Somewhere the ghosts are still crying out. And for all my allegedly superhuman traits, I was helpless after I heard their words. So if you read this and think me weak of mind and soul, I'll understand. But remember: they're still out there. Waiting.
Maybe for you.
It began innocently enough: a purchase of a vessel at an unusually low price. Arguments with junk dealers and gun runners in back rooms. A quick warp-out from a station where too many people seemed to gaze at me with predatory eyes. Nothing new in New Eden.
It felt strange to be piloting a Gnosis. Not the most powerful ship nor the prettiest. And it entices hungry gankers like a corpse attracts jackals. Some say it's exotic and that screams money. Other more cynical theorists like to spew out rhetoric about most capsuleers being unable to stand seeing another of their number doing well financially.
Then there's my theory: why I felt compelled by this ship the moment I saw the market readout, why its makers are seldom seen in human space.
The reason there was an eyes-only secured file waiting for me in the ship's data core.
I considered destroying it, allowing blissful ignorance to win the day. Fat chance. Implants, DNA, or spirit, something wouldn't let me rest until I'd done what I had to do.
The trail of breadcrumbs was short. A coordinate set, a can in a mined-out asteroid field, a race past one of my fellow immortals salivating over me. A collapsing hole in space, beckoning. I'd crossed into the Unknown.
The whispers in my comms preceded the closing of that door. I was trapped.
"I regret we must meet under such secrecy, Mister Dray. But I would be remiss in my duties to my employers if I made your acquaintance under more, shall we say, plebeian conditions."
The consonants were clipped and the vowels were half-swallowed. And the projection on my optic nerve showed a bald thin Khanid male in a severely cut suit. "I am about to feed coordinates to you. Follow them and we will talk further."
"Wait," I said. "Who are you?"
Silence. The data was waiting. I considered the smart play: hiding, scanning, verifying. I considered taking the next wormhole out of this shadow play.
But I obeyed my orders. Curiosity? Compulsion? I set course for uncharted space, a marionette forever dancing to the whims of a puppeteer I had no strength or desire to defy.
I didn't need my scanners to tell me what was waiting for me when I'd dropped out of warp. Silhouetted against the light of a stellar nursery, shadows floated. Silent, dead. Some were obviously remains of ships, stations, or other such space flotsam as you might find in any relic site. Others I couldn't bear to look at. Perfect symmetry, full of motion and light.
But above all there rose the sighs, the sussurating voices that overwhelmed my comms and made the blood turn to ice water in my veins. I saw no visible sign of my contact as my ship coasted through this graveyard. I only heard his voice punching through the hiss.
"My employer believes you have had sufficient time to acclimate to your new position, Mister Dray. Now he believes the time has come for you to repay his kindness to you. And to answer your prior question, I will simply say that certain... pressure points were touched at the appropriate time. You are here because I wish you to be. So that you can see what is at stake."
My reply almost caught in my throat. I wanted to accuse, to demand why I'd been stripped of my memories, been converted without my consent. Instead, I blurted out the only words that would come amid the whispers.
"Who the hell are you? What is this place?" I said.
"My identity is not important. What you are seeing is."
"And what is that?"
"I would have thought that was obvious: the remains of a Jovian fleet, Mister Dray. Wiped out completely. And I promise you Scope shall never hear of it much less the people of New Eden."
The hissing was setting my teeth on edge. "The whispers..."
My host was silent for a time. Was he suffering as I was? At last, he said, "You will investigate. Regardless of who or what is responsible for this wanton butchery, the truth must be found; and you have been commissioned to do just that. I can say no more. I trust you will do the right thing."
The line went dead. "Wait, damn it!" I shouted into the Nothing. And the Nothing replied.
How long those whispers spoke I can't say. They told me things, information that seemed tuned to the vessel I'd been forced to inhabit, flowing like invisible corpusant across its alien spires. I flowed with it. Timeless voids, trying to scan for a way out, dark promises and vain agonies, wormhole detected, anything to shut the pleas away in a box in my mind. Cold talons raking against my shields, shapes of black frost and sorrow fading into infinity behind the space fold.
Alerts sounded in my ears as I felt kinetic impact. Never thought I'd be happy to see sleeper drones. I began shield repair and launched a few hammerheads to keep the emergents busy while I set course for the nearest planet. In orbit, I took time to let my EKG normalize.
Somewhere along the way back to known space I'd bargained with something lifeless but dreaming, screaming in the void. A titan wind had passed through wormhole space, leaving a dead fleet and a trace of something cursed. And I'd entered into a covenant.
I willed my ship to the nearest stargate and prayed that I would be the last one to listen to the whispers.
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