The Gift

Author: Alan Mathison

Original post: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ErrIWMT0mJffFaYXJ1PC2HjRy-fxyO-zYzxNhFK9_b0/edit

Entry for the YC116 Pod and Planet Fiction Contest in the A Day in the Life category.

In early November I had a friend die who was just a couple of years younger than I was; far, far too young to pass on. Kory was a fan of science fiction and the military. He and his wife owned a gaming company.

As my partner and I drove down to the memorial we were playing a lecture from EVE University. Very suddenly the feeling welled up inside me so much so that I nearly lost control of the car: "Kory would have loved this!”

Upon coming home after the service I found the Pod & Planet EVE fiction contest and resolved immediately to write for it, memorialising Kory in the process. This was the first fiction of this type I'd done in more than 10 years. I was amazed to win 2nd Place in the "Day in the Life" category of the YC116 Pod & Planet Fiction Contest.

But wonderfully, in a real way, I won first prize even before the story was entered. Kory's wife was the first person to read what you see below, and she said that I'd "hit all the right buttons."

=== === === ===

“Docking request accepted.”

I was docking at the Sister's of Eve station in Boystin after being waved off of my home station around the fifth planet's sixth moon. Jeff, one of the traffic controllers there, had told me the Sisters had wanted to see me. Well, far be it from me to turn down work, although I had to admit, I usually went and asked them. This was the first time they'd come to me. What could that be about?

The Olcott docked with no problems. I figured an Astero-class frigate wouldn't have a problem docking in an SOE station. I dismissed the crew, drained my pod, climbed out and showered on Deck 2. Then I went to the station's main office.

A young novice was sitting at the desk. “Hi,” I said. “I'm Alan Mathison, Capsuleer. I was told that Sister Allison wanted to see me?”

“Hello Sr-o Mathison,” she greeted me back. “Yes, Sister Allison did want to see you. Just one second.” I didn't know Sister Allison, but then again, the SOE was rather far-flung. I couldn't be expected to know everyone, even in the local system, I figured. “She'll see you now, Sr-o Mathison. Just go in through the pulsing door.” She pointed and indicated the door that was faintly pulsing blue down the hall. I thanked her, walked down to the door, knocked, and entered.

“Sister Allison?” I greeted the single nun who was seated in back of a rather large, somewhat ornate, wooden desk. That must have cost a pretty credit to get up here, I thought. Most of the Sisters wore robes of blue that were lined with silver. Sister Allison's robe were white, outlined in blue. I'd not seen that before.

“Sr-o Mathison. Good to finally meet you,” she said, rising from her seat to shake my hand. “Please, sit down.”

I sat, glancing around at the room as I did so. Usually, when I came for a job I was given details in a data processing center filled with several of the nuns. At best I'd be in a small room off the processing center. This was different. “I'm not in trouble, am I?” I asked, laughing just a touch.

“Why would you think that, Sr-o Mathison?” Sister Allison inquired as she sat back down behind the desk.

“Well, this isn't usually where I get my assignments. And you seem to be new.”

“Interesting,” she murmered. “No, no. You're not in trouble. This isn't a job, at least not yet. I'm visiting from the main station. I'm investigating something, Sr-o Mathison, and I'm hoping you can help. I need to ask you some questions. Some of them might be a bit painful.”

“Sure, Sister,” I said a bit more slowly than I intended. “Anything I can do. I like the Sisters.” Why the hell would they ask painful questions?

“Yes. I know you do,” Sister Allison said. She turned her pad on and consulted it. “I understand you had a friend. A Corporal Kory Kaese?”

=== === === ===

“So, what do you think of the idea, Alan,” Kaese asked me across the table we sat at drinking Quafe.

I took a gulp of my drink as I looked at my friend from childhood. How could I put this delicately, I thought. “Well. The idea is just slightly more crazy than your usual ones,” I finally decided to tell him. “And why are you dragging me into it?”

“It's something we could do together,” he said.

