Good To See You Too

        [ It’s all your fault, you know that?! ]

Eta was pacing in front of the video pick up, a drink in her hand. I had never seen her restless like that before. Nervous. Unsure of herself even. Of course I couldn’t ask her now, this being a prerecorded video mail. I could only hope that she would divulge details on her own.

        She took a sip from her glass before continuing.

        [ I mean, all I meant to do today was to have some easy times - take care of the market, try out the new hacking technology, spend some quality time with my boy. ] She waved towards someone outside the range of the video pickup. [ But noo… ]

        Another drink.

        [ There I was running a combat site in Reyi - something which I hadn’t done in years - when suddenly Nicholas from Dire Wolfs showed up in system.

        And I remembered that Dire Wolf had been causing troubles in our constellation recently, and were rumored to start to take an interest into us for the control of our low-sec systems. ]

        She looked at the floor before continuing.

        [ So I was sitting there, a potential hostile in the system, and all I could think of was: “What would Druur do?” ]

Heh. that was a question I could easily answer: I’d taunt the hostile in local, trying to get him to play his cards openly.

        [ I didn’t know, but what I did was close enough. I don’t know why, but I started taunting him in local, that if he wanted to find me, he could stop wasting his time with combat probes, and just fleet me. And he did. ]

She took another drink, and I gave her unseen thumbs-ups.

        [ It kinda went downhill from there - we bantered back and forth, warped around the system, a lady-friend of his entered the system and was having a standoff with other alliance members at the gate…

        [ Anyway, at some point I was warping - in my mission drake - to an unsafe spot and wasn’t paying attention, so when Nicholas in his Rapier and Mary-Jane in her Typhoon warped in, I almost didn’t notice. ]

        She looked at me sheepishly over her drink. [ I have not much practice at using my own fleet to bait, and unsurprisingly it did go south. ]

        Her eyes dropped down at her glass, then back up, apologetically at me: [ Sorry, I need a refill. ]

While she was rummaging around outside the range of the video pickup, and exchanging incomprehensible words with someone I couldn’t see, I was waiting patiently. I had an inkling where her story might lead, but still, it was too out-of-character for her, so I needed it to hear it from her own mouth.

Eventually, she appeared again, her glass filled to the brim.

        [ Sorry about. Uhm, … where was I? Right… I was in an unsafe spot with my mission drake, this Rapier showed up because I had forgotten that I was still in fleet with him, and then his lady-friend in a Typhoon joined the party as well And commenced to reduce me to mince meat. ]

        She took a significant sip.

        [ It wasn’t so much the Drake itself, which by then was three years old and uninsurable - it was my lapse of mind which is bothering me. But as it were, I screamed in Alliance chat, and frantically fleeted everyone willing to to step up. ]

        She almost blushed.

        [ I honestly didn’t expect it, after my wanton cockiness, but they showed up. My Drake died, but they killed Mary Jane, and I just managed to get back in time to pick up the drones I had left behind. ]

        Another drink from her glass, leaving it half empty, and she spent some time pondering a detail on the floor in front of her. Eventually, she looked up again.

        [ I don’t know, Sis. How do you do this? How!?! I really don’t know. ]

        She gestured at the universe at large.

        [ Was I just being stupid, and this was just one of the many daily insignificant events at the frontier? Did I just manage to push my alliance one step closer to a war with a true enemy? Did I maybe manage to instill some caution in the minds of Dire Wolf? ]

        She paused for seconds, then looked straight into the video pickup.

        [ I don’t know, but I know that it’s for me to figure out. And I will. But still, I know this...]

        Her hand, holding the glass, pointed straight at me.

        [ If it weren’t for you, I would have stayed docked. ‘ss your fault! ]

The video feed cut to black - that was all she had recorded. I was looking at the dark screen, yet smiling.

“I love you too, Sis.”