On The Wrong Foot

Of course it hadn't turned out as planned.

The night before, when Eta had commed me, it had sounded so straightforward: Redrum and their local friends 57th Combat were at war with Marmite Collective (again), a 57th' POS had been knocked into reinforce and would come out this morning, a joint fleet ops had been called for repairs, and additional enemies of Marmite were willing to hang around to fly CAP.

While Eta hadn't directly come out and asked for my help - not surprising after our little shouting match - it had been the hesitant extension of a wilted olive leaf, and I jumped to the opportunity. Especially since my current hunting grounds had come up drier than expected, and I was ready to move on anyway. I sent word ahead to the local hangar crews to prep my old Scimitar, air out the stench of the mothballs, and after far too little sleep I hopped into my Purifier this morning and made my way over here. Of course not without playing 'Come and Catch Me!' with the Amarr Navy in the higher-sec systems along the way.

By the time I finally arrived, the situation had changed.

Oh, the POS had been knocked around by 57th' war targets alright, but it had been by PIRAT, not Marmite. A small detail that Redrum's exalted leader had apparently considered not to be important enough to pass on. But as it was, PIRAT had come back in force, 57th was camped into their stations, Redrum had stood down, and I was left asking myself why exactly I had left my comfy bed at this ungodly hour.

Well, might as well enjoy the fireworks. After a quick message to my hangar crew to shovel the mothballs back into the Scimitar, I set course towards where the POS was in its dying throes. Maybe I got lucky and somebody had played too close to the limits of Empire law, leaving a wreck behind for me to loot.

Like that frigate wreck over there, showing in a nice blue color on my scanner. I turned my Purifier towards it, dropped cloak, and let the microwarpdrive cycle once, twice, to quickly cover the distance to the wreck.

And hell broke loose.

Messages flashed in through comms, but before I could consciously process them, my senses were assaulted by the low-shield warning. What the... somebody was shooting at me?! But this was hi-sec!

A second volley landed, breaching my shield and stripping away most of my armor. Precious seconds passed before I managed to pull myself together enough to bring my engines to full speed, even though I knew that with the web on me I'd never outrun their point and weapons range. But it also broke my mental block, and finally one of the messages registered with my consciousness: a notification from CONCORD that a public killright on me had been activated.

Damn! I had completely forgotten about that! My systems weren't in combat-mode, heck, my mind still wasn't in combat-mode - they had caught me with my panties down, and no messing.

Ok. My Purifier was puttering towards its doom, but maybe I still had time to scratch the paint on one of their ships. Let's see: Tengu, Tengu, Proteus, Brutix, Dominix - oh, Brutix? That might work! Torpedoes belched from my launchers, guided to their target by the luring emanations of my Target Painter - it could have been perfect! Except that the Brutix hadn’t actually shot at me yet.

I should have just stayed in bed.

Much Ado About Nothing

        “Phrasing!” -- Sterling Archer

        [ Good Moooooorning, Jerma! ]

        “Gods, every day!”

        [ Somebody has to keep the spirits up. And since you’re useless before your second coffee, and our war targets are hiding, the task falls to me. And you’re welcome! ]

        “Speaking of our targets, looks like we only have our usual station sitters again.”

        [ Yep, I see them. Plenty of other people seem to have moved into their slots though. I haven’t seem these before. … What do you think, shall we suggest to our exalted leader to add these to our targets? ]

        “We could, but what would that bring? They’d just dock up like the current bunch. Upper belt is clear.”

        [ And I almost have the signatures. You know, while I knew that it would be like this, I am still disappointed. ]

        “That our targets don’t come out, roll over, and let us shoot them?”

        [ You know what I mean - that they aren’t even trying! Push us around a little, see how we operate, what our patterns are. Bait us with a juicy Exhumer and then drop a Blackbird on us, while the drones take care of the rest. … Two relic sites, I’ll go and make tacticals. ]

        “Well, that’s industrialists for you, kitten. Ark Combat did briefly try to find our weak time zones, but gave up as well. … Planet VII belts has some lonely miners. I wonder if we can move to Plan B on the last day.”

        [ Wouldn’t that be nice! Wasn’t Ark Combat trying to talk you into dropping the war? ]

        “The very same. Convoed me, tried to butter me up with compliments, calling me sexy”

        [ Well, you are cute when you have umbilicals sprouting from your connectors! ]

        “Shush! Anyway, he then went into the spiel that they haven’t bothered anyone, and didn’t want to fight, and what it’d take to drop the war.”

