Dispirited Evening

I closed the comm channel, and a quiet sigh escaped my list. The kind of sigh you make when you know something is really bothering you but you can't quite place your finger on what.

My quarters in 98Q were sparse and felt barely lived in, I had spent most of my time in my pod or in quarters of a ship in my hangar. Somehow I always ended up back in here when I joined holo channels like the summit.

I refilled my glass with more whiskey, the clear bottle, label-less belying it's smugglers nature. Good drink was so hard to find in a 'hostile' station. While I had grown so used to my connections in TXW, the people here had grown used to the demands of IRED. Those things had been, well, disrupted would be one word, hectic another, since 'we' had dropped by.

It surprised me how much was different between my quarters here and the quarters I had in TXW. Here felt like just another berth, but somehow TXW felt like home.... or at least a kind of home. I sipped my whiskey, my free hand pushing my chair away from the small comms console and walking in front of the enormous holoscreen. I turned to face the broadcast, it was some sort of baseliner news, murders, wars, deaths were the headlines, in two words, background noise.

Another Sansha invasion here, another abduction there, various capsuleer wars, the ever simmering Militia wars. Numbers trickled over the screen, overlays on overlays trying to unweave the tapestry of capsuleer relations to the baseliner level. I nearly snorted... reflecting more on 'home.'

Recently TXW had been feeling a lot less like my home. It had started when Usagi took her hound and more importantly, her cute ass off to see 'family' deep in Gurista controlled Venal. Initially we had talked often, but as usual, things slowed down. I hadn't heard from her in months, and then I went looking for trouble.

I found some welcome trouble in the arms of another capsuleer, and that had helped, for a while. Up until she had also disappeared, maybe moved on was a better term... And then I had moved onto real trouble. Finding another link to my past I had through avoided, or at the very least, buried. I frowned, mentally muting the holoscreen.

My eyes refocused, and I found the glass of whiskey waiting at my lips, I took a sip... the alcohol sliding down my throat. At least my body knew what to do. Home is where the drink is. I walked back over to the table, grabbit the still half full bottle of whiskey before moving back towards my hangar.

Mentally I scrolled through my local ship hangar, flipping through their pods and beds, wondering where I would end up tonight.

Breaking news : Ancillary Shield boosters causing uncounted crew deaths

"... And this just in. On call we have a Professor of applied shielding and engineering at the School of Applied Knowledge, as well  as a crew member from a Caldari Merlin Frigate piloted by an undisclosed capsuleer." Both men nod, the professor's circular glasses glinting in a in the reflected studio lights. The crewman looks around a bit nervously, the light glinting off a deep puckered scar along his cheek. The Anchor turns to the audience, smiling and steeping his fingers. "To get you caught up, it appears the despite all the so-called safety precautions deployed with newer systems into the," he raises his hands, quoting, " exclusive capsuleer market, there still remains some defects." He lowers his hands, turning back to regard the two men to his right.

"Now, reports are coming in from various crews that the new module line called," He consults his notes for a second before looking back up. "The Ancillary Shield booster or, in capsuleer slang, the 'ASB,' class of shield repair systems, are not working as intended and have been the root cause for more than one crew death since they have been used, over the last few months."

The Professor couldn't keep his silence and burst into the conversation, his slightly nasal voice fitting his scholarly look perfectly. "These are nothing but rumors. These modules are used on a day to day basis elsewhere, besides on capsuleer ships. They operate well within normal parameters even under extreme stress. Their effectiveness has been proven time and again even with their short deployment time. It's not like we just released these modules without testing them." His fingers tapped a staccato beat into the wooden desk of the Anchor, staring intently out at the camera's. Apparently completely oblivious to the crewman's growing agitation next to him.

The anchor nodded, continuing, "Well apparently these modules aren't as reliable as you make out. For instance, just this past week, we received this video from an anonymous source. This is from another capsuleer Merlin frigate, apparently fit with not one but two of the ASB modules." The video feed cuts to the inside of the frigate, a single man hunched over the control console of the ASB, while warning alarms went off through the ship, the faint sound of discharging blasters color the scene. The Anchor continues, in voice overlay of the video. The Professor tries to interject a few times but is muted out over the voice overlay, his instance that even fitting 8 ASB wouldn't cause a catastrophic falure, left unheard.

"The ship was apparently under attack by an Enyo class Gallente frigate" The Anchor's voice sneers out the name of the Gallente ship, doesn't attempt to keep his opinion of that race silent. "Now the interesting part is coming up, apparently the Merlin's two ASB, seen in to the right of the engineer were set into overload by the capsuleer in a defiant attempt to keep his ship alive." Previously inactive circuits light up on the screen to the right of the engineer, his back to the video stream. The capsuleer commands overrode the safety parameters of the ship, squeezing out a few more precent from each booster.

