How I Got the Hel out of Deklein - A Retvet Story

For the better part of a decade since I last played Eve Online, one of my pilots lay in cryosleep aboard a Hel supercarrier where she had logged off at a POS in a norther region of space called Deklein.  I would occasionally read an article about Eve and remember that I had significant assets in the game.  A couple times I even tried to pick it up again, but found that my alliance was in another region and if the learning curve of Eve is steep, the relearning curve is almost as steep.  I never dared to log in that Hel, now in enemy occupied space.  

Then Eve Echos was released and I tried it out.  “Wow, this is essentially the same game on a mobile device.” This got me interested in reaching out to my old corp in Eve Online, and I learned that the alliance was under siege and they encouraged me to come back. I was between games, it is covid-times and so I was looking for more social interaction, so I decided, “What the Hell!”

My strategy for returning was to try to relearn the game flying subcaps, and not worry about all capitals I had strewn about the map in asset safety or logged out in space.  I invested a few bucks in plex and settled into our besieged home in Delve.   This is where I encountered a bunch of problems.  

The first problem was the interface.  I was so disappointed.  It hadn’t changed much in a decade, by 2020 it was an extremely dated, eclectic and non-intuitive text based nightmare compared to the modern games I have played in recent years.    Also, being nearly 50 my eyes just couldn’t make out the tiny text on my large high res display.  I quickly got lost on the first few fleets I joined.  “What the hell is an ansiblex?” But slowly things came back to me as my alliance conducted 101 training classes for bitter retvets answering the Horn of Goondor.  

The second problem was my pilot skills.  Back in 2012 it was a fairly normal thing to train straight racial skills.  In fact, it was more efficient.  Doctrine fleets (did we have doctrines back then?) allowed you to fly pretty much whatever matched from your race.  But now the doctrines were a mishmash for me.  I had to be able to fly ships of one race with weapons of another.  Each doctrine had something different and there were so many doctrines being flown.  I was looking at months to get up to speed so I could even participate with subcaps.  So I analysed the fleet doctrines used my first two weeks and ordered the doctrines by frequency of use.  Then I developed a skill plan that would let me participate as quickly as possible, and popped a few more plex and skill injectors.  This was starting to get expensive.   But now I was able to participate in fleets and I wasn’t getting lost as much.  Things were coming back and it was fun!

The third problem for the first few weeks was my fellow pilots.  If you got lost in fleet and asked for help they would make some comment about “spais” or “Go read the doctrine” or something equally unhelpful.  A couple times I nearly said “fuck it, let these kids lose their space in this dated game.”  But then Mittens sounded the horn of Goondor, and along with that he made it very clear that retvets would have a lot of questions and that those who were unhelpful should fuck off.  It actually worked.  I wasn’t the only one asking questions anymore, and the snide comments stopped for the most part.  The FC’s started becoming really helpful and responsive to questions.  Things were looking up, and I was able to start answering retvet questions myself. 

After about a month back into the game, I got myself a rusty new Dreadnought so I could join capital fleets.  Learning and relearning the jump drive mechanics, I started thinking more about that Hel in Deklein.  I asked around about getting extraction help.  A few corp mates offered cynos, but looking at the map it was at least 13 jumps across vast regions of New Eden.  I felt uncomfortable asking them to do this, and felt for sure I would fuck it up and be an embarrassment.  CCP was unwilling to move the ship for me because it “sports a jumpdrive.”  Never mind that players have been able to dock their supers at upwell structures for years. Never mind that CCP had changed the bay configurations and skills for the ship and fighters and I could no longer launch fighters I could before.  Also, there was a good chance my ship would blow up if I got out of it to rejoin my corp.  I tried to explain these things to the GMs who responded to my requests, but they clearly had no knowledge of how the changes over the years affected my situation.  Nor did they care.  Mostly I wanted the pilot back so perhaps I could buy a new super at home, so I considered logging in and self destructing.   

But then I read a story about a Titan pilot who successfully got his titan home from Deklein said “fuck it.” The loss mail would be out of alliance, and you only live once.  I knew I had logged off at a friendly POS, and figured there would likely now be an enemy POS.  My first step was to log on to Singularity and see what structures were at the moon where I was logged off.  There was nothing.  “Wow, this might be possible,” I thought and it gave me the motivation to take the next steps.  

