A Mote in God's Eye

Transfers - Chapter 3

2010-09-10T22:21:00.003+01:00

Malkalen III, Ishukone Watch Assembly Plant

The menu tumbled unnoticed to the table as Evanda swept to her feet, eyes flickering from blue to red and back again as she scanned the man for the telltale spectral emissions of a hidden bug or tracer. The ocular filter repainted him for her, clad in a warm aura of deep reds and purples, the invisible radiance of the outer reaches of the electro-magnetic spectrum translated for her human eyes by viral circuitry grown from the implant deep into her brain. The gentle shifts caused by changes in his body heat faded away as he clasped her outstretched hand in his.

"Ms... Olvarsdottir, it's very good to see you again." He took great care pronouncing her assumed name and the corners of her mouth twitched into a wider grin as she watched his lips shape the Matari vowels. He had the strong, square jaw common among Civire with a rakish growth of dark stubble to hint at an uncommonly lackadaisical attitude for the State. A bright spark of hope kindled inside Eva as she lifted her eyes to meet his, finding a wry gaze that laughed silently back at her, at their pretence, at the wildly ironic circumstances that had brought this meeting about.

"It's Miss, actually." Eva froze for a moment, mentally shaking herself as she wondered why she'd said that, then realised that her fingers were still clasped in his warm, firm grasp. She snatched her hand back with undue haste, then looked back at his face, screwing up her eyes in mute apology, a look that said "Fuck, yes, I'm a walking faux pas today." He could barely hide his own laughter in return. "It's alright, Miss." He stressed the word slightly as he sat down, as if reminding her what it meant. "I'm quite used to flustering women."

"I wouldn't be surprised." The Minmatar tipped her head to one side, scrutinising the man with merely human eyesight now. He was tall, as one would expect from his race, but where most Civire would lean heavily on their tweaked genetics to build such thick layers of muscle that their chins vanished into their necks and their thighs resembled rolls of packing foam for zero-g transports, this man was relatively slender. Had she been a slightly larger woman, Eva probably could have stretched both hands around his bicep. The sign of pilot, not a foot soldier.

Kale's notes on this man had been concise and to-the-point, trusting to the knowledge of Caldari culture she'd gained from him to make the correct inferences. Vel was a "love child," born to a family serving in the lowest echelons of the Sukuuvestaa megacorp through the miracle of fucking, rather than carefully grown in a testtube and raised in a corporate creche, mind and genes meticulously designed to suit him for his pre-destined future. Inferior. Unplanned. Unpredictable - a hazard whom the ruthless Practicals faction, to which his parent corporation belonged, would never risk rising to high position.

Born to waste his life as janitor or cannon fodder until death and recycling for the protein in his body, Vel had grown up in the seething resentment that bubbled up from the lowest echelons of Caldari society, acting as a runner for the underground Unions while just a boy, becoming deeper enmeshed with the Workers' Rights movement as he grew up. He'd even served in The People's Sword as a non-pod captain; a RAT, as podders called them. Rapidly Approaching Target. Just a different kind of fodder with a cause behind it.

But then he broke fate and in his own small portion of the universe, all Hek broke loose.

Picked as part of a random sample, he'd tested positive for capsuleer capability. Where frailties of the mind had brought down even tube children grown to take the pod, the love child had won through. Suddenly Sukuuvestaa were blessed with a potent asset that wanted them as little as they had wished for him and it was far too late for them to make up for lost time. And with this new glorification, his underground allies became afraid.

A small resistance movement is a thorn in the side.

A small resistance movement with a pod pilot on its side is far, far more. Too wild, too deadly, too destructive to be allowed to survive.

Eva leaned back in her seat, folding her hands under her breasts. Electus Matari was not a small movement. And they had a cause worth fighting for.

Her companion signalled to the waiter, the simple lift of two fingers requesting the traditional Caldari welcome of tea, then turned back to her. "You know, if we're being proper and polite with each other, you should probably put your tongue away."

Fucking Callies!

Eva poked her tongue out further and made a face at him, then tucked it away, grinning at him instead. "Can't help it; Caldari have been my life-long weakness. Normally it's Deteis, but I guess it helps that you're not just a pair of eyes blinking at me from somewhere in between two oversized pectorals."

Vel threw back his head and laughed openly, then raised an eyebrow, glancing somewhat lower than her face. "Speaking of oversized pectorals..."

Unable to stop laughing despite her best efforts, Evanda kicked him sharply in the ankle.

"Ow! Hey! What? They're very nice!"

She kicked at him again and he hastily hauled his legs out of the way.

"I'll stop doing it when you stop liking it!"

Very slowly, Eva lowered her head to the table and thumped it gently, three times against the pseudo-wood surface. A callused finger curled gently under her chin and lifted her face, tipping it back so Vel could look into her eyes.

"You're breathtaking when you laugh, you know? And you seemed... sad. Like its been a long time since you last did."

Two untouched cups of tea clattered to the floor, shattering into tiny fragments. The cafe's staff and patrons were so astonished it took them a long moment to start yelling, longer still to chase the two off the table where they'd flung themselves to entwine. Laughing like a pair of children, the pilots ran for it, hurling themselves into the twisting hallways that led off the plaza. Vel grabbed the Matari's small hand in his.

"Follow me, I know a place."

Eva laughed, stretching her legs to keep up with the tall man's running stride. "You know, at some point we really should talk business!"

He slowed to a walk, glancing back over his shoulder, then abruptly scooped her into his arms, spinning her round before walking backwards through a doorway to avoid bumping her on the frame.

"I can think of much better things to do with your mouth right about now."

She shook her head but her eyes were alight.

"You're incorrigible, Vel Carlyle."

"What did I just say about talking?"

Transfers - Chapter 2

2010-09-09T06:18:00.000+01:00

Malkalen III, Ishukone Watch Assembly Plant

Evanda's hair was still damp from the showers, curling into dark corkscrews against the pale skin of her cheeks when she left the arrival chambers. She pushed it back from her face with an exasperated hand but left it loose to dry in the cool air of the station, enjoying the simulated breeze that swept down the broad avenue that ran through the heart of the station.

The Ishukone Watch station had always been somber, but since the Malkalen Disaster its clutter of warehouses, factories and transport tubes had been shuffled back into out-of-the-way corners, leaving room for a series of plazas, statues and memorial gardens for the millions who had died when the gigantic bulk of a Federation Supercarrier was rammed, with an inexorable slowness, into the nearby Ishukone headquarters. Mourners and the curious alike paused by great projections that painted views of the wreckage and clouds of debris that still haunted the site, or stood at news booths, paying a few fractions of credits to see again the Scope broadcast of the heart-stopping moment a peace conference went sour.

Everyone remembered where they were the moment that Admiral Noir's Nyx had ploughed into Malkalen station. Eva had been in her private office at the pinnacle of Freedom Aspires, the great golden space station her corporation had erected in Gulfonodi which stood as a challenge and to those who would transgress her nation's borders and a reminder of the consequences such an action would have. In the heart of her own empire, the Matari girl had watched, open mouthed, as two far greater realms lost all hope of peace, forever, through the actions of one man.

One man can make a difference.

The first three names on the list Kale had given her had proven unsuitable for her needs. The first, a Civire with short-cropped blond hair and thick muscle rippling across his torso, had been too filled with rage against his State, she'd felt, to muster the calm, clinical real-politik her alliance needed in action, nor the vibrant sense of fun that made her corporation a home, rather than simply a job. The second certainly had the vivacity, but there was a ruthlessness underneath the Deteis woman's smiling exterior, a lack of compassion and contempt for the lesser man that made Evanda feel her road would end in piracy, probably among the Guristas, rather than in service to any loyalist cause.

The third, she had rejected on instinct alone. Something about him made her uncomfortable, tickled her senses and told her he was already working for someone else. Someone whose best interests might not coincide with hers.

So she had come here, to this once-thriving system and a blast of memories she'd rather never have seen. Things that should never have happened. And memories older still, a dreamy montage of past lovers, fuzzy and indistinct through the tumult of her life since.

She kept her eyes on the pavement as she walked, collar turned up to hide the gold-and-chrome tracery of implants at the back of her neck, not glancing at the faces of the uniformed officers she passed for fear she might see a familiar face.

Or that she wouldn't. Everyone she loved became lost to her, one way or another. It was only a matter of time.

Just as the Shaman had predicted.

"Not many can walk the path you will follow. You are going to be alone."

She sighed, setting her jaw, and looked up for the first time to see the white lattice demarking the seating area of an open-air cafe with wide-set tables and chairs of laminated plastic nestled among standards of thick leafy vines and miniature trees native to New Caldari. The greenery made the station's recycled air feel lighter, easier to breathe and softened the relentless glare of the overhead dronelamps. She scanned the scattered dinners casually, no tell-tales tripping off that sense of wariness - just Watch officers and tourists dining casually, a few cadets studying alone in the booths at one side. She made her way to a corner table and sat down, tucking her nose into a menu and studying it intently as she waited. Waited for the grey fall of a man's shadow across her face and the soft cough that called for her attention.

She looked up and smiled.

Transfers

2010-09-08T16:12:00.003+01:00

Hatakani VII, Moon 20, State and Region Investment Bank Station

The drop from the clean, spacious avenues and plazas of the capsuleer's part of Hatakani VII station to the smooth, efficient hive of the common citizen far below could be measured in more than metres. In the heights, soft lighting and muted music catered to the worn nerves of those still adjusting to mere physical bodies, still reaching for senses they had left with their ship, aching for their hulls the way a man might feel the pain of a long-lost limb. Personal space was the norm; ever-paranoid, the pilots seldom risked close proximity to any other, while the staff and attendants that catered to their needs and whims kept their distance through respect, or fear, or some measure of both.

The lower levels were, for the most part, just as clean, just as ordered, but there all life was packed into as little space as possible. Workers moved in rhythmic lockstep while passing drones beamed advertisements onto their retinas in a strict, familiar rotation. Those adverts were the only flair or colour in the pack; each citizen dressed neatly in the attire of his or her job and corporation, their logos the only splash of life in that sea of greys and blacks and blues.

It was far from an oppressed and huddled mass, however. Each individual in the uniform crowd held their head high, eyes bright and proud as they went about their duties. Each one, just a part of the greater whole but fiercely grateful to have that place and determined to fill it well.

Mostly. Here and there, dissidence spoke in unregulated eye movement. Envious glances up to the higher levels of the station where the elite swanned in their luxury, their privacy, their freedom. Or those whose heads drooped to let a despairing gaze rest upon their feet, trapped in a life without choices, without escape. As she leaned against a rail at the very edge of the pilot's eyrie, Eva closed her eyes for a moment, the sound of long-past gunfire and the death-rattle that had sounded so close, so painful as it was relayed directly into her brain, replaying in her ears.

The last moments of the Brotherhood of Freedom. A lone man walking valiantly into his own death to allow his leader to escape. The workers' rights movement upon whose backs Tibus Heth had walked to take the position of head of state and to whose dreams, he had barely nodded.

Eva's irises swirled, shifting swiftly from a rich, metallic gold to a pale blue as her ocular implants receded, letting the people below fade back into distant specks as she turned her head to focus on the slim Deteis man beside her. A warm smile blossomed on the little Minmatar's lips and she broke every unwritten protocol by stepping in to embrace him.

"Kale, it's good to see you. And looking as handsome as ever, I see!"

