Episode I
"Awwww.."
Alain rubbed his chin. 'Morden my friend, you've got quite a decent punch!' he thought. If he only could better control his Caldari attitude.
"Mate..." Alain moaned, "Mind you we pull together here!"
"Yeah..." Morden said and walked away.
After all, there was no bad feeling about being knocked down by his Alliance mate. Alain knew that he represented all of what his comrade learned to hate over so many years. In fact, he felt 'suspect' from the very first minute they met the first time long ago. There always was this twinkle in Morden's eyes when he looked at Alain. Soon after they made acquaintance, the situation escalated as Morden discovered about Alain's past at the Caldari Navy School, a fact that perhaps should have remained unsaid. This time, Alain just mentioned to have news on the new Caldari battlecruiser which still ran through its final testing near the Navy shipyards. Yeah, a Gallentean should not know about that new vessel in such detail, not unless he was a traitor or a spy or even something worse and could thus not be trusted at all.
Things were different with Alain. 'If you only could keep your wrath down for a while and listen to what I tried to tell you for so long now!'
Gallente by birth, he grew up in circumstances other Gallenteans would call underprivileged. His parents never left Oursulaert I due to the lack of money. They pumped everything they had into their children's education. It was hard for Alain to see all the other kids group together and playing with their new high tech toys while he got more and more barred from their ranks. So he most enjoyed staying with his parents and two little sisters Veronique and Angeline, watching the folks around him, listening to GalNet and using his mind to draw his own conclusions.
Soon, Alain began to dislike the general Gallentean mentality of being 'up above' and even question the general Gallentean way of life later on. He developed an interest on learning about the views of other people.
The years went by and Alain grew up along with his two sisters. He passed school and began to study the basics of Gallente Spaceship Engineering at the Caille University. During this time, Alain got more and more upset about the increasing level of prejudices manifesting in the higher levels of society. By some, Minmatar were reckoned to be a rioting mob of renegades, not having a goal nor a reason for their actions. Others called the Caldari the most brutal, perfidious and despicable of all four races. None of them gave a good reason for thinking that way, none of them even knew at least one exponent in person. 'How can you say Quafe tastes like slime without ever having drunk a glass of it?'
Bad fate wanted it that his father passed after short desease. The family got together as they needed to figure out how to go on, now that the most important supplier was no more. Veronique and Angeline didn't finish school yet and their mother coundn't support all three of them on her own. Both sisters had become ravishing beauties and the last thing Alain wanted was them having to earn money as exotic dancers. So Alain decided to quit Caille for the better of the family.
What now? Deep depression overcame the young man since he saw everything he believed in falling apart around him. During all the time, he didn't loose his interest in yet foreign cultures and their ways of life. He was most interested in who he heared so many Gallente call 'The betrayers of the Federation'. The awakened interest in spaceship design of any type didn't let him go as well. This was the very point when he decided to become an apostate of his own culture and learn from the Caldari instead.
Easier thought than done. Didn't the Caldari dislike the Gallenteans even as much as the Gallente abdominated the Caldari? 'There is no way back now. You closed the door and broke the key card!' So he signed on as machinist 2nd class on one of those supersized Minmatar freighters. Destination: the Perimeter system, deep within Caldari sovereign space...
Episode II
The memories faded. Back in the bar, on that table, or rather merely sitting on it, half laying on it. His chin still hurt.
'Bud, next time you'll get your change back as well - count on it!'
Alain stood up and left for his private room on the station. Time to make a serious approach and try to sort this out, once and for all - there is no good in members of the same organisation, allies, being at feud with each other.
'And if common consensus and mutual understanding ain't possible within the same organization, how could it then be possible between the Federation and the State?'
The doors to his quarters slid open.
"Computer - private message to Morden, member of Electus Matari, encode 'HIS EYES ONLY', security level 4."
- READY
MATE,
APPARENTLY WE HAVE SOME PERSONAL DIFFERENCES TO SORT OUT.
"Nah, scratch that."
