Crimson Harvest
Author: Erutor
Original post: https://learningtoeve.wordpress.com/2017/11/03/crimson-harvest/
Author’s Note: I’ve never tried to write something a bit dark (reader discretion is advised), and appreciate your feedback.
Entry for the YC119 Pod and Planet Fiction Contest in the Eight Thousand Suns in the New Eden category and the Short story category.
Even through the searing pain, I cannot deny a certain appreciation for the artist’s craft…
She traces my tattoos with delicate precision. Her hands, perfectly steady, shoulders relaxed. Her serene face is not expressionless, bearing a hint of sadness about the corners of her eyes. Is her sorrow for my exquisite agony, or something deeper? She is beautiful, despite bearing Voluval of the Face of Helina. The artist works clad only in nanotube manacles, and I can see she is otherwise marked only with the letter “M” in delicate script over her heart. Her belly bears faint stretch marks she’s chosen to retain: a proud badge of motherhood.
Implants heighten all my senses. I savor every detail. Each is perfectly preserved, each analyzed precisely. I maintain perfectly impassive concentration, scintillatingly aware of my own experience, and the almost imperceptible flicker of conflicting emotion playing across the artist’s face.
Her brow furrows slightly as she focuses intently on the delicate finishing touches on my chest.
She disappears from sight.
The hiss of a sterile container, opening.
She returns, then carefully smooths a transparent film over my chest.
Sharp, searing pain.
I didn’t buy implants to enhance this experience. With their assistance, I would be among the first of the Matari Alpha Capsuleers to fly a battleship. I mine for the Tribes, setting aside my profits in eager anticipation of the day I can undock a Tempest. Oh, the havoc I would wreak upon our enemies in the warzone!
Wallet drained by implants, I was quick to accept temporary employment with The Agency. Nerve-wracking as it was to undock with a set of expensive implants, I was soon harvesting ore. The Blood Raider Gauntlet was out of my comfort zone, but I must seize every opportunity to slaughter these worst among Amarrians.
The gauntlet proved profitable. More importantly, another capsuleer mentioned Corpii ships in system indicated a nearby Blood Raider Forward Operating Base.
Reshipping into a Cheetah, I took the initiative to investigate this abomination. I fell into an easy rhythm, scanning system after system in search of the FOB.
There it was!
I warped at range.
I was immediately swarmed by ships… ships, surprisingly, equipped with warp disrupters. Shields evaporated, armor melted, and hull disintegrated. I ejected. Knowing Blood Raider sensors are incapable of locking my small pod, I aligned, then paused to look around.
Why was this base in HighSec? What Overseer secured a source for disruptors?
My reconnaissance was cut short.
These ships apparently had additional upgrades; they locked my pod.
A hot flash of electromagnetic energy, then darkness.
Something was strange. I was not in a clone bay. I was neutrally buoyant, as if in my pod. Suddenly, I was heavy as my pod discharged me upon a cold, dirty deck in a gush of ectoplasmic fluid.
Rough hands dragged and lifted me. I recognized the sound of a clone bay sealing, then nothing.
“…doctor, and Omir is pleased by your efforts. There is no need for us to consider returning, for now, to the… less pure and satisfying sources we once relied upon,” I hear, regaining consciousness.
Vision returns. The artist (doctor?) nods to someone I can’t quite see. I turn my head.
I turn my head.
Nothing happens.
Status?
Exquisite pain.
And yet, I am disembodied. Why can’t I move?
“Oh, and speaking of less pure sources,” the voice continued, “Maliya sends greetings. She looks forward to seeing you soon.” The artist touches the “M” upon her chest.
Footsteps, a quiet hum, then the world shifts.
Tribal artwork slides into view, hanging against a glass wall. Strangely familiar tattoo patterns adorn some translucent medium.
It’s bright here, but dark beyond. I see a shockingly clear image reflected in the glass.
My body is stretched out in a modified clone bay. Cords and cables connect me to a transneural burning scanner.
I’m a bloody mess.
I understand now.
Those are my tattoos.
The surgeon has carefully excised them from my skin, leaving a bloody reverse image.
There is only one reason I’d be connected to a scanner, and not allowed to die.
My heart pumps furiously, trying futilely to maintain pressure despite insufficient volume.
Trickles ooze down my legs, where eager vacuum tubes devour my blood.
Darkness again, then the shock of transfer, and movement.
“Let’s begin anew,” the sorrowful doctor murmurs, “your willpower implant was damaged, so I’ll understand if you scream this time.”