Story of my lifes

Author: Mischa Gau'ss Tesla

Original post: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oe5ncJOIIMd4gzBBDZQsF_dNWQrz8nspYtXgeNPn2UA/edit

Author’s Note: this story is pure fiction. Any resemblance to real and actual players or facts is purely coincidental.

Entry for the YC119 Pod and Planet Fiction Contest in the Eight Thousand Suns in New Eden category.

As far as I remember, there was pain and noise, surrounded by darkness. This first time was followed by light and voices around me. As I opened my eyes on the laboratory, a scientist looked at me like if I was a monster: "Congratulations, Capsuleer, you died and lived again!".

Where memories lie - Duripant, YC 110

Becoming a Capsuleer is probably the hardest thing you can think of. The process is long and requires a strong mental and physical training. From those who try to become one, only a few will survive. After the long training, you will be cloned for the first, and also killed for the first time. Your rebirth will mark the start of your new lives, of your immortality: you are now a Caspuleer, an immortal among the stars.

In my case, something went wrong. Somewhere in the tubes of the life-sustaining modules, or in the FTL information transmission systems that cloned my mind at the moment of my death, my memories disappeared.

I was told my name, Maeva. They tried to remind me of my training, of my life before joining the Capsuleer training. They said I used to be a Federation's Marine, that I was selected for the Capsuleer program for my abilities. Nothing came, nothing before pain and darkness.

I was studied and studied again. I was killed and brought back to life. They even broke the laws by conserving my first clone for analysis but could not find anything. After a year, they finally released me. I joined the Federation Militia, was given my first Atron, and joined the endless war against Caldari.

Space rain - Old Man Star, YC 112

I am floating in space. I really like this feeling, when I get inside of my Capsule and become the ship. Walking in stations or on planets feels so limited while being in space and able to feel every particle on planets thousands of kilometers away, or the nothingness that surrounds my ship, gives me a feeling of being whole. The scanner is my eyes and ears, the shields and armor are my skin, and I can feel the vibrations of the hull deep in my bones.

The communication systems says another day has passed. Days make no sense in space, even if I understand the need for a universal timescale for communications. Space is a rather quiet space in general. Even with tens of billions of humans, we could not fill it enough to make it busy. I can sense the heat of the combat, several Astronomical Units away from me, but for now, there is nothing around me.

Old Man Star is at war. The Federation has been losing fights after fights for several weeks. The State is winning the war out here, in space and on the ground. We already lost the control of several colonies, and will soon have to retreat from space as well.

"Every ship on grid, right now. This is our last stand, fee fire, see you in the next life." I engage my warp drive. My crew prepares the high-power grid for overheat and load antimatter ammunition in my blaster racks. Space seems to slide around my shields, stars to flow. The warp tunnel opens on hell. All around, missiles fly through the field, carrying doom. Broken hulls burst into flames. I open up with my blasters on the nearer target, delivering a rain of plasma to a Hawk. His shields soon start flickering before going down. The next volley pierces armor, the last tears his hull apart. His reactor is still exploding when I engage a Cormorant-class destroyer. His missiles bounce on my shields as he tries to pull range. The grip of my stasis webifier prevents him from doing so, and he soon joins the Hawk as floating wreck.

The battle rages on, we engage targets after targets. Our blasters and drones easily break our enemies' shields, but they start pulling range and using the kiting advantages of their faster and agiler ships. Nanite is flowing all around my ship as I try to repair and shoot at the same time. Engineering reaches its limit, heat is building up inside of me, burning me from the inside. We are outnumbered, fighting two against one, three against one.

A volley of rockets enters a breach in my armor, killing a part of the crew and blasting a part of my hull away. Nanite rush in the breach to maintain me alive. My blasters spit a load of antimatter to the Kestrel that shot the rocket. Load after load, I burn Caldari ships down. We will not win this fight. Most of us are already dead. Another volley pierces my defences, a screeching noise warns the crew that the ships integrity is compromised. Blasters go down in a burst of fire, overheated, bringing another enemy down with them.

The last volley seals my -our- fate. I eject from the burning wreck of my Deimos-class cruiser. My Capsule is soon caught and shot. The cloning system activates, nano toxins flow into my brain, my corpse is launched into space. My eyes open as my brains stops working, and I can have a last glance to the beauty of burning space. Old Man Star is lost.

