Into The Black - Aftermath

Oh noes! It's Fiction Friday. Your escape pod is here to Ways of the Mew where the QCATS look Poetic Stanziel's March kill database and find that yes, they have been killing a lot in Eve!

Below is the finale of the 'Into the Black' series that has now been running for 14 weeks! Wow doesn't time fly! I hope you enjoyed it. Next week I have a standalone piece and then the week after that I'll be at Fanfest reporting on what happened on the Thursday in Rek.... Reyc..... Reykyu..... the capital of Iceland!


Into The Black - Part 14 - Aftermath

Private Kikshana held his breath. The target was lined up perfectly in his sights. All he needed to do was squeeze the trigger and he would end their life. Suddenly the fox smelt something in the breeze and bolted into the sparse undergrowth. The Private didn't care, if he'd fired they'd have been hell to pay. You don't discharge your weapon whilst on guard duty unless you are under attack or want to spend 6 months in the stockade. Kikshana pondered the choice there, would six months in the stockade be any more boring than this? He looked back to the large metal doors that were built into the mouth of the cave some 100m from his bunker. Every few days a small dropship would approach, enter the facility and depart a few hours later. He had no idea what was inside those huge doors, but he had been assured that this facility was of the up-most importance to the the State. He lazily walked around the small guard-bunker taking in the scenery. Whilst it was a barren planet, the atmosphere was breathable thanks to the terraform stations and there was some scrub and mammalian life. It would be a century or more before the planet was truly habitable. The small amount of plant and animal life had been brought here by freighter to get the cycle of life started early. The rock formations were breath-taking. At one point this planet had been a lava planet but had cooled millions of years ago. However, whilst the scenery was interesting, it was still a boring deserted planet.

Kikshana was gazing at they sky. It was dusk and the stars had started to faintly appear in the greying sky. A flash caught his attention, then several more directly ahead. He tapped the comm link on the side of his helmet.

"Control. This is Perimeter One. I'm seeing, erm, something, in the upper atmosphere directly above us."

"Perimeter One, this is Control, confirmed, we see it too, stand by."

Usually when he got that BS from Control they'd disconnect and he'd be waiting half an hour before they even thought to tell him to stand down. This time they had accidentally left the comm link active and he could hear feint voices in the control room.

"Well I don't know who they are! This is supposed to be a restricted system. What the hell are 6 unknown signatures doing on my radar?"
"Sir, we're repositioning a surveillance satellite now. We don't have anything else to show us what they are. They are not answering hails."
"Any response to our urgent call to Central Command?"
"No sir. Its strange. I cannot reach any of the Directors on the secure channels. Sir, satellite is repositioned. They are.... Phoenix class dreadnoughts sir, but they are State Navy. Friendly sir."

The officer picked up his headset and was about to hit the activate button when he noticed the link was still on.

"Perimeter One. Stand down. Contacts are identified as friendlies. Repeat contacts are friendlies."

The Commander of the base shook his head slowly and solemnly  He knew they were State Navy but not friendly. There was only one reason why six dreadnoughts would have jumped without warning directly above his facility. He grabbed his datapad and tapped out a three word message to his wife as fast as he could.

Private Kikshana tapped is comm link again.

"Control, roger. But it appears the contacts are launching ships. I'm seeing, 6, no 9, wow, now over a dozen engine contrails on approach sir. Not sure what dropships they are sir, I can only see engine flares in the atmosphere but they are moving fast. Erm.... real fast sir....."

The Private had approximately two seconds between the time the objects were close enough to see they were not ship-to-surface craft but were in fact citadel torpedo's and the time when he, and everything for approximately 15km, was vaporised.

-o0o-

Executor Heth shut off the monitor that focused on the molten crater. The high-resolution camera on the lead dreadnought had shown him the operation had been a success.

He pressed a button and a few seconds later his personal assistance Miss Marisaki entered.

"Yes Executor?"

"Miss Marisaki. The 2nd facility has been destroyed. How are we doing with the board?"

"Sir, they are talking. We have everything we need to bring formal charges."

