Category: Ficlets

Intaki V – Moon 5 – Astral Mining Inc. Refinery

The crisp, polite knock on her office door was familiar and not unwelcome. “Come in, Bataav,” Sakaane called out in response. The door opened, then closed, and she heard nothing more. She never did, even though she knew he had entered, crossed the room, and was waiting patiently for her to look up from the document she was working on. A silent, comforting shadow.

She scribbled on the paper for a moment longer, paused to examine what she’d written, then shook her head. Sometimes it helped to write, actually apply pen to paper, rather than simply conjuring up words digitally via her neocom, but today it seemed her muse insisted on being elusive regardless. Pushing the document aside, she met Bataav’s gaze with a warm smile. “What do you have for me?”

Intaki V – Moon 5 – Astral Mining Inc. Refinery

Leisel Anteida, ILF Mission Agent

“Overall, I think you’ll approve of the results!”

Leisel Anteida tapped on her datapad, then turned it toward Sakaane with a smile as she sat down on the edge of one of the chairs opposite the Suresha’s desk.

Sakaane leaned back and tried to give the datapad a serious look, but out of the corner of her eye she could see Leisel’s knee bouncing. The speed of the bouncing increased the longer the silence stretched. “How are you settling in?”

“Oh! Good. Great actually! Coming to lowsec wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be.” Leisel smiled shyly but her eyes glittered from behind wispy bangs. “The girls back in Amygnon are still sending me messages weekly though, asking if I’ve been shot up by Serpentis yet, can you believe that?”

Thanks to Bataav, Daniel Alpena, Devan Corvel, and Maruvindi for their written contributions.
The original posts are here.

Intaki Prime – South Hemisphere

Gray light seeped into clouds of mist rising off the surface of the pond. Wisps of vapor twisted and undulated in a slow, mesmerizing dance until they were lost from sight against the gradually brightening sky. The hush of night lingered, swallowing the echo of a shore bird’s call. The bird did not cry out again.

Dawn broke. The first rays of Intaki’s red sun speared the mist; morning exploded in the fog like a spray of blood and the vapors began to recede. The pond beneath the swirling veil was flat as glass and black as space.

Sakaane watched the spectacle from beneath the boughs of a tree growing at the water’s edge. She stood still, not wanting to disturb the quiet, almost cool morning. It was the height of summer in the southern Intaki hemisphere and the heavy, humid air hinted at the stifling heat that would soon come.

A low sound, not quite a slurp, caught her attention. She looked: some thirty feet away, the water rippled where a fish had risen to the surface. It had been a big one, she knew, mature enough to know to take its prey quietly and then slip away. Younger, inexperienced fish tended to get overly excited when food presented, jumping and splashing at the surface and thus making themselves easy targets.

The ripples reached the pond’s embankment, a sharp edge just inches from the toe of her shoe, and made the water lap gently against it. She looked down upon hearing the sound. The ground was covered in grass and ferns growing at the base of the tree; dew had soaked into the hem of her robes. The tree’s roots jutted out in a tangled mess below the waterline and disappeared into the pond’s dark depths.

A smile curved her lips. It was the young and inexperienced fish who, if lucky enough to survive a few close encounters, learned discipline and patience, and went on to catch bigger, better prey of its own.

Thanks to Saxon Hawke for his written contributions.
The original posts are here.

Intaki V – Moon 5 – Astral Mining Inc. Refinery

The docking tug released her ship; the pod gantry extracted her capsule. Sakaane prepared for the usual amount of discomfort that accompanied disembarkation.

“Have you been expecting a delivery, or a message?” Bataav asked over their private channel.

The black pod suit peeled off and hit the floor of the washroom in the captain’s quarters with a wet plop. Slimy rivulets of containment fluid dribbled down her body into inconvenient crevices. She reached for the shower knob.

“No. Why?”

Bataav hesitated before answering. “A courier showed up shortly after you left. His credentials seem to check out.”

The bar of soap squirted out of her hands. She let it fall unheeded to the floor and tried to fight down a sudden irrational surge of anxiety. Darac Rin’s couriers had had verifiable credentials, too, else they would never have been allowed on the station, never mind granted access to the restricted capsuleer zones. That hadn’t stopped them from bringing her ill news.

Intaki V – Moon 5 – Astral Mining Inc. Refinery

Another late night—or a very early morning, depending on the point of view. Sakaane’s office was dark; only the holodisplay floating before her cast a pale, glowing light.

A summary scrolled past on the display. It was a rundown of combat statistics for the alliance, automatically produced to summarize the previous twenty-four hours’ activity. It had four entries on it, all coded red: losses.

She glanced briefly at the first one. Daniel Alpena and Spar Jamlamin of Repo. had fought in Aunsou, with Spar’s Thrasher destroying the ILF Rifter. There were no comments appended to the kill report; she made a mental note to ask Daniel about it later.

The next three entries made her bite her lip. The Coreli war was now into its seventh week and engagements continued to prove frustrating. Earlier that month it had been publicly confirmed that Coreli ships intended for use in the campaign against IPI tended to be fit with warp core stabilizers, allowing them to slip the field and escape from any engagement where they might otherwise be destroyed. In the face of this tactic some IPI pilots had decided to make an effort to return to the alliance’s normal activities. But of course the war meant no system was safe, and Coreli had well-paid locator agents in their employ. The next entry in the summary showed Joshua Foiritain had used a Rapier to attack an empty Occator belonging to Alessa Leon in Hatakani, no doubt while she was on a run to fetch supplies destined for the Intaki V-5 trade hub. Approximately half an hour later, it seemed Alessa and Daniel caught up to the Coreli CEO in Stacmon only to have both of their ships destroyed minutes apart by his Pilgrim.

Sakaane wiped the report off the display and leaned forward, elbows on the desk, to rest her forehead in her hands.

Intaki V – Moon 5 – Astral Mining Inc. Refinery

The office was more or less dark, save for a small lamp. Its glow cast a dim pool of light on the desk.

Sakaane sat quietly, contemplating the photographs highlighted by the light. They were large prints and intended to be two sets. The first of each set was made more or less irrelevant thanks to their blurred contents. The second photo of the second set showed slightly more detail but was still too out of focus to discern its details. The third of the first set showed, in crystal clarity, what its predecessors had only hinted at. A shot of her mother sitting on the deck at sunset, mouth open in a soundless scream of terror.

The second set was incomplete. The photos had been delivered but destroyed sight unseen. Despite this, despite how dark and vague its first picture was, somewhere deep inside she feared she knew what the others would have shown, though she dared not admit it to herself.