CCP had also changed the jump cyno skills and requirements, so my next step was to inject one of my characters with the skills to fly a force recon.  I also enlisted another character to act as eyes.  This meant triple boxing a game with a UI I had felt lost in just a few weeks before.  Once I got eyes in the system, I found that there were certain times at night when it was empty. I logged in my hel pilot and took account of the fit and fuel supply. I blessed my former self so many years ago for having 100K isotopes and lots of liquid ozone onboard.  There was even a hauler there.  On the other hand, drones could not be launched, and I no longer had the skills for the fighters onboard.  My only weapons would be a smartbomb, ECM, and neuts.    My tank would be only a third of current doctrine fits.  

Over the next couple days I watched the system, and planned my route.  I got my Recon ship with cyno into position in Pure Blind.  I had never solo traveled in a capital before, and I made a checklist of things to do and the order.  Form fleet, wait for both systems to be empty.  Log in the Hel, form fleet, double check local, decloak, light cyno, jump, warp fleet to bookmark, pray.  My hands shook so I could barely right click and select the cyno beacon! I wiped them on my trousers.  Just do it!  And I did it.  And my super made it into warp and cloaked.  I watched with relief but some trepidation as my cyno finally reached 5 minutes….  and then cycled again.  I almost laughed. If this was the worst mistake of the day, I would call it good.

A night or two later I prepared to make my second jump into Black Rise.  I had changed my cloaky ship name to a Russian phrase meaning “Minding my own business”.  It didn’t stop lots of conversation and complaints in Russian about how I was preventing them from doing their own business as I extracted from Deklein.  This time I wanted to fit webs on my recon to help the Hel get into warp faster, and ended up getting camped into an NPC station.  I had waited 8 years, so these guys had no idea the depths of my patience.  

I made the second jump and webbed the Hel into warp.  Just as I did so a neutral jumped into system and posted “?” into local and warped to my cyno.  They engaged with their drones and I watched with amazement how I was nearly tanking them. It would take a long time to die.  I waited until my cyno was a few seconds from ending and then target locked the hostile and tried to launch my ECM drones. “You do not have the required skills for this item.”  I had fitted the ship according to doctrine but had forgotten about the drone skills when I injected the pilot.  Amazingly the hostile pilot unlocked me and warped off with a “cya” in local.  I was so relieved that I would not have to fly god knows where to sort out a new recon that I sent the pilot probably way too much isk for karma and logged off happy.

I had 102% of the fuel required to make it home if I was able to make every optimal jump laid out in Garpa.  I knew that wasn’t going to happen, and so on my next jump I decided to sort out refueling.  I was glad I scouted the route to a lowsec station with overpriced isotopes because the route was blocked by a triglavian invasion.  I found another station that wasn’t, and scouted my hauler filled with fuel without incident.  I also picked up a few skill books so my Hel pilot could start learning the new skills.  I relearned the mechanics of accessing the various bays and transferring items while trying to stay cloaked whenever a local came into the system.  They had Chinese names here so I changed my ship names to Chinese glyphs meaning “Explorer”  and “Peaceful Night”.  

For my third jump I got eyes in the system but it never seemed to empty out.  Low sec people are strange.  They just stay in the belts in mining ships with neutrals in the system.  By this time I was getting really good at scanning people down.   This one guy seemed to not be a threat, but you never know what friends they have.  He was in a corporation with almost a hundred members.  Finally he complained about me being in his system. I told him that I was working on a data collection project for a new utility application.  He asked why I didn’t just use the API and I told him some things weren’t available on the API, for example storms, and that I needed to scan for data when there were no “player ships” on scan.  I apologized for the inconvenience, and told him I would not resort to violence to clear the system for at least a couple days.  At this point he left the system and when he didn’t return for an hour or two I made my jump. And the next.  

Soon I was in Syndicate and the war had taken a turn.  Querious was increasingly hostile and it looked like I had chosen an unfortunate route.  Also, a fellow retvet was also extracting a super from Deklein and he was going through Fountain.  I plotted a new course and found that I could make the jump from Solitude to Fountain and join up with him.  More eyes, more cynos, better chance of success. 