"There will be no formal charges" Heth said in a cold-tone.

"Sir?" Given his recent behaviour, Marisaki was very worried.

"One of them will have been leading the project. He was killed in a accident or something similar, heart attack, whatever. Make it happen. The others, let them sweat under interrogation a while longer and then give them the news about the project leader. Make it clear that if they try anything like this again, I will not be so lenient. Then release them."

"You are letting them go?" Marisaki was astonished.

"Now is not the time for the entire board of a mega-corp to be charged with crimes against the State. So we make an example of the ring-leader privately to keep the other board members in-line. Other lower level conspirators will be dealt with as well as the Admiral who hid all this from me, but now is not the time for a media circus. Least of all we want anyone finding out the real reasons for this incident. We've had enough problems from CONCORD over the unprovoked OMS incursion and I've have had to imprison one innocent Admiral to keep them and the Gallente happy. Now go!" Heth dismissed her with a wave of his hand.

-o0o-

The frigate pilot adjusted course towards the stargate to compensate for a capsuleer ship that had cut him up. It would be another few minutes before he would be in range to jump. The pilot wondered why the Admiral didn't take a Navy capsuleer pilot, they got priority at the gates. Then he thought it was easier to get a standard pilot like him rather than arranging an egger. More questions would be asked and given the woman the Admiral brought on board he assumed he didn't want any questions asking. It was not the first time he'd done this sort of job. There had been a number of times he'd ferried high ranking officers and executives to the Gallente border zone complete with a..... the pilot wondered what the polite term would be? A companion? The Caldari and the Federation may be at war, but people still had needs, and the Gallente stations still were the best for that. The pilot chuckled to himself "That dirty old Admiral probably won't last the weekend with that hot piece of ass he brought on board".

Of course the pilot had no idea that was what the admiral wanted him to think. With Heth rounding up everyone connected with Project Turncoat the Admiral had ran. He wanted to make the pilot believe he was going for a dirty weekend with some tart like many of his officers did. So he'd booked into a resort one jump from Gallente hi-sec. Staying in low-sec meant that his background wouldn't be checked by crossing the border. He had called an agency to get him a girl. To anyone looking at his travel plans they'd just see what they wanted to see. Then when on the station he'd lose the girl, get some fake ID and cross into Federation space and hide. The State and Heth would never find him there and he had enough cash in his case to live on comfortably. The irony had not been lost on him. He was doing exactly what the two civilian fugitives had been trying to do before they were killed in the Nyx destruction.

Originally the girl had simply been brought along as cover. But now, well away from Caldari hi-sec the Admiral was starting to relax. He had begun to undress her. He thought he was paying for her company so he might as well get his monies worth. The 'brace for jump' alarm sounded as he pushed her back onto the bed.

Up in the cockpit the pilot locked in the next stargate and started to spool up the warp drive. As the cloak from the stargate dropped the threat indicators lit up immediately. He looked at the scanner and saw he had been locked by a Legion Strategic Cruiser. It was disrupting his warp drive and had engaged stasis webifiers. They weren't going anywhere. But the ship hadn't fired. The pilot pressed the intercom for the Admirals quarters. No response. He pressed it again. Still no response. He pressed a third time and the screen lit up with the admiral's face in a fury.

"WHAT?"

"Sorry Admiral. We've been pointed and webbed by a capsuleer."

"What?" The Admiral now looked scared. "Patch me through to that capsuleer!"

"This is Admiral Hakkana of the Caldari State on official state business. I would recommend that you disengage immediately otherwise the consequences will be severe!"

"Admiral Hakkana, greetings. I would disengage as you suggested, but then I would be disobeying direct orders from Executor Heth and I'm sure the consequences would be substantially more severe." replied the capsuleer.

The Admirals blood ran cold. He was about to plead with the capsuleer, to offer him a bribe, anything to save his skin. However he didn't have chance as the pulse lasers tore the frigate to peices.

-o0o-

President Roden signed off the final stack of executive orders for the day. His aid took the datapad.