While as suited as his compatriots below, the Caldari's rebel past had taken its concessions from his attire in the simple unbuttoning of his collar and the loose, disarrayed sling of his tie. It showed in the slump of his shoulders, hands thrust deep in his pockets like a sulky teenager. But most of all, to those who had withstood the ennui of the capsuleer's life long enough to remember, it showed in the proud rise of the black wings at the corners of his collar.

Omerta Syndicate: "Now I have wings." And they had flown as brightly, as bravely, as freely as any Minmatar could dream.

Time and jading had thinned their numbers and faded them from public memory, but it was a foolish soul who would dismiss them, would forget what had made them so dangerous in the first place. Give them a cause and they would grow again, flourishing under the charismatic leadership of the best-matched pair of CEOs never to sleep together - Kale Ryoko and Yuki Li.

"I was pleased to hear from you." Kale gave the dark-haired woman a squeeze in return, then stepped back and patted all his pockets. "Hand it over," he drawled with an exaggerated weariness, holding out one hand. With a wide-eyed look of mock-contrition, Eva dropped his credit chip back in his palm. "It'll all be yours soon enough, anyway. Han wants another carrier and Yuki said to ask you about more Rapiers. She sends her regards, by the way."

"I'm not even really back yet. Got a few more stops to make before I head back home and get back into the swing of things. I'll try and sort you out once I get back, though." She smiled, tiny lines at the corner of her eyes making her look inexpressably weary.

Kale casually ruffled her hair with one tanned hand, hiding her face for a moment under a thick curtain of black hair. "You look like it's been a long journey. Did you at least find what you were looking for?"

She nodded, shoving her hair back again so she could look up at him. "It's not over yet, but I found my next step. And speaking of which, here's yours." A swift jerk of her hand pulled the crystal pendant from her throat. She handed it to the tall Deteis. "That data crystal has the specs on all the Sleeper and Angel technology we recovered from Ani. Low power-usage stuff with VR control systems, some genetic keys. It should help you make some connections... What about my stuff? Was the Old Man amenable?"

Chuckling low in his throat, the Omerta CEO dipped a hand into his inside pocket and pulled out a small datapad, handing it to the Minmatar. "He's always amenable to you, dear. At least so far - you make good offers! You should be able to find a few suitable candidates on that list - they're the wrong sort of radical for Omerta's needs."

Eva sighed in relief as she unwound a thin, black lead coiled at the back of her head, plugging it into a chrome-rimmed socket on the datapad. Lights flickered on the screen of the storage device for an instant before it went blank, its data safely streamed into far more secure storage inside the Minmatar's own head. Another breach of the unspoken rules of isolation and paranoia, to allow something past her safeguards with such apparent disregard, such evidence of trust.

"Thank you, Kale." She handed the now-empty pad back to him. "I need new bodies, but thanks to your help, I know they'll have the right minds behind them."

The Deteis absently tucked the pad back in his pocket as he took his turn to stand at the rail and gaze down. "So many good people, trapped in circumstances that offer them so few choices, so few chances. Sometimes..." He sighed, sadness touching his tip-tilted eyes. "Do you know what all this reminds me of?" He gestured at the mass of well-ordered humanity below.

Eva nodded, the same sorrow flickering across her delicate features. They both answered at once.

"Stain."

Spun Sugar

2010-05-20T00:08:00.000+01:00

KillJoy is back.

I mean, really back. His travels are at an end. He hadn't been in Desher; he'd been off in secret pursuing something else.

He found it.

Now he's home.

When I saw the message and the gift he'd sent me, my heart started thumping so hard I thought I'd crack a rib. When KillJoy comes home, he comes in style.

I went to meet him in Pator at The Shackled Amarr. Given the sheer storm of feelings that felt like they were going to tear me into dust and fragments from within, I felt that seeing him alone first might be just too much for me to handle.

Yes, that's right. I actually flew 8 jumps to a bar to see my lover in a public space because I was afraid I would literally explode if I didn't.

And when I got there, we were quite alone. No other patrons, and the bartender evidently felt safe leaving the leader of Electus Matari alone to drink without needing to guard the till.

Couldn't speak. My mouth was as dry as the Burned Ocean, but it was more that... there was a certain magic in that long moment, pressed tightly together with our arms around each other, seeing his face again in the living, shifting detail of reality. Speaking seemed sure to shatter the spell, to send the Norn in front of me back to a place of wiser folk.

It also took me a while to remember how to speak Matari.

"Do you know what you've done? It's so... it's... You've done something so big... So world-shakingly huge... I'm so in awe, I'm afraid to kiss you."

"Easy solution to that."

And then he kissed me. And my head span and the world flew apart into a thousand million shimmering fragments that swirled about and came together again in a way that was forever changed.

"You know, I think you were already my hero."

He is. He does so much with this slow, patient discretion. Each problem, one step at a time; each step handled with a gentle, subtle but overwhelming force that makes fate fall from his way, tumbling down to lie on her back quivering almost as fiercely as I was - shaking like a junkie drawing out the first sweetly-agonising kiss of the syringe.

"It's just a start; a start is all that I could do..."

Because I am the second piece. Somehow, between us, we are so much more than ever we were alone. It's what we've said to each other, but right then, I felt it so deeply. We weren't two people holding each other in an empty bar; we were one thing, united. The heart beat I could feel thudding through his ribs into my chest was as essential to my existence as my own, the light in his eyes something stronger than the aching bond inside an atom.

Tear us apart and the resulting explosion could destroy the universe. In that moment, it seemed utterly true.

"There is nothing 'all' about it... This is amazing. You are amazing."

And then I admitted it, the dreadful fear that had been coiled inside me, the bliss of relief I felt to feel him in my arms now.

"And I'm so glad you're home. I missed you like there was a hole in my chest."

It was all I could say. It didn't seem enough to explain that terror, that sucking feeling inside me that pulled all the light from the world... but it was. Because he was here, now.

"Well... I suppose you don't have to take my word that it was important."

The smooth and flippant understatement took all the fear away; it would have been all I could do not to laugh, so I didn't try very hard. I started to prod him with gentle fingers, checking for a telltale flinch or hiss that would denote some hidden injury, something he didn't want to tell me.

"I know. I'm just glad you're back in one piece. You... you are all in one piece, aren't you?"

"Yes, love... No bits missing."

Bits. Because 'bits' were totally what I should have been thinking about at that point in time, with my blood racing and my head still whirling from the impact of his presence in the room, in Gradient's preferred bar where all the counter-tops are probably hosed with disinfectant daily and have never been polished with an ass badly in need of a surface for leverage...

Um. Lost my place.

Except maybe Sonja and Veren. Though I can see her being the one putting him on the tables.

Er. Right. Anyway...

"Today... is something of an unbelievable day... Nothing this good ever usually happens to me."

You know those moments when a thought or feeling can possess you, right down to the pores of your bones, something too intense, too desperate to let out? Those needs you have to diffuse to keep any semblance of yourself at all? You mask them in humour, in play and that's exactly what I did, poking and prodding around his ribcage looking for a ticklish spot like a teenager who just wants that excuse to touch someone, someone special.

He started prodding me back - "Two can play at that!" - making me squeal like a little girl and edge around him trying to find a spot too tricky for that poking finger to reach. Because I was not going to let him go.

So KJ cheated and kissed me again.

Then he poked me.

I could have asked him where exactly he'd been, what had happened, how he'd ever found the lead in the first place. I didn't. The place for that would come later, tucked up safely in our bed with the moon blotting out the blaze of the star and only the lights of the ships passing by to play with the shadows, dappling the room into an ever-changing, ever-still place, a peace that was just ours.

And so we laughed and joked and kissed and then it just burst out of me. Something I hadn't even suspected was coming.

"Then stay with me... At our place, I mean. Like it's your own. Like I am."

My voice shook too much to go on and I had to stop and breathe for a moment. Those were taboo words I was using, saying I was his, like property. But this is different. This is a gift. It's a description of what is.

"I mean, if you like... I just... I like waking up and knowing your boots are there... That you're there, and the boots tell me... I mean..."

The bemused look in his eyes told me that understanding how I felt about the sight of his boots, tucked away in the rack by the door at night, might be beyond even the bond between us without a far more coherent explanation. Not to mention completely beside the point.

"I mean I love you. Really. Truly. More than I can even contain."

And gods, I felt so utterly naked. If he said no, I'd want to drop dead on the spot and nature would not be that kind.

"I love you too, Evanda... and... if I like? I wouldn't think that was in question..."

And there was sunlight in the void.

And now I am lying awake in bed, listening to the soft sound of his breathing, the scent of our mingled sweat and gun oil and sex and something quite like cherry gateaux hanging in the air. He's pressed close against my back, and I can't help but marvel how perfectly we fit together - the velvety brown of his arm tucked around my waist, legs curled in behind mine, chin resting just on the top of my head so I feel wrapped in him, surrounded by him... and so utterly safe.

Even though tomorrow, I will begin to finish what he started.

We will change the world.

The Mathematics of Loneliness

2010-05-18T00:16:00.000+01:00

147 - days I have been with Killjoy.

78 - days I spoke with him.

18 - days I knew his touch.

Taking the Temperature

2010-05-15T00:32:00.005+01:00

The Sansha fleet struck in Teonusude today, just as I was getting in pod.

They took 150,000 people from Planet II. I couldn't stop them. I made it to the scene just after the dropships left.

So far, they have only attacked temperate planets. Is that because they tend to have the highest populations? Or because those populations are the most accessible, living in the open rather than sealed under habitat domes?

The transports launch from the Nightmares. People are rounded up from the planets and taken back through the wormhole the Sansha used to travel there. We can't follow them through - the environment on the other side appears to be radically unstable... something about it simply won't let us through. Safeties on our ships? Or blocked through the same technology that creates them?

Pilots are still searching for the wormhole locus, but no-one has been to X-70 yet. I wanted to try and get out there tonight, but the doctor has refused me clearance to fly. One of the lasers on my Zealot overheated and blew some circuits, sent a load of feedback straight into my head.

I can't see straight and I feel dizzy, but I can hear the chiming of my wrist chronometer as it marks off the predicted time of another attack.

I can feel the itching in my head, like not being able to remember a particular word. Something... something in my speculations was nearly right, something on the right track. Somewhere in my musings, I got close to the truth of it.

Why wormholes, and who or what is Leader Two?

Phantasms, Toasters and 'Mares, Oh My!

2010-05-13T13:31:00.001+01:00

Sansha Kuvakei is alive.

Sansha's Nation appears to be invading.

CONCORD are surveilling the Synenose Accord. My name appears in one of their documents.

The Caldari Navy has the technology to hack and control Sansha battleships.

The Nation forces are not just killing ships. They are taking people.

There is no such thing as artificial consciousness. Once it is conscious, it's not artificial.

The Amarr Navy engaged a Minmatar force trying to help them, so they could take something from the wreck of a Sansha carrier.

I don't want to be a party to genocide. The Amarr have tried to do it to us and the Sansha have already suffered it once. It is too cruel a thing, even for me.

I am afraid that they won't give us a choice.

We are not the only ones who are heirs to a mistake.

Cassandra's Cry

2010-05-11T13:36:00.023+01:00

Three years ago, I told them.

"I found the logs!" I said. "Look! They are still taking orders from him. New orders. Sansha Kuvakei is alive!"

They laughed and patted me on the head. I was such a keen young rookie, they told me. They were sure the Sansha believed Kuvakei was alive.

But he wasn't. He was definitely dead. They knew that, for certain.

Two years ago, I told them.

