The Life of a Capsuleer: An EVE Online Story - 6. Setec Astronomy

Setec Astronomy

(Too Many Secrets)

“Alright, I’ll do it.” With that one phrase, Marcus Rintel, a capsuleer privateer for the Gallente Federation changed his whole life. He still remembered the stunned look of disbelief on Evan’s face when he made the proclamation. It was the same disbelief he felt in his heart and fought with every day since.

“Are you sure, you want to do this?” Evan asked as they approached the small outpost. They had come by regular transport. Neither was in a capsule, and both sat on the flight deck of the small shuttle.

“I’m here aren’t I,” Marcus snapped. He let out a deep sigh and looked at Evan. “I’m sorry, just stressed the fuck out. I hope your superiors appreciate what I’m doing to save my marriage.”

Evan winced at the verbal slap and just nodded. “I wish there was a way to prove to you, that I am not lying about how much I love you, Marcus.” He turned to look out the front viewport, at the approaching station. “Warp bubble to end in ten seconds, and we’ll be 50 km from the station.”

The warp bubble ‘popped’ as the shuttle came back to normal space. Marcus angled the shuttle, towards the station, and activated the normal sublight engines. They were closing in on the station, at a fast clip of 600 m per second. “Docking permission has been requested, and authentication codes sent.” Marcus gave a small chuckle, “It’s funny how much I miss Aura right now.”

“No, kidding,” Evan said with a chuckle as well. “Who owns this place, I don’t see any corporation markings?”

“I do.”

“You own this? Marcus, that’s an Upwell Consortium Citadel. Billions of ISK is needed just for upkeep, and it’s nowhere near normal shipping lanes for traffic to generate revenue. Not to mention, we’re back in Couster, which only has one stargate and one other station,” Evan stated while looking over at his husband. “Just how much are you worth?”

Marcus gave a small smile, “You have your secrets, and I have mine. I could own half the Caldari Empire with just my liquid assets.”

“Caldari is made up of Mega-Corporations… Oh…,” Even said, and became silent as he thought about that statement. He turned his attention back to the citadel that was filling up their viewport. It was classified as a medium structure by the Upwell Consortium, which still meant it could hold thousands of people and ships of various sizes. Depending on the configuration of the station, meant what sort of services were available for capsuleers and regular space faring captains; services that could range from industrial to stellar markets, to clone bays and repair shops for ships. He saw the remote station sentry guns listed on the overview screen and knew that was just a fraction of what the citadel was capable of bringing to defense.

“Docking permission granted, we’re being towed into the station,” Marcus said and set back to let the computer do the work.

Evan looked over at his husband and shook his head some. “You have all this capital, could start your corporation, and you live like you’re penniless. I would ask how you got the money, but you’re selling Jovian Tech.”

“And investments. I own stock in some corporations and hold several patents on ship parts. All because I stumbled into that Wormhole. So, there is one blueprint, I must transfer to CreoDron, and then the rest is the Black Eagles’. Most of my hangers here are full of Tech pieces, and there are three computer banks full of Jovian Blueprints.”

“What the fuck… how?”

Marcus looked over at Evan with a smile, “Time, drones, and a salvager unit is what I tell people. However, the truth is much more entertaining. My trip to Jovian Space via the Wormhole was by accident, and my frigate couldn’t hold much. The crew died, as we were attacked, and only Aura and I survived that first encounter with sleeper drones, and my ship was shot to hell. Took hours for the nanites to repair the hull and armor damage, and was drifting for hours later until the engines were fixed. That’s when I found the Jovian Complex. A fully intact station, abandoned… must have happened when that death plaque swept through their people. I docked the ship and found out that the station was fully automated.

“After I docked, I was taken out of my pod, and walked around the station, looking for clues. I was about to leave when I ran into a sentry unit, who took me captive.” Marcus paused long enough in his story, to allow for the shuttle to finish docking, and did his post-flight with Evan. They finished, and left the shuttle, as they walked out onto the hangar deck, Evan noticed they were no other personnel in flight control.

“Marcus, there’s nobody here. Where is everyone?”

“Follow me, I’ll explain, on the way,” Marcus replied, as he kissed his husband. The pair walked out of the hanger, towards the elevator to the station’s C.I.C. “Well, as I said I was captured by the electronic Jovian sentry unit and was taken not to the brig but the C.I.C. unit. When I walked in, I found that a massive Artificial Intelligence was running the station. It started talking, first in Jovian, then switched to galactic standard so it could communicate with me. Long story short, it was programmed by one of its top scientists, and a member of the ruling court, to give itself over to the first person to find the station.”