Darkness again.

In the shadow of worlds - J115844, YC 115

A characteristic pulse on close up scanners notifies me of a wormhole activation. I prepare myself, ready to uncloak and engage.

I have been waiting here for a while now, on the edge of this pulsing distortion in space. The Servant Sisters of Eve believe they are passages opened by some God or Universe Architect. I do not. Wormholes are what they are called: holes in the layers of reality, where only worms -us- go through.

A ship emerges silently from the subspace, only five kilometres away. A Heron. He launches his probes and cloaks up. He was not even moving. I approach his location, preparing for an easy fight. Time slows down: four kilometres left, three... When I reach what I think was his last position, I uncloak myself, revealing my Proteus. I did no mistake: he is still there and gets unveiled by my scanners. I swiftly lock him and start shooting him. A doubt comes to my mind as he locks me back and points me: is it a trap?

Before I can do anything, several ships pass through the wormhole. I am surrounded. I overheat my blasters and align myself to the nearest planet. The Heron is in hull as two tengus uncloak themselves, too far to point me. Another volley and the Heron explodes, I launch my warp drive just as a Widow appears only two kilometres of me. Space starts flowing outside of my shields: I am alive. I cloak back up during the warp. We will celebrate this later, I first need to ensure I will not get caught. I will also need to investigate on who tried to trap me.

My ship stops near to planet III. One of the Tengu lands, about thirty kilometres away, soon followed by the other. I align back to the hole they came from, before changing my mind: I scanned another exit, going somewhere in known space. They might not have it scanned down yet. The warp drive engages again and soon the second wormhole sits pulsing near to my ship. A quick scan confirms my impression: it is about to collapse, meaning that the gang will probably not be able to follow me. I pass my ship through the hole, moving trough lightyears in a blink.

All communication channels start screaming at once. I have been out in the wild wormhole space for so long that I forgot how suffocating this felt. A quickly reach out to an explorer of our corporation. I am now somewhere in Aridia, and the hole collapsed behind me. I need another route back home. And I need to find out who these guys were: I am the hunter, not the prey, they will need to die.

Twisting the knife - LEM-I1, YC117

"And as new director for Industry, Maeva! Congrats to the new directors, this concludes our Corporation meeting, thank you for attending."

Here I am, I finally got the directors access. It has been a year now that I joined this corporation.

"As an experienced Industrialist, I would like to join your corporation to build your ships and experience medium-scale production."

They took the bait and engaged me without even checking my past. After the wormhole incident, I decided to seek revanche. I always do. Investigations led to a medium-sized corporation, affiliated with the Caldari militia. Caldari... Bob knows I hate Caldari. I might have left the Federation for the more profitable life of free Capsuleer, but still.

Further research indicated that they were in the group that lead to the loss of Old Man Star. I now had to take my revenge. During seven months I worked on my standings with the State. Working for them was hard, but I managed to finally get the standing needed to join the militia. Entering their corporation as an industrialist was easy. I slowly gained their trust by building them ships at low prices, helping new Capsuleers to have the proper setup, ...

After one year of spying, I now know where their assets are, what are their weaknesses, and they just gave me the keys of the house. Morons.

I wait until most of them are in stasis. They will all take a break from their activities for the next 8 hours or so.I am alone in our base, communication channels are empty. Good. I am alone in our base, communication channels are empty. Good.

"Backstab."

I send this lone word to my old friends, then light the cynosural beacon. A jump freighter appears right next to our POS. All defences are inactive. We quickly unanchor all the modules and empty the silos and containers. In just short 30 minutes, there is nothing left.

We proceed to disassemble and empty the five other POSes of the corporation. The comms are silent. In a blink, I also transfer the isk stored on the corporation wallets, only leaving one single isk behind. Five hours later, we are done: this corporation has nothing left. I go into stasis.

"Get on comms. RIGHT. NOW!"

This is the message waiting for me when I come out of stasis. I smile. I log into the comms system and land in a storm of rage.

"Shut up!"

They are so stunned they stopped screaming. I quietly start to relate my story, who I am, why I am here, what I have done. When my story is finished, no one dares to speak.

"o7, Capsuleer!"

I log off their comms and leave the corporation. As a last twist of knife, I send them a corporation mail:

"Join the Federation Navy!"