"Artificial intelligences are being changed, becoming fully intelligent. They are being given consciousness!" I said. "Look! They all leave to the same place. They are alive, and it's time to abandon our fear of that and come to terms with it!"

They laughed and patted me on the head. Machines couldn't think, they told me, but they might seem to think and live and desire life and freedom.

But they don't. Artificial intelligence is an illusion. They knew that, for certain.

A year ago, I told them.

"Transmission of consciousness is possible. Contamination of that signal is possible!" I said. "Look! We have had prominent people disappear and come back changed. It's time to prepare for the possibility that we are the weak spot of humanity against the Sleepers... and the Sansha could be in the most danger of all."

They laughed and patted me on the head. My dedication was admirable, they told me, but maybe it was time I took a holiday. It might look sinister to a Minmatar that Jamyl Sarum had died and come back with a hideous weapon, might look like she had been replaced by something both inhuman and inhumane.

But she hadn't. Jamyl Sarum was the real Jamyl Sarum. They knew that, for certain.

So now, I tell them.

"Something is badly wrong here. We have to pay attention. We have to gather information, to understand the threat. Look! The attacks are getting worse every day. We cannot ignore this!"

They laugh and pat me on the head.

Thank all gods for Jonny and Julianus Soter, for Seriphyn Inhonores, for Silver and Caellach.

I am not alone.

Circling

2010-05-09T03:00:00.000+01:00

Yesterday was... complicated.

I don't know yet what I think or feel about it, so right now I'm just sitting here on the couch at home, looking out at the stars while typing on my datapad with one hand and playing with a Yan Jung disc with the other.

The disc is one of my favourite relics; I brought it back from one of my trips with Aridante. Just a smooth black disc maybe 0.07m across, with raised designs on either side. It's always cool to the touch, shiny and metallic, but lighter than it looks.

A lot of Yan Jung stuff is like that - light and fragile-feeling, as if not all of it is here. I don't know why, but I find that soothing. Or maybe it's the memories I associate with it - Aridante and I whooping with laughter as our ships careened insanely back from the artefact, backwards and upside-down, flung aside as if they were made of paper.

That ruined temple was a sanctuary, I think. For us, I mean. Work and profit and responsibility stopped at the gateway, so far off the map, so well hidden.

Later, others found it. Their bookmarks sold on the markets, were followed by others, who made more and sold them and so on and so forth until the place was stripped right down to the stone and there were queues at the gates.

It's like there's no room for secrets anymore in this world. And some people seem to like that.

Not me, though.

Anyway...

Yesterday was the first time since KJ got back that I've seen Gottii. Over the last few months, he and I have talked a lot. At first about what was happening between him and Cia, but later he managed to get me to open up a little. It's not something I often find easy to do, but... well, I think I really needed someone to talk to. I probably still do.

He could tell I was happy. I suspect furniture can tell I'm happy when KJ's about. I get this stupid grin that won't go away and I can't seem to stop blushing. It's like being a virgin all over again.

Thankfully I've not been podded in a while, so that wasn't a literal problem for KJ and I to correct.

Um. Where was I?

"Well, I'm glad he appears to be back at the moment."

Most of the time, Gottii seems quite happy just to let people see the big, dumb Brutor but now and again, you can get a glimpse of the real intellect behind the mask. He's quite perspicacious - sometimes uncomfortably so. Like this time. It was as if he looked right through me and poked me in the terrified spot I was trying to hide.

"...appears to be back..."

"...at the moment."

"The alliance needs its executor, to be frank... At any rate, I'm happy to see you blushing like a school girl again."

Only I kind of stopped blushing right about there. And smiling.

We talked business for a while. The new project I'd given to him and Kohiko. The possibilities of expanding our T2 production resources. Investment opportunities and projects. It was exactly the distraction I needed, but in the end, it was all covered and that... left a space in the conversation.

Gottii: "It's good to see you happy again."

Me: "It's nice not to feel like crap, frankly... but every time I see him, it makes me more afraid he's going to leave again..."

Gottii: "I... understand. I would probably feel that way too. And the prospect of something hanging around just enough would be somewhat scary as well."

Me: "'Hanging around just enough?'"

Gottii: "Well... not sure the right way to say it. Just... I'm not sure how much he will be able to commit to life as a pod pilot. You deserve more than someone dropping by as a pick-me-up."

Sickening lurch. The world tipped sideways. I hadn't even thought about it that way. All that time back down on planet, with the wind on his face and the sun on his skin... feeling the touch of other skin against his own in a handshake, an embrace... maybe a kiss. Of having eyes see and focus on him, not some ephemeral avatar projected while we loll idly in the viscous soup that forms our workaday beds. Down there, where pain is only in the flesh and death comes with eye contact.

He's not really been a pilot that long. He could still return to all that if he chose. And if he could, why would he come back to this?

Everything I'm afraid of, in one idle conversation. It all sounds stupid. I want it to be stupid. But it's happened so often before. Part of me... most of me... believes... knows... that this time it will be different. I am not being used. But there's a little bit of me, stuck there in a cold and icy portion of my mind, that says I'm a fool to believe that and that I should be preparing myself for the hurt.

"I have a disturbing tendency to get attached to guys who win my heart and then don't bother to tell me when they're done with it..."

Not this time. Please Fate, please Fortune, not this time. Let me be happy just a little while longer.

To Endure The Things We Cannot Change

2010-05-02T05:47:00.002+01:00

I was contacted today by Havohej of Du'uma Fiisi Integrated Astrometrics. His corporation wanted access to my up-to-date research into a cure for Vitoxin so they could begin work on it as well.

Du'uma seem to have their hearts in the right place. While they are still a little over-radical for my conscience, I would like to help them. But I can't. I handed control of my research over to those most able to use it well and while I am still working on it, it's not mine to give or withhold any more. And I trust them most of all.

Naturally, Havo got angry. That seems to be a trend lately. People won't wait, or change what they do - it's always down to us to jump through hoops for their convenience.

Rocius leapt to my defence. I suppose I should be angry about that, but honestly I appreciated it. I've been so tired lately. All of this... it's such a long battle, all of it uphill. It was nice to feel someone cared about the human being behind the reputation. Eze got in there too, and Else, and Kohiko... general corp dogpile actually.

It felt... warm. And it made me miss KJ more than ever.

Besides... Du'uma seems to have a lot of combat pilots and very few scientists. While they might employ scientists, it makes for a very different dynamic when the people giving the orders are most familiar with the use of weapons.

And Vitoxin could become the most atrocious weapon ever known to mankind. It could make Seylinn look like a walk in the ecopark in Lustrevik Brutor Tribe station. Make Jamyl Sarum's "uber-weapon" look like a child's toy. Before friendship, before honour, I have to stop that.

I never find it easy to say "no" to someone, to let them down. But this is just a question of numbers.

I count billions.

The Brutor Problem

2010-05-01T08:48:00.032+01:00

A corpie came to me today seeking advice on a problem we've both encountered.

The Brutor Problem.

This is a very serious problem that, especially in our alliance, needs to be considered seriously.

So just how does one cope with it?

Aunty Eva Recommends:

1) Courage and Trust

Brutor can be very intimidating, especially when you consider their size. Seeing something that large coming towards you triggers that animal instinct to flee, evade, avoid. You have to push that down, relax, remember that they are your friend and you can trust them. Above all, do not let the panic reflex take over.

2) Aggression

Violence is an innate part of the human psyche. Embrace your own just as they unleash theirs. Show them you have a ferocity, a fire within you, that matches anything they can put out. If you are too delicate, they won't even notice.

3) Strong Furniture

If you like your furniture, don't let it get involved. Use theirs, or better yet, parts of ship and station infrastructure.

4) Flexibility and Strength

Flexibility is vitally important, especially in the hips and inner thighs. If you can manage a full split both forwards and sideways, it will be of immeasurable benefit. A strong, well-toned set of back, thigh and abdominal muscles will also help prevent injury and the ever-present risk of "walking bandy" the following day.

The ability to dislocate a hip or one side of your jaw is also very useful.

5) Nanite Repair

Either a locally-produced or injected application of bio-repair nanites will reduce much of the inevitable bruising and possible tearing or mild fractures. These can also be coded for birth control purposes, saving future surgical interventions.

6) Anal

Don't. Ever.

Chocolate Cheesecake

2010-04-27T15:53:00.024+01:00

He left early this morning, while I was still sleeping. I dimly remember his fingers cupping my face, a gentle, lingering kiss, but by the time I woke enough for the world to make sense to me, his space in the bed beside me had lost his warmth and his boots were gone from their place inside the door.

I wrapped myself in a sheet and stood at the window for a while, watching the passenger shuttles streak away from the docking bays far, far below me. Maybe I was fortunate. Maybe one of them was his. Maybe he happened to look up and saw the slight flicker in the light from my apartment and knew I was standing there. Knew that I loved him and that I'd still be there, loving him just the same, when he came home.

I think maybe he did.

He never had a clan before Rocius adopted him into Desher and I know it means a great deal to him. He takes all those clan duties very seriously, and with illegal slavers operating nearby, he needs to be there right now.

And I need to be here. It's sad, but it's the way things are.

He's not Meklon. He will come back.

But I do miss him when he's away. He's not just my lover but my friend. And not just my friend but my partner.

That's a lot to miss. So maybe, just this once, I won't be cold and professional and life goes on. I'm allowed to take a day to just lie in bed, looking at holos of the two of us and listening to sad songs. Aren't I? No matter what I do or how many implants they stick in me, I'm still human, still a woman and I'm allowed to have feelings once in a while. Allowed to stop and take those feelings out, like jewels from a case, and just hold them in my hands and examine them, and rejoice in the fact that they're all mine.

I have a chocolate cheesecake in refrigeration. I think maybe I'll have a piece. With a big scoop of chocolate ice-cream. Covered in hot caramel sauce. Ooh, with chocolate shavings on top.

And a cherry.

Maybe two pieces. And I'll eat them in bed. With a tiny spoon. Bollocks to getting dressed, as well.

Today is my day. Today, I get to miss him.

Like a normal girl.

Staring at the Sun

2010-04-25T00:00:00.001+01:00

I feel hollow. As bleak and empty as the Providence skyline, as silent inside.

We held Debes' memorial this evening. At 21:00 there was a short service in "his" station in Istodard, then Gottii, as his closest friend in the alliance, flew Debes' Vagabond, bearing his casket into the sun.

"We are all made of the dust of stars." I wish I could remember who told me that.

Debes and I weren't deeply close, but we were friends. I could relax around him, drop the mask and just say what I think.

Thought. I guess the present tense no longer applies.

During the service, I couldn't help remembering all the other friends I've lost. All the ones I never got the chance to bury. There are so many now and I keep thnking that I just can't bear it anymore and I can't keep going, but I have to, and I do. With time, it hurts less, but there is always a space left behind. The place where they aren't.

Strange. I thought a funeral would give some sense of... I don't know. Closure? Peace? Satisfaction? It didn't, though. There's just a hole.

Debes was there when I needed him. Not a lover, not someone to share my deepest secrets and forbidden thoughts with. But he was there when I needed to know that I wasn't the last person in the universe, and he made a space I could lose myself in when I needed not to think.

He was the best FC I've ever flown under... We needed him, and trying to fill his shoes will be hard.

Especially without him.

Headhunting

2010-04-11T22:49:00.001+01:00

My wallet hit an all-time low yesterday. 953k ISK. So today I had to drop the luxuries of fleets and shopping and actually get down to work.

