Writing Fiction Is Hard

In September I posted about writing fiction again:

So I've decided to try and write about an idea that has been rolling around in my brain for the better part of 5 years.
God, its hard. Writing a short story in the EVE universe is liberating because you have do not have to build a world and you can to cut right to the point. But writing a story that is going to require you to build a world in the process and decide how that world works and what living in it would be like is daunting.
But I'm not getting any younger, and now is the time to try.
Wish me luck.

I have good news and bad news.

The good news is that I've been making progress at this project; the bad news is everything else.

I don't have as much free time as I thought, life is just busier than anticipated and a bi-weekly teaching position at the dojo I train at has sucked even more of that precious commodity. And I'm tired like all the time from everything.

But most of all writing is hard!

I mean, writing short stories in the EVE universe has some advantages: I don't need to build the story's universe because all the readers know about it, I don't need to flesh out characters very much because its a short story, and even the long form story telling I did had the advantage of not having a larger overarching plot, they were small self contained events.

What I'm trying to write now requires me to not only tell a story, but introduce a universe, its unique rules, what it feels like, how it works, is it logically consistent, where everything is, what everything is named, and will it all fit together in the end.

And then I could get past the block I ran into in the second scene of chapter one. *Sad face*

I find as I make progress my confidence in this project has diminished somewhat, as in am I making a good compelling story? Or am I just indulging the day dreams of a middle aged man?

Gah.

But I am making progress. Slowly, word by word, and hopefully I can complete at least this book, even if no one reads it.

I Am Writing Fiction Again

Long time ago I used to write fiction on Fridays and ended up writing a heck of a lot of stuff (most set in EVE universe) which you can find in the Fiction tab. I won a couple EVE short story contests and always felt I had the potential to actually write a novel (or series of novels) if I just put my mind to it and found the time.

Life is funny. As the kids get older (twins are now 10 and little surprise is 8) and the can occupy themselves more often and their bedtime moved from 8 to 8:30, I am finding myself with some free time in the evening that was not there before.

Shocked, I'm sure.

So I've decided to try and write about an idea that has been rolling around in my brain for the better part of 5 years.

God, its hard. Writing a short story in the EVE universe is liberating because you have do not have to build a world and you can to cut right to the point. But writing a story that is going to require you to build a world in the process and decide how that world works and what living in it would be like is daunting.

But I'm not getting any younger, and now is the time to try.

Wish me luck.

Borrowed Time Audio

Zendane of The EVE Reader podcast recorded my winning Pod and Planet entry Borrowed Time as part of the grand prize. I listened to it this morning and he did an excellent job (with some minor changes to make it flow better and keep it PG). If you don't feel like reading please give it a listen!

Honoured

Being on vacation not only means no blogging, it means almost no twitter or message boards or chat. So when my email reported that someone mentioned me in a tweet yesterday, after nearly two weeks of radio silence on my part, I was surprised. I opened the email and saw this tweet:

Ah yes, the Pod and Planet Fiction Contest that I wrote "Borrowed Time" for in December had its results in. I quickly navigated to the linked forum post and scanned the results only to be floored by what I saw:

Grand Prize, Kirith Kodachi. I was floored. And extremely happy.

I've written three entries to fiction contests now, the above piece, last year's entry in the P&P contest called "The Life of Nina Cruse" which failed to place (possibly due to lore violations), and the piece called "The Rifter" which won the Inspired by Images of EVE 3 contest back in 2011. Of the three, I feel Nina Cruse is the strongest one I've written despite the liberties I unintentionally took with the lore. The other two are simply bad things happening to average people in an uncaring universe, but Nina's story is actually a tragedy in that she could have avoided her doom by making different choices and accepting certain realities instead of railing against them. Regardless, I'm proud of all three pieces so please read them if you have not before.

Another thing: I swear I don't know why I keep writing sad endings for my characters. I'm not this depraved in real life, honest. I promise my next fiction entry will have a less doomed main character. (I'm not promising happy ending though.)

A huge shout out and thanks to Telegram Sam and the judges for their hard work in setting this up and judging all the excellent entries!

Now, what to spend 6 billion ISK on...

The Lore Is Important

Somewhere along the line, CCP realized that the game universe lore was important to the players of EVE online even though they disparage role playing. Or rather remembered.

The current events in the game lore happening recently have many players that usually ignore the lore and treat it as a background to all player actions actually feeling excited about what they mean and portend. As an example of the excitement, listen to the latest Hydrostatic special episode called Rhea Lore Panel. Its a 2 hour summary of previous lore and the current lore and its possible implications. Fascinating stuff.

The upshot is that players are excited. They are looking around at Rhea and the Caroline's Star, and the lore news events, and asking "What's Coming?" with a nervous anticipation. CCP has rediscovered that Lore Matters.

But why?

Well, it matters because it shapes the game and the mechanics. Thera and the other 100 shattered wormholes are all heavily inspired and influenced by the Sleeper and Wormhole storyline; the player stargates and the "new space" implementation in the future will lean heavily on the decisions made for the lore today. And most importantly, CCP has made it clear that the direction and destination of the lore can be influenced by the player actions in meaningful ways.

Roleplayers or not, its easy to get excited about the background we engage each other in becoming more alive and vibrant. The game has always played second fiddle to player actions, but there is no reason for the background to be cardboard cutouts and completely hollow shells. The ride gets more exciting when there is more life to the animatronics.

And most importantly, the lore being dynamic and moving helps to bring players in and keep them engaged in those lulls when a player is between corporations or alliances. Hell, I want to go see Thera and I am fully engaged in Faction Warfare.

So good job, CCP, in reviving the lore storylines in a big way this fall. Good job energizing the community that follows the storylines from close and afar. Good job making us anxious for the next release not only for content but also for what it all means.

Back to Regular Programming

Whew, that was tough! Left writing my entry for the Pod and Planet fiction contest too far to the last minute this year.

Part of the problem was latching on to a good idea. I originally had an idea for a piece about a spy / agent breaking into a secure facility, but I quickly became bogged down in too many permutations and fear of the word limit. I felt I had a story to write there, but also that I needed a lot more room to do it justice.

So back to the drawing board I went and there I met a lonely soul named Sam and his charges, the mining drones of some nearly forgotten mining operation. The story flowed easily once that image was in my head, but I will admit that the ending changed drastically from when I first envisioned it to after I had started writing it.

I'm not sure the story will resonate with readers but I'm willing to take that risk. I almost submitted the story in the non-canon A Day In The Life category for fear that the judges would mark me down for perceived lore violations, but that seemed like fear talking and I felt like I wanted the story to be judged as cleaving to the lore. Still, the letdown that the Life of Nina Cruse fiction's failure to score well still haunts me, but at least this time I'm ready for the disappointment of failure.

Regardless, it is done and I can get back to regular blogging and working on v0.2 of my Industry Status Tool.

Pod and Planet Fiction Contest Entry: Borrowed Time

“Who’s there?” Sam called out nervously.

