Connections: Recovery

I felt oddly at peace, the thoughts of what had happened were distant. I felt weightless, warm, and comfortable, in an almost prenatal state. It really calmed my nerves which felt like they were buzzing with panic for some reason. I couldn't remember why.

I started to become aware of my surroundings; the heat of the liquid I was floating in, the drone of the machinery close by, and suddenly, the sharp tapping of something sharp on glass. My eyes shot open and I saw a distorted image of Amalea's face behind glass, her nail resting on it's surface.

Once the liquid had drained away and my dignity restored, I sat up in the alcove I had been sitting in and she tossed me a towel.

"What the hell happened? This is your medical clone, you know. I know you didn't just jump from somewhere!" she asked, helping me up. I looked around confused. I was sure my Medical clone was in our outpost in Null Sec. Why was I in Kusomonmon, in High Sec?

"I'm not sure..." I muttered, and paused for a moment, "I can't remember." A nervous, and rather venomous glare from Amalea to the technician at the controls had him jump and furiously type on his controls as he did a scan to see what happened.

"It all looks green, sir. No abnormalities." he said, "You really don't remember how you were podded?"

"No." I replied. I closed my eyes and tried to think. The last thing I remembered was buying a ship and going into a wormhole after Chadrick. I didn't remember coming out the other side.

"I bought a Buzzard and went into a wormhole." I said, uncertainly, "I don't remember coming out the other side."

"Hmm." the technician muttered, leaning back in his chair, "I understand that pods anywhere in New Eden are within range of the fluid router network for transfer of the pilots consciousness back to a waiting clone, even if death should happen in a wormhole. I'm also under the understanding that the process can't be tampered with. Maybe the presence of interference had corrupted the transfer?" He tapped a few buttons, "Everything we received from the fluid router network was integrated into the new clone. No errors on that end. Might be something from where it was sent from. A pod glitch?"

"Sure..." Amalea said sarcastically, with narrowed, suspicious eyes.

"I think you're being a little overprotective. The man is just doing his job." I reassured her. "I'm sure it will come back to me." There was an obvious look of worry in her eyes but she sighed and let me out of the room to get dressed.

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"What a waste of a perfectly good ship." Osiph said with a sigh as she took a sip of her drink. We had opted to check out the night life on board the station and were sampling the atmosphere of a rather high priced club, with several armed escort standing at the exits, all arranged by Osiph who seemed to be ignoring them. It was almost like old times, yet I was clearly not in the mood. It could have been that I just died, but the loss of memory had me just thrown for a loop. It was bugging me greatly that I missed that time. It was like a bad hangover that I couldn't shake.

"Still rattled from that last podding, Sain?" Osiph asked, concerned for my lack of witty comeback for her earlier statement to infer her lack of caring for my well being. I just wasn't mentally present tonight. My mind was wandering.

"What?" I asked, I wasn't paying attention.

"You alright?" Amalea asked this time, concerned. She gave my arm a squeeze to get my attention and I stopped staring blankly into my drink to actually take a sip and give them a reassuring smile.

"Yeah, just worried."

"About what happened?" Osiph asked, "It could have been worse. Could have been Mindlock or something."

"I'm not worried about that." I said, "About Chad. I can't remember what happened in that wormhole."

"It was probably some wormhole corp who caught both of you in their turf and podded you back home, or Chad probably saw you, got mad and shot you himself." Osiph said, waving a hand.

"He was in a pod..." I muttered, again, staring into my drink.

"Well the former then." She retorted, putting her drink down, "I'm sure he will turn up again somewhere. Let him be. He clearly didn't want you poking your nose in his business."

"I suppose." I said with a sigh, then downed my drink, lifting my finger to the waitress for another, "I'm just worried now about this memory loss. It's not very common for issues like this to happen in cloning procedures." The waitress left another drink in my hand, winked and meandered away, dragging Amaleas scornful stare as she left. I took a sip and my Neocom beeped in my pocket, before I swallowed I glanced at it and nearly choked on the alcohol, the liquid dribbled down my chin.

Chadrick Belefonte just transferred over six billion ISK into my account. The most amount of ISK I have seen since becoming a Capsuleer. Granted my total assets might be around that amount, but I've never seen my wallet contain that much. I felt an odd elation that was jaded by concern. I knew exactly where that money came from, and I felt bad to have it. It took me a few moments to realize that both women had jumped up to look over my shoulder at my Neocom, both had shocked expressions and neither said a word.

"Um, drinks are on me?"