"Now everything seems to be okay, but if you look at the lower right side of the engineer..." A small yellow box highlights a power transformer built into each ASB that moves the power between the loaded capacitor boosters and the shield boosting device. "The transfer bus operating under the strain will begin to show signs of wear." Both transfer bus appear to heat, with small lightning like arcs connecting with the floor close to the engineer. The Engineer spins around to see the module begin to fail. "Now here is where we see catastrophic failure in both modules, quite frankly the following scene is not pretty, please pay attention."

The module bursts, shooting shrapnel through the compartment, several pieces hitting, passing through, the already retreating Engineer, arcs of electricity following in their wake as the cap charges continue to discharge into the interior of the room. The arcs catch the engineer just above his rib cage, sending him flying to into a nearby chair, toppling it. The Engineer tries to push himself up, a black scorch mark the size of a fist on his chest. His other wounds are bleeding now, turning his uniform red. He collapses, just as other crew charge into the now dead quiet room. The video cuts as the other crew reach him...

The Professor has gone a whole new shade of sickly greeny pale at the grisly images. His mouth working soundlessly as he attempts to process the information, refute it somehow. The crewman leans forward, his face red with anger, nodding, looking away from the feed. "That's not even a bad overload. These modules are rated to be used in overload settings for quite some time before burning out and everything the manuals say indicates they will burn out to an inoperable state just like the rest of the modules that those eggers can use." His voice raising as he talks, overcoming his fear of speaking. "Not just EXPLODE because they are under some stress." He looks at the camera, his eyes red and partly tear filled, his story coming out in a quick burst. "I was on a Maelstrom down in Molden Heath, when our dual X-Large ASB's failed the resultant explosion killed 9 people including the engineer and disabled other critical systems." He trails off, his haunted eyes re-living the carnage. "I wasn't able to get clear either, I lost a chunk of my left leg and" His hands move up to the scar on his face. "And this, for my service." He shakes his head, looking down.

The Anchor saw his chance and took it. "Now if I'm not mistaken CONCORD and the manufacturers are supposed to set the safety limits on new devices, pass basic and advanced load testing to make sure things like this don't happen on our ships let alone capsuleer ships..." The Engineer glared at the anchor, knowing he was getting baited, but unable to stop his reply.

"Yeah fat lot of good those bastards are doing. These modules are killing people all the time, capsuleers don't care and the manufacturers always blame the engineers for some faulty process!" The crewman's knuckles are white, gripping his knee's. "It's utter bullshit, these things are dangerous, we inspected our ASB upon delivery, and even the chief engineer didn't like how they looked. Their construction is set in a way to maximize the power gained from each charge, but at the expense of crew safety in every way." He was shouting at the end, leaning forward towards the Anchor who just sat there with the same mute smile on his lips. "They have no shunt to safely ground failures, and in the case of an emergency, they have no power overrides or shut downs built in. These things would reduce the effectiveness of each module, and it's not like the capsuleers want that! Hell they double up on the modules, flipping them both on at the same time, doubling their inductance issues, it's no WONDER they explode!"

The Anchor interrupts, being sent new information via the teleprompter. "It seems as if these modules are still undergoing CONCORD testing, and they are finding some of the same problems, including catastrophic failures." The Professor is leaning back in his chair now, watching the conversation with some interest. A new graphic fills the screen showing a percent chance the modules critically fail with testing being done by CONCORD, the percent is 3%. The Anchor leans forward more, capturing the attention of the audience as the camera switches back to him, focused now so the Crewman and professor can't be seen in the shot. "CONCORD estimates they will have a fix in line by sometime around December this year, that's more than 2 months from now! How many more lives will be lost to these modules in the meantime?" The camera shifts quickly over to the crewman as he surges to his feet.

"I'm for damn sure not going to wait for those CONCORD fools to fix this for me. I'll never go back out on one of those damned capsuleer death-traps, I'd rather be a slave than killed by my own equipment! I'll stick to crewing a nice armor ship or a mining barge, somewhere that I can at least trust the ships equipment to run properly!"

The crewman looks poised to say more but the Anchor, upstaged, nods once and the feed cuts to a new starsi commercial. A small link appears beneath the commercial in the typical "would you like to know more style.

Would you like to know more? ((CCP is planning to nerf the ASB in the upcoming patch for winter, the provided link gives more information on the planned nerf.))

Rise of a Rebel Part 2

 The family is a haven in a heartless world.  -Christopher Lasch


Part 2

Amongst crush of humanity a single figure lay still.  Sprawled on the deck, the slack of his chains taken up by those around him.

The figure lay unheeded, between groups, yet still linked to one.  Passed for dead by the people around him.  Fresh injuries clouded his face, the bridge of his nose crushed in, his torn shirt showing some of his ribs a deep black color indicating some internal bleeding, bruising spreading over his chest.

Briefly his eyes fluttered open for just one second before snapping closed again, contorted in pain.  Weakly, the figure attempted to move, arms and legs pinned to the side by the chains binding him to those around him.  His movements, so weak, failed to disturb those around him.