There was no response and honestly Sam would have been terrified if there had been one. It had been two years since he had last talked to another human being and this wasn't the first time that being all alone on the outpost had gotten to him. He sighed and turned back to the repairs on the drone.

-------------------------------------------------

“Shit, Sam! That’s… that’s bad, man, god, I’m so sorry!” 

Samual Dumonte (just Sam to his friends) was still numb with shock and could only nod. He took another swig of his drink and felt the cool liquid burn a little on his tongue before letting it slide down his throat into his traitorous body.

“Did the doctors say if there is anything they can do?” Gerry, Sam’s closest friend and co-worker at the factory, asked. “Like, chemo or surgery or something? Anything?”

“No,” he muttered. “Its everywhere. Too much for chemo the doc said. The treatment would kill me before its all gone.” 

“Well shit.” Gerry turned back to his drink and shook his head. “You hear about all those new nano therapies on the net, I thought maybe one of those... “ he trailed off. 

“Benefits don’t cover those. Too expensive I guess.”

The friends sat in silence for a couple minutes. 

“Does Jane know?”

Sam shook his head, fearing that his voice would break. What am I going to tell Jane? he thought to himself. How are her and the kids going to make it without me?

-------------------------------------------------

The mining drone was repaired with a new controller board and the carapace was all closed up. Sam keyed the command on his command pad and a robotic arm dropped down from the ceiling and lifted up the slumbering drone and moved along a track on the ceiling to deposit it in its charging cradle. Numbers flashed on the readout showing it would need at least ten hours to recharge the depleted batteries. 

“Have a good sleep 202,” Sam called to the repaired drone. He checked his pad and entered some commands to instruct the drone to resume mining duties on the next rotation. “Back to work tomorrow, you slacker.” He scrolled down and made a mental note that another drone in that shift required routine maintenance. “Looks like I’ll be working on your buddy 204 next.”

As he turned around and started walking out of the main drone garage, an airlock door opened at one end of the dimly lit space and four drones the same model as MD-202 shambled in covered in scratches and micro meteor pits from years worth of mining the last veins of veldspar and scordite from the massive planetoid the outpost was built upon. One by one they marched under the spot where the robotic arm could pick them up and carry them to one side where a station awaited to pressure wash the rock dust and debris from their frames and then the meter long multi-legged drones would be carried over to their own charging cradle beside their repaired shift-mate. Soon all five drones would be cleaned and hibernating side by side. Afterwards, the robotic nanny would move up to another parallel track and start picking up and awaking five different mining drones to send them out the airlock for their twelve hour shift exploring the airless surface and drilling boreholes for the precious ores.

Sam didn't wait around to watch the process as he had seen it play out hundreds of times before and he knew the simple garage AI would inform him if there was a problem. He walked through the doors into a corridor that led to a second smaller garage where another problem awaited.

-------------------------------------------------

“Hello Mr. Dumonte, please have a seat.”

Sam eased himself into the comfortable chair and couldn't help but stare out the office window at the view of the city from this high up. 

“So, Mr Dumonte… can I call you Sam? Sam, I've looked over your file and I really think you will be a good fit for us.”

“Oh yeah?” Sam asked sarcastically. “Does my file also mention the part where my body is riddled with cancer?”

The man on the other side of the desk, Mr. Golipe, put down his tablet and folded his hands with a very patient look on his face. “I am quite aware of your condition, Sam, and I think we can help with that.” He reached over to one side of his desk and picked up a data sheet that activated at his touch and he turned and placed it in front of Sam. “Have you heard of nano therapy?” he asked. Sam made no move to pick up the sheet. “Its a treatment that works with traditional therapies by using specially programmed nanobots to-”

“I know what it is,” Sam interrupted, “and I also know how damn expensive it is!” He leaned forward. “I don’t understand, why am I here? Gerry’s friend said you might be able to help but I don’t see how!”

Golipe’s expression never changed at Sam’s emotional outburst. Seeing that his guest was finished, he started again. “We have need for a drone maintenance specialist like yourself for a position that we’ve had a significant amount of difficulty obtaining applicants for.”

“Position? You want me to work for you? Did you not hear what I told you about me dying?”

“Of course! But its like this, Sam,” he leaned closer, “we have several mining facilities that are near the end of operational life but can still be profitable with a skeleton crew maintaining our automated drone drilling operations. One of them in particular we believe we can run with a single technician as long as they are willing to put up with some minor hardships such as solitude and isolation.

“That’s where someone like you comes in, Sam. Its actually still profitable for us to pay for the treatment and pay you an equivalent salary to what you earn now on the factory floor… as long as you agree to work for us for a certain period of time.”

“‘Period of time’? What does that mean?”

Golipe looked a little sheepish. “Ten years.”

“Ten years?! You want me to go to some forsaken outpost by myself for ten years?”

“Let’s be frank, Sam, we both know you have no options left. What’s your wife going to do to provide for herself and the kids? We both know what happens to kids left to their own devices when the parents have to work so much to simply put food on the table and a roof over their heads.” He leaned back and let his face soften a little. “Look Sam, this is a good deal. Your wife won’t need to work two jobs and she’ll be there for the kids. You get to live. And in ten years you get to come back and maybe play with grand kids. Your other option is to go home now and die in what, two months? Three?”

Sam looked away dejectedly, ashamed to let the other man see tears welling in his eyes. He looked out the office window and let his mind wander for a minute until the pain in his heart subsided a little.

“OK,” he said quietly, “how do we start?”

-------------------------------------------------

In the smaller garage there was a rack of berths, each about 30 cm high by 30 cm wide and twice as deep, stacked five wide and five high. In all of the 25 spots except one there rested a small drone that was plugged in and charging after an 18 hour shift. They were collectively referred to as Semi-Autonomous Mining Drones, or SAMDs, and they were numbered 001 to 025. And they were a serious pain in Sam’s ass. 

The major part of Sam’s job was to keep the drones, both the larger controlled ones and these smaller self directed ones, operational via routine maintenance and as needed repairs. For the larger versions this was straightforward and relatively easy, even enjoyable for him at times. But the smaller versions frequently broke and malfunctioned in new and frustrating ways and it seemed to be getting more frequent all the time. Most of the time all he had to do was wipe the memory and re-install the operating system, but sometimes he had to open them up and replace components or entire boards. It was time consuming and difficult and he hated it. 

Today the berth for SAMD-023 was empty. Sam sighed as he took out his pad and brought up the SAMD control suite and navigated to 023’s panel. He hoped he wasn't going to find out the drone had gotten stuck out on the surface; that would require a dangerous expedition that would take hours and leave him exhausted and filthy. That never happened with the big drones, he bemoaned. But the info screen showed him that 023 checked through the airlock at the end of the shift with all other 24 drones as expected. So where was it? 

He walked over to the airlock and looked through a grimy window to confirm it just didn't get stuck in between the two doors. Sam once spent a day searching mining pits in the poorly fitting exosuit just searching for a drone that was sitting in the airlock. But it was empty this time. 

