It's Just Business

“...oooooOOOOOOOooooohhhhhh!”

A long moan escaped my throat as I reluctantly drifted back into consciousness.

What had happened last night? Given how I felt (ie. awful), it must have been interesting.

I reached over to the other side of the bunk - nope, not that kind of interesting. Damn.

What else then?

‘Black Flares!’, suggested a brave part of my mind, only to immediately curl up again in a fetal position.

Right - it had been a long week, ending with a night-long Customs Office clean-out, so I had kicked back with a couple units of this wonderful drink, to which I had been introduced just a month ago.

...and then ... and then...

Right: a call came in on Alliance comms, asking for pilots to join the Customs Office shoot in our other neighbouring system. Not next week, as originally planned, but right away. And I do remember podding up in my Apoc.

Ok, here was a lesson: Black Flares and amniotic fluid don’t mix! Even though I spent the rest of the night in a pod, I do remember getting more intoxicated by the hour.

Pity the fools who had to be on voice with me!

I rolled off my bunk and padded over to the wash cabin, to splash some cold water into may face.

Images of cynos surfaced from the muddle of memories - and with embarrassment I remembered that I almost flunked one of them. We had cynoed capitals back and forth, and I also remembered a freelance carrier pilot joining us, whose name was... was...

After we killed the Interbus customs offices, and reinforced the one pilot-owned CO... after we did that... yes, we headed back Next Door and attacked the POS of a small industrial corp. I must have really crashed at that point, because the next thing I remembered was a fleet warp back to our staging area, and LC and myself on private comms with that carrier pilot, LC trying to recruit her.

Back up a minute - the industrial POS, wasn’t that held by a five man corp? Who never stood a chance?

A fragment of a conversation in corp comms reappeared from the fog of my mind:

        General Offense> I know you wanted to be soft on these guys but we need practice against a live tower, and this is perfect practice.
        General Offense> We need to harden this alliance a bit :)

I looked into the mirror, absentmindedly removing a sticky note somebody had put up against it, studying my expression.

Hmm, a bit of sadness, unmistakably, as I could too well put myself into that little industrial corp’s shoes ... but otherwise - just a necessary job which had to be done.

Another splash of water, and I double-checked. Yep, no regrets.

Interesting.