Incident 10: A Reason for Hate

I look back at my words of weeks ago. I said that most refuted evil, that the only reality was enlightened self-interest. That there was no Devil.

Funny how I kept meeting him.

I was angry, frustrated, blocked off. Superhuman yet as impotent as a paralytic. For weeks I'd sought answers to the cipher of Stiletto, and I was no closer. Though I stretched myself out, the void remained the void. Every wormhole led only to another. Each fallen firewall offered only flat data space. I thought of the good I'd done and saw only mocking ashes blowing in my eyes in response.

For all the chatter on open channels, the neocomm was silent to me. New Eden had become blacker than the depths of Limbo. And all the while the whispers brushed against my brain.

Avenge us...

Overcome evil with good.

I'd been aboard Apparition, the Gnosis-class cruiser I'd been drawn to before the madness of the graveyard of ships, for several days, opening my mind to the intangible "something" that drew its ghost fingers across the neural relays and soul code of the capsuleer interface. Now a new flavor to the torment had been added: that code I'd found in the temple of heretics. A counterpoint, an antiphony to the chant of blood guilt.

Ordinarily, I would have feared accusations of insanity and the promise of the biomass recycler if I'd bothered to confide to anyone of my secret fears and growing anger. But this wasn't madness. Instead, I felt a sharpening of the focus slicing its scalpel through the shadows. But still, my true enemy remained elusive.

Until the day I'd met the reason for the rage building in me.

We capsuleers aren't the ultimate evil. No one being is. Evil is giving in to what I found that day.

I'd just finished a frantic raid against a Blood Raider data cache, trying the purge my imagination of the red-soaked banality I'd found when the transmission impaled the necomm.

"Dray... Dray... Dray..."

The Ashimuu was heavily damaged yet it had changed course to intercept me. The target lock alarm sounded in my head, and I charged my shield boosters and gauss guns while I programmed my drones to engage.

"Dray... Dray... Dray... Dray...," it kept saying.

"Identify yourself," I shot back. "How do you know me?" But the raider wasn't firing, just orbiting at optimum range.

"Dray... Dray..."

"What do you want?" I said.

"Nothing."

The hostile cruiser kept orbiting, toying with me. I couldn't understand the reluctance to engage. And that chanting of my name was a pickaxe against my ears. Who was this lunatic?

"Dray... Dray..."

"What the hell do you want?" I shouted.

The howl that came over the channel made the gorge rise in my throat. The vocal chords of a human being shouldn't sound like a wild badger or an emphysemic cat. And a perfect stranger shouldn't say THOSE WORDS that came through the neocomm at me like a carnivorous dog hungry for the flesh of an infant. The more I listened to the mysterious curses and mindless threats, the more the rage that had been building in me grew to the proportions of a storm god.

Whoever... or whatever... was piloting that ship had to be destroyed.

My guns primed and my drones flew at the enemy with a speed and fury I hadn't thought mere machines capable of. Mirrors of my own outraged perceptions. Super-cooled coils let loose my wrath and all the dissatisfaction was dispelled in a moment. Apparition circled the fireball of the Ashimuu like an avenging archangel as the raider's reactor went critical.

And all I felt was joy.

Maybe I was insane as I set course for Amarr Prime. But so be it. I was tired of everyone in this bizarre conspiracy knowing more than me. I'd had a bellyful of the shadows and uncertainty.

A few hours later I was broadcasting on an open channel to anyone that would hear me.

"Sheng. Where are you, damn you? I know who you are. Show your face and give me some straight answers!"

Then somebody flipped the switch. And I knew nothing at all.

Incident 9: Cries in the Wilderness

I've begun to see my lack of a past as a two-edged sword: at once a curse and a gift.

It's been said that some are born to greatness. Others are destined to be forgotten. And there are lot more of the second kind. But there is an advantage to a slate wiped clean: there's more room in my head for the memories of the forgotten ones. Their dreams, songs, and cries to an uncaring universe won't go unheard.

In my search for who and what lies behind Stiletto, my mind and senses have imbibed those stories: ruins, corpses, distorted data, people shunted into the background. The relics of a past that refuses to vanish.

And some things that will never die.