“I think I’m being hunted,” my friend said as I jumped to him, abandoning my neutral support pilots in Solitude.  I brought my main pilot up from Delve to provide another set of eyes.  Sure enough, we were being trailed.  While my friend plotted an alternate route, I flew my main pilot in a circuitous route in southern Fountain to confuse the scouts.  Around and around I flew, while my friend suggested my Hel take a couple gates to avoid an extra jump.  Sure, its friendly territory but my super pilot is neutral.  I felt my balls shrivel confronted with this prospect and shamefully decline.  My friend is a skymarshal, and I am inadequate.  We spend the extra hour and make it to our destination.  Our alliance has supposedly added our pilots to the access list, and my friend warps to a structure too small to dock, but hoping to get a tether.  “Let me go first, if I live you can follow” he says.  Sure enough, we make tether and safe logoff.  We will have to take a jumpgate to make it back to Delve, and that can wait for another day.  

That night I dreamt of warp tunnels and interdictor bubbles.  After work the next day my friend posts, “Log in to character screen.”  I have never taken a capital through a stargate, let alone a supercarrier.  I reply, “Comms?”  “Just chill, join the ops channel, I have a fleet”  I listen as the fleet heads home from their mission and the FC calls out, “Whoever wants to help out a retvet hero, stay in fleet.” They aren’t talking about me, but I do remember the cap fleets I led bashing structures a decade ago.  “Log in to character screen” comes the command.  “Login, align, warp, jump, jump, dock!”  My hands don’t shake as they did that first jump on the other side of New Eden, and for the first time since starting this game in 2008 I see my Hel docked in a keepstar.

Goondor Calls - The Reawakening

Steky grudgingly woke from a deep sleep and tried to open her eyes.  Instead of data from her retina, data streaming from her implants took its place. Planets and moons streamed by external cams as her ship warped.  Not remembering why this was so alarming, she wrenched herself the rest of the way awake and pinged her sensor arrays.  Where hostile ships in the local system? How long would the warp last?  Where would she land? Was the cloaking module ready?  How much capacitor?  Was the jump drive online?  As her ship dropped out of warp she scanned the vicinity.  Her ship was at a moon, and she remembered it as the location of an alliance station.  As she realized the friendly station was gone, she immediately searched for hostile ones.  The closest was at another moon.  With no immediate hostile engagement, Steky activated the cloaking device and exhaled as her ship phased out of visibility to local probes.  

Her communication systems pinged with a fleet invitation from Grievance.  "Wakey, wakey Steky! Fleet up and I will get you up to speed.  I've got eyes and this system for the last week and its currently empty of capsuleers except you and I.  No telling how long that will last though, so we have to get you out of here."

Steky's training kicked in and she held all her questions for later.  The ship's systems indicated a date that she couldn't actually accept, but if she had really been in cryo for a decade it would explain why so many systems flashing red.   "Jump drive is online," she replied.   There was a slight pause and Grievance shouted, "Jump!"  Steky arched her back and opened her mouth with the silent scream as she and the supercarrier that her mind commanded suddenly generated a boson sphere and tore through the folds of spacetime to a solar system many light-years away.

As soon as the star-field shimmered back into existence, her navigation system received a warp command and alarms blared.  The ship had been targeted and webbing fields formed around it.  Steky silenced the alarm as the seeming attack was coming from the fleet commander, a technique to help her mammoth ship to align for warp a bit faster.    A few very long seconds later as she watched for hostiles, her ship entered warp and landed at a safe spot away from the jump beacon.  She activated the cloak once more and sighed with relief.  

The fleet commander was silent on comms and she knew he was occupied with the potential destruction of his ship if a hostile entered the star system while his jump beacon was lit.  Tired from the strain of the FTL jump, she disconnected from her pod and crawled out onto the deck of the bridge to awaken the crew.  

Steky approached each cryopod with trepidation. As with the other systems, some of them flashed red, containing only the remaining biomass of the former crew member it once held.  As she awakened each squad commander, she merely shook her head at their questions that poured out after the retching that accompanied waking from extended cryosleep.  "We will have a crew meeting once I get answers."

Shocku watched as each ship pilot come online in the virtual command bridge he had setup for their meeting.  Grievance waved cheerily.  Rask grumbled that he had forgotten to turn autocycle off his jump beacon, doubling the length of time he had been vulnerable. "Well, your clone lived to tell the tale, didn't it," Grievance said laughing.   "What the fuck!" an angry Steky shouted as she came online.  Shocku looked at her with empathy, "I get it Steky, I'm sorry."  "A fucking decade on ice?!" she cursed.  Shocku's tone turned firm, "We all agreed ten years ago that it was time to go on ice.  Its all in the logs.  But things have changed. 

