Memories – a long and distant glimpse of yesterday, a yesterday that seemed like forever yet passed by unnoticed. Picture perfect images that outlive sephia holographs and remain unforgotten. The early fathers once believe that it is immortality itself, but I, the embodiment of memories forgotten drift though space the fathers once gazed upon. The only living remnant of a colony that once inhabited a peaceful region of New Eden. Devoid of the warmth of a mother that once held me, now encapsulated in a vast cold sea. A life clinging on a tank of full oxygen and undying in her slumber amidst the liquid nitrogen pool.

This humble speck of a lifeless being wander rivalling the celest, passing every corner that the living failed to reach. Centuries pass by with no companion other than an oud. The silence of the desert mutes its string that longs for a master. A family heirloom, an artifact and a proof of mankind’s genius conquering time. Its body chiseled from fine wood, a rarity thoughout the galaxy, with the distinct mark of the family seal, a birch tree. Tailored from tradition and mortal hands, the oud – now a god treading the heavens.

Chance has its ways of dealing with mortals and the capsule, once an elusive  coffin, has been found – a destiny written in the stars. As the Caldari Arms barge pulls the capsule with tractor beams, the crew was eager to see Gallente tags. To their astonishment and with a frown, what was expected to be a dead Gallente turned out to be a 700 year old infant, still in its long undisturbed slumber.

The child never knew a father nor a mother, yet the memory of their embrace still envelope its body – a sensation preserved in the brain with the help of cryogenics or perhaps a deep longing. As the child was revived, it cried loudly and left the crew confused as all of them are young and unmarried soldiers, that were born and raised by fire. They looked at each other and shrugged. They had no choice but to be the child’s mother. Was it out of pity? Or was it out of the fact that the child was of Caldari descent?

It was simple really. They saw a living being that willed to live despite the odds. They knew the guilt of leaving the child behind when they had the chance. They were no mothers but they did their best to raise a child. They fed her using an empty wine bottle containing the men’s ration that was hastefully processed by themselves into an improvised milk. Crude it is but somehow managed to deal with it. They learned parenthood the hard way that no battlefield would otherwise offer. Before them is the battle of waking in between sleep and the gift of instinctive nurturing.

A decade passed, the girl, not much of a burden as she used to be, is now polishing steel helmets, wiping off the blood from its previous owner for the recruits to reuse. The girl has met plenty of people aboard the ship who came and go and never returned. Despite this, she managed to free her psyche from the cold dark reality under her sphere. She pluck the oud as to the familiar melody of  memories that resound. As soon as her “mothers” return from the battle, she would hastefully bring the medicine kit to relieve the soldiers from their pain and knowing every vial from the ship. An impressive display for a non-enlisted field medic. Thus, named Ivy.

As they return home from every successful raid, the men would drown themselves to a sea of alcohol and the girl, playing her oud, would accompany their merry tales and showing off every tag they managed to snatch. Only the girl   wasn’t intoxicated.

Unlike the previous trip, this one was different. An uninvited guest managed to sneak inside the ship while the entire crew was deeply asleep because of their little merriment. The girl woke up upon hearing what she believes was a thud. She thought at first that it must have been the debris outside. Out of curiosity, she decided to check it out for herself so she got out of her bunk and saw nothing unusual from port holes. The ship was smoothly sailing as it cruised on autopilot. It was silent as this was the space she knew all her life, or perhaps it was too silent.

She came back to the quarters and peered at the unlit room. The room was quiet enough that she began to grow suspicious. She recalled the crew was snoring loudly when she got out of the room but thought to herself that they must be sound asleep.

Anxious, she found it hard to sleep and went to the medicine room and injected a syringe labelled “SH” or sedative/hypnotic. She felt drowsy after a few seconds and sat on a chair. Everything was peaceful and felt a familiar sensation, perhaps a deja vu she thought.

Then the room’s airlock opened revealing a blinding red light and a silhouette approached her. She woke up covering her eyes and focused on a wounded figure hastefully punching buttons to lock the room off. She stood up and knew the man’s face – it was the cook. The man was covering his right arm and knew he was desperately applying pressure on the wound. She tore off a cloth and wrapped it around the man’s arm until it was a proper tourniquet.

