When to Fight and When to Run

Region: Aridia
Constellation: Anama
Solar System: Zayi
Planet: Zayi X - Moon 7
Station: Pend Insurance Investment Bank

Helping her climb out of the capsule, Selina's personal attendants quickly threw a blanket over her naked body. Slowly, they guided her unstable form to a nearby cot within the room and guided her down. She shivered uncontrollably, her teeth clattering noisily against each other. The attendants knew though that her trembling had nothing to do with the temperature in the room. In fact, they were nearly all shaken up pretty badly by the very recent event. So close had they all come to death, that any man or woman who didn't carry a desire for it trembled now as their beloved pilot did. To see her so shaken now, even with the knowledge that she would in essence live on, being cloned back at their homebase while they were permanently erased from existance....it made them love her even more. It was a reminder that she was just as human as they with real thoughts and real emotions. That she did care for the lives of her crew and ship.

It had all happened so quickly. The blare of the warning sirens. The sudden jolting of the ship and the deafening sounds of impact as missile after missile had smashed against the armor of the Thorax cruiser, comically named Flying Dildo, tearing chunks away with each strike. The automated computer voice called out over the corridor speakers, "All hands. Battlestations. All hands. Battlestations."

What was hoped to be a leisurely cruise back to homebase after visiting the place where it all started. The birthplace of all that was Eve. The solar system known as New Eden. In an instant, the cruise had turned from one of leisure to a desperate fight for survival.

The ship's crew captain entered the logistics deck in a flurry.

"Status report. Now!"

"We're under attack sir," exclaimed the navigations officer in wide eyed fear.

"Well no shit we're under attack you twit! Now damnit, can somebody with half a brain cell tell me what's going on?!"

Immediantly, the ordinance officer stood to attention even as the ship rocked under the impact of yet another missile. "Sir! We got two bogies inbound! A heavy interdictor, ship class Onyx, and a command ship, class Nighthawk!"

The captain's knees nearly buckled at the news. Immediantly he knew they were no match for the two attackers. Their chances against one of those two were slim. To be confronted with both?

"Pilot status?"

"I'm fine captain." came the computerized voice of the pilot encased within her capsule below the very deck they stood on. "Prepare all hands for combat."

The captain spun his head in surprise towards the pilot status monitors, the closest connection they had at present with the capsuleer besides her voice over the speakers. "Prepare for what?!"

"You heard me captain. The Onyx has us scrammed and ONLY the Onyx is attacking. We jump back through the gate and you can be assured that command ship will follow along with possibly what was a third attacker we passed at the gate. So we have two options, engage now against the Onyx, a cruiser sized vessel in hopes of breaking free, or jump through and be faced with a battlecruiser sized vessel and a second possible bogey. Personally, with the neuts, I like my odds against that cruiser."

The captain nodded. It really didn't matter whether he agreed or not. What Selina said, went without question. Immediantly he turned. "All hands, prepare for combat! Deploy drones. Cycle the blasters, prepare to active neutralizers as soon as we're in range!"

Standing behind it, grasping the rear of his command chair, he watched out the thick windows as the ship rocketed towards the Onyx, blasters now spitting bolts of federation anti-matter against the powerful shields of the Onyx. Just as instructed, once range was achieved, the neutralizers kicked on, reaching out to grasp the Caldari vessel with its viscious assault. Immediantly the crew braced themselves as the hulls of the two ships slammed into each other. Immediantly, the ship pivoted about as Selina guided the vessel to align towards a random celestial. Having opened fire, she knew the stargates would not allow her to pass but right now, anywhere even in system was better than here. Seconds passed. Seconds that felt like hours as they waited breathlessly in hopes of a break. As the ship entered structure, warning sirens going off as sections of the ship were torn open, exposing areas of the ship to the vacuum of space, each man felt the claws of death reaching out to them. Each one watched their lives spin before their eyes as often does before one passes to the next life. And when the space outside them suddenly began to stretch in the usual sign of entering warp, not a breath could be heard.

It took them all a moment to realize what had just happened. To realize that the swirling lights they now saw were not the blur of death, but rather the blur of warp space. They had made it. Their ship had broken free of the Onyx's grip, catapulting them away from their near doom. They had left their drones behind... but the loss of computer controlled scraps of metal versus living flesh and blood.... It was a loss they were more than willing to accept.

They were of course not out of the fire yet. In essence bouncing off the celestial, they entered warp once more, guiding them to a safe spot they'd made along their path of escape. It was unknown if their attackers had probes but it would at least be some form of safety until they could once again pass through the gates. They all knew as well the two attackers were not leaving any time soon either given they'd both opened fire on their ship.