I've said I'm being watched, and I know it now more than ever. Governments and corporations. Sheng. My employer, whoever he is. Maybe the Jovians. Maybe by something... someone... else. Sometimes its the prick of the interface tendrils caressing my ganglia, sometimes a flash of movement at the edge of vision.

And sometimes the recognition of a presence at my elbow. Not the endless chatter of Aura or Allison, nor even the sure knowledge my fellow immortals send my way with every combat scanner probe or target lock, but a patient and potent essence pervading the vacuum, my shields and superstructure, the Neocom, the interface nodes, flesh, electronic code. Even the soul and the spirit, if you believe in those. The prime melody in every pure experience. Whale song in the emptiness.

But I had no real definition for what I felt until I found the old temple. To the eye, it was no more than one of many abandoned shrines to the imperial faith, fragmented by asteroid impacts, scorched by cosmic rays and solar winds.

But it still quietly spoke to the senses of my ship. Subtle binary hums pulsed into the Nothing, waiting for a listening ear.

And the whispers it emitted were blasphemies. I knew enough about the Amarrian religion to understand why this temple had been demolished. There were, of course, all sorts of splinter groups branching from imperial orthodoxy: the Blood Raiders, the underground pleasure cults, assorted radicals. But this was different. I'd never heard these words before. And new as they were to me, they rang with an ancient cadence: something, if it were possible, far older than New Eden.

In the beginning... A virgin shall conceive...

I activated my recording systems. I didn't understand what I was hearing, but this discovery seemed somehow significant.

I am the way... I make all things new...

The data squirt was quick, between two and three hundred kilobytes. But after I'd examined it, I wondered if I should erase it. I had a feeling if I ever transmitted this data on an open channel, I'd have half the Amarr fleet after me. The information not only deconstructed their entire religion, it threatened to rock the foundations of every culture in New Eden! It defied everything, redefined everything. It was more dangerous than anything else I'd uncovered.

And now I wonder if it might be the only hope left.

But back then I deferred action for the time being. I had a murder to solve and a conspiracy to unmask. My investigation had to go on.

Still, I knew a virus had entered into my systems. Yet not the biological or the digital kind. And at the time I didn't know that one day I would bleed over what I'd found.

Incident 8: Suffering's Accord

"Why did you save us?"

I considered the question. After I'd spirited Menandi and her son Stefan away from the hands of their captors for the second time, I'd gone all the way to Gallente Prime and secured them a berth aboard a transport to a prosperous colony and enough ISK for them to start a new and more comfortable life. Sentimentality or perversity, call it what you want, somehow I thought she'd be safer among the hedonists of the Federation than even her own people, who seemed to have a knack for too often crossing paths (and swords) with the Amarrians they hated so much.

Now with less than an hour before departure time, I stood with her in a darkened cargo warehouse among crates and boxes while I thought about giving her a version of the truth that wouldn't sound like I was using her. Like so many others had.

As to my reasons for playing guardian angel, I decided honesty might get me a slap in the face, but it would also provoke a truthful answer. "I need information. I need to know what you know."

She cocked a sardonic eyebrow and pursed her full lips. "And that's all you need?"

"That's all."

"Then I'm over-priced." Her voice was tinged with gall, and I had a sick feeling I knew what her erstwhile owner had required of her. Even then I admit to an attraction that I couldn't explain, but despite what she'd been through, I had to know the answer to the one question that was scorching my soul.

"I know you're a smuggler," I said. "And I know your life was recently threatened over a shipment to the Chantrousse system. I want to know what was in that shipment."

Her eyes widened and she moved back half a pace while giving me a suspicious and sidelong glance. "How do you know about that?"

"It's not important. Just tell me. Do you know what you shipped out of Amarr space that day?"

I could almost feel her muscles tense, like a cat ready to spring. But bad memories or not, I wondered if I would have to threaten her to get what I needed. And I hoped it wouldn't come to that.

"I can't tell you," she said.

"Can't or won't?"

She turned away from me, her eyes downcast. "I don't expect you to understand. You've never been a slave, never had to sacrifice everything to a cause."

"You're right. I don't understand. You must have smuggled a lot of Minmatar across the border. Why should this shipment be any different?"