DEAR FRIEND,
SINCE WE MET THE FIRST TIME, I KNEW ABOUT THE GRUDGE YOU BEAR TOWARDS ME. I ALWAYS ENGAGED YOU WITH RESPECT, AND EVERYTHING I GOT BACK WAS EVEN MORE GRUDGE AND HATE FROM YOUR SIDE. I DO UNDERSTAND WHY.
I HAPPEN TO HAVE LEGAL INSIGHT INTO MANY THINGS EVEN SOME MERITED CALDARI ARE DENIED ACCESS TO. I FEEL, THE ONLY WAY TO END THIS VENDETTA IS TO PRESENT YOU SOME EXTENDED DETAILS OF MY HISTORY, INCLUDING SOME REFERENCES TO SECRET KNOWLEDGE. THOUGH NONE OF THAT KNOWLEDGE WILL BE REVEALED DIRECTLY, YOU WILL LEARN WHY I KNOW ABOUT CERTAIN THINGS. I AM A HONOURABLE MAN AND I HOPE I WILL BE ABLE TO OUTLINE THIS - BUT NOT VIA OPEN CHANNELS. PLEASE MEET ME IN MY PRIVATE ROOMS IN THIS STATION, ALL MONITORING AND SURVEILLANCE SYSTEMS WILL BE DEACTIVATED DURING THIS TIME.
ALAIN LAMAR
"End of message. Send and delete all traces. Implement polymorph viral agent Alpha-Tau-29 to destroy the message upon dismissal. Source: GalFedIntel."
A short pause.
- AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED FOR LAMAR, ALAIN
"Authorization ***TOP-SECRET***."
Pause...
- MESSAGE SENT
'Damn, all that effort just to prevent certain Caldari from starting another war that nobody really wants! ...and even less need. And nobody within EM who I can talk to about all this Intel shit - damn politics!'
Morden had just returned from the Corp mining op when his message array started to bleep.
"Bloody annoying thing - must change the ringtone"
Who was contacting him at this time?
Ah, Alain.
Morden mused to himself - delete it or read it? Diplomacy got the better of him - "Open the message"
......
Morden sat down and gathered his thoughts. His Caldari heritage was begining to get in the way here - yes he had strong feelings for what had gone on, he was born from a clone mother, not a real one, she had died at Gallente hands - but that was supressed quickly.
Did Alain have any idea that Morden wasn't particularly welcome back in Caldari space? - probably not. Morden's travels had taken him all over space, fighting for anyone that gave him isk - a true Mercenary - i.e. he worked for himself.
Well, that wasn't true now.
He had a home in the Lone Gunmen because they all fought together to kill slavers. And if there was one thing that Morden hated more than the Gallente it was the Amarr and their sub-races - puppets all of them.
*sigh*
How to deal with this.
War is inevitable between the Caldari and Gallente - as long as Caldari Prime is held underfoot and we are exiled - we will always yearn to return.
"Computer - message to Alain Lamar" "Yes Morden" "Alright Alain, name the time and date and i'll turn up - but know that I don't have any official contacts with Caldari organisations other than Ishukone so i'm not to sure what you can say that is going to influence my way - I certainly won't pass anything on if that is a worry for you. My first loyalty is to the LGM and then Electus Matari - nothing comes between that"
Morden looked at the production queue - `Yakia's Revenge` was due to complete in less than a week - between naming it that and outrunning Evanda Char, whilst obviously not living upto her expectations he wasn't exactly doing a damn good job at winning friends and influence - always his problem...
Feck, carry on at this rate and Saphros will be "dropping by" in his Sleipnir for a "quiet" chat :oops:
Morden turned to the mini-bar - the one thing the Matar did damn well was alcohol.....
Episode III
Morden's face looked thoughtfully, reflective - and firm at the same time. Traces on this face indicated that his owner must have been treated harshly lately. Alain served his guest a glass of the Matari Ale which was available on the station.
"When I left home...", Alain began, "my life was worth crap, a mere chaos. I came to the Caldari State for two reasons: to enlarge my knowledge about ship engineering beyond the lectures at Caille and to learn from the Caldari people. Unnecessary to tell it wasn't easy to gain any ground there...."
