VI – Honour

Honour – a pseudonym for pride; an influx of conflicting impulses in the diencephalon due to the conscious mind’s refusal of facing reality.

I was tilling the soil while Darth was bathing himself with cosmic radiation – just an ordinary day, or perhaps too ordinary. That morning, I received a letter from an anonymous sender who is interested with my “expertise” and wants to meet me in the location sent in my HHI’s inbox. I thought to myself, since when did I become and expert at anything other than oud playing? I began to think this was either a prank or somebody is in dire need of a funeral band.

But I guess I should pay the sender, whoever he is, a visit.

I came to the rendezvous with just my regular civilian clothing. I had Darth to come along and provide some sniper cover in case things go bad, though I have doubts about his marksmanship.

The place was just a back alley with a door. I went inside and climbed a flight of stairs leading to another door – Ah, an office! Inside was a DED officer and two other men in Legion uniforms. I radioed Darth that it’s safe.

As Darth climbed the stairs and yelled he’s there, one of the legionnaires drew out a knife and threw it at Darth just as he about to enter. I did nothing of course since it’s not everyday that Darth is likely to get killed but too bad, Darth ducked.

The legionnaires were grinning while Darth was annoyed and almost provoked a fight until he recognized their faces – Blake Zacarius XXXVII, the 37th iteration of a long family tradition of dying in every Caldari conflict, and “Rev”, for unknown reasons is just called Rev. Blake being the heavily built bald man and Rev being the man with a large lens protruding in his right eye.

I asked Darth if they knew each other and the legionnaire proudly said, in a heavy and vague accent, that they were sort of a “family”. I really had problems understanding what they were saying even if we were using the same language. They just utter in single syllables and barely having consonants in them. It’s certainly not Matari, Amarr nor Gallente. Must be a coded system. Who knows? But by the looks of Darth understanding what they were talking about, I can see why they’re a “family”. Well, sort of.

After the informal introduction, we were asked by the DED officer to sign some important documents labeled “non-disclosure terms”, the ones that come with a high pay and an unreasonably dangerous mission profile. Ironically, there seems to be no need to have such as we already know each other just by “reputation”, if I had any.

We were then given a ride to the so-called” secret base” and had us briefed. The secret base was just a small rented office in a seemingly abandoned building, albeit neglected. The higher ups took interest of me since I was short, a bit insulting there, and had experience with anything involving sneaking in the enemy’s back door. The two legionnaires on the other hand were the representatives of Mordu’s Legion for this operation, hence the reputation of the entire paramilitary organization is at stake, though the seemingly professional character of the group is nowhere to be seen with these two who can always be seen carrying whiskey and constantly smoking.

The operation, as the DED officer is stressing out, is of great importance as the fate of the regional stability in the outskirts of the Amarr Empire is in our grubby little paws – assassinating a Blood Raider Elder. For this clandestine mission, the DED has sponsored Ishukone to come up with Buzzard that can maintain its cloak even with direct contact on another object and can fit to a narrow passageway. I had no idea what it’d looked like.

The DED officer also told me that the Blood Raider station is filled with EMP generators and metal detectors. This got me into thinking of backing out but sheer number of digits in those ISK’s convinced me otherwise.

They took me to a laboratory just below where I had undergone suspended state surgery. They took my DNA map and had the stem cell go through rapid transdifferentiation with the exception of a brain and a bone structure made of Calcium. Instead, they replaced it with Nanofibres as to avoid detection from the station sensors, however, I’ll be stuck at that size as I’m rendered incapable of growth. My brain was then stripped off of its implants and transplanted in the new body. The neural network were then rejoined by the same method they used to create my new body. My blood had to be transfused and converted to dielectric state – RF emissions from Blood Raider sensors will be absorbed instead of being bounced backed to the sensor array. Only drawback was that every time it absorbs RF emissions, my body will either be electrocuted or get burned. The new body also lacks a universal neural socket – I have to fly the ship manually and once I’m dead, I’m dead for good.

But there’s a good thing that they promised to have my brain returned to the former body with a new set of implants…

though I was told that this would be their 13th attempt on the same operation. Boy, was I bloody confident!

My brain was reactivated after 48 hours and my body felt lighter though my senses and reflexes weren’t as sharp as having implants. I noticed something odd and later found out that I was only 120 centimeters tall, over a foot shorter than I was, but I guess the mission requires me to be that small.

sigh. . .

They took me to a gym where I had to undergo “special physical training”. All they did was submerge me in a pool of mercury while its container is spun around at 30 G’s. A fully cybernetic body can withstand forty times as much punishment and here I am, miserably nauseating. I guess this is how it feels like to be in warp with just a normal body – well almost. But I guess this misery is to be blamed with the Lorentz effect. C’est la vie as those Gallente scum would say.

Then they did their best to teach me some Zero G hand to hand combat. Stretching the arms and legs was eased by the fact that my joints and ligaments were modified; even muscular protein was spliced from insect DNA. Exercises ranges from cutting a sheet of tungsten carbide using bare fingers to squeezing through narrow pipes and fighting your way in those against hexapod drones. Other tests include controlling electric currents in the body while being exposed to high amounts of radiation.