"Because Stefan is the cause! For him, I've lied, sold my body, let the whips fall on me when he stole food to keep his ribs from meeting his spine. I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of, Michael. I've degraded myself, hurt a lot of people. I've killed too. But I'll never apologize. Not to you, not to anyone. All I've done has been for my son. I need to protect him, and I'll do whatever it takes to make sure he'll never suffer as I did."

She yanked at one sleeve and bared her arm to me. The crisscross pattern of livid scars was white even in this dim lighting.

I'd heard rumors of some of the tools the more creative imperial torturers used, both to extort information and for sheer sick amusement. Suddenly, somehow the idea of threatening this woman seemed both trite and futile, a useless sin I discarded without a second thought.

"I should have killed him," I said. She and I both knew who I meant. I regretted not reducing Vabdi's lair to cosmic dust.

"Maybe you should have." Menandi rolled her sleeve back into place and turned to fix me with an unreadable expression. "Regardless, I'm grateful for all you've done for us. But I can't give you what you asked for. I just can't."

"I can protect you," I said.

She shook her head. "Not from him."

This time it wasn't the slaver she meant. The fear in her eyes could only have been reserved for the mysterious and ruthless capsuleer that had forced his agenda on both her and me. I guess I couldn't really blame her. It was clear her life was still in danger, and if the powers arrayed against me could pod me and other immortals with impunity, it was clear I had precisely a snowball's chance in Hell of hiding her or Stefan from them. And for her and him, death would be forever. I was forced to admit to myself that I couldn't put them at risk.

Still, my own face must have betrayed the frustration I was feeling. Her words were a knife in my gut. I felt I'd come so close to the truth only to run up against a wall of silent terror.

 But I decided I'd play one last desperate card.

"Can you at least tell me his name?"

She hugged herself and turned to look away, and the grimace marring her otherwise flawless face betrayed the struggle I knew had to be going on inside her. I hated to press her like this, but it was as if I could almost hear the death screams of the Jovians. I was the only voice they had left, their only advocate. I had to try.

"Listen to me," I said, daring to cup her chin in my hand and turning her to face me. "A lot of people have died senselessly, and this man is involved. I know he is. And I know you care about other people's lives or you wouldn't have risked your own to save so many of your countrymen. Please, I'm begging you: give me a name!"

When she fixed those fascinating eyes on me again, I saw fire behind them. She was a strong woman, worthy of admiration. For a moment, I thought about the blind, stupid injustice of it all: that people like her were cursed with death and pawns like me or, worse still, monsters like her abusers still clung to life after life after life.

"Sheng."

The name seemed to hang in the air. It took me a moment or two to realize I'd been holding my breath. I barely remembered thanking her.

But I do remember her squeezing my hand before she left for her shuttle.

Later, I watched her pull away through the eyes of my camera drones. My systems registered the redshift as she entered warp.

But all I was really experiencing was her. Her voice, her touch. Those eyes.

And through a pained haze of parting that I had no words for, I felt hope. A thin thread of data, but one I was going to seize and hold fast.

I prayed it would be strong enough. That I would be strong enough.

Incident 7: Against the Dark

It's best if I leave the name of the system unrecorded, though any enterprising data pirate could, in theory, uncover the trail I've left behind. But any delay will give her the chance to escape. I owe her that much, at least.

It's hard to say what sort of biological or cyber-organic imperative drives someone like me. My past a blank, my present a gaping unknown; all I had after I left the SoE station was my work: a crusade to halt an even greater unknown that constantly pressed against the limits of my consciousness. A hungry spider usurping the web of my thoughts.

A diamond spun in my brain, four data points connected by tenuous threads. First, the voice of a woman I'd rescued from almost certain death. Second, a mysterious Amarrian who'd spoken to both her and me for reasons unknown. Third, a mass murder in a forgotten corner of space.

Last of all, Stiletto. Just a name. But a name discovered in connection with the other elements that danced around me. A name people would kill to protect.

And in the midst of all of this: me. Me with my nightmare vision of something after death.

I'd begun my participation in the Cartel's rescue cache program, seeding nibbles of salvation in wormhole space, when I found her again. I was busy creating new safe spots and simultaneously cataloging any structures near where I'd made a certain drop-off. Given the scant evidence I had, which pointed to her non-capsuleer status and her lack of any reliable transportation of her own, I thought it was likely she hadn't gotten far.

