One Lonely Sentry

Steky walked briskly into the briefing room aboard the Cascade Essence, a Nidhoggur class carrier. Her boots clanked against the metal deck as her assembled officers quickly rose to attention. She brushed an insubordinate lock of hair from her eyes and called out "As you were!" The fighter pilots, drone control officers, hanger controllers, and other deck officers sat back down in the leather seats and listened. They were no longer milk run carrier officers, and now had the discipline and bearing of soldiers with combat experience. The Cascade Essence had participated in Atlas' capital battle for HZF against Legion of Death, Pandemic Legion, and others. Not only had she survived the battle, taking down numerous enemy dreadnoughts, but they had proceeded to destroy dozens of enemy station towers in the Detorid region.

The briefing began. Atlas was seiging the last remaining enemy holdout in Deterid, the solar system designated 77S8-E. Steky went over the lessons from previous engagements, reminding the sentry drone officers not to deploy after coming out of warp at an enemy tower until the carrier was moving less than 20km per second. The navigation officers were to ensure that the ship maintained range with the enemy tower in case her attention was elsewhere. The pilot could control any subsystem at the speed of thought, but even so her attention had limited bandwidth.

Suddenly Steky stopped in mid word and then called out, "Battlestations!" The lights went red and the men and women scrambled. The Atlas fleet commander had ordered capitals to undock and jump to a cynosaural field in the 77S8 solar system. As the carrier left the station hangar, the space around the station was cluttered with dreadnoughts and carriers. It was a wonder that the station's traffic control system could manage.

Suddenly the fabric of space rippled as the capital ships engaged their jump drives and the stars winked out. Steky quickly shifted to a camera drone within the engine room. Looking the view from the external cams mid jump would be like trying to look out the back of your head, through eyes that weren't there. It lasted only a second or two, and then space was suddenly filled with the glowing rings of a giant gas planet and the shimmering light reflecting off the hulls of over 100 dreadnoughts hanging in space above the rings like an overturned box of jewelery.

The fleet warped to the first enemy tower and the crew ran the ship like a well oiled machine. The sentry drones deployed with their giant rifles hurling explosive warheads through the shields into the control tower. A few minutes later the fleet commander called for a carrier to light a cynosaural field so that more dreads could jump into system. Steky grimaced and acknowledged his request. It would mean that her carrier would be unable to move out of the cyno field for ten full minutes.

About 7 minutes later an enemy stealth bomber dropped out of warp amongst the capital fleet. Steky immediately started locking the tiny ship, but it took the computers what seemed an eternity to lock onto it. In that time the bomber deployed its bombs. The damage they did was insignificant to the capitals, but did enough damage to the sentry drones that three of them were unable to engage their propulsion systems. The enemy tower suddenly began burning ozone and went into reinforced mode. There was nothing more to be done until its ozone supply was depleted some hours later. As soon as her cynosaural field was down, the fleet warped to the next engagement. Steky engaged her warp drive just as two of the three damaged drones made it back to the hangar. One lonely sentry remained behind, its propulsion systems fragged beyond repair.

Liquid Watercolors

Grievance listened to his corp mates intercepting another automated hauler in Yong and rolled his eyes. Not worth even undocking. He turned his attention to the current events on the news comm. Anomalies were not only destroying planets, but seemed to be opening up wormholes to systems in distant galaxies. Some had gone through, and encountered strange and powerful technologies. Suddenly a transmission came in from Cobra Khan on the Maverick Navy channel, "Hey guys, I have a wormhole on scan... anyone want to come help me check it out?" Grievance raised his eyebrow, this was something new, something important. He engaged the transmitter, "This is Griev, 19 jumps out and on my way!"

Grievance engaged his warp drive to the vicinity of the wormhole. Several moments later, his Rupture dropped out of warp and he saw something that had not been seen by men in New Eden for thousands of years, when the Eve wormhole colapsed. This event sent his ancestores into the dark ages, destined to claw their way back up to the stars all over again the hard way.

