For Old Times Sake

It took me a couple weeks to arrive in Essence from Evati after the Hellcats party. I stopped along the way to patrol some of the systems I was traveling through and try and catch up on rumors in various places. All I had was one of the free Rifters from the party, so I was being more cautious than normal. I had sent a short message to the Lady I had spent my night in Evati with; I had yet to hear anything. Probably for the best anyway.

On my way back, I had noticed an increased amount of people in local once I hit Sinq Laison. In the past, Sinq and lower Essence tended to be relatively quiet. Now though, there were a number of Battle Cruisers and Cruisers at the various gates I passed quickly through with local comms averaging 5-8 capsuleers. Arriving in my home system of Adirain, a number of reds showed up on local comms; Bushwackers. I shrugged it off as a passing gang and breathed a sigh of relief. I was back. The system hadn't changed while I was away. Not like I expected it to, but with those wormholes popping up all over the place you never know. I docked at the CBD station and made my way to my quarters. Inside, I collapsed on the bunk behind the desk not even noticing the cloud of dust that shot up from the mattress. Sleep overtook me like a Claw Interceptor.

*Beep* *Beep* *Beep*

What the hell was that. I awoke and looked for the cause of the damn noise. Oh, the comms console was going off with an awaiting message. I drag myself out of bed and make my way over hitting the receive button. I enter the security password and insert my finger into the biometrics for confirmation of identity. A rough feminine voice started talking.

"GT, how have you been? You could have at least let me know you were going off grid for a while you asshat. Do you know the kind of hell I had to go through to keep your things from being taken by FIO for crimes against the Federation?! I had to burn every favor I had in this backwater part of Essence to convince them to just secure the gear and place it under my supervision! Plus, it took me 2 months to erase the records that led them here without getting caught myself! You owe me. Oh yes, you owe me now you back end of a chingavatsu who has sex with gringats!" The message ends abruptly and is promptly scrambled and erased.

Yea, I missed you to Varnoka. Damn she's pissed. That message was almost a month old. She had probably calmed down by now. Maybe. Hopefully. I turn and look around my quarters. There wasn't any dust on the surfaces and the bottle of scotch was still in the middle of the desk unopened. The message attached to it was missing though. She must have read it when she came looking for me. I take a quick shower and change into some old clothes I have in the closet. Time to check the hangar and see if everything is in order.

All the gear and extra modules are stored and arranged neatly in their proper places. The ships appear to be in better shape than when I left. There are new fittings where the old malfunctioning ones had been. After a quick inspection of a few of the Rifters, it looked like maintenance had been performed recently and they were all ready to go.

I just stared at the Rapier class Recon in front of me. It was beautiful; three 650mm Artillery, two Shadow Serpentis Webifiers, a Republic Fleet Warp Disruptor, two large shield extenders, Micro Warp Drive, and a Covert-Ops Cloaking Device. The ship had sexy written all over it. I had never taken it out. Oh I was fully skilled to fly it, just never had the chance. One last hurrah was in order for old times sake. I had talked to Ka Jolo, my CEO, and recently made him aware of my intentions to leave the Tuskers. I had a wait till my roles within the corp were dropped before officially tendering my resignation. One last patrol out of respect for the corp was in order and this ship would be perfect.

I undocked and warped to my usual scanning position. I start the scan and sit back to relax. Almost immediately, the scanner returns a couple of hits. Two Vexors are off system plane, probably doing missions for one corp or another. There are two Thrashers though bouncing from one belt to another hunting The Serpentis that patrol there. I warp into a belt cloaked at 100 kilometers to see exactly what they are up to. I come out of warp and almost collide with the biggest damn veldspar roid I've ever seen. My cloak drops immediately from proximity. Damn there goes the surprise factor. One of the Thrashers is only 13km away from me. I start to lock him up and engage the webs, disruptor, artys, and MWD burning out to 27km.The Thrasher tries to return fire and close distance but is shortly nothing but a pile of scrap. I warp out of the belt and leave the pod on its own.

Back at my safe, I realized the other Thrasher never even seemed to react to the engagement. Interesting. And he is now back to warping from one belt to another. Man Barthelme appears in system and we decide to go after the Thrasher. I lock the Thrasher down in a belt and Man proceeds to make it scrapmetal. Not a thrilling fight, but it is good to work with an old corpy before I leave. Man moves on and I decide to make my way down to Vitrauze and check if any Hellcats are around.

A few Bushwackers appear in local as I leave Adirain. Aeschee seems to have its normal amount of people with most of local being reds to me. Onne and Hulmate have a few folks, but none are at belts or planets, probably doing missions for some corp. Then my scanner picks up an Archon. Then another Archon appears with a Nid... and a Thanatos..another Thanatos..another Thanatos..a Chimera all appear within a matter of seconds. What the hell is going on?! Thankfully I'm cloaked up. Nope, no cyno is up in system. I narrow down that they are all undocking from a station. After watching for a couple minutes, They begin to disappear off scan. Must be a covert cyno then from a ship I cant see or they are warping in system to bring the pain down on some poor POS. I warp to the Vitrauze gate. Time to leave dodge before the shit hits the fan.