"Yeah..."
Morden sipped at his ale - and then hastily swallowed quite some sips when he tasted the flavor.
"Though I was damn lucky: The Chief Engineer of the ship I signed up with used to have a booze with some of his friends from the Perimeter Naval Assembly Plant every time he dropped by to deliver a new load of materials. He mentioned my education on Gallente ship design and the knowledge I quickly gained on Matari propulsion engineering while I served on his ship. And guess what: the next day, I had a private mail inviting me to a conversation with some Caldari Navy Chief Engineer..."
Alain amusedly peered in Morden's direction....
"Yeah, Matari Ale must work wonders, even on you Caldari folks", Alain grined like a Cheshire cat.
Morden looked up.
"Err, what?"
"Well, however, ..."
Alain continued while he poured Morden's glass again.
"...that Chief Engineer offered me a job with the Navy Assembly Plant Engineering Department. Not an official job though. Like things turned out, I had to sign up with the Alliance of Celestial Knights, a shadow corporation under Caldari control, officially Gallente though. I was told to settle down in Jita to cover the tracks. Information and materials were exchanged through secret channels, I was often asked to state my opinion about certain aspects of multiple preliminary designs."
Morden looked up with interest.
"Yeah, go on!"
"Well, not much to say. I learned a lot about Caldari engineering methods. That Chief Engineer turned out to be more a technocrat than what I thought a true Caldari would be like. We began to appreciate and like each other."
Morden belched.
"Well, we still have contact with each other. Techno stuff mostly - but precious first hand bits of info."
Alain leaned back. Morden furrowed his brow:
"Now, how the hell do the darn Gallente fit into this egh?"
Alain bent forward, explaining silently: "By the years I was working with that amazing group of engineers, looking deeper and deeper into more and more designs, all those information solidified: They were building an invasion fleet!"
Suddenly Morden was stone-cold sober.
"What the hell are you talking about!?"
Alain stared right into Morden's eyes.
"War, my friend. The war clouds are gathering!"
A thin smile passed Morden's lips, not unnoticed by Alain.
He firmly added: "And now the Gallente have to come up with a fleet of equal abilities to the Caldari. This is not an easy feat - and they need to do it damn quick!"
"So you're now working for those morons again?!"
Morden's eyes twinkled.
"God damnit Morden! They even saw it coming!"
Alain was almost standing now, his hands still resting on the table.
"It just needed me to send a mail back to Caille, asking some old friends about the general political situation there. The plain fact that this mail was coming from Caldari space set the Gallente Intel on my trail. They really must have been searching for some independent sources - only a few days later, some agent of theirs contacted me."
Morden jumped up.
"You dirty frack, I always knew it..." Morden whispered.
"You sit back down at the table and listen!"
Alain slowly took a fighting position. Their last encounter was not yet forgotten.
"You can lick my ass you goddamn traitor you!" Morden rumbled.
"Back off you hot-headed bullhead!" Alain hissed. "SIT - DOWN!!" he added firmly.
Nothing changed.
"How many Caldari do you really think want to peg out for this hmm!? And how many Gallente would like it the same way??"
Furious spitting.
"Ey, talk to me bud!" Alain shot quickly.
"I am absolutely not sure about that..." Morden slowly squeezed provoking.
Morden stared at Alain, his attempts to provoke him had been feeble, he had just been to Hell and back, he'd already upset dozens of the alliance and really, really didn't need anymore on his back.
Its an icy stare from two true blue eyes.
He finished his beer, his nano-bots had confirmned there were no poisons or viruses in any of the drinks.
"War fleets Alain? That has always been a given, considering the history between our two races - oh war will come alright, make no mistake"
"I don't understand what you're trying to tell me, to be honest - at the end of the day, if its comes down to the crunch and we're all in Gallente Prime - you'll be second on the list - because I know Archi Viralfury will be my first target - and on his list it will be me."