"Any news of Asia?" the President asked.

"No sir. To be honest sir, the word from the Navy is that they doubt they'll find any more survivors in the wreckage. With all the EMP ordnance used, it is quite possible that her conciousness was lost in transit if her current clone died as the Nyx went down."

"Well CONCORD are blaming the Caldari for the incident at least. And what of our guest?"

"Singing like a canary since the Black Eagles extracted his wife from under the nose of the Templis Dragonaors sir. His account of the last week leading up to the last moments of the Nyx corroborate the story we assumed. He was intelligence officer for their version of Asia, charged with capturing the two fugitives  During the battle he decided to defect due to the questionable techniques of his superior. He, Asia and the the two State fugitives were trying to get to the shuttle bay when the Nyx broke apart. He became trapped the right side of an emergency blastdoor that slammed closed between them. He said he saw the three get blown into space. We're getting some great intel from him but are running out of time. He said he'd assist for a week in return for us placing him and his wife somewhere safe in the Federation away from the State with new identities. We're pretty sure he's telling the truth, the detectors are all green. It would seem he has no idea why the State wanted those two civs dead, he guesses they had intel on a defensive weakness or military secrets, something like that. But in the end its just a guess and his guesses are no better than our theories. To be honest sir I'm not sure it matters, the defection of a State Intelligence Officer is one thing, but one that the Caldari believe died in the battle, it's the intelligence coup of the the decade!"

President Roden nodded and the aide turned to leave. There was a lot of money invested in the Asia Project's infrastructure, but starting all over again with a new agent would require another injection of cash as well as a willing volunteer. He went back to the budget reports wondering where he was going to find half a billion credits laying around.

-o0o-

The two men speedily approached the cargo ship which was sat on the concrete landing pad. The starport maintenance buggy made an odd whine from its old, poorly maintained motor. The ships cargo bay doors were open and they could see dozens of cargo containers stacked high. The starport was hardly like ones at the heart of the Federation. On this backwater planet it consisted of half a dozen concrete pads, a small control tower and a hanger for storage. This was the edge of the Federation and a far cry from the central core worlds.

"You sure its just two chicks?" the larger of the men said in a low tone.

"Yes. I know Mik in the control tower. He said its two women that have been handling the ship. Their manifest says they are carrying MTAC parts for a mining operation and have stopped here on route for minor repairs. This is a dead-end system! Nobody stops here en-route to anywhere! Plus Mik says another ship he knows as a covert Serpentis blockade runner was supposed to be here at the same time but they got held up and relogged a landing requested for 48 hours later. Since then that cargo boat here has been making excuses to stay longer."

"So you think they are friends with the Serps?"

The smaller man rolled his eyes.

"The boss don't employ you for your cognitive reasoning does he?"

"Hur?"

"No dum-ass. The cargo ship the chicks are in must be loaded with boosters or some other contraband. They were going to meet the Serpentis here to trade the goods but the Serps got delayed. So they are hanging around pretending they got issues with their ship! All we has to do is rob the chicks and steal the loot before the Serps get here."

"We's only gonna rob them?" the larger man whined.

"Well I suppose ain't nobody about. We could have some fun if..... holy shit! Get a load of that!"

As the buggy slowed at the bottom of the ramp a stunning woman emerged from the cargo bay. Her jet black hair glistened in the early morning sun. Her revealing clothes showed off her flawless skin. She was joined by another woman a few seconds later. Whilst not quiet as attractive as the first, she would be considered beautiful on her own. Younger with flowing chestnut hair. Again she was barely dressed, her outfit was more suitable for a night out in a Pleasure Hub than working on a cargo ship.

"Hey guys. Can we help you?" the black haired woman called as she walked down the cargo ramp towards them.

"Yeah" sniggered the smaller one of the two as he jumped from the buggy and started up the ramp closely followed by the larger man.

"We wondered if you could fight back as we show you what a real man feels like. We like it rough. Oh that is before we steal all those boosters or shit you have in your hold." he said producing a scrambler pistol from his pocket. "Play nice and we'll let you live."

