Making a Comeback

Author: Tsavu Irika

Original post: https://www.deviantart.com/talverin/art/Making-a-Comeback-336232617

Entry for the YC114 Pod and Planet Fiction Contest in the A Day in the Life category.

Four years to the day. Unfortunately, she'd missed the last shuttle out – The connecting shuttle ran late due to a pirate raid. The next shuttle, unsurprisingly, had simply continued out at its' normal, scheduled time; out here in lowsec, if a shuttle didn't show up on time, they simply bade farewell to men or women they barely knew, and quietly hoped no such distraction would occur along their own route. The pirate raids were more commonly sporadic than organized, speaking more to boredom and convenience than any real malice. Most shuttles ran only partially full, and were of no real interest to the local pirates; most shuttle pilots, however, dreaded taking on VIP passengers, or 'cargo of unusual interest', as the importance of these things, mingled with the tendency of secrets to leak like air from a faulty seal, in lowsec, meant most of these shuttles did not make it through.

Few of these pilots remembered what had happened four years ago. It was important to the State, certainly, but it was clear their heart wasn't behind it. Some murmur of scandal escaped, quieted down quickly by the new directorship and the State's inexorable momentum carried it beyond such petty concerns as the death of a man. Even if he was the CEO of Ishukone.

Four years ago, the Guristas had gone mad in the low-security areas, for reasons few knew. Tsavu knew. Even with the old bastard, Bane, dead, Otro had still held many enemies – or jealous admirers – amongst the Rabbits. The news of his death was met with orgies of blood and violence, ships descending from the darkness of the void to destroy every ship in sight, scouring their hulks for anything of value, and reveling in the desecrated corpses of their crew. The Guristas liked to put on a civilized face, when they had to – Uncilivized behavior, of course, being bad for business – but when they let that façade down, they were as ruthless as any other group. Even the station she stood on, now, bore scars from a handful of unusually brave or careless pirates, who actually took potshots at the station, and the ships huddled within, before its' defensive guns could be brought to bear, to scare them off. The only memory of that day with a small, skull rabbit marked beneath the station's founding charter. To serve, and protect. Those words had become faded with age and disuse; this was lowsec. If you couldn't keep yourself alive, no one else could, either.

That had changed, years ago, when Otro took leadership of Ishukone in what could only be described - by those few in the know – as a stroke of genius. The man had been a genius, of that there was no doubt, and yet he was also charismatic, and deeply devoted to his cause. He never really spoke of what drove him, only, instead, to make assurances that his dedication was pure, and their hard work, those few who had initially sided with him, was truly worthwhile. He offered them a prize no one else could have offered them. Legitimacy.

He took them seriously, listened to their concerns, and offered advice, never once deviating from the massive plan ticking away inside of his skull; revenge, against people, actions, and the institution that could allow such crime and horror to flourish unchecked. He would, occasionally, become cold and distant, as he'd drink in ponderance of things to come, or things past, and make enigmatic comments about the direction his plan was taking, and the 'life after', something they only believed in, like they might believe in heaven; However, there was no place for other Gods within Otro's tightly-knit organization. All of his devotion went toward this grand work of his, aligning all the pieces just so, raids against minor shuttle routes, kidnapping of certain officials, exposing of certain blackmail documents, and none of it exploited, immediately, instead set aside in preparation for 'life after.' He swore to them that he trusted them all completely, and knew none would betray him, but that he worried, if he spoke his plan aloud, then it would leave his mind, and he would lose his direction. He often would joke that there was a certain irony to the plan, a certain sweetness involved in his estimation of the actions his nemesis, the rabid Bane, would take, and all the countermoves he had planned for him. A certain poetic artistry in the way it- And he would cut off, and frown, in thought, as if he were scanning over every second of his plan, looking for some kind of flaw.

It had taken four years, two of them in a hive-mind haze amongst a small, tucked away Sansha colony, and two more, in intense, almost frantic effort, leading up to this moment.

Finally, she stepped aboard the shuttle, glancing at the chrono display above the doorway, and nodded, thoughtfully, to herself, counting down the hours until her arrival. Her fingers tapped along the back of her datapad, absently, as she reviewed the information within her mind. She felt a strange tickling, her emotions echoed, alien, by the co-processor implants she had acquired amongst Sansha's Nation. A strange absence, like a lover no longer within reach, whose warmth still lingered near enough to feel.

She shook her head. Enough time for those thoughts, after.
After.

Her first stop was the Caldari border with lowsec, where she, with her nonstandard implants, was scrutinized closely, and questioned for nearly two days. She had nothing to give them, however, instead offering herself as a former Caldari capsuleer, who had been kidnapped by Sansha's Nation, and managed to escape. The story of her flight from Sansha's Nation was not entirely inaccurate. She did, in fact, have to act alone, in secret, and force her way free, even as the implants they had given her flooded the air with reeking pheromones of fear and anxiety, arousing the maddened concern of those closest to her. She shook off the memories, coughing, to clear her throat of the lingering taste of that chemical fear and rage. Some of the passengers looked at her, askance, suspicion clear on their faces about this last-minute addition with the strange ridge of implants along her spine.
The trip was long, but uneventful, and gave her plenty of time to repeat the list in her head, who to find, who to help, who to kill. There would be a number of people who would pay for the treachery they inflicted upon Ishukone after Otro's death.

Vividly, she remembered those last days. Constantly on the run. The shouts of 'Ishukone Watch!' were followed by bursts of gunfire, doors kicked in, homes raided, family of her former Guristas friends murdered in their homes, as the Watch 'cleaned house,' killing off the people that Otro had carried with him into legitimacy and freedom from piracy. People whose only crime had been wanting to come home and pretend to be a normal citizen again. Tattoos had been removed, old friendships ended, as they broke off almost all contact, to try and forget the things they had left behind. Those few who survived the initial round of purges gathered together, using old codes, and old methods, and had managed a ramshackle escape – but the second group wasn't as lucky. They were too slow to board, most of the former pirates having brought their families with them, and so they were too close to the station when the Watch patrol forces arrived.
Sprinting and drifting for days, between asteroid belts, planets, and various anomalies, they had managed to avoid Watch pursuit, and escape back across the border, into the low security space that was once their home. Some took refuge amongst their former brothers, and rejoined the Rabbits. Some, like Tsavu, merely tipped their hats and fled for some other destination. She had retrieved her old Kestrel from a small outpost station hovering above an oceanic world, and escaped into the distant reaches of space, following the words from a poem a friend had once written to her. She had fled, trying to escape who she was, and what had happened to her, but, in the end, nothing could change who she was, and what she had to do.
And now they would pay for their betrayal.