The elevator arrived at the command in the control center, and the doors opened to a spacious, empty room. It looked like any other C.I.C. in any other station, or terrestrial operation base, with one huge difference. There was a clone interface bay, sitting near the middle of the room. Lights, sprung on, as the pair walked further into the room.

“That was me, and this station is not an Upwell Consortium Citadel, but a fully functional Jovian battle station. It took me a year using the station’s internal repair system to replace everything that was written in Jovian with Galactic Standard, just in case any unwanted visitors landed. The station reworked my clone’s neural pathways, much like we do to enhance skill learning, but they did it so I can use Jovian tech. I sat in this chair and flew my station out of Jovian Space via the Wormhole, and back into Empire space. I parked it at first, in a 0.1 LowSec system so that Concord wouldn’t spot it. Had a few fights with pirates, before I learned how to control the cloaking system. Then, finally, I used the Cyno jump system to pilot my way to Couster. It helped that the Serpentis Corporation was stirring trouble, so I could sneak into the system pass everyone.”

Marcus looked at his husband, and smiled at the look on his face, “So that’s my secret Evan. I inherited a treasure trove of Jovian technology, and have been selling it the past five, going on six years, to Gallente Corporations. I may not be military, nor a Black Eagle, but I would die for the Federation, over and over again. Our way of life is what matters. Speaking of selling…” Marcus moved over to a control panel. His hands flew across the screen, selecting the desired blueprint, and transmitted the original to the CreoDron Corporation. “There, my last business concluded. Call your boss, and tell them the station is theirs. I’ll be damned, if I join them, but they can have all this, if it means, I keep my husband.”

The look of hurt, sadness, and anger on Marcus’ face took Evan by surprise. He knew Marcus would never join the Black Eagles, but until this moment, he did not know just how much Marcus loved him. It was Evan’s turn to figure out what to do.

“We’re not turning this over to them,” Evan stated plainly. “Select some stuff, and give it to them, then wait to sell anything else for a while. We’ll need to hide the station, seeing that it’s not just the Gallente looking for this place.”

Marcus looked at his husband, with love in his eyes, and embraced him. “Thank you. Please don’t think I’m some money whore, but I’ve only been selling stuff piecemeal, so things weren’t lopsided in tech advantage between the empires.” He reached up and wiped the tears that had fallen from his eyes. “Where do you want to park this place then?”

“Don’t know yet, but it will be between systems, in a deadspace pocket. We’ll link to it with acceleration gates, from inside the adjoining system,” Evan said as he approached a terminal. “Can I use this?”

“Yes, I’ve already unlocked all systems for you. Except for the control chair, you can run anything here. The chair is keyed to my neural pathways only.”

Evan's hands flew across the interface bringing up star charts, navigational support and started to plot a course towards a hiding spot. “Thanks. We’ll get this sorted out.”

“Wait… I can’t believe I’m about to say this,” Marcus said to stop Evan.

“Say what, hun?”

“Call your boss. I’m giving them the station, as long as I can run it. We’ll make it a safe house for you guys.”

“Why? Why did you change your mind all of a sudden?”

“My crew…,” Marcus replied in a soft toned voice. “I can’t put them in any more danger, than what I already have.”

Evan just nodded and moved to hold his husband. The pair stood there for a while longer, just holding onto each other. “Alright, I’ll call him. However, we’re still going to move this station from Couster. There’s a shitload of trainees out there, and I don’t want them vaporized if they stumble over the place.”

~.~

The location they chose was between the trade hub system of Dodixie, and its neighbor Vylade. A method of four Acceleration Gates, different from a Stargate in that it enhances the warp drive capability of the ship to fling the vessel to farther distances than usual, were anchored to allow access and escape. All in all, the move took several weeks for Marcus and the Black Eagles’ Liaison officer to co-ordinate. With a small garrison of intelligence operatives and their support staff in residence, most of the station's services were up and running, and Marcus was now able to use them at no charge. With the Clone Bay operational now, Marcus installed a Jump Clone at the station, so he could send his consciousness to it, anytime the station needed to be moved.

