could just dump it all in space. And then she could insist the piles of garbage everywhere around her of course did not belong to her. And then they would of course not believe her. They would start threatening with fines, and she would ignore them, getting more and more infuriated about how injust it all was. They would start threatening with detention, and she would be taken out of her ship by force, kicking and screaming about how injust it all was. The injustice would raise massive protest from Arnola to Jolia, featured on every news channel, but there would then arise a slight miscommunication between the activists on who would be the real spokesman for the Save Chacacha Committee, and then they would start quarreling about what exactly would be the best way to protest, and then they would forget what exactly the subject of the protest was. And then they would discover how injust the scorpions on Hirtamon were treated by their own offspring. And there she would be, in the middle of her cell, surrounded by suddenly superfluous merchandise. Which probably would start gathering dust too.

Three: she could break all these non-consumable possessions down into the necessary and the unnecessary. She pondered a while about this exercise. Apart from the inescapable fatigue that would come with it, she doubted there would be much of what she would deem to be necessities. Like this - she slipped her hand into a silvermetallic loop kinda thing that probably should have been on the drone. That could be useful. Her thoughts jumped, her face flushed red, and she corrected herself hastily: "Well, no, just bracelets." Other than that, she would still be stuck with a whole lot of unnecessary dust, cans, unspeakable biomass and icky tricky selfgrowing goo from the kind that doesn't belong in pods and ships anyway, which would bring her back to square One. Or Two. Or -

Four! Aha - she might get to be famous without being dead first. She looked around. Lots of opportunities for unbridled creativity! She could start practising for the interviews already. "I select familiar stylistic imagery, icons and spacemarks that transcend traditional cultural boundaries and promote a superficial notion of interspace, the image being a fantasy realm obtainable through commodities void of a contextual study allowing the illustrated lifestyle to be readily adopted, leaving the seeming banality and regularity of these objects, through various media, only addressed when positioned by it's subjective components."
She'd be rich in no time. She'd be the greatest thing since Fedo sushi. If it wasn't for the champaign on all the gallery openings. Champaign did something to her. Wine took two glasses to get her giggling, and three to start doing things she shouldn't. Champaign did the same in sips. Tricky territory. She shook her head. Art is dangerous.

She shuddered at option number five, loaded with peril.
Alas. It seemed there was no other way.

Option number five sat right there, on the floor next to the control panel, inside a cardboard box. With compliments of mrs Nakatre Read, delivered right on her doorstep. And since mrs Nakatre Read was her boss, it would have been slightly deficient to refuse, careerwise.
She should have known that there would be consequences when she had started accepting help "to enhance the smooth integration of your unique professional abilities within the corporation's future plans" - Cha wasn't entirely sure mrs Read had only meant her fighter pilot skills, the way she had looked her up and down with that slow appreciative smile of her, wasn't she married or something? Anyway, she could live with the help when it took the form of skillbooks and autocannons and ammo. Even both those shiny new ruptures in her hangar right now, although her stomach had been upset for two days from that. But this - possibly this truely was the worst fate that ever could have befallen her. Horror in her own ship.
Too late now.

Reluctantly she pushed the box over with the tip of her foot.

A pilot can establish, with a fedo, a kind of relationship, if not friendly then logical at least: the pilot produces the garbage, the fedo decomposes it. Not so Cha. To her there was nothing logical about having a giant smelly detritivore wander her ship, no matter how much detritivoring it obviously needed. She simply knew that it would breed exponentially, carpet the floor and burst underfoot when she'd try to get somewhere. Or that they might get in the habit of hurling themselves from the ceiling onto the human face.
Eurgh.

She stood with folded arms, silent, observing her first subordinate. The spongebug remained equally silent.
"Maybe this is a formal manifestation of respect," Cha thought, realizing she knew nothing about fedo culture. "soon it will throw itself on my garbage."

Time passed. Nothing happened. It didn't look dead though.

She didn't feel any urge to connect on a deeper level, but maybe the fedo did. Maybe it needed a personal relationship to function properly. Cha supressed the upcoming panick. Maybe a name would do.
She had no idea whether it was male or female, and she didn't feel the urge to look for the determining sting either. But it was reddish. It felt female. She shuddered at the thought that she actually had something in common with a fedo.
She took a decision. "...Sue," she said hesitantly, and then more firm: "Sue, nice to meet you, would you now please go to work?".
Sue remained snug and irresponsive.