The horn of Goondor sounded, and I felt it necessary to wake the rest of you so we could come to our descendants' aid."  Shocku explained that Goonswarm was under attack from the rest of New Eden and had called out for retired pilots to come to assist the alliance in its struggle for survival in the Delve region.   "Delve?  We were in Deklein!" Steky exclaimed.  "Were." Shocku replied.  "Things have changed... alot." Steky shook her head, "What can we possibly do to help?"  Shocku laughed, "Well, you can bring your Hel!" 

  

Progression

Shocku writes a message to a friend who is a younger pilot:

It's a good idea to pick a ship and specialize in it. If a person jumps from ship to ship all the time, they will never get good at it. Every ship has it's strengths and weaknesses. Learn both and become a top notch pilot at that ship. Of course, you will go through several ships on the way as you learn it's weaknesses. :). It's also a good idea to specialize in an affordable ship.  

When I started as a capsuleer I wanted to specialize in fast ships. However, I kept getting killed. Now I can fly a vagabond reasonably well, but it's still a distictive style I am not an expert at yet. What is interesting is that there are generally lines of ship styles, starting with frigates, progressing through cruisers, and up to hacs and bs. 

The style line I have done best at is snipers, or range ships. I don't know if there is a sniper frigate, but the cruiser is the rupture, the battlecruiser is the hurricane, the hac is the muninn, and the bs is the tempest. When I was a newer pilot I flew the rupture because it has a long range and a good tank. You get to your range (usually 0 at a gate) and shoot. Now I fly the muninn. I carry both short and long range t2 ammo, and sensor booster scripts depending on the situation. With the muninn I try to get OFF the gate 70 to 100 km. Few hostiles can shoot that far, and so I rarely get targetted. So I slowly orbit at range raining death from afar. If I see an intercepter approaching or get targetted, I generally warp off and then come right back. 

Anyway, my point is:

1) Specialize and stick with a chosen 

Ship style

2) Figure out the progression and start with the inexpensive t1 cruiser so you can learn and afford the losses as you do. Examples: Short range speed tanks Stabber/Vagabond, long range snipes Rupture/muninn

3) Buy more than one, buy 3 to 6.  

Most pilots are idiots and the enemy knows it. They will buy the coolest most expenive ship they can buy and bring it to the front. They go out gung ho on the first fleet and lose it. Then they spend the next 3 days to a week trying to replace it. That's why the enemy pays for wardecs. They go to jita and get killed on the way back. By now they are so frustrated they JC back home to rat or don't log in for a couple weeks. 

The smart pilot resists peer pressure and brings half a dozen cheap T1 cruisers or bc and goes out on roam after roam not caring about his losses and learning from them. Once comfortable, he graduates to the same style of HACs ONLY when he can afford several of them. If he can't afford 3 or more, he doesn't fly them at all. There are industrials in our alliance who can bring fully fit ships to the front, just put in your order.   

Something New, Something Faction

Shocku brought his Machariel to rest in the ship maintenance bay of
Steky's carrier, the Cascade Essence. After a quick shower and pulling on a simple jumpsuit, he made his way down the access tube to the hangar. His face held a deeply creased frown as he met Steky. She put an arm around his waist and said, "cheer up boss, there was nothing you could have done. It was treachery pure and simple". She was referring to the recent loss of his vargur by a goon spy named Brainstem.

"Besides, on my trip to Jita I got you something fun to play with!"

Shocku struggled to show excitement but couldn't quite muster it. His expression changed however, when they entered the next bay. "Sweet mother..." and his jaw just hung open. "is that a...?" "Dramiel" she finished for him. "it's not fully fit because I didn't know how you would want it, but it has the basics."

Shocku looked at the frigate sized vessel, unlike anything he had seen before. It was built by the Angel Cartel, using a combination of Minmatar, Gallente, and quite possibly Jovian technology. Steky said, "If you can fly the Machariel, you can surely fly that, though I wouldn't do so right after lunch. They say it can do over 10 clicks per second on impulse!

Shocku smiled and they headed to the stateroom for dinner.

Treachery in the Rear

With the front in Providence winding down, Shocku decided the gang should return to the rear to make some money and build up their combat ships for the next war.  He contacted Steky and docked his Marauder class battleship in her carrier's ship bay.  While Steky jumped her carrier to a system where pirate faction anomalies had been detected, Shocku and his friend Laaj followed the jump gates.  Upon arrival, they had a conference aboard Steky's Cascade Essence.  Shocku went over the operation, "Number one rule, keep an eye on local. If a neutral comes into system, warp to the protection of a starbase immediately. 