Thankfully, Sistran was pleased to see me - set me up with three jobs that I blurred through thanks to the Cloudy Skies. A thousand units of barrage later, and I was sitting on a tidy pile of modules and salvage, and had about enough ISK for insurance, should I need it.

It'll need more work, but it's rather less frightening to see.

I don't think about the people on the ships I killed. Or, well, I sort of do. I can acknowledge intellectually that they were there, that I am a killer, that I'm not actually any better than the pirates I kill, be they podder or hapless manual pilot.

But I don't kill them because I'm good and they're evil. I do it because the world I want is more easily made without them in it.

30 battleships. 30,000 crew. Gone.

I wonder if any of them think like I do, have that sort of dream. Am I better because the world I long for is bigger than just me? Freedom and equilibrium between all rather than profit for one?

I guess it doesn't matter. I kill because I have to.

It's too late to turn back now. I have a future to build.

Would She?

2010-04-07T21:30:00.009+01:00

I got to thinking about Sythra today, while I was rushing around prepping ships for an operation I eventually slept through.

I was thinking about something KJ had said. "I think she would want me to be happy, and I think she would be happiest of all that it is with you."

I wonder about that sometimes. If I'm somehow betraying her memory. I mean, I know I'm not. Sythra was brave but above all, she was giving. Devoted and generous to a flaw. She wouldn't want KJ to linger in some stasis field of perpetual mourning.

But when I think about what she would have wanted, the voice that comes to mind is the one that says

"She would have wanted to be alive."

And then I wonder.

Would she?

Her parents committed suicide in front of her. Her brother forced her to kill him. And all because she'd turned her back on faith, social mores and propriety to do something she felt was right, to save lives.

She came home and she went on with her work, but I can't help but wonder about that pain.

And I wonder how it felt to her when those voices... those whispers in the night... started to speak in her nerves, buzzing through her implants.

Promising to take all that pain, all those hard choices away.

The friend and wingmate I knew died long before her body did. Now I find myself wondering if she was glad of it.

It doesn't stop me missing her.

Sex, Lies and Holotape

2010-02-28T23:57:00.001Z

[Warning - contains some bad language used fairly graphically]

I went out to The Last Gate tonight with Sonja and Nelle for a bit of girlychat. Much as I love TLG and many of its patrons, it wasn't a happy occassion, much as we tried to pretend. Even flirting with Karlos can't lift away some stains on the day, and speaking of stains, Siohban Mason was involved.

She'd sent a letter to both Sonja and myself, a fairly standard "all your fault" whinge combined with an effort to really stick the knife in. Funny, I've met saboteurs in the past whom I've respected even as I've loathed them. That doesn't apply in Mason's case, simply because of her inability to face facts and the consequences of her own actions. An innocent man is dead, friendships destroyed and hearts broken, all because she slavered so for attention she couldn't keep her legs crossed.

First she claimed that I'd tried to seduce Meklon away from her after telling her she was welcome to get involved with him and I wouldn't interfere. Aside from her being a complete freak for even thinking something like that was normal to propose, I'd had no contact whatsoever with Mek during that time - the next time I spoke to him, he'd been shot in the gut as a direct consequence of her whoring, so I have to assume things were pretty much over between them by that point. Even Mek's not that dumb.

So she's clearly trying to stir, except the only way such a rumour could hurt me is if KJ believed it. And that's not very likely, seeing as he, of all people, knows exactly where I was and whose name I was screaming at the top of my lungs. And oh gods, was I ever. I...

I've forgotten what I was talking about...

Oh yeah. Mason. Sonja.

BT left Gradient as a consequence of the gunfight Mason engendered and the whole thing, from the death of Joach to his departure, cut Sonja pretty deeply. But apparently Mason (the toxic, slappy little cunt) didn't think Sonja had been hurt enough.

So she told her that she'd been sleeping with Biggus as well.

Seriously, if that were true, you'd think one of the guys she was going round like a dose of the clap (which they probably now have) would have noticed that the sticky white stuff wasn't lube.

Sonja had to know that it's a lie. She had to know that, somewhere. But sometimes things mean too much for one not to fear for them.

I cannot ever forgive cruelty and what she was trying to do to Sonja was beyond cruel.

Cumbucketty little whore should burn in Hel and when I catch up with her, she'll wish that's where she was. I don't have the Frozen Queen's capacity for forgiveness. Not for her.

Signs of Life

2010-02-12T07:20:00.004Z

Went out in Providence last night with a small gang. My head was kind of in a whirl. Gottii had been very keen on the idea of the Providence campaign and with the news of his stroke...

Well, even though the doctor had said his chances of a full recovery were excellent, that... wasn't what was in my head. There was a cold, cold knot in the pit of my stomach and this strange feeling of stasis, like everything was moving in slow motion.

So I wanted to go to Providence, because Gottii would have been there if he... if he hadn't been sick. And maybe if I got some kills to tease him with... then I'd get to do that.

My Uncle would say I was trying to bargain with the Gods. Maybe I was.

That wasn't how it turned out, though. Our gang got trapped behind a heavy camp for quite some time - we knew we couldn't get through, so we sat tight, hunting the local pirates when the system was empty or spread out, moving between safe spots in the deep dark when hostiles or strangers passed through.

We got some support from the alliance, but the way was simply impassable. They couldn't reach us, running into ambush after ambush on the way. Some of them were rookies... my rookies... and KillJoy was with them too.

Nothing I could do. Just... stuck in this empty, silent system with a thick grey nebula shutting out even the chilly blue light of the sun. Listening for the little catch in their voices that would mean that this was the last loss they could take.

I don't think I heard it. Certainly not from KillJoy. But I worried for the younger ones.

That feeling of dislocation, of stasis, somehow made the endless waiting easier to bear. The camp eventually moved on and we were able to pass through to 9UY4-H. Unity station, risen again. On another day, I'd have been thrilled to be there, but the system was as dark and silent as the rest of the region, with a single, badly-positioned warp disruption bubble shimmering outside the docking ramp. It fitted the mood of the day.

In time, though, I'm sure it will be alive again and I can come back to the system to revisit fonder memories.

There was a brief flurry of activity just as I was getting to the end of my shift. We jumped through a gate into a camp we hadn't been aware of; Debes gave the order to turn round, burn back to the gate and just get out. I did so, jumped back through the gate into an empty system and warped out.

I was alone and as the minutes ticked by, I remained alone.

It fitted the mood of the day.

I stayed in Unity for a while after that, listening to the chatter of the fleet when the news came through. Gottii was awake. His doctors had managed to stabilise him enough for consciousness transfer and were using a younger clone-body to reduce the likelihood of further strokes.

The relief was... breathtaking, like a sun breaking through the oppressive smoke of the Providence sky.

Now I can go back to getting revenge on him for what he said about my ass.

All Stop

2010-02-12T00:25:00.007Z

"Captain Gottii has suffered a severe stroke, which lead to significant brain damage... the Captain was placed in a medically induced cold-termperature coma as per my instructions... prognosis is good for a significant to full recovery.

"This stroke was most likely caused by known condition common among Brutor of Gottii's lineage, anamolies caused by generations of Amarrian selective breeding and genetic tailoring. Captain Gottii was aware of these issues..."

No...

Just...

No.

Bled Out

2010-02-10T09:41:00.023Z

So...

Meklon is somewhere out in the world, shot in the gut, running from the authorities. A murderer. Maybe a madman.

BT is left behind, facing the music for all the folly he did for his brother's sake, his soul drying up a little more with every word that's said.

And there's me, somehow caught in the middle of it all, not knowing whether to be angry or sad, with just a handful of bloody sheets and an old, old voice whispering in my ear "Save me."

I couldn't save any of them so far; why are eyes turning to me again now?

Then KillJoy came, and everything went away for a while. And I tell myself

"You can't save everyone."

Can I?

Questions Unasked

2010-02-09T05:15:00.009Z

Sometimes I find myself yearning for a freedom I've never really known - a lack of responsibility, maybe, or just the need to not have hundreds of other people's views informing every decision I want to make.

Like Morar. We've been talking about hiring him - it's really important to Cia that he gets fixed, taught not to make the same mistakes again, rather than simply dumped out in the wilderness to make them without consequences.

Yes, her heart is really that big, that she's willing to try to rehabilitate the man who theatened her and her sister. And gods know, everyone in this corp adores Camille.

But it's not just her courage or compassion - I think she's absolutely right, from everything I've seen. It's not that I think Gradient are in some way deficient, or that we are necessarily better, but different environments suit different pilots and here we have a very clear distinction between playtime, when everything is OK and we are casual and having fun, and when we are serious.

Morar's problem is not his ruthlessness, but his failure to understand when and where it's right to use it and when and where it's alright to simply ask. That is, plain and simple, a badly damaged man right there - a man so afraid of the Gradient gossip mill that he'd rather threaten a child than publically have it known he was working for an Amarr corp, even for the right reasons.

Mata sees it as a case for restitutive justice - Morar will have an opportunity to be Cia's wingbuddy and keep her safe. Ulf is really hesitant because it might strain relationships between us and Gradient, and yes, that's a point I hadn't really considered. Of course, Gradient comprises a lot of people and they don't all have the same view. KillJoy doesn't really trust Morar but Cia persuaded him to at least consider it, to give it a try if Gradient are willing to stand it.

I even managed not to stick my oar in and try to control things, and let KJ run with it. It was oddly thrilling - I don't trust enough to let go easily, as a rule. Here I did and I don't regret it, though I worry I'm just dumping all the difficult stuff on his shoulders.

Plus, he's really hot when he's decisive. Seriously. I could swallow my tongue just watching.

It all seems so simple, though. Morar joins, he either works out or he doesn't, stays or leaves. The risks are more about hurt feelings than any physical danger - he can make threats, but he doesn't pose one.

Why are people so screamingly afraid that everything won't be quite perfect the first time?

Sythra was worth every risk we took. Morar could be the same, or just another name on the reject heap. I think finding out which is not such a terrible thing.

Oh, in other news, the spy left the corporation after we revealed our intentions in Providence by turning up there. Much simpler than last time, really, though just as easy to spot. Once again, though, they could have just asked.

In The Blood

2010-02-05T23:59:00.000Z

BT wanted to see me tonight - teacher and student, sparring together down in the Last Oasis Gym.

It hit me like an artillery shell how much I'd missed him and all the others from the old days. Cappy and Aridante, Winter and Rana, BT, LF and Tamurlaine and his enormous chin. Rana is in the alliance now, of course, but she's very quiet most of the time, and now that we work together, things just aren't the same with James. Winter has that alliance now, Independent Faction - when we first met, that was just a dream she was training towards. Strange how we both managed to walk our paths to the dreams we had back then... Though perhaps there was just something about that group.

I was pretty excited and KillJoy seemed curious, so I asked if he could come too. I didn't consider if he might have been worried something might... happen... with me and BT, not until someone mentioned it later on. I don't think that was it, even so. He just loves sparring, and he's been wondering about my pitfighting days for a while.

I guess now both he and BT know that I wasn't very good at it. Not compared to either of them.

The old man wore his Covenant combat suit and asked about the pitfighting, about why I quit and dumped me on my apparently well-padded ass a couple of times when the answers didn't satisfy him. I finally threw everything into it and knocked the wind out of him.

I should have stopped then, but I didn't. Kneed him in the face. He was too big, his posture too ambiguous for me to really tell whether I'd won the point.

I didn't want to stop. My heart was beating so hard I could feel it in my throat and the ache - from the blows and the falls - it just felt so... alive. Exciting. Desirable.