Maybe Sue needed more explaining. Cha picked up something undefinable slimy something, and, remaining at a safe distance, dropped it near the fedo. Sue firmly refused to ingest, let alone she warped into raiding her fresh territory. Who knows what's on the mind of fedo's anyway? For all Cha knew fedos maybe exacerbated a thorough hatred toward all humanity. She was probably giving off hostile vibes that Cha just couldn't pick up for some reason.

Cha started loosing her patience. Maybe Sue needed more convincing. Cha gave her a stern look. "Now, listen up Sue," she straightened herself, "i dont want to be a nuisance and crash your party here, but this is about the jolliest place for fedos i know of. I know we aren't extravagantly fond of each other, but i suggest we try concealing our mutual enmity and get to work."
Sue didn't conceal anything. She just didn't move.

Cha dwelt more than just a short moment on the possibility of some fatal accident putting an end to Sue's existence, and then afterwards just turning the lightning low. Very low. That would not only be romantic, but it would hide a multitude of dirt.
She suppressed her homicidal urges. She had faced more than just an unwilling fedo here and there! It was clear that it would take authoritarian rule, the fear of the sole human in the room holding a strap, or a laser, or maybe a railgun, to convince some unruly fedo to actually abide by her rules. She emitted what she hoped would be the brave and optimistic image of a seasoned fighting pilot in a battle, grabbed a piece of scrap metal and held it up in what she hoped a fedo would understand to be a life threatening pose.
The fedo observed her rancorously, suspiciously, reprovingly. That is, it would have, if fedos would have had eyes to observe with. But Cha could feel its contempt anyway.
"Raaaargh!" she screamed, "you, you, you roly-poly tiggychuggypigglydoodlepillpotatobughog!"

Disheartened she sank on her knees next to the recalcitrant critter. Were fedos possibly self-destructive? She had no clue.
She got the feeling it was a bit upset though.
"Not exactly of a passionate nature, aren't we?" Cha whispered to Sue.
To her astonishment, Sue stirred a multitude of little tentacles.
Duh! She had as much social intuition as a fedo. She walked over to the desk, checked the market and gave the order. She wasn't exactly excited by the prospect, but if it had to be done, it had to be done.

"I'll call him Adam," Cha said, "do you like that?"

Sue moved. She put her tiny fiddles forward, wheezed a trifle acid, and started to work.

