Alone in The Dark
Studies show that the majority of Pod Pilots feel more at home inside their capsule. Suspended in wires and fluid, motionless while their minds stretch out and interact with their ships and surroundings. I can understand why, however I enjoyed the feeling of fabric and fine traditional robes as well. I have not been in space for two days now, and am finding it harder to sleep in this station.
It was something about the light. That sickening green glow that seems to be around everything the Gallente create. Even the artificial lighting inside my room had green and blue accents. Even when I closed my eyes I could still see it.
I sneered again at the broken and malformed candles that had rolled across the floor. Only hours earlier I had purchased them hoping to bring in some calming natural light. Light in it’s purest form, fire. When I had them lit on the table they flickered with an unnatural green glow. Chemically enhanced Gallente garbage! Vagrants and children on the lower market decks were selling them to make a few additional ISK.
There was something very foreboding with this place, something wrong with this whole station. I swear I could almost feel the gravity pulling my skin towards the twin moons that this station orbits. Dead soul stealing moons. My fists were beginning to clench as I thought more about my situation.
In that moment though the steel bulkheads had been spared the wrath of my bare fists, my NeoCom chirped to life with a new message. The video on the pre-recorded message was full of static and the audio was seemingly purposely distorted. I could make out the figure of a short haired woman, probably Caldari as the message, although short, was very formal and commanding.
“Broadcast to all available parties. Scouting mission, details follow: Proceed two jumps coreward, scan for fleet movements. Report back to station, Deltole System. Payout 3,000,000 ISK upon completion. Multiple parties accepted.”
I sat back down and thought to myself, “So it’s to be a race is it.” With a contractual payment that high, a cryptic mission objective, and the completion point on a .5 sec boarder system, there’s bound to be more to this than what it seems. The thought of floating home in my pod while leaving another Harbinger wrecked in space didn’t seem appealing at all… Until I saw those damned candles on the floor again. I pressed the accept button and left my room for the hanger decks.
Though the Gallente Federation holds freedom and individual rights above all others, they still can’t escape the subtle hints of segregation that the Pod Pilot Bay radiates. Only the capsuleers are allowed beyond this point, there are no guards, no paperwork, only the genetic makeup of ones body allows entry, only a person who has a pod docked and registered at the station is allowed access. I saw two nearby Minmatar pilots arguing about who was going to be flying, and who was going to be running engineering.
The larger of the two whipped his head to the side to try and avoid looking at me, his dreadlocks flowing in a quick motion with his head. I half smiled to myself as I proceeded through the secure checkpoint, the smaller of the two men tried to get a glance inside the door before it sealed shut.
An automated announcement went off over head as I stepped to the access Pylon. “Pilot, Asari Norral. Capsule delivery in 23 seconds.”
The floor beneath me began to vibrate as the automated systems began to bring my pod up for delivery. The machinery below was like a large serpent guarding its eggs, coiling around and around moving potentially hundreds of pods between the hangars and storage bays.
Upon arrival I climbed inside of the pod, and closed my eyes. I could feel wires and probes connecting across my body, like small fish nibbling away at me. Then, the rush comes, as if you are being pulled away from your body, you feel as if something has taken a hold of you and is holding your an inch away from your own life. But then the warmth of the Hydrostatic fluid fills the pod, and you begin to regain control, you feel power, like you are now something more than what you were a moment ago. it is an uncontrollable high that is always put down moments later by status displays, system reports, and the drudgery of technology which comes pouring in through the nets.
I’ve been loaded into the pod, sealed, and my mind scanned to update my clone. The pod is loaded into my Harbinger and departure clearance is given.
Scanners immediately blink to life as I exit the station, another battlecruiser, a drake was leaving the station. Navigation was predicting an identical course as my own. It looks like the reward had enticed someone else into this little excursion as well.
Davez0r's Gaming Space 