Decisions

I was taken to see the cargo hold of a Freighter from the inside. It boggled my mind to see the sheer space compared to my tiny body as I stood in the massive room. The cargo capacity was only a figure to me before. A number on an info sheet about the ship. The crew was very nice and accommodating to me. I even forgot I was wearing a side arm after only a few minutes of being there. I saw more than a few crew members tweaking various things and I thought of the things I could do with a mere thought while these people did it manually.

I thought it would be best to return to my Captain's Quarters the same way I came in, stripping my clothes once more to get in the pod, only to dock at the catwalk a moment later to disembark again. I decided that it would be a good idea to not tell anyone what I was doing and it was made sure the rest of the crew knew not to speak of it. Their existence was kept secret for a reason and I'd rather not be caught knowing it by the wrong people. This is something that will rest in the back of my mind and plague me.

Sitting on my couch I hung my head in my hands and sighed. I saw it when I came in, and it threw me into depression once more. I raised my head and stared at the screen in front of me. War. Again. What the Hell? It was the same people as before. A corp for hire to wardec others I suppose. Another two weeks of no mining, loss in profits, and probably wont make another PLEX again to rescue Amalea. Maya still wasn't talking to me.

Then a new comms channel started blinking...

"Hey, Sain! Long time!" It was Chadrick. His Amarrian face filled the screen on the wall.

"Yeah. What's up?"

"Look, about that help I offered. You know, to mine with your friend." he began.

"Out with it, Chad."

"I priced them there barges and the're real pricey, see?" he said, wringing his hands. The expected day had arrived.

"You want one of mine?" I asked, "I don't have a spare. You do know why I asked you to help right?"

"Your friend went missin' when her licence ran out, right?" he asked, "Yeah, so?"

"She was flying my spare at the time." I said, "And I need the money to save for a PLEX to find her."

"Can't you mine now?" he asked, "Isn't that war over?"

"Another just started." I huffed, "I'm stuck in Hek in my freighter."

"Ah that's shitty, man." he said, "Look, I'm not that good at minin' anyhow. I can only fly the starter barge too."

Then it clicked. It made sense. I wanted to stay in my corp because of the community and resources it brought, but could not use them here. I was no combat pilot, which is what was needed now. And knowing what I know now, I couldn't fight knowing all my ships were crewed.

"Chad. I have an idea."

"Shoot."

"We switch places." I said, "You agree to join my corporation and help in the war, I go back to my private corp and then I can help them by hauling with my Charon. What do you think?"

"I get to shoot people instead of staring at rocks?! I'm in!" he said with relief.

He cut off and I made some calls. My CEO was fine with the swap if I can still help. He marked my private corp as friendly, then called up my sister Osiph to get me back in my own corp. She wanted to hand me the CEO role again, but I refused, since she was doing a great job of it anyway.

When I warped into the belt Maya was working on and pulled my Hulk up beside her Mackinaw, there was a sizeable pause as I assume she was trying to figure out if I was daft before she read my corp ticker again.

"What did you do?!" she asked over comms.

"I fixed it. Let's mine. We need to save your sister."

"Right." She responded after a pause. I expected the silent treatment was over.

Spring Cleaning

It's funny how people you consider friends act like the total opposite at times. I haven't heard from Chadrick Belefonte since he messaged me and said he would help me mine. Haven't seen him, no e-mail, no trace he till exists. Still, now that the wardec is over, we are pulling in ore again and my wallet is increasing once more, but it's slow work.

I've also decided to go back and clean out some of my hangars in Libold. I found an old Mammoth floating in the Caldari station left unfitted and alot of random modules and whatnots. I threw it all in the Mammoth and flew it to Aldrat, selling the stuff and the ship in the Eve University's Headquarters, hoping some new capsuleers would buy my stuff instead of trekking the 5 or so jumps to Hek for cheaper. I really need to try this more often. Taking advantage of other people's laziness.

Coming back to the Caldari Libold station, I inquire about the darkened Vexor in the far corner of my hangar and I'm told it's mine, so I dock my pod in it and have a look. It was then that the memory of it's purchase returns. I fit it for fighting other pilots, for some odd reason, having a dual Stasis Webifiers, a Warp Scrambler, Afterburner, some Drone Damage amplifiers, Medium Railguns (Already loaded too with Antimatter charges) , and here's the kicker, 3 light drones. An Amarr, a Gallente and a Minmitar drone. What the hell was I thinking?