* expression first coined by CCP executive producer Nathan Richardsson

Mutinies

2009-03-17T17:19:00.002+01:00

Cha initiated the drone exit sequence. The hobgoblin hummed into action, and made it's smooth entry into infinite space. "Hmm," mumbled Cha "- let's not make that too infinite in this case."
Shiny perfect, sunlight glinting off it's alloy hood, the drone looked exactly the way it was supposed to look. Surprisingly. Apart from the waving little strand of ductape then, but what would perfection mean without a little flaw here and there? "No roses without thorns", she thought, "and no him without -"... well, sometimes the image of the ultimate perfection only holds up if you don't look too close. The drone blinked, as if he acknowledged such wisdom.
"Let's see if the merry midget can find an asteroid", Cha said to noone especially, but the ship's comp picked it up anyway, and nudged the drone into electronic compliance. Cha held her breath, but the drone whirred and buzzed as expected, and floated swiftly towards the rock. "I'm an engineering wizard", Cha told the ship, and the ship agreed in silence.
"Target and hold". The drone seemed to hesitate a moment, then slowly turned around. It hicupped.
"Being targeted." Poss dryly said in her unconcerned Aurora voice. "Wut? wwWHAAT?". Cha sped to the scanner but there were no ships nearby. Something cloaked?
The bwip-bwip-bwip from the targeting scanner brittled on. Cha's eyes opened wide when truth sank in. Rrraaargh! The drooone! Did it just go rogue!?
She dived to the drone data readings, just in time to see its weapon sequence start up. Cha screamed furiously. "Put it offline! Put it offline!" The motion array wooshed to zero, but not so the targeting system. "Target locked", the ship continued, oblivious of the pending disaster. "Weapons offline!" she yelled.
Alas, the drone chose to disobey, cycling his servo loop and aiming straight for the stabber, scrutinizing its target. It blinked slowly. As if it took time for a smoke before the kill.
Sheer torment. "Of course, why not. Of course this has to happen to me. Of course, from aaaaaall people this has to happen to me. Floored in an own-goal." She already saw Mrs Read, lifting one eyebrow but otherwise staying totally unemotional, asking the giggling receptionist: "Chacacha did what?".
"Think, Cha, think! Put both your braincells in sync!" No way she'd shoot her own first drone. Although - having her first drone shoot her wasn't exactly the next best option either.
The solution jumped to her, or at least a possible solution. Hopefully a solution. The asteroid. "Fast jump 2 o'clock then fall sideways 127° SSE." The ship flapjacked up, then spun around, leaving the asteroid between itself and the drone. "Harrrrr. Eat that, you dirty midget!"
The drone blinked again, shocked, as it had lost its target, unable to follow. The targeting signal stopped abruptly. Cha almost felt sorry for the little bum. "Okay," she told it, and commanded the scoop. "You are forgiven. Let's try establish a friendly relationship. Come back to mommy." The hobgoblin seemed to chew on that for a while, processing its options. It emitted a series of clicks, then finally started behaving logically. Data carefully started to flow in, as if they knew some apologies were appropriate.
The hobgoblin moved. It rounded the corner, and then there was a hope-dashing crash.
"All drone systems down", the ship comp said, and Cha was convinced it could barely hold its laughter. "Try again", she hissed. "Environmental interference. Data corrupted. Elements static. Processing complete. All drone systems down.", it repeated.
"My salary is ludicrously too low for this", Cha sighed. She stared at the asteroid, where she barely could make out the little shred of duct tape, still waving enthusiastically at her. The drone seemed to be stuck between two rocks, sunken halfway in what looked like a small rift. No way the basic ship's crane could get the damn thing out of that hole on his own.
She parked the ship as close as she safely could, aimed the crane, and recalculated. She sighed even deeper. There was no other way.

Nausea struck her as soon as she stepped, eyes closed, into nothingness. She swallowed. "Go to your happy place, Cha," she self-instructed. She thought of - nope, she would not think of that. Not now.
Reluctantly she opened one eye. She caught a glimpse of herself mirrored in the metal of the energy shields, sprawled against the side of the ship. "A truely ass-kicking pose", she thought, and then remembered how she had proved him a billion times again she wasn't a starfish, unlike his previous girlfriend. Not there, then not here either! All she had to do was simply throw herself forward with all her weight (although that wasn't much to start with already), not minding that it was going to hurt.
"Come on, Cha, you cant fall in space." She swallowed again. "Just orbit perpetually." She giggled. Another floating female frozen corpse for a disturbed collector. Nevaaaah! She pushed off, soaring high. Beware, evil forces of space, for the ever so deadly, legendary, amazing and sexy Chacacha is prowling the planets and the stars!

She maneuvred herself towards the drone, crawling, floating, drifting, tumbling. Disorientation galore. Nearing the surface of the asteroid, she had no idea anymore of what was up or down. But she landed reasonably elegant, even if she had to say it herself. Only slightly fluky.
She bobbed towards the waiting crane gripper, and then pulled it along, bobbing back towards the hobgoblin.
It looked a lot larger and heavier than she remembered. And frayed and eew - greasy. And horrifiying distant still - she couldnt get the grip arm close enough. She leaned over as far as she could, but she still lacked length. She tried from her knees. Damn. She got on her belly, praying her space suit would hold without chafing or tearing, and writhed herself closer, dragging the gripper behind her. One of her dreadlocks chose this moment to spring loose, getting in her eyes without any chance to put it back behind her ears. And then another one. She sighed. The joys of tribe symbolics in a space career. Blowing them out of her face again and again, she thanked the powers that noone else was nearby to witness the entire self chastizing endeavor. Especially men. They wouldn't understand anyway. She managed to crawl close enough, and with a superhuman effort hooked the grip to the drone, the tip of her tongue between her teeth.