Connections: Taking the Plunge

I returned to Null sec, the encounter with my friend weighing heavily on my mind. I chose to lounge in the outpost bar and update my log on the latest events, if anything but to sort out my thoughts and get them down. Donta milled around behind the counter and poured drinks, yet his attention was often diverted in my direction, or towards the holoscreen above the end of the bar, showing random corp adverts and the odd bounty here and there. I had finished logging my post in my records and spent a few minutes perusing the local market, looking for an opportunity when I sensed a foreboding presence looming over me from behind. I slowly turned to look over my shoulder, seeing Koswin standing there, holding a terminal with a seemingly demanding pose.

"More." she simply said, pointing to the Terminal.

"Excuse me?"

"Write more! You can't leave your logs off like that! What's with the cliffhanger?"

"Cliff....? What the hell do you mean?" I ask confused.

"This story about your friend from the wormhole. It's really good." she said sitting down, "How does it end?"

"Story?" I asked perplexed, "This isn't fiction! It happened!"

"So you didn't just make it up?" she asked, somewhat disappointed.

"No. And why are you reading my logs so quickly after I write them?" I asked, raising a brow.

"The whole corp reads them, but never mind that. So what do you think is going on?" She asked, "You think he's a spy? Possessed by a spirit? Having a mental breakdown?"

"Seriously?" I ask, a little taken back, "I don't know. I want to find out, but not if I'm going to get shot!"

"Aren't those pistols outlawed on stations?" Koswin asked.

"Yeah, but this was a Capsuleer owned Citadel." I said, "Plus, I'm not going to be the one to rat him out. Maybe I should just respect his wishes and leave him alone, but it didn't seem like it was him at all. He was completely different."

"You should go back and dig around a bit." She said, "And write it all in your logs. Write about everything!"

"Dammit, Woman! I am not your literary slave!" I retorted with a sneer. She laughed at me as she stood up to walk away.

"You're not?" She jokingly replied.

"Look, just put your whip away and I'll write when I have something, alright?" I heard her laugh as she left the bar and my attention drifted over to Donta who was still cleaning glasses with a wide smile on his face. I sighed heavily and stood to head to the medical bay.

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I woke this time in Jita, in an old Jump clone I had there just for checking the market and set to work buying and fitting a Buzzard for some recon and spying. I undocked and headed back to the Citadel that Chadrick was docked in, then after confirming he was still on the guest list, remained just above the undock lane while cloaked and kept an eye out for him if he ever wanted to leave.

I had fallen asleep several times in my pod before something happened. It was much later in the day when my watchlist flashed and I saw Chadrick's pod undock, then quickly warp away. Following the small craft, I kept my distance and tracked it many jumps away, towards a dead end system, then found it odd when he warped off in a random direction, not even close to any celestial or gates.

Curious, I still saw his pod on my D-Scan, yet had no idea where he went. I chose to uncloak for a brief moment, launch scanning probes and cloak again, then set to work trying to find what it was he warped to.

A few moments later, I found a wormhole.

I warped to the hole and saw the tiny pod sitting at the event horizon, there was a moment of hesitation, then it splashed through. The wormhole entrance shimmered for a moment and sensors indicated it was near the end of life. With a rush of adrenaline, I recalled my probes, rushed the wormhole and splashed through.

The ride was rough, I was tossed all around and the ride made me feel sick to my stomach. A moment later I was thrown out the other side and the wormhole vanished behind me, making my heart jump to my throat. I instantly re-cloaked and took a moment to orient myself, scanning the system I was in and trying to get my bearings. I took a while to study the results and it finally hit me. There was something missing in my scans.

This system had no moons.

A Shattered Wormhole? Why the hell would Chadrick come in here knowing he can't get back with just a pod? Was he planning to see something and self destruct to get back to Highsec? Confused, I saw the tiny pod finally drop the temporary cloak the wormhole had left on his vessel and he sped off towards a planet in the system. I was sure he had saw me when I switched to my own cloak and was trying to run away, so I instinctively gave chase.

Exiting warp, I ended up near the planet, its debris field nearly de-cloaking me, yet I saw no pod here. He should have clearly beaten to the planet, but he wasn't here. Initiating another D-Scan, I see his pod had come out of warp much sooner in between the planet and where the wormhole used to be, so I chanced dropping the cloak once more to deploy probes again.

There was indeed a site in that area, no doubt full of sleepers. I warped to it at twenty kilometers under cloak to see what was going on, and when I landed, my mind was nearly overwhelmed with sensor data from both the overview and the camera drone.

Dozens of sleeper drones buzzed around the structure. So many that I lost contact with Chadrick's pod as I frantically tried to filter out the overview list. In my panic, I neglected to notice that one had come a little too close and shorted out my cloak, and I appeared before an angry swarm which quickly took notice and instantly locked onto my small frigate. I had only enough time to finally notice Chadrick's pod sitting dangerously close to the center of the structure, but yet still intact before alarms started going off and I saw a bright light, then nothing...