A grim discovery clinched everything: a hack of passenger and cargo manifests with an emphasis on escaped Minmatar slaves.

"Hello, Menandi."

I could hear the astonishment in her voice. "You! How did you-"

"Never mind. I need to speak with you. In person. I'm on approach now. Get to the docking bay and board my ship. Bring your son. We're leaving."

"I can't. I'm... being shipped out." Her tone told me I didn't need to ask why.

"Not anymore. I'm buying your freedom."

"What? How can you-"

"Don't ask questions. You know what'll happen if you go back to Empire space. If you want to be free again, do as I say."

I cut off her protests before I hailed the next person I wanted to talk to.

"Arangdu Vabdi speaking," a harsh liquorish voice slurred over the Neocomm.

"Mister Vabdi, this is licensed capsuleer Michael Dray commanding the Astero class explorer vessel Armitage, presently orbiting your station. You'll find a contract for five hundred thousand ISK deposited to your account as of now. I am taking Menandi Illat and her son with me."

The voice was no less insulting than I expected. "Insolent pig! How dare you demand my rightful property?"

Clearly Arangdu Vabdi had never done business with a capsuleer before.

"This is a business transaction," I said. "You have your money, twice market value. You're being well paid and I want them. And before you terminate comms, check your d-scan. You'll see I have four naval-grade combat drones orbiting your habitation module. Unless you want to meet your god in the next sixty seconds, release the woman and her son.

"Am I making myself clear?"

I'm glad I didn't have a visual of the man. I didn't need the mental image of an Ammarian slaver soiling himself while I was busy liberating the one person who might be able to provide me with vital connections. A few minutes later, my cargo bay was two persons heavier and I was on my way to some answers.

Incident 6: The Hell Stars

"You're awake at last. You had us worried."

I squinted at the bright lights overhead. The vague silhouette and the voice I'd heard many times over the comms prior to any docking at the SOE station told me of Sister Gabe's presence hovering overhead. I didn't remember exiting my capsule. But then again I was almost accustomed to losing my past.

"What happened?" I managed to say through the sand in my throat.

"You tell me. I don't have a lot of experience in capsuleer medicine."

As usual, the light hurt my eyes, and I felt at my side in vain.

"Oh, sorry." I felt the touch of flesh and foam and saw a welcome shadow pass over my eyes. "Is that better? We needed to remove your goggles in the course of our examination," she said. I nodded wordlessly as I adjusted my eyewear. Strange how increasingly naked I felt without them.

I finally saw her clearly, white lab coat and blonde dreadlocks done up in a ponytail making her painfully bright to look at even without the fluorescent lighting. "How long was I out?"

She shrugged. "Hard to say with any certainty. Capsuleers are such a new form of life that we can never tell. When a medical clone is activated, we naturally assume your previous clone is destroyed. The good news is that though we saw some relatively minor electroencephalographic irregularities, I can't find any glaring organic or electronic dysfunction."

I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the couch, the back of my mind registering belatedly that I was sans clothing. "Medical clone? What are you talking about? I docked here in an Astero class yesterday."

The sister looked genuinely sorry for me, her lips turned down in a frown and her eyebrows knit upward. "According to our records, you last docked three days ago, Michael. Are you saying you're experiencing actual cognitive fragmentation?"

A sudden flash of something red and hungry gashed its way through my hindbrain.

Without any condescending chides, she caught me before I toppled over and steadied me while my center of balance finally found its way home. "Are you sure you want to be moving around?"

"I'm fine," I lied.

The ships scream as they die.

"What was that?" she said.

Hadn't I only thought those words? "Nothing. I don't suppose you have a spare Astero in-station."

Now it was the sister's turn to blink in confusion. "I... I'm sure I don't know. I'm a med tech, not a quartermaster."

"I have to get out of here. I have work to do."

I started to stagger toward the door, trying and failing not to lean on her when the door to the medical bay hissed open on pneumatic rails and another sister entered, complete with her own scrubs and white jacket. But this one had close-cropped black hair and a much more severe expression than her colleague. "So he's awake at last. Sister Gabe, do you make a habit carrying your patients around in the buff?"