I started to undock to drag the thing to Aldrat to see if someone would take it off my hands. Maybe just put all of it on contract or something. But as I arrive in Aldrat and see my Blackbird on my asset list, docked in another station, I realized that during war, the only ship I have that can help in any meaningful manner is that ECM ship. So instead of selling it, I bought some proper drones for it and tucked the ship in beside my Blackbird to collect dust until needed in another war.

Now I start posting sell orders on the market for my various wares and quickly run out of market order slots, only getting half my stuff up. I also hauled a load of minerals to Hek, which has to sit there now until someone buys something from me and opens up some market slots. Maybe I should add trading training to my list of things to do.

On another note, Maya is still not talking to me. We mine together fine, but it's gone back to the way things used to be when we first started this, like she doesn't trust me anymore. She stayed back in Hardbako while I took the Charon to Hek. I now sit in my Captain's quarters and stare at the large display before me, my mind wandering off.

I glanced around the room, noticing the door that never opens and my mind went off again about what could be on the other side. I tried opening it several times and get a message saying something about the air not being suitable for capsuleer use or something, like it's contaminated. I have been to other parts of the station, like the Bar or Market, Militia offices, Medical, Repair shops, even Bounty offices, but there's this door in every Captain's quarters that I've been in that will not open no matter what I did. I heard there was a passkey blueprint floating around that supposedly opens it, but the materials on it don't even exist, and it turned out to be a hoax among capsuleers.

I turned away from it and spun the holographic Charon on my coffee table and then brought up the ship information out of sheer boredom. It listed the cargo capacity, shield, armor, and hull strength and resistances, speed, agility, and every other feature the massive freighter had to offer.

At the bottom, was something called "Cross-capsule Variant ".

This is something that piqued my interest. I've never noticed this before. I clicked the attribute and read about what this was. As a capsuleer, to pilot a ship you are confined to your capsule so you can control it and if something should happen to destroy your ship, the capsule is ejected to save your life. Furthermore, if your capsule should be breached, it was designed to end your current life before you were killed by explosion or the vacuum of space and you wake up in a new clone. That's supposedly how capsules work. There was no getting out of your pod unless you were in a station. A Cross-capsule Variant ship had a capsule gantry that allowed the capsuleer to exit their capsule while inside a ship. I've been out of my capsule on Mining Barges before, so I suppose those are Cross-capsule Variants as well, but they were small enough for me to pilot manually alone. I wondered about something bigger...

I glanced over my shoulder to see my un-named Charon floating in the Hangar past the catwalk railing and my mind wandered once more. Moments later, I was back in my pod and entered my freighter, my senses expanding, leaving the confines of my body to encompass the entire ship. This is what I'm used to. I've switched ships many times before, I searched my control for some form of reference to this Cross Capsule feature, and I found it buried deep in the controls used to leave the ship. I hesitated for a moment before activating it not knowing what I would find, then my existence shrunk down once more to be jammed back into my own head, but the pod did not open like when docking with the station or in a Mining Barge. The ship was still docked in the station, yet my connection to the ship was severed and I found myself floating in darkness and pod goo. It was like the Capsile had just powered off. I reached out to touch the walls and banged on them as best I could, but nothing happened.

At first...

I suddenly felt gravity. The pod lurched from it's docking clamps and turned clockwise. Then the liquid inside quickly drained away and a breather was placed over my mouth. A sort of dark mask stuck to my skin and I trusted it to be needed. I leaned forward, rising out of the seat in the bottom of the capsule and put my ear to the hull, trying to listen. There was a flash of light as the hatch suddenly opened and I was blasted with humid air. I fell, stumbling out on to a smooth metal floor as the compartment containing my station clothes opened beside me. I composed myself and stood up, coming eye to eye with a young girl barely in her teens holding a screen in her hands and staring wide eyed at me. I assumed it was because I was still naked, but when I stood up, she screamed and ran from the room, leaving me rather confused.

I quickly dressed and equipped a Parapistol to my belt as I started to explore the inside of my ship.

I left the large room the capsule was now in and read the label on the door as I exited, "Bridge" it read. It was a rather large room with the capsule directly in the middle of it, like the bridge of a barge. I continued on the dimly lit hallways, my boots rattling the now metal grated floors. Hearing footsteps ahead I grip my pistol and duck behind a girder to hide. I watched as two men in uniform run past into the bridge in a panic and the young girl from before casually walked past, trying to look over their shoulders to see what they find. I listened as best I could.