"I don't care now about current politics - who does what, etc. I do what I want, within the strictures of LGM of course. If it goes nation to nation - so be it - Death awaits us all Alain"
He finished his beer and walked out.
"Godforsaken nihilistic point of view!!"
Alain slammed his glass on the ground.
'You can't find any reasonable argumentation if the one you argue with has no belief, nothing to aim his life at. Yeah, somebody without anything meaning something to him is capable of everything. Stubborn Caldari even!'
Alain mentally slapped himself for the last thought.
'Prejudices, generalizing, now you fall for them as well - that's not gonna happen! You fight for peace damnit...'
He turned around.
'In fact, my war has already begun. Now, I am involved into the Gallente effort to buld a new fleet. An engineer.'
Warriors like Morden, they struck by every ship they destroyed, every pod they killed. Engineers, they struck by their part of design development times the number of ships produced according to those [designs] times the kills they achieve...
'So who of us will have more blood on his hands?? Considering the fact, I now have a good knowledge about the weaknesses and strengthes of some of the newest Caldari designs, how much blood will be shed because I did what I'm doing??'
Alain's mind operated:
'Assumed that each ship in the mean will destroy one other before it dies itself, one can estimate a lower boundary for the kills I will be jointly responsible for: n divided by x where n denominates the number of ships produced according to the designs I co-worked on and x denominates the total number of men working on those ships until they are ready to fly. Assume x << n (then we have n / x still being very close to n for very large n - which is to be expected), one can state more generally: n times k where k denominates the mean number of kills per ship before it dies. Now, let 1 <= k << n, the lower boundary is still n, the upper boundary cannot be calculated though. A warrior, maybe one of the best, is responsible for c times k victims where c denominates a constant with c > 1. While we still have k << n one can easily see who is the real bastard about all of this, and the billions of civilian casualties are not even accounted for...'
The thoughts faded.
Alain stared at the puddle on the ground... Something was wrong.
'Ah yeah, the monitor protocols...'
He went to the opposite wall to reactivate the standard protocols for his room - manually. No voice computer interface, of course.
[center]Prologue[/center]
[center]Not much time had passed since the Directors Board of Unite the Nations decided to take steps to allow the corp to venture into deep space. Some big but crucial steps needed to be taken, and some of them were uncomfortable as well. The long arm of Electus Matari living on their own right at the frontier to the sovereign space is no more. The Corporation now reinforces the self defensive and industrial forces of the Sylph Alliance.[/center]
[center]Patrol Duty[/center]
The Blade dropped out of warp. The outpost grew up, first rapidly, then slower and slower as the Myrmidon lost speed. 'Ahh, another docking fee to be paid...', Alain mumbled. 'Well, ok, we're not in one of the four Empire States anymore. Life out here is...' - "Shit!" he disrupted his last thought. "Enemy spotted, <XXXXX> Alliance, helm set a course to head him off, full speed ahead, engage Micro Warp Drive! Battle stations standby!"
The battle cruiser swung around and rapidly gained speed, quickly shortening the huge range between it and the enemy spy ship. Just a frigate sized one, not even high tech, but it still had eyes on the outpost.
"We must not allow enemies to have eyes on crucial spots within our space...", he remembered the words of the Sylph Fleet Admiral.
"Enemy vessel is gaining range, Captain!", a female voice sounded. "We've lost him, he warped away."
Good, the enemy spy didn't seem to plan attending any grilling by the Sylph specialists tonight. Only a few seconds later, system scans could not detect the intruder anymore.
"Hmm, maybe next time then. Disengage and reenter patrol course!", Alain ordered.
The hours went by. System scanners showed the system busy with corp mates. While he was on patrol duty, they could safely move more and more assets to their new home...
'strange...', he thought, '...so few combat ships around here, wonder how we could deal with multiple enemies...'
"Enemy reported in ERVK-P", the female voice heckled his thoughts again.
"What's now??" Alain demanded to know.
"Intel is still coming in, Captain... - it's a Battleship this time, Dominix class!"