~.~

Marcus and Evan sat at a table in the Officer’s Mess hall in the Dodixie Station, eating breakfast, and chatting with each other.

“Any plans for today, babe?” Evan asked between bites of his pancakes and bacon.

“Yeah, going to take Falling Skies out for a shakedown spin, and test out the new 75mm cannons. They’re Shadow Serpentis cannons. I salvaged off a wreck last week.”

“The Falling Skies, isn’t that the new Tristan-mark IV you bought? The fully automated one, where you need no crew at all?”

“That’s the one,” Marcus replied and finished off his coffee. “And I won it. It’s a Quafe special edition on as well. Full bodywork in their trademarked, blue, white, and silver with Quafe all over it.”

“Oh, well then… How long are you going to be out there?”

“A couple of days at most. I got a lead on a Serpentis outpost in Vylade, and another in Balle. So, a couple of jumps, some intel scouting, and then test the cannons on their pilots.”

“Good luck, and Fly Safe. Just get home in one piece.”

“I will fly it like I stole it.”

They both laughed and finished eating.

~.~

Deep inside the Balle Solar System, Marcus sits, just outside of sensor range of the Serpentis Refuge. Balle is the lowest of HiSec security listed systems, being a 0.5 rated system; meaning that Concord couldn’t police it as much as they would like, but would come to the aid of a ship in trouble, eventually. Linked with the vessel in his capsule, he floats at minimal power observing, the comings and goings. “Something doesn’t look right. Aura, scan local for chatter, and highlight anyone with suspect or criminal tags.”

The Serpentis Corporation used to be a legitimate company, in medical technology. Until, they learned that black market drug sales was a lot more profitable, and started to deal drugs across New Eden. Now they were considered a pirate organization, a potent and profitable pirate organization, and Concord paid out bounties to any Capsuleer who would take care of them. Both Ships and Structures had standard bounty fares on them, and various corporations, besides Concord, would also pay for targeted assassinations of high-ranking members.

Marcus read the information Aura provided him in his mind. From the data, it looked like some conclave was about to happen. “Alright, might be a bit too much—”

The Tristan lurched sideways, flinging Marcus to the side of his liquid cocoon.

“—what the fuck was that!”

“Gravitational anomaly detected,” Aura intoned. “System failure… Shields offline, main engines offline, weapons offline, control…” Power across all systems started to shut down, sensors were gone, and Marcus couldn’t feel his ship around him any longer. He was blind, deaf, and life support for his capsule was failing.

~.~

Evan paced back and forth across the conference room, which he had been doing for the past four hours, and long after all but Marcus’ Crew Chief had left the room. It had been four days since Marcus went missing. Concord verified an emergency beacon was deployed in the Balle system, but when they got there, there was no sign of Marcus or his ship. No debris was spotted as well, not even scrap leftover if someone salvages his wreak. “Where the hell is he?”

“We don’t know. His backup clone here didn’t activate, and his four Jump Clones are all still in place. No idea where the hell he is,” Jonatan said. He sat at the conference table, with several datapads in front of him. He was checking every account and station that he had access to of Marcus’ to try and find him.

“Five. He has five Jump Clones, and I know the fifth one is not in use.”

“When did he get the fifth one? Never mind… could he have more? I know he was learning some biology skills, could he have trained in Advanced Infomorph?”

“I know he didn’t. Goddamn it. Why didn’t he take someone as a backup?” Evan asked frustrated. He finally sat down at the table and looked at Jonatan. “I don’t know anymore… None of my contacts have heard anything, and they are certain he wasn’t kidnapped by any of the other three Empires.”

Jonatan nodded, “I tried some of my connections, too. Not even the Serpentis have him, and they want him, badly. They have a Ƶ1Billion bounty on him.”

“Just great,” Evan said, and let out a deep sigh. “I’m going back to my quarters. Let me know if you hear anything.” He stood up and started to walk towards the door.

“Evan, I hate to ask this… but how long do we wait, if he doesn’t come back?”

Evan stopped and turned towards Jonatan. His anger melted, to be replaced by grief, and it danced across his face. “I’m not going to give up on him, but I know you all have families to take care of. He gave me access to his assets, so you all will continue to be paid, as long as you want to stay. But, I will understand if the crew signs on with others.” He gave a halfhearted smile and departed the room before his composure entirely fell.

o7 Fly Safe – The End