She watched with surreal anticipation how the drone jerked its way out of the caving, pulled back by the retracting crane arm, tottering with electronic glee towards the rocky edges and then lamely bouncing off towards the waiting ship. Yeaaaaaaaa! She had done it! "Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it's suuuuper Cha!" She jumped carefully, then tried a few triumphant swoops.
The duct tape joyfully winked at her before disappearing in the stabber's belly.

She knew the worst part still had to come. Even drowning slaver puppies would be more fun than writing a cold objective corp report on this day's happenings. After which it undoubtedly would seep in chuckles and chortles into the Waterdrop Bar.
She could swear the ship comp replied to her warp command with a barely hidden robotic relish.

Efficiencies

2009-03-16T17:19:00.008+01:00

Everyone has a little bit of deviance somewhere, even if they hide it well. Cha found herself quite normal, apart from this thing with him. That, and how she was determined to build her own first combat drone. Come to think of it, both had to do with exhilaration, technophilia, and a knack to prove the impossible.
When she was small she had learned everything her grandma had found useful. How to start a fire. How to carve a carrot doll. How to extract ink out of squids. How to read drone assembly manuals. How to find the right man. O wait - no, not that. Why is it so hard for women to find men that are sensitive, caring, and good-looking? Because those men already have boyfriends. She giggled at her own cheesy humor and then frowned at the screen.
Download these instructions for assembling T1 Hobgoblin I. First click. Need It, then click on the link to download. Okay, she Needed It. Click. The graphic jumped to 'Got It'. "Got it where", she mumbled. She queried her local system. Nothing. 'Got it' means you've already downloaded it, right? Hmmm. Apparently she also just had lost it. No worries - download it again. Click.
Got it. Or not.
The neocom tab blinked. Mail! Mail? Do drone assembly manuals come by mail?
"Do you want to go for a ride?" She looked at his picture, the cruelest, meanest, vilest person she had ever known. "I always wanted to go for rides, but now i'd just scream at you!", she hammered the keyboard. She closed neocom, and returned to finding the damned manual. She had demons to exorcise and hobgoblins to build. Need It. Click. Got It. She counted. 23 manuals. Somewhere.

Would she let a small setback like this get under her skin? No sir! How tough could it be anyway, a toy drone like that!?
Merrily she turned to the crate and started unpacking. She remembered the assembly courses, and was determined to not make any of the mistakes anyone could make. No sir! She reconsidered. Duct tape! Duct tape duct tape duct tape. Grandma solved everything with duct tape, including keeping small loose parts in one spot. "Poss", she asked the comp, "do we have duct tape?". The comp hesitated, clearly not used to its new name yet. Or maybe it couldn't find the duct tape. "46° NNW 45'' from local position." Cha stretched her arm sideways and found the drawer, and consequently the duct tape. She brought her hands together, crossed her fingers and stretched. Now she was ready to become an example for mankind when it came to assembling T1 Hobgoblin I drones.

The amount of screws, struts and otherwise undefinable parts that kept coming out of the crate was simply amazing. She saw things she had never seen before, and she had seen many, including all parts of a certain tall, dark, intelligent, distrustful and having-blurry-feelings man. Small, but not quite that small. Small but interesting. Not small at all, actually. On the contrary, even.
She only got small here.
The crate packager deserved the Elite Drone Trade & Manufacturing Prize for Efficient Space Utilization.
"Inhale!", she reminded herself and started to be efficient. All small stuff she found she carefull pasted on the sticky-side up duct tape. There were some parts she recognized. Vaguely, but still. They seemed to be combinable with the cabinet. Hmm. Odd how 1/2" sides fitted into slots in the 3/4" fronts and backs. It even left a nice little cavity for the 1/8" ply to sit. It did make sense. A hinge with gas filled struts. She raised it all the way up and the ratcheting supports released. "Kewl", she cheered for herself, "now i can put the whole thing back down". It even started to look like the label on the crate. A whole bunch of screws actually fitted in the remaining holes, keeping it all together.
It was real good duct tape. Some screws got a bit sticky and moderately fussy, because they preferred to stay on her fingers rather than on the metal. She was having most difficulty getting the rail and stile overlaps to match cleanly. Now her fingers where sticky too, and one very important looking screw didn't want to come off her left hand, and then when she tried to get it off with her right, it cosily nested itself on there. She waved her hand rapidly, counting on centrifugal force, and boy did centrifugal force do what it was supposed to do. The screw sailed through the air and rolled comfortably invisibly away under the baseboard. For a moment she was thrown off, but then she gathered herself. Not that she would let one cocky screw tamper with her efficiency. After all, she had duct tape!
The last piece was the metabox with the datacore inside, now with taped flat metal sides and half the runner molded in at the top. She mounted it on the other half of the runner on the cabinet, and tadaaaa!
Love of her own excellence filled her.