He turned around and scanned the garage. It wasn't a large space but there were cabinets, tool boxes, and spare parts strewn around, enough assorted detritus from repair projects over the years to hide a small drone. He poked around and checked under the workbenches but there was no sign of the errant drone. Sam stood in the centre of the room and surveyed it while scratching his head. “Where the hell did you go, you little shit?”

Then he heard a fainting scratching sound coming from one side. Triangulating the sound by swiveling his head back and forth, he moved slowly towards a bench that was adjacent to a cabinet along the wall. He had checked under the bench and in the cabinet (how the hell the drones ever managed to get into the cabinets and close the door behind themselves he never could quite figure out) but he had neglected to check the gap between the bench legs and the cabinet that the workbench's surface overhang necessitated. Sam got down on his hands and knees again and saw that, sure enough, 023 was in the tight gap trying to do something at the back against the wall. 

“Come here you piece of crap,” he muttered as he reached his arm in and tried to gently grab one of the six legs. They were pretty sturdy for navigating the rough terrain of the asteroid’s surface, searching crevices and cracks for deposits of ores that the larger dumb drones might have missed, but Sam knew from experience that it didn't take much pressure to bend them enough to require lengthy repair or replace session at the workbench. He hated these things; they were nothing but trouble.

He couldn't quite reach so he laid flat on his stomach and angled his shoulder to push a few more inches in. His fingers brushed against one flailing metal appendage so he strained his shoulder into the gap and stretched his fingers as much as he could. “There!” he exclaimed as he got a grip on the leg and started to pull on it. “Come on now, looks like someone needs a re-image…”

As Sam got to his knees and had almost got the scrambling drone out, he felt a lancing pain on his arm just above his wrist. He screamed and whipped the drone out and violently threw it into the centre of the room, then he clutched his fiercely throbbing arm to his chest. Cursing he inspected the damage and saw a cut in his lower forearm about 6 cm long and deep enough to cause a flap of his skin to be loose. The mining laser the drone used to cut him had cauterized most of the wound and the cut was almost parallel to his arm so that it luckily avoided any major arteries or the bone, but there was still a lot of blood and considerable pain. Nothing life threatening, as far as Sam could tell, but it hurt like a son of a bitch. 

He felt his temper flaring to uncontrollable heights and his eyes locked on to the offending drone as it was righting itself on the floor and trying to flee with one leg wrenched in a non-functional angle. Sam marched over to it before it could crawl under yet another bench yelling, “YOU LITTLE SHIT!” He kicked the drone hard with his steel toed boot away from cover and it went flying through the air until it struck the airlock door with a clang and the sound of snapping metal. It skittered to a stop on the open floor again and valiantly tried to escape on only three working legs but Sam was right on top of it in an instant, stomping with his heavy boot this time instead of kicking. “I HATE YOU! I HATE THIS PLACE!” he scream, every word punctuated by a stomp that caused more pieces to bend and break each time. 

He stopped. His leg was sore from the unfamiliar strenuous activity and his arm throbbed from the injury and he felt a little nauseous, either from the loss of blood or the pain or both. The remains of 023 twitched at his feet and it was apparent it would not be going anywhere else. Muttering that he would clean this mess up later, Sam turned and marched out the garage door to the corridor cradling his injured arm.

He paid no attention to the 24 optical sensors that followed his progress.

-------------------------------------------------

“OK, I think we’re clear. Warping.”

Sam wasn’t sure if the heaving in his stomach was caused by the aftercare drugs he was on or the after effects of the stargate travel. He clutched his barf bag and tried to think about anything else but his stomach.

“How you doing back there?” the captain of the shuttle, a gangly youth that went by the name of Gore Vodden, asked over his shoulder.

“I’ll live,” Sam replied.

The pilot laughed. “I get it! Because the cancer’s gone, right? Yeah, you’ll live now, freaking nanos set you straight. You feel like shit now but once your body cleans out the sludge you’ll feel good as new.”

Sam had to agree; he felt sick to his stomach and weak as a newborn, but the near constant aching pain all over his body and in his bones was gone. For the first time he felt hopeful for a future despite missing his wife and kids like crazy already. Trying to take his mind off that train of thought, he asked Gore, “You said we were clear back there. Clear of what?”

“Oh the usual,” Gore responded casually, “sometimes Sanshas, sometimes capsuleers, sometimes Ammatar border patrols.”

“Wait, ‘Ammatar border patrols’? I don’t understand, we’re not in Federation space anymore?”

“No sir! Derelik region.” 

“I don’t understand, I thought the outpost I am supposed to manage was in our space.”

Gore chuckled as he flipped some switches and allowed the ship to drop out of warp near another stargate. “You assumed it was in the Federation, mate, but did you ever confirm? Just a sec.” He activated the shuttle’s engines and maneuvered it towards the gate. “Hold on.” Sam felt his stomach drop as the stargate generated a wormhole to suck the ship through. Seconds later his stomach returned to him in a upset state again as they reappeared in space in a new system. Gore punched some keys and the ship turned on its axis and accelerated into another stomach tossing warp, then he turned his seat around and addressed his passenger straight on.

“Look, I know you’re confused but all you need to know is that you keep your head down out here. We’ve got several installations like this around Derelik and none of them have had any trouble with the locals. I don’t know for sure but I figure our bosses have agreements in place behind the scenes. Whatever, if there are any problems you just put your hands up and ask to speak with the nearest Federation consulate. Got it?”

Sam could only nod.

“Alright, as you know your job is to keep the lights on and drones running. Every month a transport will show up and pick up the ores the drones have mined, your reports, and any mails to be forwarded home to your family. It will drop off a supply package of fresh food, any parts you requested last month that you need for the drones, and any mails from home. Probably some latest holos too if the runner pilot is a decent human being.

“Now sometimes the runner doesn't get through or gets delayed or whatever. Don’t panic, the station has stores of rations that will last you several months so you won’t starve and we won’t forget you’re out here. Just keep things running and find yourself a hobby because you’re going to get bored out here fast. The computers have a few thousand holos but you’ll find they run out sooner than you think. So, yeah, find a hobby. Paint, draw, build models, whatever. The station’s recreation area has all that kind of stuff in storage from when it was crewed by a few hundred people so feel free to make use of it.

“Speaking of making use of it, don’t slack on taking your medicine! You’re all alone out here and the auto-doc in the infirmary is good but not that good. Follow your doctor’s instructions, stay healthy, take your medicine. If the auto-doc prescribes some pills, you swallow them, got it?” He waited until Sam nodded. “Good, there was one guy who thought he knew better and almost died from an infection.”

The ship started to drop out of warp and a vaguely spherical asteroid loomed on the screen as Gore turned back to the controls. “We’ll be docked in five minutes. Got any questions?”

-------------------------------------------------------------

Sam hated going into the interior of the outpost.

Even though the accommodations were more spacious on the executive level and, as the only person still here, he had his pick of the rooms, he preferred his smaller room on the lower level that was closer to the exterior because some of the corridors between his room and the garages and the machine shop actually had external windows and starlight or the occasional sunlight augmented the artificial lighting and made him feel less trapped. 