I saw Gabe blush even through my darkened optics. "I'm sorry, Sister Runford. I was in the middle of my examination and - "

"Yes, I'm sure you were." Then her eyes turned to me. "You're obviously in no condition to be moved."

I decided I didn't like Sister Runford. I felt my voice take on its customary clipped tone when addressing harridans and morons. "I'm leaving. If you want to stop me, shoot me. You'd be doing me a favor."

"It's not that simple, Mister Dray," came the equally contemptuous tones. "Your EEG was abnormal and you were babbling during the preliminary scans. Yulai Convention be damned, I can't have a brain-injured capsuleer wandering around, putting everyone on this station at risk. You'll stay with us for at least twenty-four more hours of observation before I let you anywhere near your capsule.

"Sister Gabe, help him to a proper bed."

Gabe bowed her head demurely. "Yes, Sister Runford." She led me toward the door once again.

"And for pity's sake, get him a robe!"

Gabe's cheeks looked like a matched pair of Amarrian blood beets. "Yes, Sister Runford."

Hours later, in my room, I sat in a chair facing a porthole that looked out across the docking bay entrance. I watched the monotonous comings and goings of frigates, freighters and blockade runners against the endless blackness. Bees to a black hive.

Something was chewing. Burning.

"Out there."

Sister Gabe's voice interrupted my thoughts. "I'm sorry?"

I turned my face away from the window. "You still hovering?"

She was standing near the door with a datapad in her hand, fingers flying as she divided her gaze between the machine and me. "I'm observing you."

"It's actually called staring." I was becoming rather fond of making her blush. "You're new at this, aren't you?"

She averted her eyes. "I'm actually kind of an intern."

"The Sisters of Eve have interns?"

"Novitiates. It's sort of the same thing, at least when it comes to medicine."

I nodded and smiled for the first time I can remember. Gabe couldn't have been older than twenty-three. For some reason, she reminded me of my kid sister. If I'd actually had one. "You're better off then."

Her fingers stopped moving, and she looked at me again. "What do you mean?"

"I'm starting to remember what happened."

She took two steps forward, her eyes taking on the eager look of a born scientist. "Really? You're actually defragmenting your own memories? That's amazing! Tell me, what do you remember?"

Whispers. Cries for help. Something at the edge of experience.

"Asteroid collision. My own fault."

"Oh." She looked understandably disappointed when I didn't volunteer more. But better to dash her hopes for a scientific paper rather than threaten to dash her sanity against the rocks.

I remembered the escape, my ship shattered. A flash of red and yellow before the system crash. Something looming over me, bodied or un-bodied, black against a dying star field. Lights on its hull blinking like palsied eyelids.  And those within were no longer human. Or maybe had never been human.

They stared at me, the damned looking out.

"Michael? Mister Dray? Are you all right?" Sister Gabe's voice broke the vision into a thousand howling shards that settled like acid snow in my imagination.

"I'll be fine."

She didn't look convinced. "You're only human, you know."

I would have laughed if I'd had the strength. "Not anymore..."

I spent a few minutes feeling sorry for the sister after she left to make her rounds. But curiosity killed more than one cat, and I wouldn't add her to the list of victims. I sent a mental command to my implanted Neocom and started preparations for launch. I'd found that Astero and fitted it for deep space.

There would be no rest for me after what I'd seen. But had it only been a vision, a nightmare reaction to all the death and darkness I'd had to absorb? Or had it been something too damnably real?

I still had Stiletto. That name at least hadn't been taken from me. What scanty evidence there was still remained to burn my mind. I'd been charged with a mission, and I needed to act on what I knew before time ran out.

Before what was out there came calling.

Incident 5: The Stiletto Conspiracy

I haven't got much time to post this entry, and I have to be careful to keep one eye on my threat overview. I think my safe points have been compromised. Should have known better than to make a deep run into null sec so soon.

After a hack on a Serpentis data site, I uncovered evidence of their involvement in something that they're spending a lot of ISK on. Something that might explain the Angel Cartel's presence. Something that may go to the highest levels of our society.

And I have a name: Stiletto.

I've got to get back to high sec and upload this before I...

