Out and Out

This is my entry to the Inspired By Images Of Eve Competition 2. More details and links to all entrants can be found at Starfleet Comms

Explosions rocked the station. I could hear the metal screaming behind me as rooms were decompressing and being locked down. Smoke stung my nose and the heat was growing more intense on my back. The loud snap of welding letting go and bulkheads failing echoed down the corridor to the dock.

I could hear other people running behind me. The sound of their footsteps almost drowned out by everything else that was going on. I hoped one of the sets was Kor’s, even though this was his fault. Pushing for a little more speed, I ran towards the dock, hoping the compression seal would stay open for another 20 seconds. I needed to get to my ship.

Rounding the final bend, explosions following me closely, I caught sight of the yellow light signalling the compression seal was deploying. The heavy metal doors were sliding together from ceiling and floor. Luckily the motors were only beggining to kick in when I dived through, but Kor could have been behind me.

Once through, I spun around just in time to see Kor round the bend. The doors were only about a meter from closing permanantly as he ran up. I grabbed his arm and pulled him through, barely getting his legs out as the doors snapped shut.

“Close enough for you?” I asked as he brushed some dust off of his clothes.
“Eh, I’m alive. What do you think got those Amarrians so pissed off?” He replied in a nonchalant way.
“I don’t know, I guess it wouldn’t have been anything to do with you insulting their religion, or race, or even their leaders face, and wife, and children, all in a few sentences” I said, rolling my eyes as we started to walk to where our ships were docked. The explosions were still echoing behind us, and people were scrambling into the dock from everywhere.
“Well they offered us a terrible price for the last score!” He said defensively.
“Yeah, your right, getting us killed is worth another 10,000 ISK. Just get in your ship. Let’s meet at the rendezvous two systems over”
“The moon near the gate?” he asked, hitching an eyebrow, “Want to relive some old scores, do you?”
“Shut up. I’ll see you there” I yelled and ran to my Taranis.

The little interceptor had been a prize I picked up from a raid on a freighter I had found in lowsec. I had been flying it for a few weeks now, and was impressed with its damage and speed. It had brought me a number of wins in close quarters where other frigate-sized ships would have failed.

People were scrambling for escape pods and their ships, which made undocking a bit more difficult. Eventually Kor and I managed to get free of the confusion and headed out of the station, right into the mouth of an Amarr Armageddon class battleship.

“CRAP!” I yelled through the comms to Kor, as I punched the warp drive to the nearest gate, “We gotta get out of here! NOW!”
“He has me locked down. It’s ok, you go. I’ll piss them off some more” Kor replied, rather calmly. He was flying a Hurricane with his favourite fitting for, as he called it, “Pissing of the Amarr”. He had a chance, if the Amarr pilot made mistakes.
“I’m out of here. Good luck” I said as I closed the com channel, putting as much distance between myself and the Battleship as I could.

OOC: Chapter 1 – PDF Style

Hello again, avid followers!

I apologize for the delay in this post, but I am getting back into the blogging. Thankfully, to make up for lost time, I have a special gift for you all! The entirety of Chapter 1 – PDF Style!

This is a spelling and grammar-checked, slightly better than the original version of all of my blog posts from chapter one, in one easy to download, easy to read file! As for Chapter 2, you can expect that to begin in a week or two!

Thank you for watching,
Janette!

OOC: The First Chapter

Hey guys are girls.

This is my first Out Of Character post. Seeing as I finished the first chapter, I wanted to let you know what I am planning on doing.

Firstly, I am taking a break for a week or two (Not 100% sure when I will start back, soonish I think)

Secondly, I am going to compile all of my previous entries and proof them and put them through a vigorous editing process to make it a lot more coherent. Most of the entries were written late at night or at another time when I was rather tired and not 100% with it. I want to fix the small errors and incongruities.

And finally, I want to know what you thought about the first chapter! Did you like the size of each post, the frequency and the content? Feel free to comment on this post or contact me via twitter or email.

Thanks for the good times!