After the briefing, the team proceeded to scan down an Angel Cartel Haven, and Shocku worked with Laaj providing instructions on when to deploy and recover drones, range of engagement, and other important aspects to prevent them from being overwhelmed by the Cartel.

Later that night, after Laaj turned in, Shocku engaged another one of the Cartel's havens.  While engaged with the pirates, Shocku's ship computer indicated it had picked up the transponder of a new friendly ship in the solar system with piloted by the call sign Brainstem.  Shock had seen Brainstem several times before in the area, but thought it odd that he would be this far remote in a reserved system.  He queried his ship's computer on the pilot, and found he was a member of Green Alliance.  Shocku decided at that point that the situation was probably fine and engaged the next group of pirate battleships.  The pilot would most likely leave shortly when he realized it was a reserved system, and Shocku transmitted, "Nothing to see here."

A few minutes later he frowned.  Brainstem was still in system.  Was he ratting here?  He would have to mention this to a director.  Just then, Brainstem's ship dropped out of warp next to the Marauder.  He was piloting a Rapier class covert ops ship, and his targeting computer had engaged Shocku's ship.  Something was not right. Shocku immediately hit the warp button as his ship was already aligned to the planet nearest the starbase. A message displayed across his overview indicating that the Brainstem had already disabled his warp drive.  Shocku cursed, "Was this some kind of practical joke?  It didn't matter, it wasn't funny, and Shocku immediately targeted the Rapier with all his guns and engaged Steky's fighters.  Suddenly, about six neutral transponders were reported in local, and he cursed, "Oh fuck!".  Shocku sent a message on his corporate channel, "Requesting backup in system".  He pondered if he should order Steky to warp in her carrier, but just then the hostiles dropped out of warp and deployed a warp interdiction field. A few seconds later a glance at his shields showed 20%.  It would be too late for Steky to warp in, lock him, and provide repairs to his armor, and best not provide another target to this treacherous enemy without backup from his corpmates.  All subsystems were now screaming warnings, his shields and armor both destroyed and his structure was failing.  Shocku stepped back from the situation and braced himself mentally, accepting that there was now nothing to be done now to save his marauder.   

It was cold and wet.  He heaved and pulled out the tube from his mouth and lifted himself out of the stasis chamber, pushing aside the medical personnel who tried to assist him.  His body naked, with tubes still dragging from various orifices, he stumbled to the nearest neocom and opened his corporate channel.  It was buzzing about the incident.  His director asked for information on the kill and Shocku immediately transmitted.  He then examined it himself as he tried to go over the event in his mind.  Did the data recorders show Brainstem as blue?  Had he been mistaken?  He kept trying to figure out where he had errored in the situation that cost him his ship, the first time in years while fighting faction pirates.  Shocku transmitted, "Mates, I am sorry about my failure tonight, I will try to learn from it." 

"You didn't fail Shocky, it was treachery.  There was no way you could have known, and nothing you could have done once you did."  Sure enough, the logs showed Brainstem was listed as friendly and having had disrupted his warp drive.  Shocku's corpmates were sending condolences and expressing outrage at the corporation who admitted a Goon spy.   Shocku wondered why a spy would out himself over a marauder, and then laughed.  Sure, it had been his most expensive ship. Sure, it hurt to lose it. But it was not that great of a percentage of Shocku's assets, and it was certainly not worth blowing a spy's cover.  The goons were fools. At least now the spy could not damage Atlas during the next campaign, so perhaps his loss was worth the loss.

His director transmitted a message, "Shocku, I have contacted the corporation that admitted the spy, demanding reimbursement for your loss. If they don't pay, some hotdrops will be in order.  The records show that pilot's clone had been sold to another entity, and they readmitted him to their corp without vetting the application."

"Aye boss."  Drops of stasis fluid were dripping onto the screen and Shocku's hands were shaking.  As he pulled a robe over him and headed for some rest, he felt better about the loss knowing his corpmates were behind him. 