The only reasons he needed to go into the interior was if there was a problem with the station’s fusion reactor (which never happened), or he needed to get some more food from the main freezer in the main cafeteria (which was rare), or a trip to the infirmary was required (which happened more often than he preferred).

Since there was no one living or working in the interior, the thermostats were turned way down and the lighting was set to dim and only came on when motion sensors detected something. As Sam made his way to the infirmary he was dripping blood every few steps from the wound on his arm which was starting to really hurt now that the adrenaline from his rage was wearing off. 

The infirmary door didn't automatically open when he approached unlike almost all other doors on the station as there was a manual control to ensure no infectious agents were released unintentionally into the general air ventilation. In the past Sam considered hot wiring the door and installing a motion sensor to save himself the three seconds it took to hit the door open command on the keypad and then the confirmation button but there always seemed something more important to do. Right now he was wishing he taken the time as his arm hurt like hell.

The door hissed open and the lights sprung to life as he stumbled in. Fortunately the auto-doc station didn’t require a lengthy boot up time (“Another Quality Product by CreoDron”) and as he laid down on the bed it wasted no time getting to the point. “What is the nature of the injury?” it inquired.

“Arm, cut, bleeding,” Sam replied tersely. He knew the voice recognition program of the machine would only clue into certain terms in sentences so you could save some time by only feeding it the terms it needed to get started.

“It appears you have a serious laceration on your right arm, is this correct?”

“Yes.”

“Have you had any treatment for the laceration on your right arm already?”

“No.”

“I am about to provide medical treatment for the laceration on your right arm, is that acceptable?”

“Yes, Yes! Get on with it already!”

“Please hold still while I provide medical treatment to your right arm for a laceration.” If Sam had been feeling slightly less pain, he would have punched the thing right in the control pad.

Two restraints popped out of the side of the machine and held his army firmly above and below the bleeding cut, and then another arm with various instruments came around from the other side and reached over Sam to start cleaning the wound and binding it up. The process only took about five minutes and ended with a shot of painkillers that immediately started to take the edge off the worst of the pain.

“There! I am all done providing treatment for the laceration on your right arm. Is there any other medical issues I can help you with at this time?”

“No, I’m good,” he replied as he sat up and felt his head starting to get fuzzy from the drugs.

“Excellent. I am sending a prescription to your pad for antibiotics for you to start tomorrow to prevent any complications from infection. I didn't detect any but it is best to be safe. Have a good day!”

Sam trudged to the door as the auto-doc went back into hibernation mode and he gave his head a shake as he keyed the door open. It only took two tries and then he was able to stumble into the corridor while yawning. “I need a nap,” he moaned. The infirmary door closed behind him and he found himself in a pitch black corridor.

“What the hell?”

-------------------------------------------------------------

“OK, I’m clear of the docking ring. You’re on you own now, Sam. Good Luck!”

“Fly safe,” Sam responded, copying what he remembered hearing the station docking control say when they set out in the shuttle to come to this outpost. It must have been the right thing because Gore smiled and he gave a salute to Sam before disconnecting. 

He sat back in the control room chair and looked around. There was consoles for at least seven people and an overview holo table at the back where a few more could keep an eye on things when the station was fully operational. But right now there was just Sam. 

He had never felt so alone. He missed his wife and kids terribly and vowed to write to them every day even though his messages would only be picked up every month or less by the transport that came for the minerals. He missed his friends like Gerry even if he was a dumbass. He missed his old life.

But on the other hand, without the nano therapy treatments the company paid for he would have been on his death bed right now as the cancer consumed his body from the inside. Ten years of loneliness and boredom in exchange for the rest of his life seemed like a good deal when was all said and done.

“After all,” he said out loud to no one with a smile on his face, “I’m living on borrowed time now.”

-------------------------------------------------------------

Sam’s drug addled mind took a few seconds to puzzle out why he was still standing in darkness. He fumbled his pad out of his pocket and used its glow to confirm that he had not suddenly gone blind. He could see the wall on either side and the horizontal edge on the wall where the concealed lighting would normally shine from when the door opened but right now it was dark. Occasionally a section of lighting would expire and require changing but Sam had never heard of an entire corridor’s lighting blowing at once on both sides. 

“Something must have happened to the main fuse for this section,” he thought to himself and he considered trying to bring up the station’s electrical schematics to find out where this corridor’s sub station was located, but the drugs in his system and throbbing in his arm convinced him this was something that could wait until later. 

Using the light from his pad he made his way down the hall. The dark seemed to make the cold feel colder and he felt a chill race up his spine. He didn't like being in the enclosed confines of the interior of the station at the best of times and the oppressive dark only made his anxiety worse. 

As he made his way around a curve in the corridor he caught a glimpse of his pad’s glow being reflected off something on the floor. He slowed his advanced as the light reached out and illuminated more and then stopped as his heart pounded in his chest and the cloudiness of the drugs was washed away on a new wave of adrenaline.

There in the middle of the hall was 11 of the small Semi-Autonomous Mining Drones, all of them facing their sensor arrays towards Sam, sitting perfectly still. Out of the corner of his eye he saw two more on the wall, using their pincer limbs to grasp on to the polymer surface, and between them he could see the melted edges of a hole. His eyes darted over to the other side of the corridor to see a matching hole there and at this angle he could see damage electronics and it was no longer a mystery to Sam why the lights had failed in this part of the outpost.

Intellectually he knew there had to be a rational reason for the drones’ actions, like maybe a broken AI subroutine that had propagated to other drones when they shared the shift’s neural networks, or even a virus that had come in on the software updates from the last supply ship. But instinctively Sam knew it was time to run.

He turned and nearly tripped over his own feet, his boots feeling extra heavy and clumsy. He heard the skittering of many mechanical legs start to move behind him and his heart rate spiked as pure terror raced through him. He pounded down the hall, the glow from his pad in his hand throwing frantic shadows on the walls in front of him as he pumped his arms. He saw the door to the infirmary come out of the gloom ahead of him and he slowed enough to take a quick look behind. The sight of the drones racing after him convinced Sam to run even harder. 

Sam grunted as he slammed into the door and accidentally dropped his pad which landed face down and plunged him into complete darkness. “NO!” he screamed as he scrambled on his hands and knees searching for the dropped tool. His fingers brushed it and he grabbed it and in the glow he could see the drones still skittering towards him at full speed and only about 10 meters away. He lunged to his feet and pounded his fist on the keypad for the door and it lit up so he could stab at the Open command. The interface seemed to take forever to refresh with the confirmation command but it finally displayed and he frantically stabbed at it too. 