When I saw the blood, I realised where I was going and pulled back, got myself under control. This kind of hunger, it's not for the people I love, no matter how much that child's voice inside me wants to stand up and scream "Look at me! Know me! See me! Be proud of me!"

Still, in that moment, he did, and I think he was. And another little piece of innocence fled away as the tables turned and my old teacher came to me with his problems, his fears.

Sometimes the obvious answers are the right ones. The answer to "Who am I?" is always "The one asking the question." Poetry, films, stories; they get into our heads and tell us things that are pretty but aren't really true.

There is no dark side, no light side, locked forever in combat for the soul. There are just people, and they are very complicated, but each, still just one person. With all their weaknesses and strengths.

He seemed to rally then, smiling and saying yes, he was being silly and other lies to make me think he understood and would be okay. But I'm not the only one he can talk to and I think the other one will set him straight.

Why do men never give Sonja credit for how strong she is? Break her heart again and again, trying to save her from exactly that pain?

KillJoy had been pretty quiet for the whole fight and its aftermath, but once BT left I got a chiding. My fighting was too flashy, too telegraphed - something I already kinda knew, but I'm sort of out of trainers by this point. So I asked him to show me some moves.

Gods be damned...

I mean... really... He just blows my mind. Not a single blow I could see coming, not a single clue in the way he moves. So much power, so much control and nothing, not a whit to betray himself on the outside.

Saying he telegraphs deceptively is... putting it mildly.

I was so turned on I could hardly breathe. And that's when I realised something about KillJoy and how in Hel he has this effect on me.

It's not his face - not the high cheekbones his skin just drapes itself across, not the strong line of the jaw, nor his eyes with that look of wry amusement. It's not the sense of confidence he can radiate, not the tenderness in those strong hands nor the easy play of muscles when he moves, though he moves so gracefully.

It's his intelligence. It informs everything he does - the way he fights, the way he speaks. It's there when he touches me and when we're in bed, he knows what I need before I do. Gods... it gets hard to write, just thinking about it... When we talk, I always have the sense he is really listening, actually truly understands what I mean when I say it, and his own insights are always keen, seeing into places and patterns I hadn't even realised existed.

I can trust him, because of that. I don't have to compensate for him.

It's a little scary at times. I feel like I've been treated with such reverence for so long, nobody really... challenges me, and when they do I can get... pretty threatened and territorial. But after today, I came to this lurching realization.

He's smarter than me. I don't think I've ever really experienced that before.

And it drives me wild. In all the best ways. I literally cannot stop thinking about him, can't stop wanting him, wanting to be with him. He's this new, fascinating person I want to get to know inside and out, and I can't help but feel there will always be something new to learn... He makes the universe a deeper, richer place. He's a fractal personality, always with something new to unfold ahead of me. And the deeper I go, the more addictive he becomes.

It's like a fist squeezing my heart. It makes me want to drop to my knees and beg. "Someone help me, I'm in too deep here... I'm out of my league... Please, for the love of all gods, please don't save me."

Arse

2010-02-05T23:53:00.002Z

I spent a lot of time looking in the mirror today.

Not, I should note, because I'm habitually vain or anything... I mean, I like to look nice when someone is actually going to see me, because it happens so rarely. Most of the time I'm just wrinkling up in a casket full of goo while a virtual avatar announces to the world what I might actually look like, what I might be doing, if I wasn't trapped inside my pod. I feels safe, sometimes - knowing my hair is never out of place, or that I'll never get windburn or sunburn on that avatar - but when I get out, when I have the sun and the air on my skin, when I'm seen - really seen - by someone else, it means a lot.

I've lost track of what I was saying... Oh yeah, the mirror.

There is something I don't like to think about, but thanks to my oh-so-beloved corporation I am being forced to face facts.

I have a big bum.

KillJoy Tseng > "Evening, coffeecup... suppose I should ask if that's a private party..."
Evanda Char > "With BT? I have no idea. I do get the impression he's gonna put me on my ass a couple times though."
Symon Kauliford > "At least there'll be decent padding."

I mean... it's not huge. I'm not like some Brutor dancing girl who would have trouble falling on her face even if you pushed her. I just... have a little more trouble fitting through narrow gaps than the average Sebiestor. You know the type. Long legs, thin, less of an arse than just an extension of their thighs... would barely wrinkle a dress.

Face facts, Eva. There is a definite... roundedness.

I may have lost it at Symon a bit.

Evanda Char > "Are you saying I have a fat ass?"
KillJoy Tseng > "Well, how would he know?"
Kalahari Wayrest >" ...Not compared to mine"
Symon Kauliford > "Not in a bad way"
Ulphus > "If, and I'm saying if Eva had a fat arse, the dress she wore to the New Years party would leave nobody in any doubt."

Ulf is pretty good at the "tactful reconciliation" thing... if that's the right word. He lowers temperatures very fast in a heated debate. Plus, he's right. The Admiral's Uniform does pretty much own any room it walks into and... well, people wouldn't... um... react to it like they do if I had a horrible bum, would they?

Gottii > "...Ghetto Booty..."

Festering rancid diseased prickless son of a whore.

Symon Kauliford > "Evanda, you have a figure most Sebiestor women can envy."
Ulphus > "Eva, it was a fantastic dress, it got KJ to get the nerve up to kiss you, and that took some doing."
Evanda Char > "You're very skilled, Ulf."
Ulphus > "Thank you Eva, it's much easier when I'm telling the truth."

See? Troubled waters, meet oil.

Though I didn't realise KJ was that nervous at New Year. Anyway... Symon is more or less the exact opposite of Ulf. He can make anything worse.

Symon Kauliford > "So is a big arse on Sebbie women a bad thing or what?"

I hate my life.

Is A Bit Dunk Now

2010-01-24T01:03:00.002Z

O haaai...

M'a bit... drunk... Stop it! Stay still!

Shhh! Don't tell KJ!

*tiptoes off*

Hard Truths

2010-01-22T15:15:00.003Z

Another great day of kicking baby furriers and throwing kittens in the blender. Or to put it another way, replying to questions requesting my "honest" opinion.

I wrote and rewrote my response and in the end, I simply couldn't find a kind way of saying it that wasn't just a lie.

"Being a leader can feel a lot like having a cheeseknife inserted into your cheek and all the muscle ripped off, by your friends, over and over and over again.

"The fact is, you cannot have friends. You cannot hate, you cannot love without politics, you cannot be afraid, you cannot feel angry. You have to show a face that's utterly confident, unshakeably certain... even when it's stripped to the bone.

"Resolve is not the same as being arbitrary, courage isn't rage and confidence isn't arrogance. It's not a question of what you feel, but what you show and you can't afford to get that depiction wrong. Because what you feel, we feel. The emotions that you put out there are the ones that are coming back on you now."

Bad Reflection

2010-01-18T06:18:00.060Z

Eze called me today to show me some porn. It wasn't what you might call a comfortable conversation.

"Seems like someone in Amarr space has an interest in the Resistance."

I have seen some of the underground porn from the Empire before. I've even seen this particular magazine before, on a desk in a locked office deep in Providence, while I was hanging upside down from an airvent trying to get my trousers unhooked from a screw. For all I know, that might have been this very issue.

It didn't make it any easier, seeing faces I knew on the cover. People I'd drunk with, flown with, now reduced and dehumanized into the fleshy cachet of lookalike fucks. It certainly wasn't easy seeing myself parodied there - a little frightening maybe... sickening, perhaps, but it wasn't something I'd class as too horrific to face.

Seeing it in Eze's hand was. Not because I thought he was... you know... Well, maybe I did, just for a second, but only because I was so completely back-footed.

He didn't show me the inside. I was rather glad of that. Someone had sent it to him anonymously with a page bookmarked.

"It marked a rather... harsh scene with someone made up to look like you. I'm not sure what to make of it, honestly. It doesn't seem to make much of a threat."

That's what he said. Not much of a threat.

He's right, of course. It's not, not really. In the event I ever get caught, I'll be tried as a criminal and am far more likely to face death than slavery. And "catching" a capsuleer is damn near impossible anyway. It's just a little chilling that somebody, somewhere is thinking about me in a way...

In a way that makes Eze look fucking terrified, no matter how he tries to hide it.

So I locked it down, got all the feelings under control as best I could. Had a lot of practice at that over the years - a leader always has to be strong on the outside, no matter what they feel within. Funny that I never realized that KillJoy did that too - probably all the Council and the FCs too.

We talked about it for a while, Eze and I. Whether the girl in the magazine might be a genuine relative, a coincidental lookalike, surgical copy, virtual construct or even, spirits forfend, some sort of clone. In an odd sort of way, it was... nice. Not the subject, but the way we were talking. He called me "Eva" instead of "Ma'am" and even joked a little.

"Maybe it's... standard issue hatemail... They're sending it to my friends as a more visual way of calling me a whore?"

"Yes, because I take low budget Amarr porn very seriously."

We both laughed and that was when it broke, the memories and the hurt rolled in again and we were straight back to formalities and business. I couldn't talk him into destroying it, just stuffing it in a bin somewhere and moving on with life. He wants to investigate, wants to hunt down the man who sent this.

I wouldn't want to be him when Ezekial catches up with him.

Hearts and Hands

2010-01-15T12:44:00.011Z

I went to see Ezekial this evening.

I'm not sure why I went now. I was certain at the time. I thought I could somehow set things right, that all I had to do was be honest and things wouldn't get worse, or better, but would somehow just be OK and life would go on for all of us.

It didn't go well, to put it mildly. He was as forthright with me as I was with him, but sometimes honesty isn't the best policy, no matter what they say in proverbs.

It's stuck in my head. I can still hear every word, every nuance of his tone.

"I closed my eyes that day and told myself that I was done. That all the suffering, all the killing, all the chaos was done. I could let myself slip into the void, the Badger being my testament to my crimes, my salvations and my achievements.

"I heard something as I lay there. Some memory from the back of my mind. It was you, Eva, laughing. Again, I relaxed and was happy with the idea of that being my last thought. Then I heard you again.

"You called my name.

"It was quiet at first, as if you were as far away as you actually were. Then I heard it again. Louder. Afraid, but determined. I knew my fight wasn't over. I couldn't leave you out there."

He loves me. More than I even knew was possible. I love him too, I know that. When I started out and was just a wobbly-legged young pilot, he was my idol. I had a crush on him for years. He's been a constant friend, someone to turn to and look up to. And... yeah, he's also very attractive.

But I don't know what that means. Is my love the same thing he means when he says it? The thought of him in pain makes me ache. When something in his life goes well, I'm happy for him - so very happy. But is it a different love to what I feel for my fledglings, like Ciarente, for example? Or the feeling that gives me that vast, screaming hole inside when I think of Sythra? When he was with Kohiko, I was pleased for him, for both of them. Does that mean I don't love him?

I don't know. Maybe it does. Perhaps I could only do what I did, because I don't.

If it had been me out there, trapped and alone in a wormhole in a broken-down ship with the blood of a world on my hands, who would I come back for

I think I know.

Far too late, I understood what doing the right thing meant. Making him feel better wouldn't help and gaining his forgiveness, no matter how much I would like that, wasn't in his best interests either. Anything that I could do to mend the wound that I've already done him would simply make it deeper.

I had to break his heart.

I think I broke mine a little in the process, but I'm more fortunate than Eze. My heart is in good hands.

Turnabout's Fair Play

2010-01-12T14:54:00.003Z

I am a very, very happy girl right now and I am not getting up.