I felt like some sort of nutter experiment by the Sansha’s.

Then some guy decided I was ready.

We were fielded into the Blood Raider system via a cyno from a Widow.

Inside the Widow, we had a last-minute briefing about the “plan”. We stood in the deck looking towards the large screen. Blake and Rev stood at Darth’s side. Before the DED officer started blabbing, he asked for a volunteer. Darth stepped in. That was rather unexpected of him but I saw the two legionnaires smirking while Rev hid the taser in his pocket. I somehow felt a bit smug when the DED officer assigned Darth to pilot a Bustard with a cargo full of blood. They figured somebody had to be bait though he was assured that the ship was equipped with warp stabilizers and the adjacent system had a DED gate blockade with an interdictor bubble running. The target station is constantly rotating and is unstabilized by the Langrange point compounded by intense gravity of a nearby planet.

We were dismissed; Blake hopped on a modified Eagle, Rev in a Buzzard, while I got in the love child of a Buzzard and Scorpion – they took off half of the ship and the wingy bits and just a left the cockpit and fuselage intact. Darth was dragged by a couple of men and forcedly got him aboard the Bustard and fired a couple of warning shots.

The cockpit is similar to a fighter’s except that the triggers were remapped as directional and strafe thruster lock.

Blake warped to the other side of the planet while Rev, his spotter, was cloaked and was observing the station. Calculations predict that they will be able to get a clean shot at exactly 2 hour and 34 minutes.

Darth was automatically warped in and as expected got chased throughout the system. I warped in while cloaked and approached the station. The covert ops cloak is very different from those sold in the market as it’s the module and ship’s onboard computers doing all the work. The ship itself is enshrouded by synthesized dark matter that is contained in a pseudocolloid film, as opposed to normal ones that are freely emitted from the ship that will inevitably lose its cloaking ability once in contact at 2 kilometers. One has to speculate that Ishikone IS the reincarnation of Crielere.

The things the megacorps do to please the Amarrians.

The informants told us that there’s a narrow passage that is barely enough to fit in a ship that’s been chopped off. I soon found it and approached at 20 meters from its maw. I cut off comms channel and turned on the ship’s jukebox playing my oud recording at 240 beats per minute; switched the ship to full manual mode. The right joystick controlling the ship’s direction while the left one for the ship’s strafe thrusters. The throttle can be controlled with the pedals. Since the flight systems are downgraded because the entire computer system has been devoted to the cloaking device, I only have a crudely marked compass with 5 degree intervals in the canopy. I only had to match the ship’s orientation with the constantly rolling station. How hard can it be?

I flicked the joystick and had the ship rolling at 9 degrees per second. My only sense of time was the constant beating of my earlier recording. Then pitched up at 3 degrees then a yaw at 2 and a half each second. I strafed the ship at 13 meters per second. Combine them all and the ship is orbiting the station but is actually in sync with its orientation. Once I had it aligned to the passage, I squeezed the triggers and the mechanical gyroscopes are doing the work. A few nudges on the joystick will cause minute adjustments. I stepped on the pedal and slowly entered then engaged the retroboosters and strafed to the left by a foot. Space is cold but I could imagine myself sweating heavily.

I continued to traverse the passage and found a small hatch just above. I wore a tight insulated suit and carried some paper knives made of graphene oxide and 2 plastic containers. I opened the hatch and found a network of ventilation ducts.

I opened one of the containers which has lime water in it. Once exposed to carbon dioxide, it will form white precipitates which will lead me to the Blood Raider Elder’s room though I had to wear a mask. As I venture through, the intense RF background noise is causing my body to accumulate an electric charge, then I heard some footsteps in the hallway. There are plenty of guards patrolling in the vicinity, either eager to die in the name of the cult or drain an intruder’s blood. What I did notice is that they don’t use firearms but instead use these large halberds and sickles fashioned for decapitating and bloodletting.

Instead of storming through them, why not use the back door as one of the ducts conveniently leads to my target’s room. As I got inside, I saw corpses piled around a bed that is then surrounded by a “moat” of blood. In that bed lies an old man with dark crimson tattoos. The man is somehow sedated heavily as he isn’t aware of my presence. I only have 3 minutes left, I said to myself.

I opened the other container and took the inactivated silicate monopole  from it. I then touched it with my skin to activate it via electric charge and carefully placed it under the Elder’s pillow.

The monopole somehow alerted the guards as it generated a huge magnetic field that can be detected by their sensors. I crept underneath the dead bodies and saw men coming out of the huge doors. They tried searching for intruders by pointing narrow beams that are somehow jammed by the monopole’s interference.

Halfway across the planet, Blake is calibrating the Eagle’s single modified 250mm railgun. Normally, it would fire medium class naval rounds but in this case it only has to fire a 12mm depleted uranium round with a monopole as its guidance system. The round itself was secretly outsourced from the Mataris. In order for it to fit inside the huge barrel, it is contained by 8 fragmenting sabots with a 2 stage MWD booster. The planet’s gravity will provide the firing arc needed to get to the other side while the attraction between the monopoles will correct the round’s course.