Jumplife Chapter 1

 

Haika ran lightly through the narrow maintenance corridor. Its walls were mostly covered with conduits that carried nanites and coolant outward to the ship's hull.  A few years ago some maintenance work had been done on a section of the Nomad class freighter's hull, and she knew that access tube had never been removed.  A ship this size, with a crew compliment of almost 7000 lives having been docked for almost a decade, almost became part of the station.  Still, she had to know her way around, and get her timing right, to avoid the official checkpoints disembarking. Haika looked over her shoulder, and then quickly checked the air pressure on the console before opening the airlock and beginning her descent through the access tube. It wasn't as if she was breaking any rules by leaving the ship, she just didn't want her parents to know how often.

Haika ran down the Level 9 Street 477 of Jita Station and almost tumbled over the cleaning bot as she approached the entry portal.  She swiped her hand over the access panel and Luko's face appeared. 

"What are you doing here?  Your parents will be pissed if they find out!"

"I got it! I got it! Let me in!"

She brushed a lock of tightly curled hair out of her excited face.  The door hissed open and she practically lept into Luko's arms. 

Finally she released him and waved the datachip "I was accepted to the JU!"

"Oh congrats!" and he hugged her tight once again.

"This means we can be together, Luko."

"You mean you intend to go stationside?"

"Why wouldn't I?  The ship has been parked here more than a decade.  Why should I study by net if I can go to class with you?  After all, you can carry my netpad!"

Luko looked at the floor.  "But your father, he will say..."

Haika put a finger on his lips, and then replaced it with her own.  Later, as they floated twisted in each other's arms over the gravbed, Haika thought about how she would tell her parents that she wanted to study stationside.  She knew they would come up with all sorts of ridiculous arguments about tradition and culture, and what would happen if this or that.  Despite that, she was certain they just had to be proud of her and would eventually cave. 

The next day, Haika walked into her father's office. "Hey Pops!" 

"How is my little girl today?" He grinned as he looked up. 

Haika put her arms around him and gave him a big hug, "Well.... there is something I want to tell you."

"Hmm... What could that be?  Perhaps that the station crew neglected to remove the access tube to hull section 1047?"  Maalik grinned as Haika stood there with her mouth open. He relished any time he could spend with his daughter, and these days those times were fewer and farther between.  It was not like when she was a little and would spend hours just playing on the floor of his office. "Do you think I would keep my job as First Officer if I didn't know the comings and goings on this ship?  Sit down, tell me what's up."

 "You know how you have always encouraged me to not only do my best, but also to pursue my dreams, right Daddy?"

"Of course, you know I just want you to be happy."

"I took the JU entrance exam."

"Maalik raised an eyebrow, "Jita University? Honey, you know your metrics are good enough for officer training, or any number of university curricula the ship has licensed."

"I want to study stationside, Dad."

"We have talked about this honey, and even if you did pass the entrance exam, you know the stationside program would be too much risk.  We might get commissioned right in the middle."

Haika's face contorted, "Dad, this ship hasn't left its moorings since I was a little girl! Besides, I passed!" She placed the data chip on his desk and the document flashed onto the glass surface, complete with the colorful seal of Jita.

Maalik looked at the document, and when his eyes moved back to hers they were blinking away tears and he was trying to smile, "I am so proud of you."  He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her close.  He knew his daughter was smart and ambitious, but he had always thought it was a father's bias.  Now it was confirmed.  How many Thukkers had been admitted to the Caldari University of Jita? He touched the Thukker tattoo on her face, "Just remember who you are, and keep your bags packed."  Haika rolled her eyes, "You mean repack them. I don't think the 13 year old clothes in them now would fit anymore.  I will be graduated before this ship goes anywhere Daddy!"

Haika gave him a kiss and then ran for the door as he answered an incoming comm.  Just before she closed it she heard him call out, "You get to explain this to your mother!"  Haika groaned.

"This is a capsuleer piloted ship!" her mother almost hissed at Haika and her father sitting at the table in their family quarters.  Her eyes moved from Haika to Maalik accusingly, "And you are the First Officer, you know what that means!" Nobody had to say that it meant the ship, which had sat in drydock for most of the last decade, could drop its moorings and undock with but a few seconds notice, perhaps never to return and certainly not for many years due to the affects of relativity and faster than light travel.  The two adults understood this on a practical level, and therefore had made few close acquaintances stationside despite the years they had been here.  It was the Thukker way to stay with those who shared the nomadic life of deep space travel.  But for Haika , yet a teenager, it was merely theoretical. Her mother reached out and touched the Thukker tattoo on the left side of Haika's cheek.  "This is who you are my girl; I cannot make you see any more clearly that which looks back at you in the mirror." Tears streamed down woman's cheeks, "But I am so proud of you, and you must make your own decision."