Thinking of You

2010-01-11T23:30:00.005Z

Tonight, I got hit in the face by a Typhoon (the battleship, not the weather).

I found it in my hangar and it wrecked me, utterly, in the best way possible.

It wasn't that it was a Republic Fleet Typhoon; a ship that, as an avid collector, I would quite possibly kill for.

It wasn't that the man who gave it to me must have near-beggared himself to afford it, or at the very least passed up the very considerable sum it would have fetched on the market.

It wasn't even that it was a surprise present, something I always enjoy (Fans, take note!).

It was what he'd called it.

"Thinking of You..."

Such a simple message to tie my insides in knots, send electricity up my spine and make me stagger around like a drunk.

I think he may be falling in love with me. And when I think that, I can't breathe.

I don't think I've ever... ever felt like this before. There is nothing missing. I've never been in a relationship like that before.

Normal Girl

2010-01-07T00:00:00.001Z

First date with KillJoy.

I'm giggling like a schoolgirl just thinking about it now. There was something very like a pair of schoolkids about us for the whole thing: Retro-chic burger joint, footsie under the table and eyes that roamed like he'd never had a whit of practice in that adult fake indifference to what might be under the clothes.

He was so busy, he even got his menu upside down and I couldn't stop laughing and blushing like a virgin.

Of course, in our teens, he wouldn't have been looking quite so orderly and dapper in uniform and my Mum wouldn't have let me out of the house in a dress that gave his eyes quite so much to do. (Dad would have had hysterics, but Mum, I think, would have garotted me with a scarf.)

It just felt... so good. To be admired, to have... quite such a nice view to eye up in return... To eat with my fingers and to laugh like we did, casting off the professional roles and all the pretences they entail.

Me: "If we call this a corporate meeting, it's tax deductible."

KJ: "Hmm, so then I suppose we should at least... ahem... So how about that corporation?"

Me: "It's fine. Now talk dirty to me."

Playing footsie in combat boots isn't the most delicate thing in the world, but I could feel the muscle in his leg when I trapped it between my ankles and oh my, that was distracting. He's very... fit.

I, of course, was a perfect young lady. The whole time. Really. Especially when the waitress was there and he was trying to order. Totally well-behaved. I was completely appropriate at all times and have no idea why he was twitching like that. Oh yes.

Well, it's progress from most of my previous relationships, anyway.

Firstly because we actually had a date, rather than me just jumping on his desk... Not that I'm ruling that out, I'm just... trying not to screw up again.

No, that says "desk."

Secondly, we actually had a conversation. It's scary how similar we are - all the little fears we keep to ourselves, the professional, chameleonic faces we maintain.

Me: "I never realised you could be shy. You always seem so confident."

KJ: "I could kind of say the same, actually..."

Me: "I am when I consider someone to be worthwhile."

KJ: "... More than worthwhile... But it's easy to slip into what people need... Sarge, XO, fleet commander, person with advice, whatever..."

Me: "I know what you mean. I've been practicing turning off fear, doubt, disappointment in public ever since my first war. I still feel everything, though, just..."

KJ: "... not where people can see?"

Me: "I'm careful what I show."

All right, so the dress might have made a liar of me there.

We lasted a little longer before things degenerated into unabashed flirting (which he totally started) and promises (which... might have been my fault) and then...

Then he kissed me. And it was like a bomb went off in my head. Couldn't breathe, couldn't speak, couldn't do anything but want.

So we ran out of there, hand-in-hand like a pair of teenagers.

Happy... like a normal girl. Am I allowed to feel like this?

Weapon of Choice

2010-01-06T14:00:00.004Z

First proper date-type-thing with KillJoy tonight. Given my vast experience of the world, my highly successful track record with men and my powerful confidence in my feminine charms, I am, naturally, completely terrified.

I think I spent about an hour going through clothes, trying them on, tossing them out, only to have Beaker trundle them back over and put them back in the warddrobe where... rinse, repeat. And when I cannot choose what to wear, there is only one logical option.

The Weapon of Choice.

A genuine, original, Aridante Lemure smartdress. Intelligent polymer fabric - stainproof, waterproof, coated with a layer of liquid crystal - capable of remoulding itself in response to the wearer's mood by detecting hormone levels through the social adaptation chip.

Value at auction: Around 2 billion ISK.

Plus it really accents my breasts.

Voices from Beyond the Wetgrave

2010-01-03T22:55:00.122Z

Last night, during the party, we bid goodbye to Electus Matari.... or at least we did as far as CONCORD's paperwork was concerned.

No sooner had the alliance ticker vanished from our idents and its channels closed to us than we had gathered in a home-made alliance channel along with the corps staying in the alliance and the others that had left - Gradient and the Sisters of Eve Rough Riders. Our militia applications were processed and we were all now officially flagged up as part of the Tribal Liberation Force.

I'll admit, it was pretty exciting. A big goal, something that would be tough to reach, but to which each of us individually could contribute something without having to float about clutching onto someone else's hand.

Solo flight. I felt so free.

I spent the first few hours playing around in my Vagabond and then my Zealot. They were ideal for the kinds of combat I ran into, letting me pick and choose my fights, engage against groups, pick off a few targets and then make a swift escape leaving only spent shells and screams of frustration behind me. But I simply couldn't get them past the gate defences on most of the military installations I ran into, so I stepped "down" into a fleet stabber, which didn't set off the same kind of screaming alarms.

There was a lot of flying round and round involved, simply evading fire and waiting for the Republic Fleet support teams to kick doors in and bust heads, but circling there, picking off the 24th Imperial Crusade vessels foolish enough to stray into reach, gave me time to think, time to talk to my corpmates and other friends... it was oddly serene.

Though that might be because I'd closed the main militia communications channel 15 minutes after entering it. Listening to some pirate-with-a-licence drone on and on about how incredibly awesome he is just didn't hit me in the pants the way he apparently thought it would. Not to mention the murderers and spies in there actively boasting about killing real Matari valklears.

But we were already in direct contact with a large part of the forces anyway, so I wasn't feeling very guilty. Maybe I'll try it again tomorrow. That one guy can't talk all the time... can he?

I might not have killed many enemy pilots today, but I did drive an awful lot out of contested systems and installations, force them to dock and send them wounded and shrieking back to Domain, and had some very tense toe-to-toes battles: once, I managed to get a jam with my drones and get out with my hull plates shaking and torn, not knowing my opponent was out of capacitor and unable to shoot again, while a few hours later I got into a hair-rasing full speed chase with an interceptor through an asteroid belt.

Watching space with all of my attention, maneuvering by hand, picking my own targets and moving on instinct and whim. No-one else to worry about, no big lumbering fleet, no orders to follow or give, just acting as I think right and taking chances for no-one but myself. Why can't it be like that all the time?

Yeah, yeah, I know why it can't... because if you don't have a big lumbering fleet, the other guy will. But still, just for now, just for this campaign, it's... breezy.

And the quiet was good for me as well. Things with KillJoy from the party were very much still on my mind. Rocius' warning. The wreckage of my past relationships. The looming prospect of that date... What will I wear? How should I act? How fast do I want this to go?

And I worried a little. About how much it will hurt when it ends. And which of us it would hurt worst.

When you live forever, endings are a given.

Experience tells me worse. That it doesn't take forever.

And drifting outside a station in Amamake, the memories tell me that we don't always get forever.

This was where Sythra died, her legion ripped apart then her capsule bursting into the empty sky. Fleet sentries firing right along with Imperial Crusade ships.

Sansha. Nightmare. Unclean. Unholy.

I wonder if she knew... if the woman she used to be was conscious at all of dying. The one time I met her, after... after the change... there was nothing I recognized in her speech, her manner, but... she remembered my ship... and she didn't attack me.

When she fought KJ, who fired first?

What's there, in the mind of a True Slave?

Sometimes, in Amamake, pilots hear voices. Strange, distorted signals speaking right into their implants.

Voices from beyond the wetgrave.

Is she out there, somewhere, her spirit floating on the solar winds of this bleak and bloody system? Is she watching me? When his lips met mine - her lover, her killer - did she scream in rage or weep for joy?

I wasn't going to get involved with anyone ever again, not after Dav and all the mess that caused. But... I can't seem to help it. I try to hold back, to keep calm and controlled and then... it's like there's a blip, a skip forward, and all I can do is look back and see that something wonderful has happened.

Maybe there's a spirit on the Amamake winds that won't let me ruin my life, after all.

In With The New

2010-01-03T06:04:00.001Z

"I would like to first say Happy New Year to each and every one of you, and to all those that are not with us tonight."

Cappy. Khan John. Tanya. Nardon. Ray.

"And I would like to thank you all for the trust you have placed upon me to help lead the alliance into its future."

Rocius didn't win the election. KillJoy gave it to him.

"I have some very big...well... technically small shoes to fill."

When did I become so bitter?

"But I am sure that together, we will all move together into the future."

Niiiiice phrasing. Can I have a side-order of tautology with that?

"Speeches arent really my strong point, so I would just like to thank each and everyone one of you for being here, and being the best there is in the Galaxy."

Finally, something I could drink to and mean it. The knot in my stomach began to loosen and it was a shock to realise quite how close I'd been to tears all night. I had friends in the room, there was cake... Relaxing at last, that was finally enough.

I snuck a fingerful of icing, watching KJ try to find excuses to avoid making a speech and couldn't help smiling. I hadn't really spoken to him yet tonight. Eaten out of his fingers, yes, but speaking to him had been proving slightly more difficult. In fact, I'd been acting like a mute whenever he addressed me, however obliquely.

Funny. I never thought KJ would be nervous about public speaking. Or maybe it just seems superfluous to him... I don't know, maybe he really just wanted to get at the cake. He insisted on serving it before his speech, even going so far as to feign using the ceremonial sword at his side. I found myself hoping he would, but he still had a little common sense left in him.

He gave me the first slice. I still couldn't talk. I felt like Veren.

As each slice was handed out, the corp slowly collected over in my corner behind the cake. Trust Re-Awakened Technologies to be first in the queue for dessert. Rather than eat our own, Ulf and I started sneaking forkfuls of each other's.

"All the best cake is stolen."

True of a lot more than cake.

KillJoy joined in our little communist redistribution of cake; while I still couldn't speak to him, I had no trouble at all flashing some leg as a diversion while I nicked his icing. Or was I stealing as an excuse to flash my legs at him? I honestly couldn't say and not just because of my strange case of selective mutism.

He has a nice way of looking, like his eyes are drinking in every detail, aware of far more than his gaze is focused upon, the faintest ghost of a smile on his lips to hint at secret thoughts.

Thoughts I wanted to know.

I tried to sneak some of my cake onto Mata's plate. She's a new mother; she gets inverse thievery. She passed some on to KJ while he wasn't looking and Ulf nicked a bit onto his own plate. A very drunk kid from Gradient started making a speech; it was very sweet, full of raw feeling. I hope he really was feeling as special as he made it sound.

I just realised he was probably older than me, that "kid."

I was laughing genuinely at long last - whatever twisted me up earlier had faded away, lost in a flurry of crumbs. While young D'aan provided a diversion, I got some icing on my finger and managed to wipe it on the end of Ulf's nose.

This was the signal for an all-out war that we struggled to conceal under a thin veneer of propriety.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him collect the icing on his finger, waiting for his moment. I eyed the chocolate, licking my lips and plotting, waiting for D'aan to finish his thanks, waiting for the cover of cheers and toasts.

The moment came. Ulf made his move. I pounced.

An eye-full of icing later, Ulf helped me clean up. I couldn't lick it off that high up my face. Waste of good chocolate though.