As I jump into Vitrauze, my overview lights up with flashing reds and I hear the sound of a battle. I hold my cloak a second and try to figure out whats going on. There is a Drake, Legion, Hurricane, and Maelstrom on gate with drones out. A wreck is in the vicinity as well. My cloak drops as the drones following the Legion get close to me and I quickly hit the MWD while aligning to a planet right in front of me. Mashing down the cloak and warp buttons hoping I can get up to speed before they lock me. Almost immediately, I'm locked by what I think is the Legion and my warp shuts down. I'm starting to take damage and my shields are dropping fairly quickly. I target the Legion and Maelstrom putting my webbers on them while releasing my ecm drones on the Legion. I'm praying to get out of range of any scrams or that my drones will get a lucky jam allowing me to warp. I'm in armor by now and realize I'm not going to make it. My beautiful Rapier crumbles around me and I await warping out in my pod. Nothing happens as my ship explodes...

My pod is locked down and I'm taking some small amount of damage when one of the pilots opens comms with me. That is the last thing I remember.

Eve-O Fan Music

It has been a few weeks since my last post and I apologize for the break. One reason for the break was I have been trying to find fan made music based upon or influenced by the game we all love, Eve-O. I found mostly parodies with a smattering of original music. I also found out about a couple of people who are currently working on some music that has yet to be made public.

I know some of you were interested in my findings, as such I decided to make available a list for your enjoyment. I will list the artist first with a brief description and let you decide for yourselves who is your favorite. The artist are listed in no particular order. If I have misspelled anyone's name or given credit to the wrong person please let me know and corrections will be made forthwith. Enjoy.

Curzon Dax: Well known from the Eve-O forums for his parodies.

Alienhand: A DJ well known for his use of Aura voice overs mixed with various styles of music.

Luminus Aardokay: Parodies. DJ aMusic on SI-Radio and podcaster of The Planetrisk Show.

Suas: Parody. Found on you-tube.

Roc Wieler: Original music.

sweeteck2: Parodies. Found on you-tube.

NitroG: Parodies. Found on you-tube.

0eleuthereus0: Parody.

If you know of any other artist who have original music or parodies based upon Eve-O leave me a comment so I can include them in the list.

Voyage Home: Finale

I awoke feeling like a 1400mm Howitzer was going off in my head. There was something heavy on my arm. I drearily opened my eyes and saw something black laying on it. Oh, it was a head..attached to a body...of a woman..of a good looking sleeping woman. Man, why don't I ever remember the important stuff. Like, who is this and did we have a good time? I close my eyes and try to ease my arm out from underneath her. I feel her turn her head and she puts a hand on my chest, "Good morning GT." I open my eyes again and look at her. She is smiling lazily at me with that half awake look that makes me want to just stay in bed. Guess we had a good time.

I smile back, "Good morning gorgeous. I need some meds for this headache. Be right back." She smiles and rolls over going back to sleep. I get out of bed shakily and head for the bathroom. Wait where is it? Oh there it is. I open the cabinet and take some pain pills downing them with a pouch of water. You would think after thousands of years humans would have figured out how to fix alcohol from giving you a hangover. After splashing my face, I wake up a bit. I can already start to feel the meds kick in. Must be the good stuff.

Looking around, from the doorway of the bath, I start to notice this is definitely not anyplace I rented. Holo's of some blue and brown planet almost completely cover one wall. There are a couple of chairs around a low table in one corner of the room...the chairs have pinkish cushions on them. A desk in another corner faces away from the main door and has neatly arranged data consoles on it. Yea, not a rented place by a long shot. I look over to the bed. My robe, pants, and boots lay in a pile next to it. There is no sign of the woman's clothes. The bed cover barely conceals the woman's lower back. She appears athletic, about 5'6" tall, and of mixed parentage. The is a glow about her skin I just can't place. Maybe its that she is just so pale next to her deep black hair. She is beautiful by any measurement I can think of. And that begs the question; what the hell is she doing with me?

I move over to the comm console and put in an order with a local cafe for some breakfast food to be delivered in a half hour. I have no idea what this woman might like so choose a variety of different things. That done, I start putting on my clothes, quietly getting ready to leave. I don't want anything I had done last night or in the past to come back on this woman. The memory of my wife still haunts me. As I move to the door, I take one last look at the vision of what might have been. She really is beautiful. I wonder what her name is?

I make note of the address of the apartment as the door softly closes behind me. The concourse appears familiar and I realize I had passed through this area going from the hangar to the party last night. As I make my way back to the hangar, I turn over the idea of sending the woman a note. Let her make the decision of whether or not to continue whatever it is we have or had or.. bah. That decided, I stow my things in my Rifter and get ready to enter the pod. Who knows what the future will bring. The Black Sea is full of possibilities.