The door started to slide open and Sam’s relief was cut short as he felt something pull on his pant leg. He spun through the door, kicking with his heavy boots at the floor that seemed to writhe with mechanical bodies. The panic gave his kicks extra power and he felt a couple satisfying thumps as his boots connected and sent a couple drones flying. He backed into the infirmary and tried to hit the emergency door close command on the inside keypad but another drone leaped up and landed on his leg and bit its claws into his flesh. Sam screamed and took a step back to keep from losing his balance but now he was too far away to hit the emergency close button. He dropped his pad as the lights of the infirmary allowed him to see and tried to peel the drone on his leg off as its laser started to bite into his work overalls while he reached out with his other hand to order the door closed.

Another drone launched itself at him and this time it hit him square in the chest. He lost his balance and fell backwards and started flailing at the drone on his chest. He screamed at the top of his lungs as the laser of the one on his leg burned through his clothes and sliced into his flesh. Another drone latched on to his uninjured left arm and pinched hard as its laser ripped through the exposed back of his hand, and the drone on his chest had maneuvered high enough to aim its laser at his face.

Not like this, Sam thought. Not like this.

----------------------------------------------------------

Internal Memo:
Reports from the field indicate the Reduced AI Architecture project has proven untenable. Recommend immediate termination.
J. Golipe
VP R&D Operations

First Draft Complete

That was intense, must remember to start earlier next time. Tonight and tomorrow is the proofreading and re-writes as needed, and then submit!

Pod and Planet Fiction Contest

The annual Pod and Planet fiction contest is once again upon us!

As it sounds, it's a fiction writing contest, for stories based on EVE. The stories can be set in the rich world of the New Eden milieu, or in the background of the interactive game world. Your choice-- write, create, sharpen up your story-telling skills, and maybe win a nice prize.

This will be the third one of these in three years. Check out the Reading Bank page for links to the 165 tales the EVE community produced in the first two contests. There was some surprisingly good stuff. By pro writers, regular writers, and people writing fiction for the first time ever. We have some really intelligent and talented people playing this game.

There are 32 billion ISK worth of prizes including a 4 billion ISK top prize. My entry from last year is called The Life of Nina Cruse and while I'm really proud of that piece I was quite bummed when it didn't even register in the honourable mentions for its category. I talked to one of the judges and I suspect that my liberties with the neural transfer technology might have rubbed some of the lore master judges the wrong way in the category that was meant for fiction true to the lore.

No matter, its a new year and a new contest and I plan to enter again! If you have a writer hiding in you I hope you enter too. You have until December 3rd.

Fiction Friday Old Times Done!

It took a long time with many breaks, but the story Old Times is finally finished! I hope if anyone read it all they will leave a comment so I know whether to bother starting a new one in the new year. :)

I might do some one off fiction pieces until January while I decide if I do another series or hang up the episodic story telling pen. Your input is appreciated.

I'll be adding Old Times to the fiction page, so if you haven't read it you can check it out there along with my other pieces.

Fiction Friday: Old Times - Epilogue

Previously:
0.1
1.0
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
2.0
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.5
2.6
2.7
2.8
2.9
2.10
2.11
2.12
2.13
3.1
3.2

3.3
* * * * *

Heydieles was jumping these days and both of the Duvolle Laboratory stations were crammed with people working for the war effort, civilian base liners and capsuleers. There was much to be done: bringing in munitions and crews, fortifying installations, and on the constant lookout for Caldari State Protectorate forces trying to establish a foothold. Gallente Militia capsuleer volunteers were on the front-lines of that fight, constantly patrolling and reshipping.

But not me. I was stuck in the temportary office of Commandant Shuquelle of the Directive Enforcement Department of CONCORD.

"You see, Mr Kodachi," the pompous ass was saying, "despite the skirmishes out here in the fringes of space, CONCORD still has to respond to these allegations against you. We take the murder of a capsuleer very seriously!"

"These skirmishes," I replied with agitation, "are costing thousands of lives of crewmen every day!"

He waved off my objection. "Yes, yes, unfortunate losses and such, but far better than full scale warfare, no?" He shuffled some reports on his desk. "In any case, I am sure the militia will do fine without one of its pilots while we sort out this incident."

I groaned and slouched in my chair more. After leaving Caldari space I had researched the implications of being charged with homicide in the State and the current political atmosphere between the State and the Federation gave me protection from arrest and extradition. But CONCORD, which oversees capsuleer agreements between the empires, was involved and sent their own investigator to question me. I was pretty sure he didn't have authority to arrest me outright, but his report could be the difference between having all my capital assets locked down and my interests in my brother's corporation being frozen, which could be fatal to the organization.

"I'm telling you, I was framed," I groaned.

Shuqulle sighed. He pressed a button on his tablet and a red light came on. "Look, Mr Kodachi," he leaned forward with a conspiratorial tone, "I know you think this is bullshit, but there are many State sympathizers in the organization and if I don't come back with the more thorough report ever, they will simply send someone else to do it again. If they bother with that at all. So let's get through this together as quickly as possible, alright?"

I nodded and he pressed the button again and the red light extinguished. "I understand you claim you were framed, Mr Kodachi," he said in his officious voice once more, "but the evidence suggests otherwise. How about we start from the top again? And then you can get back to.. whatever it is you were doing out there," he indicated in the general direction of the station's exterior.

I groaned and slouched some more.

Fiction Friday: Old Times - 3.3

Previously:
0.1
1.0
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
2.0
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.5
2.6
2.7
2.8
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2.10
2.11
2.12
2.13
3.1

3.2
* * * * *

"What the FUCK?!" I yelled at her while raising my hands up to indicate to the goons targeting me that I didn't intend to try anything. My heart was pounding in my throat and my adrenaline spiked so much I was shaking. I thought for sure I was a dead man.

"Oh relax, if I wanted you dead then you'd be dead," Cryst answered. She kicked Jace's foot. "Him, on the other hand, had to go."

Things started to fall into place in my head. "I take it there was never any daughter." 

"Of course not!" she laughed. "But I knew it was the quickest way to get you to agree to try and get him. You were always a sucker for anyone in distress."

"Why did you need me," I asked as I nodded at her uniform, "surely navy intel has the resources to extract one man out of null sec?" 

She sighed deeply and the jovial attitude slipped a little. "Well, yes, you'd think so but the reality is a little sticky." She started to pace the floor a little while still being careful to not step in any of the pooling blood. "The story I told you was true: Jace did get in over his head out in null sec with the Obsidian Swords and the Guristas do, or rather, did have a price on his head. What I left out was that Jace bribed certain officials, officials that have been dealt with I might add, to avoid the mind wipe upon his discharge."

"His wipe? He skipped his wipe?!" My mind reeled at the implications.  All the ship certifications, navy strategies, codes, deployments... all intact in a private citizen. 

"Yes, the bastard skipped the wipe. We would not have found out had the idiot not offered to sell state secrets as soon as he got to null sec to the highest bidder," she added dryly.

"And that's why the Guristas were after him so badly," I concluded.

"That and the fact that he was an ass who blew up a lot of their installations." 

"So why me, Cryst? Why get me to go get him when the state wanted him so badly?"

