Tender Games: I Did It My Way

17 April YC 122

It took me several hi-sec jumps before I found a wormhole which led to J-space.

“Thanks, Bob! I thought that I’d spend all weekend roaming hi-sec,” grumbled I and dived in.

Region A–R00001 – Constellation A-C00318
System J140121

“Captain, there is a rescue cache in this system which needs to be tended,” informed me Allison as soon as we arrived.

“Excellent!” said I and bookmarked a safe spot.

Parking my Buzzard in the middle of the middle of nowhere I yawned and said, “I’ll take a nap. If anyone calls, I am not here.”

“Aren’t you going to tend that cache?” asked Allison and Aura in unison.

“If I tend it now it will not count toward my Tender Games tally. I’ll wait until 21:00 and then do my duty. Till then, nighty-night,” replied I and switched everything, except the cloaking device, off.

8 hours later…

I woke up rested and refreshed.

“Hi everyone,” cried I and stretched.

No one replied.

“Ah, of course!” I slapped my forehead and turned on Aura and Allison.

“Captain, there is a rescue cache in this system but it has already been tended,” chirped Allison.

“What? How come? Who did it?”

“The cache was last tended by Sydney Selket.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Sydney!” growled I, “Couldn’t you find another hole?”

“Now you will spend the rest of the weekend looking for a system with an untended cache,” giggled Aura.

“You aren’t helping,” snapped I and started scanning signatures.

As soon as I found another wormhole leading to ‘unknown space’ I collected the probes and jumped through it.

Region B-R00008 – Constellation B-C00061
System J112558

When the system name appeared on the HUD I heard sweet Allison’s words “Captain, there is a rescue cache in this system which needs to be tended.”

“Aha! My first cache of the day, I am coming,” cheered I and jumped to the corp bookmark.

Tending was quick and easy, an established routine.

Activating the D-Scan, I said, “Now, this seems like a good place for… oh, shit!”

“My thoughts, exactly,” nodded Aura, looking at the window which showed an Astero’s signature.

“Anoikis is large. Let’s find another place,” sighed I deploying probes and warping to the safe spot.

Region D-R00022 – Constellation D-C00213
System J110915

The next J-space system I found was Class 4 which made it an unlikely destination for roaming Asteros. I warped to the safe spot and checked D-scan – it was reassuringly empty.

“Is it where you want to do your cadaver gig?” asked Aura.

“That too,” smiled I and ejected the capsule from the ship.

“What the hell are you doing? You’ll get us podded!” screamed Aura.

“Just preparing for a photo session.”

“Well, you said you needed a corpse for a photo op, but I didn’t think you meant yours!”

“Don’t worry, babe! We’ll be right,” I winked, trying to sound cooler than I actually felt.

I guess, it’s a good time to tell you what I was up to. You see, Signal Cartel’s Tender Games had multiple competitions. Tending the most caches was one of them but my hopes for it weren’t high. Instead, I thought through and invested in two other categories: I Did It My Way and Motionless Picture Award. The first one encouraged Signaleers to…

Fit the most ridiculous, bizarre, dangerous, out-of-this world flying piece of metal you can find, tend a cache and take a big picture of it. And when your picture is done, tell the world why everybody is wrong, and why your funny ship IS the best ship to get the job done.

After reading this description I knew that it had to be something extreme, like tending a cache in a Titan. On the other hand, each scale had two extremes, and it was the other one that I bet on. My submission to this category was accompanied by the following picture and text.

Tending a Cache in a Capsule
Tending a Cache in a Capsule

Call me tightfisted, but I don’t see why anyone needs to spend money on a blingy ship while you can tend caches in a free pod. Your hydrostatic capsule is perfectly suited to cache tending: it has a warp drive, it can warp to bookmarks and it can open containers. What else do you need?

Oh, I hear someone’s asking about wormholes. Yes, that too – it can jump through wormholes so you can move through Anoikis and provide the valuable community service.

Erm, did you mean scanning wormholes? No, that you can’t do in a capsule but, to be fair, you don’t need to. All J-space systems are populated by helpful folks who will be extremely happy to give you a hand and scan the next wormhole for you. All you need to do is ask. In fact, there is one piece of equipment that is quite useful in such circumstances – High-Grade Ascendancy Epsilon implant. It will increase your charisma and make your request for scanning simply irresistible. And when you finally get the location of the wormhole you’ll be able to fly there 5% faster!

Is someone saying that it’s too awkward and time-consuming? Well, I don’t know. All I can say is that if you are asking this kind of question you are not ready to play Eve in a really Hard Mode.

Here is the fitting for your reference.

[Capsule, Vladimir Korff's Capsule]

“How do you like it?” I asked Aura after returning to Nosuri II.

She folded her arms and looked at me fiercely, “You are crazy. I felt naked in that pod! Next time you better bring a Titan.”

“Yes, ma’am! A special edition with a mile-long walk-in wardrobe,” snickered I.

Aura opened her mouth to reply, but suddenly her face took a pensive, dreamy expression.

I watched it for a few seconds and then barked, “Co-pilot!”

Aura started and looked at me wide-eyed, “Huh?”

“Stop that daydreaming! It’s time for our frozen friend to shine, and I need your full attention on the D-scan. Roger that?”

Aura showed me her tongue, “Aye-aye, Captain! D-scan is clear, if you can’t see it yourself.”

“Good job. Now get us back to the rescue cache.”

“Warp drive active,” reported Aura and added under her breath, “if your bum can’t feel the warp…”

Leave a Reply