“You joining the Mercenaries and me joining the Capsuleers is not something we'd be doing together, you dummy. They're separate programs. Besides, the Mercenary program is too new. You'll remember all the problems they had with the capsules when they first started. Water-filled coffins, everyone called them. And for good reason!”

“And now they're better. They learned from the capsules,” Kaese said. “The initial tests are good. I'm too big to fit in the damn capsules, but I can fit in the suits, especially if I get in on the ground floor. We can do this! You'll be flying above me lending me support. My Guardian Angel, but for real this time.”

“Come on, Kory, don't be stupid. When the Good Lord wants you He'll come get you. You don't need to try to send Him an invitation.”

=== === === ===

“Yea,” I told Sister Allison, somewhat surprised. “I had a friend called Kory. He died about five years ago.”

“Yes,” said Sister Allison, picking up her data pad and consulting it. “You were friends for a long time, I think. From before college. Both from good families. Yours was better,” she mused.

“What's this all about, Sister?”

She looked up from her pad and at me. “Yes, Corporal Kaese died about five years ago in one of the first battles of the Mercenary Clones.” She paused. “Kaese was contracted to us.” She paused again. “You have an extensive history of working for the Sisters of EVE.”

“I'm not a spy, if that's what you're thinking.” Now I was beginning to become annoyed. “I like the Sisterhood – so far – and what they do. Kory's death wasn't your fault.”

=== === === ===

“Gamma Company, stand down, stand down,” the order came over the command channel to Kaese's ears. “The enemy is retreating in all directions. Begin bouncing back for pickup. Good job, boys!”

“No problem, Captain,” Pvt. Kate Dunning replied. “We're all just one of the boys, here.” Kaese smiled inside his suit. Oh sure, he'd have to speak to Dunning afterwards about channel discipline, but it was a good comment all the same.

Kaese touched an interior helmet switch with his chin and brought up a tactical map. He needed to find a path back to the meeting point while at the same time avoiding retreating enemy elements. He found one. Taking another look at the tactical map, though, he found something that didn't quite sit right. He thought for a second. This wouldn't take long to check out. They'd easily be able to make it back to the rondezvous point. He activated the squad channel with another touch of his chin. “Beta Squad,” Kaese said, “form up on me. We're gonna check something out while on the way home.” Having issued the order, he hit his jump jets and started making long, jumping strides to his destination. He saw seven other green dots following him. I have good people, he thought.

Kaese studied the tactical map as he ran. He was headed for a civilian building which really wasn't on the battle map. The problem was that it seemed to be in the path of a retreating enemy element. At this point it was easy to move off to one side of them and check out the building. “Guys,” he said, remembering Dunning as he did so, “Keep your eyes on that retreating element to our side. They're retreating and they're probably not paying attention too much, but on the other hand they might decide they want a little payback after today if they see us. Hold back a bit as a defense.” He counted off the acknowledgement clicks. Seven, good.

Kaese's last long jump took him out of the trees just a klick away from the target building. The area was a sparsely populated rural area with a low-ish technology level. He saw a normal building surrounded by nicely kept fields, and then more wild grassland. There was a regular element to the kept fields. Punching up the binocular setting on his faceplate HUD he studied it more closely. Yea, he was afraid of that. It was a school. Those were game fields. And those were kids on those fields. “Gamma Company, this is Beta Squad. Sir, we have a problem.”

“Yea, we do, Corporal!” Kaese's company command came back at him on audio. “Where the fuck are you? You're not where you're supposed to be, soldier!”

“Sir, one of the retreating Caldari elements are moving into an outlying civilian area. There's a school right in their path.”

“It’s off the map, Kaese.”

“Captain, it’s a populated school! I can see kids playing on the fields from here.”

“Not our responsibility. Get your ass, and the asses of your squad, home. Now!” Kaese heard the audible click as the Captain closed the channel. Kaese thought for a moment. His squad couldn't take the Caldari element by itself, but something had to be done about that school.

“Kory, what the hell are you doing?” A familiar voice sounded in his helmet.