Behind her, neocom made a sound. "Only during." was his reply. She melted. Damn him for knowing how to push her buttons. Life was great, and so was her shiny T1 Hobgoblin I, waiting for his first space adventure.

First encounters of the third kind

2009-03-16T17:00:00.000+01:00

It was one of those unexpected things that happen in life, and it happened with great thoroughness. Little did Cha know of what fate beheld for her that day. And it all just started because she was thirsty. Or, let's admit, not entirely just thirsty. She felt like a good glass of wine to celebrate her newly acquired first rifter. Well, newly - it had been labeled as second-hand, but it wouldn't have surprised her when it would have been third- or even fourth-hand really. She desperately needed a job.

And so she walked into a bar with a simple plan for a good glass of wine and the appropriate amount of ISK.
Unfortunately the Gyng Pilkington Inn was packed with Amarr recruits on leave, swarming all over the station to find plenty of distraction, games and other less public means of whiling away the time.
Not that she had noticed at first. Cha usually went her ways in a blissful bubble of non-communication, except for the people she learned to like, and even that took time. Of course, once she found people likeable enough to talk to, she wouldn't stop talking either.

She never made it to the counter, let alone to a good glass of wine.
"Who are you people?" she said, "Stop looking at me like that."
"I didn't know they had miniature versions of Brutors," badgered a tall blonde guy, and a broadshouldered redhaired fellow added something about hypnotic curves of glorious small female tribal Brutor bodies, to which a brutal roar of laughter filled the inn.
"How inconsiderate", she thought. It was not as if she didn't know she was smaller than most Brutor. In fact, it had always bothered her more than she ever would concede.
And she couldn't see the counter anymore - too many Amarr uniforms in her line of sight. And oh my, the uniforms seemed to push closer by.
Cha got a little annoyed now. The thought of a more violent method to get closer to the wine crossed her mind, but after all she was a peaceful soul, albeit with little patience dealing with people who clearly lacked a good upbringing, even when they showed aesthetic sensitivity.

Until she felt a hand on her butt.
Enough to make anyone, but small female tribal Brutors in particular, lose their nerve.

She always, instantly, felt the need to inflict bloody, messy carnage on anybody laying hands on her butt. Especially when the hands were from Amarr with their cruel god of wrath and slavery.
As a proof of good faith in her own Minmatar gods, Cha levelled a fist in a generally horizontal direction and, to her own surprise, floored the tall blonde guy. "Oh no," she panicked consequently when she saw the blood run out of his nose, "he'll make a fine mess over the poor carpet." She looked around if she could see the patron, ready to apologize and negociate her way out of the ISK the carpet drycleansing surely would cost her.

The other Amarr now behaved extremely bothersome though: they became grabby. “Hey!”, she uttered, “leave that!”, but to no avail. She jumped around trying to evade them, flitting hands and feet about. Granted not in the most elegant way, but she didn't know what to do otherwise anyway. She got a tad angry now. She just wanted to plant another fist right smack in the middle of the face of the next Amarr, but they didnt seem to want to cooperate. Every time before she knew where they were, they were somewhere else. One time her foot hit someone before her fist could, next her elbow planted itself in an other face, right when she wanted to hit it. She got a bit upset by the continual necessity for paying attention to where her targets went - why couldn't they just stand still so she could properly hit them?
Cha made what she deemed to be awkward vertical leaps as she sometimes passed a surprised Amarr overhead, sometimes, indeed, succeeding in striking him feebly, but more frequently overthrown by her own eagerness, describing a parabolic curve and descending upon her next victim at just the exact angle of incidence to take him out.