Maalik looked at his screen and called up his calendar for the day.  He didn't need it to remember that today he was off duty early to meet Haika for lunch at the University stationside.  It was "Parent's Day" or something like that.  His daughter was already in her third semester, and was making excellent grades.  He then turned to his messages. Along with the usual reports from the crew chiefs, some personal messages, and one from a woman named Steky was one from the ship owner's agent.  They normally met once a month. Usually anything outside of that routine meant a potential buyer had a question.  Maalik gestured at the agent's message first, and a 3d vid of his face appeared over the desk, "Maalik!  We have to meet quickly.  Call me asap!"  Maalik groaned.  Every time some halfhearted buyer had a question about the ship, the agent thought it an emergency hoping for the sale.  Usually it was some dimwit who wanted to know if capacitor rechargers could be fit, which of course they could not.

Maalik moved his finger to the screen to initiate the call to the ship's agent when it chimed with an incoming call. The originator was someone named Steky.  Beneath her name was the insignia of Atlas Alliance, and a chill went up his spine.  He had never received a direct call from someone in one of the alliances that operated outside the boundaries of the Empire.  His finger shook as he activated the call. 

A graceful female Minmatar face appeared and she smiled, "I assume you are the First Officer of the Burgeoning Intent?"

"Yes Ma'am, I am. What can I do for you?"

"You can meet me at 16.00 on the bridge.  The ship's agent will pass along a message to bring along a full report of your ship's systems and crew departments. What I called to ask was that you also come prepared to discuss the crew's moral and readiness, things that will never appear on paper."

"Yes Ma'am, I will do so." Maalik's mind raced at the implications of this meeting and request.  Was this lady a capsuleer?  Was she legit? If so, he would never make Parent's day...

"Very well, I will see you then.... oh, and Maalik.  Don't breathe a word of this meeting to anyone. Our lives may depend on it." The screen went dark. 

At first Maalik started thinking about what he would need to do and who aboard ship he would need to query to prepare his report, and then he suddenly panicked.  If Steky was a capsuleer, and if she was concerned about readiness, it could mean only one thing.  She was purchasing the vessel.  And Haika and his wife were not aboard!

Maalik put initiated a call to his wife who was stationside at Jita University with Haika .  His call went to messaging, she was probably preoccupied.  He typed out a text that could not be misinterpreted, and used his official rank to send it via the emergency channel. He would probably receive a fine when the message couldn't be correlated with a civil incident report, but it didn't matter. It was the only thing that would get his family back to the ship without a long explanation that he could not give across a public channel.

Haika and her mother came out of the concert hall and blinked.  It felt a bit like surfacing from a dive, the hall's simulation of the ocean depths of the planet Oricon were so complete.  She could still hear the echos of the songs sung by the sentient inhabitants of the water depths. "Mom, did you see the expression in the eyes of the last performer?"

"Yes, and to think his species is now extinct."

"What happened to them?"

"Capsuleers descended on their planet and installed gas extraction sites. They removed so much of the oxygen and nitrogen from the atmosphere that the temperature of the oceans rose, destroying the ecosystem."

"But how can they?  What gives them the right?!"

Her mother began to reply matter-of-factly, "The Oricon system is beyond the reach of the empire my dear, where the capsuleers make their own law." Then she noticed the tears in her daughter's eyes and softened her tone, "Oh sweetie..." Her words cut off mid phrase as both women suddenly got a distant look in their eyes.  Their comm implants displayed the following text across their retinas.

MEDICAL EMERGENCY ABOARD BURGEONNING INTENT. REPORT FIRST OFFICER QUARTERS IMMEDIATELY.

Haika cried, "Pappa!" and both women ran for the nearest transport. 

The Nomad

Steky took the transport tube from the station hangar to the Nomad Class Jump Freighter.  The interior of the translucent plexisteel had indicators where you could swipe your hand to turn portions of the wall transparent. This was seldom done, as the spherical transport rotated swiftly to counteract the g-forces as it wound its way through the station and across the umbilical to the great ship. It was so precise that so long as you couldn't see, the ride felt like a standard elevator in a planetside high rise. 
 