"What do you mean it's open? It's never open!"

"Look! It's open!" the other replied.

"And you said a man came out?" One man asked the girl, "Wearing a mask?"

"Yes." she replied, "And naked..."

"This is bad. A capsuleer shouldn't be walking around his own ship. Especially with the crew." he said.

"Why not?" the girl replied.

"Because he could die." he answered, "He's not a Mercenary that has internal implants for the cloning technology. He needs to be in his capsule for him to be able to wake up in a clone if he dies. Besides, the air here is contaminated for him. The air is for us planet born Humans and isn't clean enough for capsuleer clones to breathe like in the other section of the station."

"She did say he was wearing a mask." the other man said, "Maybe it was a feature of the capsule."

"The main question is, where is he now?"

"Maybe he's hiding." The young girl said.

"Why would a man unafraid of death be hiding from his own crew on his own ship?" the lead man scoffed, "He's our boss for crying out loud."

"Actually, sir." the other man interjected, "I heard that most capsuleers don't even know there are crew on their ships. They think it's only them piloting it and no one else."

"What?"

"This information censoring is intentional. Otherwise, capsuleers may think twice about bringing ships into battle. Sometimes, suicide missions are normal among them and they won't think twice about killing themselves because they know they will come back. If they knew they had crew on board, well, some may hesitate." he explained, "Even Mr. Darkwing has hesitated to bring out his ships during wars."

I couldn't take it any more. I had to talk to these people. I holstered my pistol and walked out from behind the bulkhead I was standing behind. My boots on grating caught the group's attention. I pretended to be inspecting something on the ceiling. Casually, I rapped my knuckles on the door frame,

"So this is what the inside looks like." I said, "You seem to keep a nicely running crew."

War, What is it good for?

Absolutely nothing.

That's pretty much what I had left after buying a PLEX to keep Maya flying in the Orca. I usually keep my finances secret from others and she was happy to see her license time extended, but she seemed determined to get right back out and help mine. I was agreeing with her. The wars are over and my Hulk once again graces the belts, noming the roids as it were.

But there's something I'm missing. I don't think I'm doing this right. I hear of others supporting alot more than one pilot on their income and do it easily every month. There has to be more to it than just mining. I think I need to get involved a bit more in other aspects of industry. Not just me, but Maya too. I need to start looking into something to manufacture and rethink some of my planetary installations. I also need to ask Maya to start training the skills necessary for her to have colonies of her own to pull in just that much more ISK. I hear on the subspace network that some significant changes to Industry are coming to stations and Empires are soon allowing POS's to be put up without need for standings. I haven't heard if they still require charters, but we will see. Those changes aren't happening for a while, but in the meantime, I hear some new ships will become available and some current ships are getting redesigned.

One of them I am looking forward to. I haven't flown Caldari ships besides my Charon in a while, the Moa is one I used to own but sold because I just didn't like the look of it. It's odd to dislike a ship just because of it's appearance, but when your view of the universe is locked to a camera drone buzzing around your ship, it's something you're always looking at in space. The new design for the Moa is sleek and for once, symmetrical.

I am thinking of buying a BPO and getting it researched for when the changes come out and people would be looking to buy them. Might just start training my cruiser skills and Medium Hybrid turret skills to fly one myself, when I'm not mining.

Like I mentioned, two wars ended last night, yet I've been in the belts for the past few days. The Alliance rules for wars do not prohibit mining or missioning during wars, but state only that we have to do it in the home constellation and to watch local for war targets. That's what I did. I was starting to go stir crazy in station and found a fairly low population system near Aldrat to mine in. I made sure to look up info on every pilot in local, and I even used my D-Scan for once to see what they were flying. It was fairly comfortable when all I saw was other Orcas and Hulks but I became wary when cruisers and battleships appeared. I kept telling myself they were just missioning, but I was paranoid that they were all spies out to get me. I've been told its not the wrong mentality to have in this universe, but it's no way to live. Once the war was over, I felt like I could finally relax and I happily cleared out my watch list, then got to work with even Mining drones out.

"Sain, come in." Maya's voice came over comms finally yesterday after a long time of silence since the war ended.

"Go ahead." I replied.

"I've been meaning to ask, and it's not that I'm ungrateful, because I am, but..." she said, then stopped.

"Yes?"