"Oh hell... Comms, general call for reinforcements to meet in IS-R7P"
Not even a minute after the distress call, a small fleet was building up around The Blade. A Raven, a Raptor, Cruisers, ships of all classes came in to report.
"Target now reported to be in BR-N97.", the female voice kept Alain up to date.
"Fleet, assemble at the BR-N97 gate and jump when complete!" - "Roger that...", multiple voices added.
Whatever that Dominix Captain intended, he was not authorized to do it, the red [-] on the IFF scan told him so much.
"All, jump! Vanguard warp to the most distant planet and scan for the target, rearguard hold position on top of the gate, the rest is to warp towards the sun and continue scanning!", Alain ordered and on an instant, the formation broke up and distributed over the system.
"Target confirmed at BR-N97 V, intercepting..." - "All fleet elements, warp to BR-N97 V and attack!"
Seconds stretched to minutes and minutes to hours until The Blade completely vanquished the vast 70AU warp. There it was, the big fat red [-], being continually circled by a small blue [?].
"Helm, pursuit course, battle stations condition Red! Lock target, fire at will! Hive command, release Ogres at 20km distance!"
The Myrmidon trembled as the supercharged thrusters were building up the
Getting the news on Eva's and Mek's marriage Congratulations you both!! makes me think back...
...back to those times, when Eva still seemed to be available - and 0.0 was still an unknown place, full of dangers and imponderabilities.
Once upon a time, in a galaxy far far away... 
...there was a sole Ferox, trying to make its way from 9UY to the rich belts in Catch, right next to where AAA decided to settle down. The Ferox managed to make about 15 jumps, evaded one 3 man EST. gank squad (inapts with no web and no noz, outtanked them and floated back to the gate, with NO afterburner and only 1 nanofiber), had eyes on a 15 man AAA fleet (and of course intelled it to ISS) and fooled two D² which were itching for an easy kill (hiding is easy when you understand their German they speak on local: "Is bei dir was?" - "Nö" - "hmm" -- too obvious, one at each gate with disruptors -- I hailed them).
Two jumps further, I had an AAA Force Recon after me. I knew, there's one of them, the others are not far, so I didn't bother and tried my best to keep running forward as fast as I could. I made it as far as 2 more jumps. Then, a 3 man cruiser gang hooked in on the chase as well (2 Stabbers, 1 Cyclone). I made it to the next gate and jumped.
Shit!
One Inty and another Stabber already awaiting me, the Ceptor only 15km distant, the Stabber positioning itself on the 15km radius from the gate, covering another part of the outgoing hemisphere (of where you come out of gate).
Stay cloaked, wait til they moved far enough and then dash through! - Hehe, as if!
The other three jumped in and also positioned themselves on the 15km radius!!
Wait a few more, they'll not know when and where exactly you will appear!
Now I had a Ceptor waiting at 15km, a Stabber at 10km and a Cyclone at 25km, the rest above and below my position. The 30 seconds were about to wear off and I decided to make my last move...
I engaged to the next gate. I was almost about to enter warp, when the Inty had me scrambled. All the Stabbers locked next, no idea how many with webbers, but at least two of them had a Multispec ECM as well - they outjammed me all the time. Oh, and nozzers all around. Well, the Cyclone did most of the hitting then. Cap void, no lock, F.O.F.'s still loading..... It's all over but the dying...
Well, the pod got away which pissed them pretty much. They got it another 2 jumps further when I met my contractor - he had 2 of those gits right next to him [never trust anybody that is offering you a Spodumain Mining contract!]
Yeah you get it - cover the outgoing hemisphere with ships! have them spread out at 15km from the gate, 20km distant from each other and you will have a net which hardly is to evade! the closest webs first, all other get in and to their stuff as well! Good Bye nano ship!
AAA really deserved that kill, they taught me a lot! But despite that, they're still wankers!
...the last thought faded when Alain truely fell asleep after a hard day, safe and sound on the place, called home, Prometheia Station.
Quote:By some, Minmatar were reckoned to be a rioting mob of renegades, not having a goal nor a reason for their actions.
I approve of this statement.