Soon, the armor had been nearly restored and the standard amount of time had passed. Quickly, Selina urged the damaged ship into warp once more, bolting for their exit stargate. As soon as the ship was through, she turned the ship towards the nearest station and urged it quickly into warp. Just in time, the stargate faded away into the distance just as they saw the local comm list screen grow with the entrance of their two attackers. Run, and try to get ahead and away? Or dock up and wait for them to leave? Selina chose the latter. One brush with death was enough for one night.

Sitting in the station now, recovering from their near death experience, the comm screen lit up with the face of one of her attackers:

Aiden Emmagan > ;)
Selina Starfire > :) gj btw earlier. nearly had me
Aiden Emmagan > ;)
Aiden Emmagan > okay you pay aiden emmagan bounty on the head (roughly 36mil) and we let you fly :)
Selina Starfire > LOL, or i just call it a night and go to bed like i should be doin. :P
Aiden Emmagan > tz tz :/
Selina Starfire > while leaving my char logged in just to annoy ya :P
Aiden Emmagan > ;)
KingSmash > gn8 ;) fly save

Pay a ransom?? Were they serious?? They had their chance and they lost it. They screwed up. And yet they still believed she would pay a ransom now that she was safely docked?! "Psht.... move along and find someone with a little less intelligence, with a little less patience and a little more fear boys," she thought to herself with amusement as she finally rose from the cot and offered to buy all the crew a round or two down at the station bar and maybe catch a flick or somethin while they were at it. Sides, they prolly had some time to kill...

A Little History Can Change Today's Decisions

Region: Genesis
Constellation: Ekrin
Solar System: Sheroo
Planet: Sheroo X - Moon 3
Station: Sisters of EVE Bureau


Selina dropped her duffel bag on the bed and powered up the suite's terminal. The room, even for its usual stale, recycled air scent, smelled even more stale than normal. Long had it been since she'd last set foot in here, but after packing up and leaving her vacation home the previous day, she knew it would be the best place for her to go in order to deal with her large and vastly spread out assets. Generally, she prides herself on being a fairly organized person, keeping most of her gear neatly distributed as needed between only a handful of stations throughout the galaxy. However, organization certainly was NOT one of Mikolan's strong suites. Upon receiving the inventory list of all the gear and ships he'd contracted to her, she'd nearly popped her jaw out of place. There was gear everywhere! From one end of empire to the other.

Ah well...what better way to reacquaint herself with the pod life than to fly from station to station, selling and collecting as she went, and NOT avoid the shortcuts through lowsec? She couldn't help but grin at that thought.

As the holo-screen of the terminal flickered to life, her favorite source of news and information about the happenings in all of Eve loaded up. To her, no better method of getting real, personal and in-depth news of events around the universe could be found then to read it straight from the personal journals of the very pilots who flew the galaxy. And "The Eve Online Portal" certainly made a great central location to find those journal keepers.

Today, as she scanned through the recent entries though, one in particular caught her eye. An entry made by a mercenary corporation called Noir, who had reprinted an article which basically chronicled the history of nullsec space. As she read it, her interest peeked once again. THIS was why she'd once been so heavily interested in moving to Nullsec. Sure, it was politics. But the politics of Nullsec were, in her opinion, much more entertaining then the entirely political wars of Empire. Empire's wars were mostly fought behind the closed doors of the leaderships and politicians. Battles were waged more by words than by their militaries. Sure, you could join the militias but that really was just a tool. You became nothing more than another capsuleer basically running missions for the numerous corporate agents. Unless things had changed since she'd went on vacation, it seemed the battles fought by the various militia groups had little to no impact on the over-all scheme of the Empire wars.

Nullsec on the other hand was an entirely different beast. Nullsec was controlled, operated, and defended by capsuleer pilots. Yes, there were talks behind closed doors. In any war, there almost always had to be. But the focus was on territory owned, or sovereignty...and the only way to gain that was through the vigilant efforts of the pod pilots involved. Each individual pod pilot could make the difference in who controlled what out there.

Besides, after reading another entry made by a pirate named Shae Tiann in an all-female pirate corp called the Hellcats, it was pretty evident Goonswarm had become determined to piss as many people off as possible. To bully anybody and everybody. And if joining the corp her friend had been pushing her to join meant she could help snuff out that growing ego of theirs, she was all for it.

Glancing again at the long inventory list, Selina gave a frustrated sigh. But of course, first things first...

A Little R & R

Selina sat down at her terminal with a quiet sigh. A cool breeze off the nearby ocean water blew it's way through her open air cottage. Outside, the local insects sang their eerie tunes to each other, a constant chorus of chirps and buzzing that to many, the sound came together in what is often thought to be a very entrancing music, the whispered words of the sirens hidden within, lulling the weary traveler into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Besides being a bit out of the way from the usual war scarred or overly populated planets, it was one of the reasons she enjoyed coming here. Many referred to it as a place where one could go and live out a Second Life, free from the corporations and governments and all the political battles that were fought far above and beyond in the depths of space.