A few moments later he opened his eyes again, forced to confront the press of people, slaves, all around him.  Bewildered he tried moving his arms again, pulling hard enough on his uninjured side to attract the attention of a old man squatting close to him.  A slight shift of those around him granted the young man enough room to move.

Over the soft drone of conversations around them the old man spoke.  "We thought you dead boy."  Anger glinted in the eyes of the injured man.  "We had to carry you down here," the man gestured to the other men around him, a Brutor and two tall Siebestor.  "Chained and all.  What is your name?"  He offered his hand to help him into the group. Even with his age the elderly Brutor was able to help pull the injured Siebestor to an awkward squat.

Squatting now, he was still defiant despite his obvious pain, "I'm no boy, grandfather!  My name's Logan."  Logan coughed, after the outburst, blackened blood speckling his lips.  The older Brutor shook his head slowly, dropping Logan's hand with sudden anger.

"We are all boys in the eyes of god!"  Logan drew back, bearing his teeth, the other Brutor groaned, sliding his imposing arm between the two.  The older Brutor slid back a bit, grumbling to himself, inaudible over the sounds of the cargo bay.

The voice of the younger Brutor was low and deep, on the edge of being inaudible over the surrounding noise.  "Logan, now you've done it, gotten old Bulkar talking about religion again.  His family spent too much time with the Amarr before his current situation if you take my meaning."  The Brutor shot Logan a warning glance, shaking his head to forget the perceived insult.  "My name is Rozor, stay relaxed, the guards said you suffered greatly while trying to attack a pilot, they gave you some repair, stopped some bleeding, but be still," he pointed to the two Siebestor males to Logan's right.  "These are Uldrik and Klolf.  We are your new family so you had best get used to us.  Quickly."  Logan attempted to interrupt, pain flaring in his side.  Rozor continued on without notice.  "Before you ask, no we do not know where we are headed, where we are, or any of that.  Bulkar and I were born slaves, I have been sold more than once, Uldrik and Klolf don't talk much, but from what I can make out, rather, from what little they have said.  They were only captured a few months ago.  By the looks of you, your capture was more," Rozor gave a long pause, as if searching for the best way to put it.  "More recent."

Logan's body tensed radiating anger, and then pain.  Looking around as if to strike out at his captors.  Logan, for the first time, noticed the hundreds, if not thousands of others pressed around them.  Not all in sight were of Minmatar descent, but each cluster of slaves seemed to have only one nation represented.  Logan turned back to his new family, briefly sobered by the sight.  His voice on the edge of breaking, recounting his story.  "I was working late, fixing some drainage issues, when I returned to our town, there were men all around..."  Logan tensed again, eyes wild, surging to his feet, looking around him.  "Where is my family?"  He screamed, looking for a familiar face in the crowd.  He found none.  The weight of the realization and pain was too much.  He stood for a brief second longer, his eyes rolling up into his head, falling limply into the arms of his new brothers.

We will be victorious.

"Forty percent shields and falling!  There won't be anything left of us after this pounding!"  Timmons grabbed for his console as more rounds splashed near the battleship.

"Relax Timmons, this is a Dominix, not a damned Raven like you are used to, besides the boss knows what he's doing."  Havens leaned back against his chair, strapped in, but yet barely able to feel the vibrations passing through the ship.  Timmons grasped nervously at his console, watching as the Angels drew near, Angel fire raking the shields of the Dominix.

Both manned one of the three 720mm Artillery batteries.  Timmons was pressed to the side in the backup controller, watching the seeming lazy loading crews lounge while the guns remained silent.

Despite Havens' size, nearly 2 and a half meters tall, pale and sickly skinny, his deft Sebiestor fingers kept the currently deactivated Artillery tracking perfectly on the approaching Angel frigates.  Nudging the battery slightly to the left and then down, leading the advanced frigate awaiting the order to fire.

The red "FIRE" lamp lit the console, the only sound as the shell left the cannon was the slap click of the recoil and the bang of the spent charge ejecting into space.  "Round 1 away!  Gun bore clear, preparing to fire round two."

The round, already on it's way to the frigate, impacted just aft of the bridge of the frigate, the fusion blast consuming shield and armor in a devastating hit that left the frigate trailing debris.  Main engine venting, the second shell caught the flailing frigate in the midst of a hasty evasive move, breaking the containment on the power supply, the frigate vanishing in a sharp implosion, gutting the ship from the inside, incinerating the threat in an instant.

Havens had the second frigate locked and engaged.  It's shields were already failing, weakened by near misses from the other two gun crews.  A single shot flew from Havens' artillery, taking the Angel frigate just above one of the loaded auto cannons.  A ripple of secondary explosions tore along the side of the frigate before another shot could be fired.

Timmons uttered one word, "Wrecking."  With the only threat to the drones gone, artillery was given no further firing orders and watched in mute boredom as the drone crews had their fun.  Not even the massed fire from the remaining NPC's could breach the solid walls of armor on the Dominix.