She twirled her gun on her finger. "It can get sticky with the capsuleer alliances." She grimaced in distaste as she continued, "They have gotten so large and organized that there is a threat that is one of these null sec coalitions were to declared war on the state that it could go badly, especially if the Federation takes advantage of the situation. Therefore we can't be seen to be infringing on their territory so making use of independent agents is advisable where possible."

She stopped twirling the gun and casually pointed it at my chest. "I debated killing you too to clean up loose ends but its harder to explain two dead bodies than to explain one while framing the other."

"You're framing me?" I asked incredulously.

"Of course! Its so easy! You have a record of going on stations and killing people, you have a history of conflict with the victim here," she pointed at Jace's dead body on the floor, "and you are a known enemy of the State due to your involvement with the Federal Defense Union. A few fake fingerprints, edited video feeds, and suddenly you are a wanted man and no uncomfortable questions about why the state killed an independent capsuleer."

I said nothing; I simply glared.

"Besides," she said with sultriness as she sidled up beside me to whisper in my ear. "I never kill an asset." She giggled and backed off and started to leave. "You've got five minutes before station security gets here, Kirith. Don't bother wasting time mourning for that asshole."

Fiction Friday: Old Times 3.2

Previously:
0.1
1.0
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
2.0
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.5
2.6
2.7
2.8
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2.10
2.11
2.12
2.13

3.1
* * * * *

The door slid open and instead of an empty corridor to the station proper there were three people standing there. The two in the back were hulking brutes in black unmarked uniforms and helmets with reflective visors and they carried rifles pointed at me and Jace. The third was the slight form of Cryst herself, standing calmly in front of them with their barrels aimed at us on either side of her head. She ware the uniform of a Captain in the INT division of the State Navy and in her hand was a navy standard issue SUVEE-45 hybrid pistol. She took us both in, pointed the gun at Jace's chest, and pulled the trigger.

The power of a hybrid pistol depends a lot on the charge used. Standard iron or lead will punch through most body armour with ease, while plutonium or uranium charges can punch through bulkhead doors in some cases. No one uses antimatter charges outside of a starship weapon because its just overkill for almost any application outside of trying to vent atmosphere of a station from the inside. Nevertheless, the shot Cryst fired was definitely antimatter as far as I can tell; it had a small entry wound in the middle of his chest and blew out the entire back half of his torso in a small explosion. I was standing in front of Jace and still got some blood splatter on my jacket.

Jace, of what was left of him, crumpled to the floor like a marionette whose strings were suddenly cut. I stumbled backwards until I hit the wall, unable to take my eyes off the sudden carnage and Cryst took a step forward while changing the ammo selector on her pistol and then fired two conventional iron shots into Jace's skull in what can only be described as overkill. The two attending guards entered as well, the one closest to me keeping his weapon trained on me while the other entered on Cryst's other side and swept the room for other dangers.

Having finished surveying her handiwork, Cryst turned back to me and with a little smirk on her face said, "Hello Kirith."

About My Fiction....

If you haven't read my fiction entry for the Pod and Planet fiction contest, please read it first unless you have no intention of reading it at all. Because...

** SPOILERS **

Ok? Let's continue.

When I heard about the contest I really wanted to enter this year as I was too busy last year. Previously when I entered a writing contest, the one for Star Fleet Comms podcast (which is gone and missed), I ended up winning and I felt so awesome about that for weeks (still do in fact). The question was, what the hell am I going to write?

One of my favourite pieces of "fiction friday" that I wrote was the one where "Kirith" became a true pod pilot by enduring the test where the instructors simulate a pod breach. As you may or may not know, the pod reads your current mind state at time of a breach and transmits it across the cosmos instantaneously to a new clone, but this process flash-fries your current brain in the process. Thus, this test I wrote about is effectively killing the original person and putting them in their very first clone to live out their life. The only way to immortality in EVE is to first die.

Why would they do that? you ask. Well, the lore is not specific but not everyone successfully survives the neural transference, indeed even experienced pod pilots can suffer a failed transfer, although the odds of a failure drop dramatically after the first one. So if you are a navy and you are going to invest time and money to train a new pod pilot, you sure as hell want to make sure the applicant can actually have a chance to survive a transfer intact.

So the story was going to be about becoming a pod pilot... or more accurately, because I'm a bastard and love suffering, it was going to be about failing to become a pod pilot.

In order to make the failure mean something, the protagonist had to be someone that the reader wants to succeed. Not another manly-man who can-do-no-wrong superhero (we've got plenty of those :P ); I wanted a flawed character who was struggling to become a pod pilot to gain power and control they felt they did not have in their planet bound life. Enter Nina.

We meet Nina as already broken from her rape; who she was before is immaterial as that is a completely different person in a different life. That's why the piece is called "The Life of Nina Cruse", because we see it from its beginning in the hospital bed where she swears she is going to never allow someone to hurt her that bad again, to its end in the cloning facility where her body and brain fail her. She attempted to pass through the gate of death to immortality, and stumbled due to her flaws and the uncaring randomness of the universe.

Someone asked after reading my piece what motivated Nina to become a pod pilot after her assault. In order to understand it, imagine you are yourself living and working on a planet in the EVE universe, a normal person (as normal as you are, of course... we know about that habit you have...), and there exists these people who can go anywhere they want (where travel is expensive and highly regulated for the every-man) and have seemingly unlimited resources and are above any concept of law... who wouldn't want to be part of that class of people if they could? The only barrier to entry is that you effectively have to die in order to become one yourself (ignoring the training, profiling, etc to allow the navy or corporation or whatever to turn you into a pod pilot) and there is a risk you might not survive the transition. How low would that risk have to be before you would attempt it? 10%? 5%? 1%?

This is what motivates Nina to try and become a pod pilot: to her, the perceived risk is negligible compared to the reward of having power over everything around her and protection from those that might seek to harm it. She's chasing an ideal of godhood that she sees in the media all around her and with that power she thinks she will be free from the scars that the rape left on her body and psyche.

And that the tragedy of the piece: we see in the end those scars that gave her strength to overcome any obstacles to her goal are ultimately with her in the transition to the clone, and although I don't come out and say it, possibly responsible for her failure to survive in it.

With the story and character in my head, I was faced with the structure of the piece. I went with a 5 part that I felt had the right pacing and flow: introduction to Nina showing her helpless after her rape and her decision to never be that weak again, followed by three parts showing how she grows in strength and confidence while overcoming barriers and challenges to her desire to become a pod pilot, and ending with the cloning vat table where she realizes that all the strength and desire and willpower in the universe can't help you when it isn't meant to be. And that's the point: had she accepted that her rape was not her fault for being physically weaker than her attacker but solely his fault from the start, she could have healed and had a normal happy life: instead she burned brighter and out sooner.

So the rest is just sausage making: trying to describe relate-able characters without getting bogged down in details, trying to write a female perspective from my male brain, when to narrate and when to have dialogue, etc and so forth.

I'd love to hear feedback and questions if you have any.

Pod and Planet Fiction Entry: The Life of Nina Cruse

This is my entry for the Pod And Planet Fiction Contest put on by Telegram Sam. Follow the link for more entries.