Suddenly, there was a profound silence.
Before her stood a man with a gloomy, unsociable attitude and a lasergun.
He didn't look happy.
"Oh," Cha panted, "i think i am to be prohibited to come to the conclusion of this work."
The man didn't answer, just looked very glum. Surely some deep disappointment in early life had soured his disposition.
"No wine today huh," Cha assumed.
He compressed his lips angrily. The gun flashed out with a loud report, truely a compelling motive for Cha's sudden deviation. She sprang to one side, lapsed and rolled over, stumbled back on her feet, tripped over a chair, bellyflopped sideways and, to her no small astonishment, tumbled backwards over a balustrade that she could have sworn wasn't there a second before, all in a crossfire of lasered lines.
"This is unreal," Cha thought woozy while she plummeted through the glass panels under her.

She landed unharmed on her back, amongst an exquisite display of fresh vegetables, crackers and sliced baguette, sweet and sour sauce and grilled chicken, and a lot of glass.
The two people at the table leaned back in their chair, but didn't even wink.
"If that isn't an omen then what is," said the silverhaired Caldari woman at her left, her calm features unmoved apart from one raised eyebrow. "Fascinating indeed", replied the giant Brutor at her right with a vague underlying sense of amusement.
"O yea!" Cha threw out angrily – "Personally i think it is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating!"
"Well", the woman replied with a slow smile, “I think we can arrange for that.”

And that is how Cha met the ceo's of the Stillwater Corporation.

Improbabilities

2009-03-16T16:54:00.002+01:00

Cha squinted when she tried to open her eyes. The blinding white light of the nearby sun jumped without remorse right off the cockpit dashboard into her face. She grunted and smashed the sunshield button. Her head. She should stop drinking so much. It didn't help to forget anyway.
Slowly her pupils remembered how to dilate. Self pity. What a talent she had for it.

The ship shuddered when something scraped its shields. Cha just barely could stay seated, clinging to the seat arms. For a moment she thought she had imagined it, this stagger in the flood of radiantly happy memories playing leap-over with the excruciatingly painful ones. All 3 velocity alarms fluttered on, hesitated, then restored to normal. She tried to focus back to what was happening in the giant hole called space, but the only thing that kept her attention was the slow motion of the now empty wine bottle, falling over and rolling down over the edge of the sidetable as the stabber started to lean sideways. The bottle jumped a little dance on the floor, then decided to squash to pieces against the paneling.

They had broken up a million times and still she couldn't let go. Nor did he. But she could admit it, and he, for reasons he didn't know himself or didn't want to tell her, could not.
And so, every time they decided to step out of something that started to look like a relationship, the air cleared, they would enjoy again being around each other, laughing about the silliest stuff, discussing politics or song lyrics or ship fittings, and in between he would lift her up against the wall and send her into a series of breathtaking orgasms while a couple of hours later she would return the favor in the lavatory of the local Quafe bar. Or any variation of that. And then, invariably, she'd make some mistake, the fights would start and there they were again, back on track to the next breakup from something that supposedly wasn't even a relationship.

The ship stayed slanted, but none of the indicators announced a system failure. Silence. Cha waited for the squeaking sound of metal tearing. Nothing happened.
Nothing ever happened. Flimsy reasons.
She screamed at the ship in anger. Of course the damn ship would abandon her, right at the moment when she needed to find peace the most.
If the ship couldn't hold its balance with all its supercallifragilisticexpiallegoric nanotech wiring and components, then how could she?

Expecting too much when he didn't want to give back. So then to protect herself from a next round of pain she would decide to not give anything back either, which would sent him into a panic frenzy in return. Balance? What a joke.

The shipcomp suddenly remembered it had a voice. "Activating stabilizing compensation routines" it hicupped, and the stabber came back to horizontal.

He didn't want her, but he didn't want her to have anyone else either, and to be honest, she didn't want anyone else either. Not that she didn't try. Nor him, for that matter.

"Take me out of here", she rasped. The computer screen happily showed off its next series of improbability calculations, a heist of fresh stochastic data.
The ship hissed.
Cha's stomach jumped up in her body when it accelerated into warp, pressing her into the seat's back. She reached out and slammed the beverages automat button.

The kafak tasted terrible. In a sudden rage she threw the mug against the wall. “Hereby I baptize thee Possibly Maybe”, she screamed, and then bursted in laughter.

“Inhale”, she reminded herself.