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."