This piece is called "The Life of Nina Cruse" and has been written for the Eight Thousand Suns in New Eden category. Enjoy.


---------------------------------------------------------------

“I’m so sorry, Dad.”

“Oh honey, its not your fault!”

Nina closed her good eye and turned her head to the side as tears began to swell. Her father leaned over the railing of the hospital bed and stroked her hair and brushed some locks of dark hair out of her face that had fallen over her eyes, and as he did so he once again winced at the sight of the right eye swollen shut and the split lip and felt his heart break all over again. His own eyes welled up with tears and the anger in the pit of his stomach began to churn but he pushed it down. Later, he promised himself, right now Nina needs me.

“I tried to fight him off, Daddy, but he was so strong!”

“I know, Nina, I know.” She began to sob in earnest now and she reached up to grab his hand that was stroking her hair, careful not to catch her broken finger that still ached despite the medications. It hurt other places too; her face and ribs where he hit her, her head where it struck the ground when he pushed her down… and other parts she did not want to think about.

“Honey,” her father gently spoke, “its not your fault. Sometimes bad things happen to good people,” he added as his tears began to freely flow and his throat constricted. “Sometimes they happen to the best. Its not your fault.”

They stayed there for a minute holding hands and crying, comforting each other and then he sat back in his chair and wiped his eyes. Jord Cruse had not felt this helpless in a long time and despite knowing there was nothing he could do he felt still the need to say or do something, anything, to make it all better.

“I should have done something different,” Nina muttered from the bed. “Should’ve went a different way home, wore something different… something.”

“Nina, listen to me, its not your fault. Its… its his fault.”

“I should have at least taken self defense classes, martial arts or something,” she bemoaned. “You always wanted me to! I should have listened!”

Her father sighed. It ached his soul to see her torture herself up over this tragedy but he didn’t know the words that would help. “Look sweetie,” he began gently, “Sometimes there is nothing you can do. No matter what, sometimes you just can’t win. Its not your fault,” he paused as he struggled to find the right words, “its just the way it is.”

“NO!” she shouted. “I refuse to accept that this was just bad luck, daddy! No fucking way!” She clenched the sheets with her good hand and slammed it on the bed repeatedly. Then, her anger spent for the moment, she calmed down, took a few deep breaths, and whispered, “I won’t let this happen again.”

* * * * *

“So Miss Cruse, you’re interested in joining the State War Academy, are you?”

Nina sat in the utilitarian office facing the older woman behind the desk, her hands nervously clenched in her lap of her somber skirt and jacket ensemble she borrowed from her mother. She didn’t know why she was so nervous since almost no one was denied their application into the Academy unless they had obvious debilitating defects, and right now Nina was as physically healthy as a 19 year old could be.

The recruiting officer, a semi-retired Chief Warrant Officer whose desk name plate read “A. Danersan”, perused over Nina’s school transcript for a minute before putting it down and looking intently at the young woman in front of her. “Your grades are very good, Miss Cruse. I’m surprised you are not applying for internship at the corporate offices.” She indicated Nina’s body with a wave of one hand. “Especially one of your stature,” she added frankly.

She felt a blush on her cheeks. Nina was painfully aware that at 160 centimeters and under 50 kilos she was a lightweight compared to all of the other people in the waiting room, but she was not to be dissuaded from her goal.

“Yes ma’am, I am small but my dreams are big.” She had practiced that line for days but now that she said it to someone she thought it sounded lame. She hurriedly added, “I believe I can get into the officer stream and then apply for the Capsuleer program.”

Danersan leaned back in her chair and her eyebrows raised in surprise. “The Capsuleer program?” She surveyed Nina again. “Your marks are good, but they are not exceptional. Nothing in your listed interests suggests a proclivity for commanding a starship. I did a search on the net and your page came up.” As she picked up a tablet Nina’s cheeks flushed. “You say under the section on future plans, and I quote, ‘I hope to someday help the community leading recycling and conservation efforts’, end quote.” She put the tablet down and looked across the desk at Nina again. “That was only last year. What changed, Miss Cruse? Why go from wanting to be a conservator to joining the Academy and aspiring to be a Capsuleer? Is this some flight of fancy? Because we don’t take kindly to spurious applicants,” she added darkly.

“Well,” Nina began tentatively, “I’ve had a reality check the last few months. I’ve come to realize that we, I mean, I’m in less control than I thought. Of my destiny, you know?” Danersan said nothing and continued to watch her with an unblinking stare. Nina felt flustered but forged ahead. “I just, I just want to be in control. And staying here and working at some desk job is not going to do it for me. I need more.” She met the older woman’s gaze. “I need a challenge, I need to challenge myself, I need to be stronger. I need to win,” she finished.

She felt like withering under that unflinching gaze but she didn’t. Instead, despite the rapidly beating heart and perspiring brow, she held it and said nothing more. Finally Danersan leaned forward. “Alright Miss Cruse. You’re not the usual applicant that professes a desire to become a pod pilot but I’ve seen stranger things.” She smiled and reached for some paperwork. “Let’s get you started, shall we?”

* * * * *

Nina hit the mat hard, the right hook that had slipped past her defenses and struck her temple had jarred her with enough force to see stars as she spun to the ground. As the ringing in her ears subsided she heard some cheering and some encouragement to shake it off and get back up.

She started to get back to her knees and looked at her opponent. Cadet Donna Klofed was bouncing back and forth on the balls of her bare feet with her gloved fists at the sides of her muscular frame that was about 15 centimeters taller than Nina’s and many kilos heavier. But despite being smaller Nina had gotten a lot more physically fit in the past year since joining the academy and her she was a lot faster than a lot of her bigger classmates. She had made good use of that speed advantage in matches and that made her confident she could take on almost any of the other students, but this time, however, she underestimated her opponent’s reach with those long arms.

“You want more, Cruse?” Klofed taunted. Nina didn’t know her very well as they were in different years in the academy, Donna being one year ahead. They only shared the advanced combat training course where occasionally the instructors would have the cadets put on gloves and helmets and practice some mix martial arts fighting. Nina enjoyed the feeling of exhilaration the fighting gave her but this round against the bigger and more experienced second year cadet was starting to frustrate her.

She regained her footing and got back into her fighting stance, gloves up and on the balls of her feet. Klofed put her mouth guard back in and started circling the other fighter. The rest of the class and the instructor, an asshole of a man named Lieutenant Kenned, starting cheering them on again and offering yelled advice.

Nina knew her lankier opponent’s reach was too much of an advantage and a fast left side roundhouse kick that she blocked with her elbow confirmed that. As she danced back and circled to her right to avoid the flurry of punches that followed the leading kick she decided she would have to move in to have a chance. But before she could, Klofed saw an opening and executed a perfect spinning side kick that slipped under Nina’s defenses and struck her right in the stomach, sending her backwards and on her ass. As she rolled to her side to catch her winded breath, she cursed herself for getting hit again and wondered if she should stay down this time.