Sitting on the veranda, she keyed up the terminal, punched in her access codes and waited for the usual beep to notify her it had started recording.

"Begin personal log 59730-86-571."

She paused for a moment, eyes turning to stair out over the waves crashing over the sandy beach nearby.

"I'm starting to lose track of when it was I last breathed the recirculated air of a spaceship. When I last felt the warm goo of the capsule... To be honest, it feels good. I know of course I'm going to have to return again, and soon, but for the time being, I've been enjoying my much needed vacation.

"I've already made contact with some of my old co-pilots. Things within the corporation have really appeared to have gone to shit. Some predicted this, others denied even the remote possibility of it. I sort of saw it coming, saw the degeneration of spirits within the corp and out of frustration, decided it was time for a vacation. Now, as I begin looking towards my return to capsuleer life, I'm learning a lot has changed.

"My old mentor, Mikolan, has resigned his pilot's license entirely. He contracted me all his assets, much of which i can't even use given they're Minmatar and Caldari operating systems (of which I know so little about), mining gear and whatever else he had collecting dust in hangers spread out across New Eden. He also sold his clones, pulling in a hefty 3.7 billion of which he gave me 3.5 of that. I guess 200 million is enough to retire on? I don't know. Personally, I have no intentions of doing that myself any time soon. So with the 3.5 and whatever I make from selling off his assets....well, lets just say I'll be pretty well set for awhile.

"And it's a good thing too as I also just resigned my position within the corporation. Not sure yet what I'm going to do from here though. I need to take some time to sort through the pile of ships and gear I have, sell what I'll never use, trash what I can't sell, inventory what I intend to keep...etc, etc. After that...I don't know. I've got a friend out in 0.0 wanting me to join up with them. Guess they're currently at war with the Goons and could use the extra set of guns. Another old friend submitted his application to them yesterday in fact.

"Strange as it is for me to say though...I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet. I would no longer consider myself a fresh pilot, a rookie or any other newbish name one might come up with...but then I'm far from being a seasoned pilot as well. Truth is, I want to experience it all. Well...okay. Not all. The whole manufacturing and trading side doesn't interest me in the least. And after having watched the rather boring and mundane activities Mikolan went through with the whole mining bit...umm...yeah. That's not for me either. No surprise to me that he retired so soon. As for exploring, yes. I fully intend to train up those skills as I could certainly make use of being able to find the hidden plexes, archeology and radar sights. (Could REALLY care less about the wormholes unless it takes me from one side of New Eden to another perhaps for some little travelling adventure.)

"I'm done with the high sec, empire corporations. I've come to the conclusion that any corporation, who spends more than 75% of their time in High Sec is a complete waste of my time. Not saying they're bad people. I mean, some one's gotta build the guns and ammo for the rest of us to blow each other up with. It's just that I'm not a productive type. I'm the destructive type. The blood of others is my drug. The death and explosions I creates the energy that drives me. And the more I get, the more I want.

"So I have a few options I could consider.

"One, I stay solo and just hack out my own existence. Fighting and killing anything that I cross paths with. Of course this is a rather lonely and difficult road but challenges are something I thoroughly enjoy. But I could easily see that becoming rather boring and tactically difficult in such a vast universe.

"Option two is to join my friends in nullsec. That is of course given I am accepted by their corporation. I'm sure with their endorsement, I could get in though and my desire to go live in nullsec is quite powerful.

"Third option. Join the Gallante militia. They're always in need of pilots. And especially now with the latest news I've picked up on regarding their horrible losses against the Caldari. But empire politics really don't interest me. I never have been much for being just a pawn in a political war machine.

"That leaves, the fourth, final, and also very tempting option of turning pirate. Normally, I'm the one going after the so-called 'blinkies' but yet...to be one... To actually live that life I read so much about in the public pilot logs... To truly live by my own rules... Damn, it's so tempting...

"So I don't know. As I said, I have a lot of gear I've got to get sorted first before I have to actually make the decision, so there's no rush. But soon...soon the time will come and it's certainly something I need to think about.

"End log."

Leaning back in her seat, her eyes briefly went distant as she pondered over all she'd spoken. Finally, after a lengthy moment, she breathed in deeply the cool air blowing in off the water and let out a sigh. She really should get back to work on going over the inventory lists her accountant had sent her but...eh. "What's the rush," she thought as she grabbed her surfboard from beside the door, she struck out across the sand with a wide smile. "Work can wait for just another day..."