If I'd thought about what Rocius had said, if I hadn't drunk so much champagne... If I hadn't been trying so hard to break out of that bitter spell that had beset me... maybe I wouldn't have tried to eat the cake off Ulf's fingers. Maybe a poke in the eye was a far better thing to have happened.

I don't think Ulf thinks of me that way, but... I tend to attract complexity. Not a good thing, when you don't want to hurt someone.

Ulf was being less philosophical though. He stuck a big blob of icing on the end of my nose. I stuck my tongue right out and tried to lick it off.

"Maybe you had better allow me, Ulf?"

Ba-dam! Sound of a cardiac arrest.

"Missed a spot."

And a kiss. Light as a feather, but sure and certain and that little quirk of his eyebrows as he leaned back...

Couldn't speak. Couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Yet I was anything but still.

Voices raged in my head. Rocius telling me about Sythra, about pain, about how I shouldn't hurt KillJoy and my own resolution not to. The unspoken subtext of Rocius' words; "Don't you hurt him the way you hurt me."

The concussive din of my heart.

The slightly stiff look on Ulf's face.

And the inexorably-growing knowledge that my paralysis was absolutely the most painful response I could give. I had to do something.

And I couldn't. Not for so many endless heartbeats.

Then I stuck a slice of strawberry on the end of his nose.

"So did you."

He painted me with the last of Ulf's chocolate icing, ignoring the mess it made of his pristine, white glove.

"I should probably do my last little speech thingy before we get too carried away."

Carried away... carried away. The words wrung and stretched and twisted into a line and tied around something inside my chest and pulled and pulled. Ulf turned his back.

I felt dizzy and slightly sick and the muteness was back again.

He ate the strawberry.

"And maybe not here either..."

Too late. Too late. Oh gods, what have I done? What am I going to do? What if Rocius is right?

Of all things, why did he have to be right about this? About me?

"Excuse me, could I get out of embarrasing myself with a speech, please?" His voice was loud, without yelling. A clear, field command tone. I could see the way it snapped faces towards him, bodies to attention.

I was doing my best to ignore my own body at the time. My nipples could have cut glass and I was fairly certain that they were visible through the jacket, right across the room.

Somewhere in space, a passing peddler vessel: "Those whacky pod pilots. Look, Evanda Char's put a couple of bullets down her shirt."

"All right. In the time since I came to Republic space, the Republic provided me with everything in my life, prepared me to be the man I am."

I was so dizzy. There was just me, those words and the heat devouring my body and face.

"And in return I gladly served her. But after mustering out and joining all of you... you've not only accepted me as one of you as well, but shown enough confidence in me to place me in more roles than I thought I'd earn."

"You're just crap at avoiding work."

Ulf, chipping in.

"Through meeting all of you, I've found an adopted Brother, a clan, friends, family, and a way to fight for the cause."

He nodded, first to Rocius, his brother-in-clan now, then to Ulf. "That too!"

"The foundations that have been laid for the alliance are strong; no matter if Rocius and I together can do close to as much as Evanda has, the support of all of you will continue to make us grow. So here's to all of you; from the CEOs down to the rank and file - may your leadership be worthy of you all."

Tears were burning in the corners of my eyes, my throat so tight as to seal. But an idea was scratching at the inside of my skull.

Rocius didn't have to be right.

I could make him wrong.

I didn't have to screw up.

I wouldn't screw up. Not if I was careful.

Not if this time, I really, really didn't want to.

KillJoy came back to me, where I was burning quietly in the corner. There were more toasts, people talking, impromptu speeches. But there were only two people in the whole room, and I could see the strain of my silence around his eyes.

"... Sorry about that..."

It broke my heart, to think I'd hurt him so already. Somewhere, I found words and in their wake, the smile followed naturally.

"It was just a bit of a surprise... That and I think my knees have gone."

"Flattery." But he seemed happier. I took a deep breath. There was only one way to go now and as I stood up on tiptoes and licked the last of the icing from the end of his nose, I felt as if every fear blew away like blossom on the breeze.

"You were wasting good cake there."

It's going to be OK. That was the moment I first knew it.

Things unfroze from there. We mingled a little and I did what I could to heal the rift I'd made between me and Elsebeth. Then we danced. I felt... ephemeral. Like no part of me existed save for eyes to look up at him, my hands gently enveloped in his, that brief sparkle of electricity when a hip or knee brushed against him.

With that breeze blowing through me, I could even flirt a little, making a timid overture as we both laughed at the ribaldry in corp chat trickling down the datafeeds directly into our minds.

"We've recruited well, haven't we?"

"Recruited? Feels more like spawned sometimes... But yes, we have."

"Spawned seems like a different sort of evening..."

"Spawning doesn't seem that great, from what I've seen of it. The human way is much more fun. But if you have a pond, I'll try anything once."

Hey, I don't often offer to do it froggy-style on the first date. Or not even the first date yet, I guess.

Yet. I like that "Yet."

It was getting late when we went for a cigarette together. I was... wanting to say things... make invitations but... there was still enough of Rocius's speech ringing in my ears that I knew there were some things KJ would have to know first.

He lit my cigarette for me and asked me to dinner. It... seemed a more sensible pace than the one I was aching to take. Honestly, I wanted to climb him like a tree right there and then, but I think I scandalise -EM- enough.

But I wanted to leave him with the right impression. I stood on my toes again and gave him what felt like the sweetest, most tender kiss I've ever been a part of.

"Don't panic. You're doing fine."

Then I ran to the shuttle bays. Lighter than air.

There is no curse.

There is no curse.

There is no curse.

Out With The Old

2010-01-03T04:01:00.006Z

It was the alliance's New Year party tonight, at the Orchid Gardens in Kulheim station.

It's a beautiful restaurant - vines and flowers twining over everything with tables tucked amidst the foliage like secrets to be discovered. An upmarket place, so I spent a little while picking out clothes before the event... Well, OK, a couple of hours.

Four. Four hours.

And twelve minutes.

It was worth it - the jacket from a set of Fleet dress whites, with a long white skirt I took a knife to, to make it easier to dance in. Wearing them, with my hair up, I felt like some ancient tribal princess - pretty and delicate, not someone who spends most of the day covered in goo or engine grease butchering people.

It let me step away from the job for a while, or at least touch the illusion that those planetside must see - the glamour, the wealth and none of the screams of dying crew in my ears or the litter of escape pods straggling across the view.

I could have walked on air.

I'd kind of put the conversation with Rocius out of my mind. There was going to be a party and everything else, I could worry about afterwards.

It never occurred to me that anything could happen at the party.

With hindsight, that's probably a good thing.

We'd gathered at the monument beforehand, looking down over Matar, and Else had made her speech and I mine - pats on the back for all for their work in the militia and they were surely well-deserved. But all the same, it was relaxing to have the responsibilites and the speeches out of the way; KJ and Roc would still have to say something after people had eaten but Else and I at least could relax.

It was all going so smoothly, each moment ticking past with a steady, unhurried rhythmn. I drifted into The Orchid Gardens like a leaf on a lazy wind.

Dress blues.

I just looked straight ahead and kept smiling.

He was wearing full Republic Marine dress blues. Right down to the ceremonial sword.

They fit well.

And he bowed. A proper, formal bow like you only see in the holos now. One leg forward, bending from the waist, doffing his hat and holding it to his chest.

Breathe. Smile. Salute.

I gave Isobel what I'd managed to scrounge up for the humanitarian fund. It wasn't a lot - this was a poor week and it was the first I'd heard about it. I wish my income was more dependable instead of boom and bust. But at least it was something.

People said nice things about the speech, about the things we'd achieved in the last year. Some of it was touching, some of it rankled - people congratulating me on achievements I'd been fenced out of, barricaded into a little, powerless corner. Most of it just washed straight through me, taking my calm with it.

It's amazing how lonely you can feel in a room full of your friends. How brightly you can smile when they tear your guts out.

So I played. Stealing oddments of food from plates when their owners weren't looking, snatching glasses of champagne, laughing and teasing. In the end, I hid over by the buffet with KJ and Morar and as they fed me fritters, the hollow inside me filled in until I could forget it had been there.

Matariki has had her baby now - a tiny baby girl we're all just aching to coo over and spoil - and is back to her original figure. I guess her clan is big enough to deal with fostering her child.. I'm not sure it's something I could do, but I really hope it works out for her.

She's so strong, so serene. I really envy her that. She reminds me of the lake back home. Still, calm, glassy but beautiful.

A peaceweaver. Yes.

I left her there amongst friends and wingmates and slipped away to the kitchen to check on my cake. Not just a dessert but a symbol, of my corporation and all the joy they mean to me. Thick chocolate icing, layers and layers of rich filling, sparklers waiting to pop and fizz along its teirs. And an old woman from the Mandate worrying where the cake her friends on the POW Tribunal Board made for her had disappeared off to.

Cakes are like time. The best are always stolen.

When I came back, Isobel had started on the speeches.

"I am happy and honored to be able to work together with my fellow pilots in Electus Matari. We have many people who do simply amazing work in different ways to support our alliance. With a group of so many distinguished and able inviduals, it is always difficult to single some people out for special recognition. There are always several others whose contributions are also valuable, resulting in a perpetual motion machine of unending congratulations.

"Despite this, I've chosen to undertake the daunting task of giving special recognition to two people for their unique contributions to the Electus Matari alliance, and gift them with Republic Fleet Firetails.

"The first is Evanda Char, who served for a long time as the executor and leader of this pilot alliance. I have personally been particularly impressed by her ability to keep the good of our people in perspective and her ability to inspire and keep so many invidualistic pilots aimed at the same goal."

Stab. Slice. Tear. Crush.

Smile.

I wasn't hearing her words, though I'm sure she meant them. I could hear all the other ones, though. All the things that people had said where they thought I wouldn't hear, when they believed I wouldn't be told.

"Poster-child."

"...Cannot be allowed..."

"...Must not depend..."

"Figurehead."

I know it doesn't matter. So long as things keep running, it doesn't matter if this isn't my dream we're here to celebrate but just a fragment of it. So long as things work.

But just because it doesn't matter, doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.

I smiled, I laughed, I danced about hugging the datapad with the picture of the ship on it.

If I am a figurehead, I might as well be a brave one.

It was a lovely gift, especially since the Firetail Jaluk gave me is now also "the ship I got married in." And my other one is... well... it will always be Cappy's ship. And what Isobel said was beautiful and I'm sure she meant it.

I guess that hollow feeling is something I'm going to have to learn to live with, at least until they forget I was ever anything but a CEO.

The second was for Arkady, soundly earned and well deserved. But the irony as they toasted us together was rather bitter. Like fluffing the pillows for your partner's new lover; the one for whom they forgot you.

I kept smiling. I asked them to bring out the cake but I was somewhat premature - the speeches were still going.

[Continues with "In With the New"]

Divers Alaurms

2010-01-02T15:00:00.092Z

Rocius wanted a chat with me today. Naturally, I took this to be a great sign. After all, he's my ex and my boss... My boss whom I've been arguing with a bit for the last few weeks.

My stomach was tied in knots of pure optimism.

It got off to an awkward start. He seemed to be struggling for words, and Rocius and I have... not much of a track record for successful conversations. "Successful" meaning "ending with no-one on the floor and no broken furniture." And I made it worse by pushing him to just spit it out because whatever bollocking I was going to get, I wanted to get it over with.

So he blew me away.

"Do me a favor and please, please take things slow and cautious with KJ. He is still hurting over Sythra and it won't take him much to get broken hard, I think."