Rev adjusts the firing solutions and transmits the locus coordinates to Blake. The round’s flight time will take 42 seconds. Blake mans the aiming device fashioned like a combat rifle and slides forward the helmet mounted display – he has little respect with what automated targeting computers can achieve so he prefers doing it manually.

Blake only has 1 good shot and once fired, the railgun itself is expected to eat up all of the capacitor’s energy. At exactly 42 seconds before countdown, he squeezes the trigger, causing a massive recoil that disintegrates the barrel almost ripping off the entire half of the ship. The magnetic signature will attract the attention of Blood Raider patrols so he initiates the ship self destruct timer and pods out to the extraction point.

At the other side, the guards are still searching the room without disturbing the Elder’s sleep. The room was dimly lit and so is the rest of the station. I reached for my pocket and grabbed the paper knife. It behaves like ordinary paper but once I touched it with my skin, the graphene oxide rearranged its molecular structure to its crystalline form, thus turning the paper into a lethal weapon.

I lost track of time but I just patiently waited for the package to be delivered. Things were looking smooth but I think one of the guards noticed me. He raised his halberd and was ready to strike, then a sudden roar of crushed metal echoed through the ceiling and came down bringing along several debris to the room. The artificial gravity lost power and things started floating. I instinctively kicked the dead body, that I used as a shield, towards one of the guards and threw knives at them. They were easy targets as they floated helplessly. As I looked up, the ducts were sealed off. I took a final glance at the bed and there was dust around. It was a confirmed kill.

I gave a gentle push at the wall moving myself towards the door. The hallway was lit in red emergency lights. I peeked at a corner and saw more guards moving towards me. I looked around and saw some red pipes running along the corner. I only had 1 knife left so I took it and cut it off, pulled it and aimed it at the guards. I moved away and touched the knife long enough for it to be electrically charged and threw it at the pipe while it spews out high pressure methane gas. I kicked hard as I could and reached for the wall, scratching it with my nails and eventually grabbing a vertical pipe. I then went back and had a look. The way was clear I thought and glide through it. I then noticed one of the ventilation ducts closing so I threw a trash bin jamming its door mechanism. It was really narrow but managed to get through it with my head sideways.

My size was quite convenient, I thought. While on my way out, I realized I dropped my mask. The buzzard was sitting only 8 meters away from the hatch. I opened the lime water container and covered face with it. With one final gasp of air, I jumped out and reached the ship’s hatch, entered the code without looking and hastefully got inside. What a relief! The water’s immense heat of fusion somehow protected my face from icing up that would have killed me instantly.

There was very little time so I pulled back the throttle to reverse and stepped on the pedal. It doesn’t matter if I hit stuff on my way out. It somehow peeled off some of the pseudocolloid skin, albeit still cloakable. I warped off to the extraction point where we were cynoed out by the widow.

Everybody in the bridge was in euphoria during the debrief as they are expecting wage increases and promotions. Blake and Rev gladly received their payments with the briefcases handed to them by the DED officer. There was a champagne toast and I noticed something was missing. It felt strange. . .

We docked at an Amarr station where we took separate ways and never to speak about each other again. Several hours later, rumors about the operation was spread across the region. I snooped around and heard that Darth was taken to a hospital where he was recieving medical treatment in the ICU. I guess the insiders figured out that Darth was part of the operation. The higher ups in the joint task force had to turn to a hero figure to satisfy the speculative media. As soon as Darth recovered from severe hypovolemia, he was given by Imperial Navy Honors and even had a hero’s welcome on his way home.

Headlines were all about him. I heard in one commentary, “thanks to this man who single handedly vanquished those bloody bastards, regional security and stability is assured and the cooperation of the state and empire is further strengthened.”

Darth was waving in his float while being escorted by Amarrian military personnel. Posters of him saying, “I want you in the Navy” was scattered everywhere.

I was looking at him across the street with his beaming smile and feeling all smug. I shrugged and was surprised to hear somebody at my back saying, “look at that bastard taking all the glory for himself!”; “bah! whoever thought of makin’ a hero out of that worm is an idiot.”

They were both smoking. I asked them why they’re here.

“Pfft… We’re family remember?”

“How the hell are you two even related?”

“Well, I kinda owe the guy as I would have the same fate as me fathers did if it wasn’t for him. I thought I lost me honour from that and gone merc.”

Rev butted in, “What do you ken about honour? seesh. I lost me eye thanks to them. You don’t get paid as much just dyin’ for a bloody country. To hell with that.”

“Aye. If ye excuse us, we be going lass.” SO they left carrying with them a bag of liquor and smoking as they pleased.

After a week, I was told that somebody who was sleeping on the job lost my other body and to compensate for that, they plugged some half decent implants. Thankfully, I finally have a UNS in my godforsaken body. I guess I’ll be stuck in this cretin of a body for some time.

sigh…

Ivy the midget farmer and Darth the man of the hour

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