<<ERROR: Transmission interrupted. Catastrophic data corruption detected. Signal lost...>>

Incident 4: The Darknet Connection

I've known I'm being watched ever since I woke up in that cryotube. And I made the rookie mistake of not checking the voice print on that recording before a trojan in my ship's mainframe corrupted it beyond all recovery. But I've learned since then.

It's possible I've angered the wrong people. But even worse than the prospect of being tracked by corporate killers is the continuing revelations concerning who I work for and who I've chosen to ally myself with.

But in the end, if I deal with devils, they are the lesser threats. Whoever or whatever is responsible for the death of the Jovian fleet is the real enemy. And regardless of what my species is responsible for, no one deserves to be murdered and left to drift forever, forgotten and alone.

I'd spent enough time reacting. It was time to take the fight to my adversary. 

Fortunately, I wasn't so bewildered that I'd failed to record my host's voice back at the scene of carnage. I tasked my shipboard AI with the less-than-legal job of devoting processor cycles to searching through audio samples from Scope, planet-side broadcasts, local system traffic and the surveillance records of every station I'd visited. Naturally, this involved more covert hacking than I was used to. My wetware is still learning, but I'm confident that endurance will be my greatest weapon in this secret war.

Still, all the prep and patience didn't stop a palpable shock from jolting my brain when a match was returned. Of course, it's conceivable that my employer let me find it. And I wonder more and more how much that matters to him. If it matters at all.

Here is the transcript. Read it carefully, but the true revelation comes afterward.

LOCATION: Hangar 18, TransStellar Shipping Storage Facility, Pashanai System, Amarr Empire

SPEAKER 1: I don't do contraband.

SPEAKER 2: Food is hardly contraband, Ms. Illat.

SPEAKER 1: Do I even have to say it? Food doesn't weigh in like equipment and make cargo scanners report electrical anomalies. It's bad enough I have to sneak these people past the border. I don't need another hassle. So read my lips: I.. don't.. do.. contraband.

SPEAKER 2: Then I will merely tell you what my employer has told me. First, you are being paid almost double your usual rate for the transport. Second, you have his word of honor that this crate contains no contraband. Third...

SPEAKER 1: Here we go. I was wondering when the threat was coming.

SPEAKER 2: Actually I was going to say that your own past ought to make you sympathetic to what we're trying to accomplish. But if you prefer a threat, I will oblige. At my employer's behest, I have made a few contacts. You have three hours to deliver this cargo safely into the Chantrousse system in Gallente space. If the cargo has not been scanned by our cargo master within that time, my associate will not meet you.

SPEAKER 1: That's it?

SPEAKER 2: That, as you say, is it.

SPEAKER 1: That was a threat, right?

SPEAKER 2: Oh, most assuredly. And before you ask: yes, you should be frightened. The poison has, after all, entered your bloodstream by now.

<<A FEW SECONDS OF SILENCE>>

SPEAKER 2: Yes, the dataslate is contaminated. And yes, I have touched it as well. Like you, I am also dying from the experience. Unlike you, however, I do not fear death.

SPEAKER 1: You're a capsuleer?

SPEAKER 2: Quite. And you are not. However, as I was about to mention: my associate is ready to administer the antidote to you upon successful transfer of the cargo. Complete this job and no more will be said. I trust we understand one another.

SPEAKER 1: You son of a...

SPEAKER 2: Tut, tut. Your time is limited and you are already cleared for departure. I am no barbarian, Ms. Illat. I have no wish to kill you. Indeed, rest assured that I have made all the arrangements to ensure that you will arrive on schedule and with time to spare. The space between here and the Chantrousse stargate is presently clear of all traffic and will remain so for some time.

SPEAKER 1: Why?

SPEAKER 2: The reasons are no concern of yours. Time is money, Ms. Illat. And in your case, it is life as well. I suggest you... what is the phrase... get a move-on.

I'm sure you've guessed by now that the second speaker is the same person who guided me to the graveyard of ships. But the first voice was a positive match for Menandi: the same woman that I rescued from the Angel Cartel!

I don't believe in coincidences. But the patterns are still hazy and complex. Something is moving behind life's curtain, and if I'm to uncover the truth behind my life and the lives of the Jovians, I'm going to have to stay alive long enough to dig deeper.

Wish me luck...