Janette

Conclusion Pt. 3 – The End

“Hey. Just in time to see me complete the mission.” I said to Kor over the comms. He had just saved the operation with a stroke a luck and timing.
“Oh yeah, I saw that. Your ship into structure and his barely out of shields. Very convincing.” He laughed back at me.
“Thanks for this. When did you get that cruiser?” I asked.
“Time for chatting later. Lets get these BPOs back to the station hey? I’ll buy you a drink.”
“Definitely! Let’s go”

We warped back to the station and docked. As I left my ship someone called me by name.
“Janette!” It was a tall woman walking towards me, with a smile on her face.
“Do I know you?” I asked, a little puzzled. I didn’t know anyone else at this station.
“Not by name or face,” she said, “My name is Louise. I am Kor’s friend, your informant in the other corporation.”
“Oh! Hey! Nice work out there. Well, nice exploding. The jettison container was a good idea though, wouldn’t want those blueprints to get destroyed in the wreck.” I said. It was good to finally meet her.
“Yeah, thanks. You too by the way, very skilful flying.” She said.
“Thanks. Coming to get a drink with us?” I asked as I saw Kor walking towards us.
“Sure. Let’s celebrate!”

We met up with Kor and congratulated each other again. Heading to the bar I noticed Kor and Louise giving each other strange looks behind my back. Something was up. When we got the to bar I went to order the drinks. I paid the bartender and walked back to our booth. The other two were sitting very close to each other.
“So, you two are an item?” I asked. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but I wasn’t going to comment.
“Yeah.” Louise said, “We have been talking about the job and, well, one thing led to another!”
“Well then. Congratulations again!” I said a little sarcastically, hoping they wouldn’t pick up on it. “Have you talked to our buyer?”
“I have” said Kor, ” And there is something I need to tell you”
“Oh, what’s that?” I asked, rather curious about what he would say.
“In that container there was actually TWO original blueprints for Battlecruisers. Which my contact will buy for 700 million ISK. 700. Million. ISK.” He said smiling.
“Woah. 700? And what is the split?” I asked. That was incredible. That sort of money could buy me anything I wanted. Anything at all.
“Well, I was going to give you 40% for helping me, I was going to take 30% and give Louise the last 30% to start her own corporation.” He said.
“Sounds fair. Glad I could help you out Kor, and thanks again Louise. It has been fun!”

40% of 700 million is 280 million ISK. That will keep me happy for quite some time.

Conclusion Pt. 2

I locked on to the second frigate and let loose the EM death of my autocannons. I began orbiting and tried to keep my speed as high as possible to avoid as much damage as I could. The first frigate turned towards me and engaged it’s targeting computer, while the second began accelerating towards me. It was almost down to 50% armor and I had not taken much damage.

I activated my warp scrambler on the first ship, and hoped that I hadn’t made a bad decision. As the second frigate exploded it dropped a jettison container which must contain the BPOs this whole operation was based around. Locking on to the second frigate I fired another volley while maneuvering into range to collect the contents of the container.

The remaining frigate activated a stasis webifier, killing my speed. I was about 5KM from the container as I noticed my armor was almost completely shot. There wasn’t a lot I could do other than cross my fingers and hope. The attacker’s shield was gone and I was into their armor, but I was going down almost as fast.

Another 5 seconds and I could feel the projectiles pounding into my structure. Closing my eyes, I was about to accept my fate when the pounding stopped. I opened my eyes and checked the overview. The frigate was destroyed, and a new cruiser was sitting next to the container. It was Kor. We had done it.

Conclusion Part 1

The warp drive engaged and I headed towards the rendezvous point. If everything went as planned, Kor would have warped his pod to the station, and the informant would be warping towards me now.

I dropped out of warp a few thousand kilometers from the moon and realigned my Rifter to the gate. Firing up my ship’s scanner, I did a quick 90 degree scan of the region of space between myself and where the informant should be flying. There was nothing on my scanner. If he doesn’t warp to me, the entire plan is down the drain.

I scanned the area again. Still nothing.

I was starting to worry again. I went over my ship’s systems to pass the time. 46% shield, 80% armor, 100% structure. 200mm autocannons reloaded. I scanned the area again. There was two frigates inbound. There wasn’t meant to be two frigates. I might have to put up a fight.

I turned my engines up to full speed, and prepared to target both the ships when they dropped out of warp. I almost missed the blinking communication icon on my instruments. It was a message from someone I hadn’t heard of before.
“I’m informant, incoming w/ another frigate. You need kill them, I will pretend attack.”

By the time I had finished reading they were out of warp. I targeted both the frigates. It was time to guess.

Absent

I targeted the first ship and fired a volley at it. The key to the plan was getting Kor destroyed and warping out, while not making it obvious we were trying to explode.