“Alan? What the hell? I didn't know you were part of the orbital forces for this job!” Kaese was amazed to hear Alan Mathison.

“What the hell are you doing? You're not moving to the rondezvous point. Are you OK?” Mathison asked. Kaese explained the situation. Mathison took it in. “OK, yes, that's horrible, but there's nothing you can do about it. You can't take that element out on your own. You know that, right?”

“I can do it with help,” Kaese said.

“Like what?” Mathison asked. “Your Captain is already going to have your butt. What kind of help do you think you're going to get?”

“I can call down an orbital strike,” Kaese answered.

“No you can't.”

“I can if I do it personally,” Kaese argued back.

“Don't be stupid. An orbital strike is meant to be several ships. I only have one charge. You're going to get both of us in trouble.”

“We're just after this one element, Alan. I don't need to battle them, I just need to deflect them.” Kaese argued.

“This is stupid. You don't have the authorization,” Mathison argued back.

“I don't need it. It's not really an orbital strike. You're just firing the weapon to my command frequency and then I use that to guide the weapon down.” Mathison said nothing. “Alan, they're kids.”

“I'm gonna kill you!” Mathison responded after another pause.

Kaese breathed a small sigh of relief. He'd made his case, at least for now. “Well, you'll probably have to get in line to kill me after this. OK, here's what we're going to do. Basically you just need to program the missile to 2.918GHz, which is my command frequency. At that point I'll be able to guide it to the detonation point. You ready?”

“OK, weapon is programmed. I'm ready. You'll guide this in once it’s in the air? It's automatic, right? All I need to do is fire it? Neither one of us have ever done this, Kory!”

Kaese was well aware of that. “Yea, it'll be fine. Fire when ready!”

Mathison thought about the firing and the missile was away. “All right, it’s in the air.”

Kaese found the signal on his HUD. Nice, strong, good. The missile was on his way right to him. Now he needed to move it to the front edge of the retreating enemy formation. That should deflect them away from the school. That's all he needed. He moved the cursor on his HUD to where he wanted the missile to detonate.

It didn't move.

He did it again. The missile trajectory didn't move. It was still homing in on him. That was bad.

“Kory?” Mathison asked. “What's going on? Why aren't you moving the missile?”

“Hang on. I'm trying something.” Kaese started a long jump to the north. Yea, the missile was homing on him. That's what he was afraid of. He moved to cursor back to the enemy element and commanded the missile to move. The trajectory didn't alter. Shit.

“Kory, stop fucking around! We're already in over our heads!” Mathison argued.

“We have a small problem,” Kaese said. “The missile isn't following the cursor in my HUD. It's locked on me.”

“What?! What do we do?”

“I don't know if we can do anything. I've tried twice to alter the trajectory and it does nothing.”

“Fine,” Mathison said. “I'll kill the missile.” He touched a control, checked a read out, touched it again, checked. “Fuck! Kory we have a bad missile. A really bad missile. I can't self destruct it.”

Kaese froze for a second. This didn't look good at all. Abruptly he changed frequencies to his Squad. “Squad, break south and jump. Put klicks on your jets now!”

“Sir?” a confused voice tentatively responded.

“Break south and scram now! Now! Now! Now!” Now Kaese would see how good a group of soldiers he'd actually commanded. It took a second longer than he wanted, but the rest of the green dots on his display started quickly moving south. Good. That would get them out of the blast radius. He switched back to Mathison's frequency and his ears were instantly assaulted.

“KORY!!”

“I'm back, Alan. I was getting the rest of the squad out of danger.”

“What about you? You have 45 seconds before that missile impacts!”

“Alan I think we both know how this ends,” Kaese said.

“No! Fuck you, Kory! This is NOT how this ends!”

Kaese hit his jets and started jumping to the leading edge of the enemy formation. His thought was to detonate the missile at the edge of the formation and hopefully cause the unit to deflect enough to miss the school. Over the frequency he could hear hybrid guns firing. “Alan,” he said, “The guns will never reach the surface. You know that.”