"Why buy another PLEX for me?" she asked, "You could have sent it to Amalea. You could have rescued her from wherever she is." I knew this question was coming. Why did I choose to not save her sister and give her the time instead so we can make money over saving a life. It might come down to the way capsuleers view life opposed to normal Humans, not really valuing the life of a capsuleer because of the cloning technology, or the varying levels of greed they have, but in my mind, her sister was safe, just....out of reach. As if she was isolated from the hell we call New Eden in a place she could never be touched by pirates or gankers out for the modules on her ship. She was new at being a capsuleer and had never died since becoming one, and Sain felt like she needed to be protected until she gained more experience, like her sister Maya has. He realized he had left her words hanging between his Hulk and her Orca as they gently float between the asteroids. Sain found himself staring at rocks.

"We make more money together than I could alone. More than if Amalea and I worked together because her skills aren't high enough." he said. It sounded like the answer a greedy, ISK hungry capsuleer would say, but the fact was that he wasn't sure himself exactly what the reason was.

"You did it because you wanted to make more money?" She asked, her words shaky over comms. She sounded upset as she should be, but there was more to this than she knew as well. Extending her time was a part of my general plan to get enough isk to save her sister. With an Orca in the field to increase ore yield, shorter PI schedules bringing in more resources, and my own sister Osiph in Dodixie training manufacturing skills to help with money, it would be a combination of all sources to fund the second PLEX for Amalea.

"We need money now, Maya. We need it to save your sister." he said.

"You had the money. You had the PLEX in your hands!" she stopped and gasped, "I had it in my hands! This is my fault! I could have used it for her!"

"No, no. Maya, you mustn't think that way. Trust me I have a plan." I tried to reassure her, but I could hear her sobbing over comms. I've never heard her cry before.....Ever. There was a long pause and during mining procedures, I get a warning before my eyes.

"Maya, the Fleet Hangar is full. Can you move the ore to the Ore Bay?" I ask. There was no response on comms as the connection was cut. The Fleet Hanger suddenly emptied and I was able to put more in. She still seemed mad, but I swear I will make things right. I'm hoping "The Player" will come through for us in the end and help, if it even exists.

The Woes of War

Again we've been targeted by war, and after two weeks, the enemy has racked up enough damages to extend the war by another two weeks. Not to mention, a second corp has declared war as well, meaning more targets to shoot at me.

This has taken a huge hit to my income, and I have a full Charon sitting in my hangar, ready to haul ore to Aldrat for refining. Yet I dare not take it out during war. I won't even mine both from fear of losing my barge and causing even more money to be added to the damages of our war report. Maya has gone to try and be productive in Egyfe to see if she can get some ice and mine in the area when the ice belts run dry. She seems to be getting a little annoyed with me, or rather, the situation and knows that with me unable to mine means no money for a PLEX. Her own license was also running out and we both had hopes to make enough for a spare to somehow apply to her sister's license and rescue her from wherever she had disappeared to when her's ran out in a belt.

This time was a little different for the war though. I actually tried to get involved. I trained a doctrine fit for a Blackbird, an ECM cruiser used for jamming sensors of the enemy. I sat in an Aldrat station and actually joined coms for a while, waiting to be called out to start jamming the enemy, but they ended up running away and not taking out bait. It was going to be the first real fight I've been in, and it just didn't happen.

Another friend of mine had heard that my corp was constantly getting war decced and contacted me recently. It was short e-mails back and forth, but he actually offered to train himself for a Retriever or Covetor to help Maya mine. A corp member of Darkwing Inc. I believe Osiph must have let him in.

Chadrick Belefonte. A rather sophisticated name for an Amarrian, like he had some nobility in his blood. I've known him for a long time, but rarely kept in touch, each time under friendly circumstances. Although I do recall loaning him money for new ships a few times and not seeing a single ISK in return...

He says he's mostly mission running now, a bit of exploration on the side, but for some reason he did have a rather significant dip in his security status in the past, so I was always wary of the man.

"Chadrick Belefonte?" Maya had to repeat it to make sure she had it right. I stood on the catwalk of my captain's quarters and stared up at my Blackbird hovering in the Hangar above me, Maya on comms through my internal implants.

"Yes. Have you met?" I asked, an odd sneer on my face.

"No. Can he be trusted?" she replied, voice full of uncertainty.

"No, but cut him some slack, would you. He's a friend."

"You keep odd company, Sain." she said, "When will he be here?"

"He hasn't finished training for a barge yet." I said, "Then he has to get one..."

"You make it sound like you're expecting a favor from him."

"Is it that obvious?"