"What do you think?" asked Cobra.

"Do you have any probes?"

"You bet, over one hundred"

"Well, then we should be able to find our way out... if the way out lasts long enough." Grievance thought about the possible mystery, wonder, and possible riches of being one of the first men in New Eden to explore a wormhole.

Two other ships from the local system joined their fleet, along with another corp mate Darkside.

Grievance opened the internal ship comms to his crew, "Whoever does not want to follow our ancestors into the unknown may take escape pods off the ship now and report back to corporate headquarters without repercussions." He watched the ship systems and not one pod activated. Grievance laughed, proud of his crew, "Alrighty then Mavs, Penis up!"

He set his ship on approach to the gravity well and the world turned to liquid watercolors.

Don't cry, its just your spaceship!

Shocku watched the emptiness of space through the lens of his camera drone. The Storm of Intent, a Tempest class battleship, hung motionless within the protective shield of the Control Tower just off a moon in the O-9 solar system of the Paragon Soul region of the galaxy. His ship was fully manned for station bashing operations, but a Goon fleet had been sighted in a nearby system so Shocku's fleet was regrouping.

Staring at the infinite reaches of mostly empty space around them, he suddenly zoomed in on a region of space near the shield. A Pilgrim class recon was dropping out of warp right at the edge. Shocku heard other pilots cursing over the neocom that the pilgrim managed to warp before they could do any significant damage. He pondered for a moment, then gave an order to the his edgy crew, "Load short range Quake ammo in all artillery guns!". The short range high damage ammo was seldom used as the ship was fit for sniping from range. Shocku carried a thousand rounds of Quake within the hold anyway in case he was engaged on a stargate while traveling.

Again the overview lit up as the Pilgrim descended out of warp a second time just outside the shields of the alliance station. The Fleet Commander called for tacklers and Shocku thought of his Minmatar slave girl and her Rifter. Unfortunately her duties had kept her in station in the TPAR system this night. Shocku cleared his mind and double checked the range settings programmed into his navigation computer. He initiated auto pilot instructions as his the support ships made short work of the Pilgrim. The lumbering Tempest seemed to almost groan as it fired thrusters and began to move to the edge of the shield. Soon the prow and the guns were outside the shimmering shields as thrusters kept the ship just on the edge.

As he had expected would happen, his overview suddenly lit up with a ball of red Goon ships just a few short kilometers from where his own battleship sat exposed outside the edge of the shield. This was what he had come for. The Fleet Commander called out primaries and neural commands flew at the speed of light from the implants in Shocku's skull to the gunnery centers aboard his ship. The guns went hot and the instant the targeting computers locked the enemy battleship, his tempest shuddered as 6 massive 1400mm rounds flew with incredible velocity from his ship to the enemy, shattering the elecrocrystalline barrier of its shields almost instantly. Shocku smiled at his decision only hours earlier to request Vince bring an additional gyrostabilizer. Now it made all the difference.His ship would rely on the station shield bubble rather than hardeners the gyro replaced.

Shocku saw multiple targets locking him as volley after volley of 1400mm artillery rounds pounded gaping holes in the enemy ship's armor. He grimaced in slight irritation as the Fleet Commander repeatedly queried the status of the enemy ship, and replied..

"Enemy armor 50%"...
"Enemy armor depleted, in structure..."

Shocku glanced at his own shields, which were holding strong despite at least half a dozen targets locking him on the overview.

"Enemy in deep structure..."

The aperture of his drone camera lens automatically contracted as the shattered enemy antimatter drive went critical and detonated, flashing dark space to white light. The Goon's pod was also quickly eliminated seconds later.

Chuckling, he looked through the local com logs for early comms from his victim taunting the alliance fleet commander. He copied the Goon pilot's own words and transmitted them to the clone facility where they would surely be read when the goon's clone was awakened, "Don't cry, its just your spaceship!"