        [ Right, I remember! The 500M offer - which I still think was cheap. ]

        “Planet VI belts are empty… Obviously, I wasn’t cheap enough. He left in a huff, saying that he’d go to bed now, and we wouldn’t see them in space for the duration war.”

        [ Which is partly what this is all about. And nice of him to tell you which timezone he operates in. … Tacticals are in corp bookmarks. ]

        “Yeah. Maybe I should make it up to him afterwards. Find him, if they return to the area, have a nice chat, give him some, ehrm, ‘special attention’.”

        [ ‘Special Attention’, I like the sound of that! Can I join? Can I join? ]

        “A Menage-a-Trois? There’s an idea… but he might be scared away. …aaand the other belts are empty as well.”

        [ Just tell him there’ll be fireworks and he’ll be happy to come. … You know, we should go for drinks later, have some fun hours while our targets aren’t watching. ]

        “I’d be up for that! Any specific place you have in mind?”

        [ Nah. I prefer the leave-the-elevator-and-follow-the-noises method. I’m sure we’re going to find someplace suitably epic. ]

        “Very well - I shall put myself into your capable hands then!”

        [ You’ll love it! … and first one to see the next war target gets the first rounds free. ]

        “You’re on!”

The Mouse That Squeaked

        “We’re going to face extreme peril … Private probably won’t survive.”

         -- Skipper, Madagascar

The corporate office was as small as I remembered it from the last time. Small, but admittedly cozy. Usually we didn't spend much time here, being pilots, but boss woman had called for a pow-wow - hopefully to tell us that we could move out of the exercise phase into the execution phase. She wasn't there yet, though, and I took advantage of the situation by digging into a selection of pastries from a seller I had discovered just a few days earlier. They were light, flaky, not too sweet, and went really well with coffee as second breakfast. Or midnight snack. I did tend to lose track of time.

The shuffle of boots on synthetic carpet fiber drew my attention, and I looked up to see Myra emerge out of a doorway. Unlike spoiled me, she didn't mind staying in the spartan corp-owned quarters. Getting herself a cup of coffee as well, she sat down next to me, looking askance at my baked goodies. I pushed the paper bag towards her a bit, and happily she took one.

"Listen, I've been thinking," she said without preamble between bites, "Did you mean what you said yesterday evening?"

I grabbed another pastry, stalling for time while trying to remember what I had said... Oh. That.

"Absolutely!"

"In that case," she gestured with her pastry at me, "you won't mind to stop calling me 'Kiddo' at every opportunity."

"Careful where you point that!" I pushed her pastry-armed hand aside. "And if I remember correctly, you started it."

She chewed on her lip. "Guess I did." Another bite of pastry found its delicious end. "If you stop, I stop. Deal?"

"Deal, Ki-", I saw her tense up, "-tten."

Here eyes narrowed, then she chuckled, formed a claw with her free hand and took a mock swipe at me, while hissing ferociously.

A discrete cough drew both our attentions to the other side of the table, where now our employer was sitting. Damn, that woman was sneaky!

"If you two are quite finished with your bonding," Miss Phage began with a hint of amusement, "then maybe we could get some real work done?It won’t take long.“

My ears perked up, pastries and kittens forgotten. "Real work? We are finally a 'go'?"

"Yes we are.” She prodded at her data pad. "I have selected our targets, financing is arranged, paperwork is ready for filing, and your simulation reports look good. Ships?”

“Staged and fitted.” I confirmed. “We should have enough, but if not…”

“…then we can buy more.” completed Miss Phage the sentence. “You know the initial deployment plan - I expect you to be in position once CONCORD acknowledges the paperwork.” A cruel smile played around her lips. “And from there on out I’ll leave it in your capable hands to achieve the objectives.” A thought occurred to her: “Oh, and Myra - I’d like you to prepare a couple of cyno frigates. Nothing to do with this operation, but we might have to give a hand in ferrying a capital around.”

“You got it.” acknowledged Myra.

“With that, ” Miss Phage leaned back, “there is just one thing I need to cover.” She mustered us both. "Last chance to change your minds."

I held her gaze for a few seconds, then muttered, “People keep saying that to me..."

"...and?"

"Usually I tell them to shut it." I grinned. "Usually it also means that it’s going to end badly, so why break the streak now?"

"Minuscule chance of success," clarified Myra happily, "almost certainty of public welp." She finished her pastry. "What are we waiting for?"