“Fuck you, Kaese. I'm going to try! I'll try anything!”

“Alan, calm down. Immortality, remember? Now we get to see if it’s really going to work.” He paused. There was a lot to say, but if he really believed this was going to work, he didn't need to say it, did he. “See you on the flip side, brother!” He cut the frequency.

His jump trajectory was on the downward angle now. Looking ahead he was falling toward the enemy formation fast. With luck the timing would be close. He'd hit the ground within seconds of the missile impacting.

One hundred klicks above, Mathison saw a nuclear flower bloom on the ground below.

=== === === ===

“Everything went wrong that day,” I said. “The brain transfer didn't work. The transfer module was off or was out of range because Kory had gone off plan. I was never able to find out which. He died in that missile attack. It took out almost half the enemy unit, but it didn't deflect them at all. They just moved faster on the same vector. I doubt they even knew they ran over the damn school. Everyone there died.” I paused, feelings that I'd not allowed myself to feel in years were roiling just beneath the surface. “Why the hell are you bringing all this up, Sister?”

Sister Allison kept going. “You've been a Capsuleer for almost four years, but you've only been active for the past four months. Why?”

“They told me something went wrong with my capsule after I got back. I was rendered unconscious.”

Sister Allison rose from her chair and came around the desk, carrying her pad. “Yes. What if I were to tell you I have evidence that your capsule was tampered with when you got back? That someone tried to kill you?”

“What?”

“Yes,” Sister Allison continued. “The Amarrian authorities were not happy that one of their new super soldiers had violated orders, but he was dead. There wasn't anything more they could do to him. But you, his cohort in disobedience?” She handed the pad over to me, pointing to a document. “They tried to have you killed. It didn't quite work out. What they got was four years of unconsciousness. As you can see, they're not entirely happy you're awake. It’s probably a good thing you moved out here to Solitude.” I stared at the intelligence report she'd handed me. My own people were trying to kill me. I looked up to see Sister Allison watching me. “There still is part of you that blames yourself for Kaese's death even though intellectually you know that's not true. At the same time you hold us, his contractors, so blameless that you've done most of your work as a Capsuleer with the Sisterhood.”

Sister Allison continued to stare at me. I stared back, my mind whirling. Slowly, through the chaos of my own thoughts, it became apparent to me that she was trying to come to a decision. Presently, she seemed to do so. She rose abruptly. “Come with me, Sr-o Mathison. There's something you need to see.”

I followed her and in just a few minutes it was apparent that we were headed to the station's hanger. We entered and made our way in the direction of my ship, an Astero-class frigate. Someone had parked a Stratios-class cruiser next to it, making my ship look like the dwarf it was.

I stood by my ship, but stared at the Stratios cruiser next to it in wonder. “It really is beautiful,” I remarked. “I actually finished basic flight training on this class just a week ago, but it'll be years before I can fly one. The frigate took two-thirds of my net worth.”

“I know,” said Sister Allison, staring at the cruiser with me. “I had to meet you, Mathison; talk with you. I had to know what kind of a person you were face to face, and what you thought of yourself and the Sisterhood.”

“What?” I said, now looking at her. That was certainly a non sequitur.

“This cruiser is special. It has a sort of wetware processor in it.”

“That's not all that special,” I said. You could buy wetware computers on the market.

“This one is,” Sister Allison responded. “Take a close look at the ship name.”

I turned my head back, this time to the bow of the ship. CSS Kory M. Kaese.

“We found him, Alan. We went back to the battle site and found Corporal Kaese, just the smallest part of him, just a DNA scrap, and we put him in this cruiser. Don't be surprised if this ship defends itself with you a bit more than normal.”

“What?” I said, still staring at the the name.

“The ship. It’s yours, Mathison. You're it's pilot.” She started to walk away to the door of the hanger. I still stared at the ship, the name. Sister Allison stopped at the door and turned around. “Come on. Snap out of it, Mathison! I do, in fact, have a job for you. It's time to see what the two of you can do now that you're back together again.”