The hatch opened and Steky stepped out onto what appeared to be a balcony overlooking the vast docking bay of the station hangar.  There was a complex system of automated docking equipment for cargo containers, but she didn't see any ships.  In fact, the entire bay was empty besides the equipment.
 
"Where are the ships? Where is the nomad?"
 
The sales agent looked at her with a quizzical expression on his face, "Pilot, you are aboard the Nomad."
 
Steky gripped the steel support, even though thick plexisteel separated her from the dizzying drop of thousands of feet and her face turned pale.  The sense of scale was something she had never experienced firsthand, not only because she had not piloted a ship of this magnitude, but because her person had been isolated in her pod and senses extended through the neural network of the ships she piloted.  Now she stood disconnected, and had to take in the vast size of the Nomad's cargo bay through her naked senses. 
 
She consciously released her grip on the support, and took asserted her control over both herself and the situation, ordering the first officer to report to the bridge.  Turning on her heel, she stepped back into the transport.
 
"First Officer... is it Soderstrom?"
 
"Aye Captain, but you can call me Lars"
 
"I am not your Captain yet, Lars, but send me a report on the condition of this ship by 1900 hours. Make sure it is complete and honest, because you don't want to have to revise it after I become your captain.  If your report indicates that the ship is in less than satisfactory condition, and I do not make the purchase, I am sure that your current employer will be less than pleased with you." Steky gave the agent a sharp eye.  "In that case enough funds will be wired to your account that you won't need to work for some time, and I will provide you and your family a private shuttle to another system.  If your report is inaccurate, the shuttle you take will deliver your remains to your family."
 
First Officer Soderstrom saluted, and went off to prepare his report.
 
Steky turned to the agent, "If his report is acceptable, the funds will be wired to escrow by 2400 hours. I will be performing my own inspection in the meantime."
 
"Of course, Pilot. I will return to my offices to await your decision"
 
Steky pulled on a set of crewman's overalls and spent the next 8 hours inspecting the important subsystems of the ship in person, starting with the engine room and capacitor control section.  Nobody noticed her, and she listened to their conversations to try to judge the moral of the crew for herself.
 
At 18.47 the First Officer transmitted his report.  It included subsections from the various bureaucratic heads aboard the ship.  The crew aboard this particular Nomad consisted mostly of Minmatar Thukkers.  They were culturally conditioned for life aboard a jumpship, which was important to peaceful and efficient operation.  The crew consisted of 3,721 crew with 5,764 dependents for a total of almost 10,000 lives aboard.  As the ship's capsuleer, Steky was chief executive but would rarely interact with what amounted to a town government, complete with legislative and judicial branches. If the ship's social government did its job properly that is.  The ship officers formed the executive branch, and it was their responsibility to ensure that all systems aboard the ship were maintained in top working order to function on command from the pilot. 
 
Life aboard a jumpship is unlike anywhere else, mostly due to the practical considerations of jump travel.  Once a person joined such a ship, it was usually for life... and the lives of their families and children.  For if one disembarked, they would forever lose contact with their loved ones that remained aboard, their destinies branching into separate timestreams the moment the ship took its next jump.  Due to relativity, months or even years would pass for those that disembarked, in what was a short milk run for the jumpship between regions of the galaxy. For parents, it was particularly difficult to leave a child at university, and at the next station receive message transmissions that the student had graduated, married, or had children of their own.  For this reason one often found multiple generations of crew serving aboard a ship like the Nomad. 
 
Steky's thoughts returned to the report.  The crew was relatively light. It had been docked in Jita for several years and 7.4 percent of the crew had taken other employment during that time.  They had not been replaced as the ship was waiting for sale.  Otherwise, there had been no recent upheaval aboard, and all the ship's subsystems were in excellent condition.  Lars, the First Officer, did make a note that the ship had served as a ferry between gated systems in empire, and that few aboard had much experience operating or maintaining the ship's jumpdrive. That said, it had been maintained according to specifications and the maintenance schedule.  Lars warned that even he hadn't jumped in more than a decade, but was up to the challenge if the Captain had confidence in him.
 
Steky smiled and sent her final approval for the sale to both the sales agent and the escrow company.  She was amazed to see the reply message appear almost instantly with the transfer codes to the ship computer.  She entered the code, and immediately her name appeared on the header of the console and over the archway to the stateroom.  She sent out the message to prepare for jump in 24 hours.  It was time the crew start learning about life in Atlas.