“Uhh, Janette?” Kor said. There was an explosion in the background as the ship retaliated.
“Yeah? What’s up?” The industrial ship had just appeared in the system, and was attempting to warp out.
“My contact isn’t here yet.” He said. The contact needed to be this side of the gate for our plan to work.
“How is your ship holding up?” I asked.
“Not amazing. I’m into armor, and only one of the other ships has started attacking me.”

As he said that the other ships targeted my Rifter. My weapons had made short work of the first frigate, then I targeted the second.
“Kor, everyone has targeted me. Your friend needs to be here NOW!” I yelled over the comms. Luckily the cruisers in the group had a hard time tracking me.
“I’ll send him a message. If he can come through the gate, he can finish me off, then you can warp out. Hold on”

The second frigate didn’t have much defense, but it was making a serious dent in my shield. I fired my autocannons again, and tried to maneuver away from its optimal range. As I was watching another frigate appeared in my overview.
“Kor? That him?” I asked quickly.
“Yeah, he got my message. I’m gonna…” Kor’s ship exploded finally, and the new ship targeted me. Time to leave.

Engagement

The time crawled slower than a freighter aligning for warp. The ETA was twenty minutes away, and we had waited at this moon for over three hours. You would think that being a pilot of a ship which travels faster than the speed of light at would make you more levelheaded, but for those last twenty minutes I was a mess.

“Are we ready?” I asked Kor for the fourth time in as many minutes.
“How could we be more ready? Nothing will go wrong” He reassured me. Our positions had swapped over the last half an hour. Kor started out worried his contact wouldn’t come through, but after we got the OK he took an emotional stand. I had slowly lost my nerve. But I needed to be on the ball.

The crawling continued.

“ETA five minutes” Kor said, “We should warp over now, do you think?”
“Yeah, lets head over. Just in case they are ahead of schedule” I said. I pointed our ships at the gate and took us into warp.
“Where should we wait?” He said.
“Just like we discussed. You wait 2km from the gate, and I will wait 5km from you.” It was important we followed the plan.
“Right. Just checking.” He replied. His ship moved into position, and I moved away from him. He would engage close-range, and I would engage long-range. When he explodes, I will warp to the rendezvous.
“No worries. So how…” A ship appeared. “Kor! Is this it?”
“YES! GO!” He began to accelerate in orbit of the frigate which had just arrived. Three more ships arrived in the system.

Waiting Game

“Is waiting at a jump gate in low security space really a good idea?” I asked Kor as we were warping.
“Well, it’s fine as long as no one decides that a rookie ship and a Rifter would make fun target practise” He replied, obviously seeing his error.
“Maybe we should wait at the moon rendezvous till we hear from your informant, and keep our scanners warm” I said.
“That is a good idea. That will work.”

We jumped again from the gate to the first moon of the nearest planet. From here our ship’s scanners would be able to report every ship coming and going through the gate. We need to be at the gate when they convoy jumps through, but until Kor’s contact sends us the OK the job isn’t even officially on yet. The convoy had a few jumps before they get to our system.

“Any word?” I asked over the open comms.
“Not yet. Radio silence scares me.” Kor said. He did have a worried look on his face.
“It’s ok. There is still two hours till ETA. Plenty of time” I said reassuringly. I was worried as well.

A number of ships had come and gone through the gate in the past hours, but nothing remotely interesting. Most were cruiser and frigate class ships, obviously traveling through. There was a covert op’s ship which came through and stayed for a while before jumping back out, but that was nothing out of the ordinary.

“Hey Janette?” Kor said after another 30 minutes.
“Yeah Kor?” I replied, unsure about what he was going to say.
“It’s on. I got the OK. ETA 20 minutes”

Ready!

Today is the day. Today is the day. I found myself running  through all the scenarios of what could go wrong with the job, and how I could be worse off because I tried it. But then again, I really don’t have that much to lose.

Kor had docked back at the station and gave me his report on the rendezvous. It was all looking good.
“You ready to do this?” I asked Kor, as we finished going over the plan one last time for good measure.
“This is going to clear my name, and get me some sweet currency, and is going to help out you, my new associate. I am ready. This can only end well!” He said, with an air of optimism I had not expected.
“We could get blown out of the sky and be right back where we started, minus a Rifter” I said.
“Yeah, but who cares? With the chance for cash like this? Let’s do it!”
“You are right. There isn’t much to lose and a lot to gain. Have you heard from your buddy yet? Are we good to go?” I asked. He did make a good point.
“Well, I haven’t yet, but let’s head out to the gate. It’s just the waiting game now!”