The man was able to speak, albeit a bit gibberish as he was panting heavily and she knew he was dying – under hypovolemic shock. The cook, who isn’t a regular soldier, dies in the girl’s arms. She knew the type of bullet the assailant used – a thrombolytic round from a Gallente Elite Commando. Even with the smallest wound, it is already a slow and guaranteed death sentence.

From that moment, her senses are keener than she ever knew. She stood up out of instinct and broke the glass cover of a red box hanging in the wall. There, it revealed 2 boxes. One containing 3 unusual prefilled vials feeding a single syringe with a high gauge needle – meant to be stabbed directly to the heart; the other box containing a red syringe. She reached for her scalpels from the drawer and retreated under the desk.

Her hands shaking, tensely holding the scalpel and sweating heavily. She hears footsteps thumping on the metal grille floor echoing across the corridor and knew it was alone. From that moment, she knew the killer followed the cook’s trail of blood and is now coming for her. She knew that the Commandos are deadly but she didn’t expect them to be this ruthlessly good. The crew she knew were veterans and now she faces death the 2nd time.

As soon as the Commando reaches the airlock, although it was locked , He opened it the same way he boarded the ship. The girl thrusted the syringe to her chest without hesitation and was panting. The commando approached sadistically and smirked at the helpless girl – me.

I raised my head and see a monstrous figure before me. I knew that moment it was the drug kicking in. Before he was able to aim, I threw the scalpel instinctively at his arm and missed me. I lunged in and was met by a kick but wasn’t fazed – I was completely immune to pain. Time was much slower though my mind instructs to evade his attacks, my body was sluggish. It was a painful sight as my conscious mind tells me but the lack of sensation says otherwise.

I have a few seconds before the drug wears off unfortunately I have no sense of time. My body acted as a stand alone entity – perhaps it was my will to live. I was never prepared for this and before I knew it, the red syringe is already in the commando’s jugular vein.

A minute passed or so my mind tells me, I felt my body burning. I just noticed that I was hit by a bullet in the left thigh. I knew I was dying at that time. I reached for the drawer and sealed off my wound with nanopaste – the superglue of that time. Who would have thought I’d live to tell the tale with a simple superglue. The wonders of Minmatar ingenuity I said to myself.

What would have been a sad moment for me is oddly “happy”. I knew I was high from the drug. I walked across the ship and entered the quarters and turned on the lights. There I saw the crew that died in their sleep. I reached for my oud. I wasn’t sure what I was doing. Deep inside I wanted to cry but my body says otherwise.

The drug wore off eventually. Out of that induced insanity, I fell to my knees and cried in a corner. I was alone for the 2nd time.

The ship eventually docked on a Caldari Station and the docks officer, who was expecting a hand shake from the ship captain, boarded the ship and saw the aftermath. The rescue team said they found me lying on a corner and was traumatized from the events. I had forgotten everything that happened at that time and only recalled it when I watched the recordings from the black box a few weeks later. The mind has its unique way of coping with terrible things, yet I made a mistake of looking back to it and ended up having nightmares for months.

I resorted to enlisting in the military so that  they could augment my CNS and modify my cerebral cortex in hopes of deleting unwanted memories. Unfortunately, it was all in vain and I learned to accept my past.

During my military training, I was able to cope with my personal problems as if they didn’t mean much. I was eventually invited in the special forces division and focused mainly on psychological warfare. Just as I graduated, I was filled with enthusiasm in hopes of a new life and met people. It was a vast space and as I delved deeper, everything grew colder. Soon, that enthusiasm turned to bitterness.

What was once an innocent child, who cherished her life, is now a tool of destruction with no regard for human life. It was a robotic and unquestioning lifestyle that soon reached its tipping point.

I soon decided to lay off and find a new purpose as to why I exist. I soon realized that the Law itself was the problem. It never brought justice to the people. It is a corrupt pet of the Empire that caused the death to the people I know. They feed misinformation to citizens in order for them to profit out of it. I knew there was another way.

And that is the next step. . .

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