Thankfully, I'm quick-witted and have a silver tongue. It's not easy to break my composure.

"WHAT?"

"He... came to me and told me you guys had dinner... Wanted to make sure it was OK with me."

"But... whu... but that... seriously! What the fuck Roc? That's not funny!"

My mouth went dry, my stomach tipped over and all I could think of were a thousand little shards of images of ways in which everything could go horribly, disastrously wrong.

"What would I do? Spark up a cigarette afterwards and say 'That's not how the rest of your clan does it?'"

Right in the forefront of my mind, the picture in which KJ dies, like everyone else I've let myself get close to. Even Roc... He seems alright now, but every time I see him I remember the sight of him sleeping in that hospital bed. So very still. And Veren, with his suspicions and needles and tests... Things broke between me and Roc then, I think, even though we kept on trying to pretend. Even before I remembered the other Brutor and the face from my nightmares.

"Seems he may be interested in pursuing something more with you. Well, I think he meant it, after all... He asked if I would be ok with it... so..."

I know there's not really a curse on me. It's just... a convenient term. Everyone I get close to won't necessarily get sick, go mad or die. There's simply no way... It just couldn't happen. I've had blood tests, scans, swabs... They've all found nothing. There's nothing there to find.

But it still happens. Every single time.

"Hell, every time I am home in Orien I have a list of older women asking if I have set him up properly yet..."

And another image, too. Of him bending down to pick something up in the Patriot's Locker Room, when he was wearing that damn uniform.

That one crops up a lot, actually. In general. Um...

Er, that's KJ, not Roc.

"Older women? He's older than me!"

Roc grilled me for a while on whether I felt anything for him. (KJ, again.) I was a complete hauler wreck, mentally. I mean, we all flirt, pretty much all the time. It's what we do. But I guess KJ doesn't normally flirt quite as much as the others. He tends to do that quiet, reserved, kind of sexy thing, sitting casually in a corner before coming out with something that makes me laugh hard enough to break a rib.

But I suppose he has been flirting a bit more lately.

With me.

And I've been flirting right back.

Lots.

Really lots.

"And of course I told KJ I was fine with it, he is a grown man... Besides, what should I have said? I'm married, Cierelle is due real soon, Nelle lives with me in Pator... I dont think my mind or body could handle a third at this point, so I can't tell KJ 'No, I still want Eva back,' can I?"

And there was that night in KJ's office, curled up on his sofa eating the slice of cake he saved from Cia's party for me while he sat behind his desk looking vaguely amused. It was like... like something was hanging there, waiting to happen. Like a cord in the air, stretched taut between us.

"I dunno... I kinda thought he would go after someone else."

"Someone else? Who?"

"I dunno... Just someone... Else."

"But Else looked like she was going for Gerrard. Which I think was quite an incentive for KJ in getting over her."

"Speaking from experience, one does not simply get over someone so easily. If at all."

Second choice? Am I just his second choice? Or is Rocius trying...

I always fuck these things up. If I say no, I hurt him. And he was with Sythra. And she hurt him so terribly, terribly badly. Well, not her. The one that killed her.

Fuck.

I always fuck these things up. If I say yes, I hurt him, but just later. And I will always be wondering, waiting for the day when he starts carving himself up with a screwdriver or just doesn't wake up in the morning.

Or wondering if he's going to call me "Elsebeth."

What the fuck am I gonna do? I really, really don't want to hurt him. My corporation depends on him, my alliance needs him... I need him. And I really don't want to get hurt again either. We're already friends. Really good friends. I need him. If I have to take personal time he makes sure everything doesn't go to Hel.

Fuck...

Hurt him now or hurt him later... It's a pretty clear choice I guess.

I know what I should do.

I just don't want to...

How To Do And Say In Minmataria: The Diplomat's Phrasebook

2007-03-15T15:47:00.002Z

With the diversity of language between different tribes today, it is important to be able to commuicate with their representatives in their own languages.

With an eye to making this easy on the budding EM diplomat, we hereby present the following useful diplomatic phrases, translated from the familiar Sebiestor into Vherokior, Brutor and Krushal.

Sebiestor: Oh, I say, old chap! You appear to be Kill on Sight! Shall we have at it?
Vherokior: Like... Woah... Dude! You are messing with my chi!
Brutor: Me smash!
Krushal: Huh?

Sebiestor: Golly, my alliance chums have flagged you as a competitor. I had best take up a defensive posture!
Vherokior: Man... that's just... like... totally kharma...
Brutor: Me smash you next!
Krushal: Sorry, did you say something to me?

Sebiestor: Your alliance is neutral. Shall we make a NAP ?
Vherokior: Duuuuude, you need to take a staaaaaand....
Brutor: Me hungry now
Krushal: Back in a mo...

Sebiestor: Ah, Toppers! Nice to see you, old pal, wot wot?
Vherokior: Yeah, man, we're like totally on the same wavelength (At this point, the diplomat should wave his or her arm back and forth in an even, horizontal motion to indicate said wavelength.)
Brutor: We drink! Honour fallen warriors!
Krushal: AFK a sec.

Sebiestor: Good-oh! We already have a NAP. Chuffing good news, eh?
Vherokior: Dude... (At this point, the diplomat should place his arm around the NAPed party and breathe on their face according to ancient Vherokior ceremonial practice) Dude... I LOVE you, dude! (To cry at this juncture is considered an excecptionally honourable gesture.)
Brutor: Sleepy now.
Krushal: What did I miss?

Sebiestor: Jinkies! You have behaved most inappropriately! I'm afraid I have no other choice than to wardec your alliance and/or corporation!
Vherokior: Bats! There's bats everywhere!
Brutor: Me smash.... IN RENS! Ha ha ha ha!
Krushal: Oh... bugger.

Sebiestor: Thank you ever so for agreeing to this negotiation, Legatus!
Vherokior: We just have to... like... make love... not war...
Brutor: (It is considered higly inappropriate to speak during the sacred Eating of the Amarrian's Leg.)
Krushal: Laaaag.

Sebiestor: These rats look rather japey. Can I hunt them here?
Vherokior: Uhhh... My landlord has like... totally locked me out of my spacestation. Can I crash at your pad?
Brutor: I will hunt these rats, as my father did and his father before him, into the very depths of time. The Spirits of my Ancestors will behold my prowess as a mighty warrior of the Tribes, and this day, I swear by this, my mother's Khuumak, we shall be avenged against the foul nation of Amarr! (This declaration is applicable in all parts of space, regardless of rat type.)
Krushal: I'm stuck on the gate

Sebiestor: Hmm. There's rather a lot of them. Shall we make a gang?
Vherokior: Party onnnnn. Duuuuuude!
Brutor: (There is no translation for this sentence into tribal Brutor. They do not need gangs.)
Krushal: I need to relog.

It should be noted, that when in Vherikior territory, if you do not know what to say, you should always say "Dude!" and invade your opposite number's personal space. The precise meaning of the ancestral phrase "Dude" is not known. Largely because no one cares.

Ghosts

2006-10-26T15:22:00.001+01:00

It had come as a shock to all of us, me more than most, I think. We'd had plans, dreamed up between us, schemes in progress, plots brewing, shared in secret glances, whispered in an impish grin, the mischievous quirk of an eyebrow.

What phases me most is how others treat me now. Everyone is so delicate towards me, and I feel confused. Do I feel too much? Not enough? Should I grieve as if for a lover? Should my pain for the loss of a friend be somehow less? Or simply different?

And the endless question: "Why?" Why did she do it? What drove her to make that single irrevocable choice? People ask me; they all expect me to know. But I was more in the dark than anyone - one moment she was there, and somewhere in the night, gone for ever.

I wonder what her thoughts were, in those last hours as her meticulous scheme was put into action - the clone contract cancelled, her possessions carefully sorted, listed, a detailed set of instructions for me on where and how to claim them. She resigned control of her corporation, passing it into new hands - a recruit exactingly chosen to be no threat to my future control. Then she set her comms system to block any attempt at contact, and made it permanent.

I never saw it coming, even then. She'd passed me goods before, ships to move or things to look after when she saw an unspecified threat. Her silence, too, was not so alien - she often blocked me out when she needed to focus, when an operation was too intense.

The final moment - did she walk into the chute? Jump? Or did she set a pistol to her head and end it the old fashioned way, let the drones deal with the empty flesh thereafter? That was more her style, but the end result was the same.

How many clones had she had, I wonder? Is it simply that, after dying so many times, she was stretched to thin? Too many bodies, too many tiny errors in the copying, to really recognise herself anymore?

In the end, was it just the last thing left for her to do? Had all else become so dull?

There were shocks in her legacy, things to make me think I had never known her at all. Evidence of a pirate past, and the trophies of her bounty hunting. The cold collection of bodies was chilling, but I somehow cannot bring myself to destroy them. They were hers, and all she left me will never feel like mine to dispose of.

Hanger after hanger of secrets. Strange bookmarks to unknown locations. Tender messages from some unknown someone, old but kept so safe.

And promises kept so poorly.

All gone, now, nothing but a protein vapour in the recyc tanks. All I'm left with is this absence, an aching void where nothing will be again, and a hanger full of ghosts.

Hangar Bay Blues

2006-07-19T18:07:00.004+01:00

Would I like a beer? Yes thanks. Oh... 'Am I the engineer?' That would be a yes too. What's the problem?

Ah shit, mate, that's pretty nasty. And your ship doesn't look good either. You've blown three of your capacitor banks and your shield booster mod is held on with string.

Oh... that's not string...

Ah, never mind, I'm used to it. I never get anyone sane in here - pass the torch... no, the welding torch, not the flashlight...

Oh shit... Now pass the flashlight.

Take Barashin, for example. He's always coming in here with with some part ripped off or leaking all over the place. No, I do mean his ship. Usually, anyway... I swear he does it on purpose - pliers please...

Came back last time from a bit of a brush against certain naval forces... shall we say, a bit of a liberation operation? They burned his electronics to shit and what does he do? Kicks the main bank until pure luck knocks something into place, that's what. Then keeps fighting. Suicide charge in the absolute... Hammer please...

Tch, what cowboy was in here before? It was you, wasn't it? You do know that the batteries from your walkman won't power your afterburner, don't you?

If you treat your ship well, she'll be faithful to you. Keep her in good nick, and she'll talk to you. In space round here, I can just shut my eyes and navigate by the sounds she makes. When the left forward turret starts to squeak, I know I'm going through the ice field at Rens. The nebula at Odatrik makes the fourth warp bank chug and the afterburner rattles like crazy when I'm diving into Transtellar at Abudban. I hear anything unusual and I know she's sick - time to take her in and patch her up a bit, or she won't help me the next time I need her...

And your ship? Well, she either loves you a whole lot to keep running like this, or she hates you and wants you to die by this point... Poor thing - look what you did!

Pass the superglue. No, that would be sulphuric acid. It's in a tube...

A tube labelled 'Superglue'... Oh, just get out of the way...

I swear, there's some defective gene in the Minmatar male. You're all violent nuts who live for the day some over-teched Amarr pimp blows you into space, and you don't seem to mind making it a little easier for them every time.

Gaffer tape, please. The black roll, not the silver one.

You like the risks. You like the danger. You like big guns and a lot of low-down and dirty violence. You have no common sense whatsoever..."

She straightens up, lifting a bolt gun that must weigh nearly as much as she does.

"Of course, the women have it too. It just looks a whole lot better on us."

KA-CHUNK.