“Come on, Cruse, that all you got?” yelled Kenned from the side in his usual arrogant voice. “Maybe you should stay down this time!”

Suddenly Nina had a vision of a face. It was that man who stepped out from behind the wall on that day, that fateful day when everything changed, near the end of her senior year of school. She could hear his taunting voice, feel his fists crashing into her face and body, feel the weight as he pinned her down, feel his nails scratching her skin as he ripped her clothes. But this time Instead of frightened she just felt angry and she wanted to punch him like she could not before. Her heart pounded harder in her chest as a new dose of adrenaline coursed through her veins and she got up practically shaking with fury.

She got up into her guard position and raised her gloved fists but instead of waiting for her opponent to make the first move she rushed in, slipped right past Klofed’s hasty defensive jab and bent her knees low to turn into a full rotation of a right uppercut to the midsection. She heard a satisfying grunt of a short exhale of breath from Klofed and blocked a hurried knee as her opponent stepped back. With the extra space her retreating opponent allowed, Nina straightened her knees, stepped in and followed up with a fast left hook that beat Klofed’s glove to the side of her helmet. The solid blow spun Klofed’s head around and she flew backwards and fell on the mat.

The small crowd cheered, with the notable exception being the coach Kenned who watched with a frown. Nina offered a gloved hand to Klofed as the latter started to get back up, and it was accepted with a head shake and a grin. “Good one,” Klofed slurred around her mouth guard, “Nice and fast.”

“Thanks,” Nina replied.

* * * * *

“I see here that your psych profile recommended against you being allowed into the program.”

Nina focused the cameras connected to the training pod she was in on her instructor, Lieutenant Commander Zinne. It took a second for her mind to control them properly, setting the focus of each of the three separately. “Yes sir,” she synthesized through the speakers.

“And how did you convince that old battleaxe to accept your admission regardless?” Zinne asked with amusement in her voice. The “old battleaxe” she referred to was Head of Admissions of the Capsuleer Program, Captain Kirtner, who looked like he was two hundred years old and hadn’t smiled in the past hundred of them for fear of shattering his calcified visage.

“It was not easy, sir,” Nina admitted. She thought back to that meeting, sweating under that furrowed glare and hard face, pleading for her chance and insisting it was the only thing she wanted to do. The parallel to her first meeting with the recruiting officer when she wanted to join the academy was not lost on Nina; it seemed like everyone wanted to stand in her way of becoming a pod pilot someday. Nevertheless here she was as once again her passion and determination had swung the decision in her favour despite the psychological profile report on her that suggested she was not capsuleer material. “But,” she added, “I refused to be dissuaded.”

“Well,” the senior officer continued, “your academy marks are high, best in your class in most subjects, you’re on the fast track of promotions and already a Lieutenant, and you could have your pick of assignments… why do you want to be a capsuleer and risk it all if the neural transference fails?”

Nina stretched out her pod connected senses. She looked at the training facility through three different perspectives across the electromagnetic spectrum, listened on five different microphones over frequencies beyond human hearing, tasted the various particles in the air through the electro-filters, and accessed the public profiles of the Lieutenant Commander Zinne and the two assisting techs all at the same time. “The reward is worth the risk,” she intoned. No one will ever hurt me again, she thought to herself.

“I see.” She put down the report and nodded to the technicians. “In any case, your basic initiation into the pod interface is complete. You have demonstrated all the required proficiencies of the neural interface uplink so its time for your final exam. Are you ready Lieutenant?”

Within the training pseudo-capsule Nina felt her pulse quicken. The dreaded transference test that she had heard whispered about in the dorms, the step through the gate of death that led to immortality. “Yes sir, I’m ready.”

“Then let’s begin.” She indicated to the two techs to proceed and a minute later one of them said, “Transference protocol is primed, awaiting authorization for initiation.” She nodded while replying, “Acknowledged,” and she looked straight at one of the camera lens trained intently upon her.

“Lieutenant Nina Cruse, your prime neural transference procedure is ready to begin. Do you understand what this procedure entails and the risks involved?”

“Yes sir.”

“Do you waive the State of any wrongdoing in the case that something in the neural transference does not proceed as expected?”

“Yes sir.”

“Lieutenant, do you agree to proceed with the neural transference?”

“Yes sir, I do.”

“Very well then,” Zinne announced, “good luck Lieutenant. Authorization of neural transference procedure given.” She pressed her thumb pad to a scanner on the console in front of her and everything in Nina’s world went blinding white.

* * * * *

The first thing Nina was aware of was her body slipping from the cloning vat with a deluge of fluid on top a flat surface where her body stopped while the fluid (the ‘incubation suspension medium’ her memory supplied her) drained around her.

“Subject 13-734CruseN decanted,” a nearby voice recited. She tried to open her eyes and turn her head to the voice but she couldn’t move. She could not move her head, her eyelids, anything. She couldn’t breathe. She became aware of a growing pain in her chest as it screamed for oxygen.

“No auto-respiration detected,” another voice reported, “I’m hooking up the ventilator.”

As fresh oxygen flowed down the tube in her throat, she felt some measure of her panic subside for the moment. “Why can’t I move?” she asked herself.

“OK, I’ve got activity in the EEG,” the first voice said, “so the transference occurred, but the readings are fluctuating wildly.” She heard the voice come close to her head. “Lieutenant, Lieutenant Cruse, can you hear me?” She felt a light slap on her cheek. “Lieutenant?”

She wanted to scream, “Yes, yes, I’m here!” but nothing would work; it felt like nothing in her body was connected to her brain.

“Attempting pain stimulus,” the other tech’s voice said. A second later Nina felt a pinch in the instep of her foot as a sharp needle was inserted. “You fucker!” she wanted to shout as the pain lanced upwards but still she could move no part of her body.

Nina felt so helpless; she hadn’t felt this helpless since that day when she walked home from the game alone, that day he stepped out from behind the building and hit her, was on top of her, hitting her more, her breath was knocked out of her, she couldn’t fight back, panic rising as her shirt was torn off, his groping hands… all she could see was his leering grin and she couldn’t move...

She felt the anger rising then, a pure white hot rage, a desire to strike out and smash his filthy face. Every ounce of her soul and emotion was poured the effort to reconnect to her body. A finger, an eyelid, a twitch, anything…

“We’ve got a spike on the EEG,” one of the tech’s reported, “Come on, Lieutenant, are you there? Nina?”

Nothing. She could not move a single muscle. She couldn’t even cry in her despair.

“EEG is dropping. We’ve got, um,” a pause while the technician checked the timer, “three minutes and no response. We got to call it.”

A sigh from the other man who was encouraging her and he said, “Alright. Subject 13-734CruseN is not responsive, neural transference has failed, and we are disconnecting life support.” She felt her fear spike as the breathing tube was disconnected and her lungs deflated and no new air could be drawn.

“I’m sorry, Daddy”, she lamented to herself as the pain in her chest returned and the edges of her consciousness started to fade to black. “You were right. Sometimes,” she finally accepted, “sometimes you just can’t win.”