"Oh dear" the Gallente woman laughed "You cannot be serious!" she almost doubled-up laughing.

The two men looked at each other confused. These women were supposed to be begging them not to hurt them, not laughing in their face.

"I'd not be laughing if I was you!" the smaller man said, a touch of uncertainty in his voice "First I'm going to unload this into you," he grabbed his crotch with his free hand and shook it "and if you don't co-operate real nice then I'll unload this into you!" he said whilst waving the pistol with his other hand.

"Which one do you want?" the black haired woman asked the brunette. The younger Caldari looking woman looked the two men up and down carefully placing her fingers on her chin as if she was choosing a sandwich in a cafeteria  "Mmmmmm. I would normally have said short-arse, but he's got the gun so may be you could go with him and I'll take the big guy?"

The two men look at each other in absolute confusion.

"I suppose that's fair, I mean I usually get the big one don't I?"

The two women changed places and started down the ramp towards the men who now stood open mouthed. As soon as the women were within a few feet, they struck. The black haired woman's leg came up in a lightening fast kick which knocked the small man's gun flying. The large man was about to move forward when the other woman jabbed him in the throat with the tips of her fingers. He made a croaking sound as he struggled for breath, his hands clutching his throat as he staggered backwards. She followed up with a well placed kick to the groin. The big man fell to his knees not knowing if to cradle his throat or between his legs. The short man faired no better as a series of kicks struck him in the head and stomach which knocked him down the ramp. The women backed off and the two men beat a hasty retreat back to the buggy. The women waved goodbye and turned back to the ship.

"Not bad Kara, nice moves."

"Thanks Asia. I had a fairly OK teacher." she smirked.

The two women laughed and then froze as they heard a rifle cock behind them. They slowly turned. The small man had retrieved an assault rifle from the buggy and levelled it at them.

"OK bitches. Strip! We're going to have our fun plus enjoy making you scream now and then we're...." the small man stopped as a mechanical sound emanated from the cargo ship. Two hatches, one on each underside of the ships stubby nassels opened and a pair of heavy neutron blasters dropped and pivoted to face the buggy.

The short man dropped the rifle immediately and stuck his hands high in the air.

"OK bitches, YOU strip!" Asia said with a laugh. The men looked on in horror.

"You heard the lady! Strip or be vaporised. 5, 4...." Kara started a countdown on her raised hand.

At the number three both men started ripping off their clothes as fast as they could and Kara paused with two fingers held in the air. Within 20 seconds both men stood naked, cupping their privates and looking very sorry for themselves. The two women were doubled up with laughter.

"Now get out of here!" Kara shouted and the two men turned to the buggy.

"Ah, ah, ah! No, you guys need to run as that buggy will be toast in 5, 4....." both men realised what she meant and started sprinting away.

"3, 2, 1." as she dropped the last finger to form a raised fist the blasters erupted in a maelstrom of subatomic particals and super-heated plasma. The buggy vanished in a ball of fire.

30 seconds later Dorn appeared from the cargo bay watching the two men run away, stark naked, into the distance.

"OK, no more of this! Next time we make it clear there is a man on board. That will stop this from happening every time we stop on an outer rim system like this!"

"Awww captain" Asia said in a comical whine "We girls need to have some fun on these long boring courier missions."

Kara went up to the captain and kissed him deeply.

"She's right. It's not fair I get all the action onboard is it." giving his behind a squeeze.

Dorn rolled his eyes and shook his head slowly.

"You two will be the death of me! Now, when you have finished playing with the locals, can we get this cargo ready as the Serps will be here in a couple of hours to collect. Then we've had an interesting contract through our broker. Apparently we've got this offer from an idiot in a shiny suit......."


The End



So there you have it. The Eve movie I'd like to see. Now just need someone to take the story and turn it into a screenplay and find a few tens of millions of dollars to finance it. Serenity cost $40m but Joss is much more hot property these days. So is Fillion and Kunis. Even Fox. Bah might need a bit more than a lottery win :(