Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Tsuguwa system – Planet VI
Caldari Navy Assembly Plant Station
12 December YC 126
Next day after my exciting Okela constellation patrol, I received a call from Purkkoken Honuken, asking me to see him in his office ‘at my earliest convenience’. I found the turn of phrase intriguing as with Purkkoken it was always ‘as soon as possible’. Curious to see what was up, I immediately went to his room in the security department.
“Ah, Vlad,” he greeted me with nonchalance which I found a bit strained. “I have a great mission for you.”
I made myself comfortable in the chair and nodded, “Go on.”
“Remember that The Seven gang?”
I made round eyes, “Of course I do. I barely escaped them with my life, and their captives, not three days ago!”
“Oh, yes, sure, sure,” Purkkoken nodded quickly. “So it happens that one of those captives knows the location of one of the seven. The name’s Locceed.”
“And how does he know that?” I asked suspiciously.
“It’s not he, it’s a lady,” the agent corrected me, sternly. “She overheard a conversation between Locceed and one of his lieutenants, and now we know where to find him.”
It was a plausible explanation – since the pirates did not plan to release their prisoners, they did not feel necessary to be too cautious in their conversations around the captives.
“So,” asked Purkkoken eagerly, “are you taking this mission?”
“What’s the pay?”
“It’s 22,000 ISK for the completion, and the same amount for the time bonus.”
I grimaced, “It’s a bit below my expectations. What’s the allocated time?”
“Twenty-five minutes.”
“What? It will take me 15 minutes just to get to the docks!”
Purkkoken grinned manically, “But that’s the beauty of it! We don’t expect anyone else to be there. All you have to do is just fly to Iidoken, kill the bastard and return,” and then added with a pleading look, “Surely, it won’t be any trouble to you.”
I sighed, “Alright. Send the coordinates to Aura,” and left the room.
Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Iidoken system – Mission location
Locceed’s hiding place was a small group of mined-out asteroids which provided neither cover, nor valuable resources. While I was pondering over the strange choice of a hideout, a coarse, pockmarked face appeared on my comms screen. It was Locceed.
“So, it was you who got my message,” he grinned mirthlessly.
“What message?” I asked, confused.
“You see, implanting triggered responses into the minds of our former captives is the easy part. But when I did it, I did not count on a capsuleer turning up,” he shook his head and added with a wry smile, “I guess I got more than I bargained for. Now I need to figure out what to do with you.”
“And how is that going?” I asked sarcastically.
What Locceed said next, shocked me, “Listen, we are both capsuleers.”
This assignment did not look like a walkover anymore, and I wondered if Purkkoken knew that, because a mission against another capsuleer should have attracted a much higher reward.
Locceed continued in the meantime in a friendly tone, “So there is really no point in duelling out here in the middle of the space, is there? Here is my offer: if you head over to those asteroids, you’ll find a cargo container with some valuable odds and ends inside,” then he winked conspiratorially, “You don’t have to tell anyone where you got them.”
For a brief moment I was tempted to accept the offer, not because I wanted to avoid the fight, but to punish Purkkoken for pitting me against another capsuleer without telling me. Then the moment was gone and I replied to Locceed’s offer by targeting his Catalyst.
Locceed sighed disappointedly, “And I had hoped you were smarter than that. Let’s do it the hard way then. Here we go, boys!”
As he said that, a lonely Pithi Invader emerged from the asteroid group.
I sniggered, “Boys? Plural?”
Locceed’s face became panicked, and he cried, “Kalon, where are the others?”
Instead of answering, the frigate sped toward the cargo container.
“You, son of a bitch,” growled Locceed and, ignoring me, chased the Invader.
As much as I was entertained by the unfolding space drama, I didn’t forget to target the frigate while firing all my railguns at Locceed. Having been enraged by his comrades’ betrayal, he didn’t pay any attention to me and did not attempt to defend himself. As a result, it took me just 15 seconds to reduce Locceed’s destroyer to a smoking heap of debris. His former accomplice, Kalon, in the meantime reached the cargo container, looted it and was aligning for the warp-out. Unfortunately for him, Pithi Invader’s align time was greater than four seconds, which was all the time I needed to pop the frigate with a concentrated fire of my seven railguns. All that firepower, however, while very effective in converting the frigate’s hull into metal scraps, did the same to its cargo. Even if Locceed didn’t lie and the container had some valuable items, all that was left was only good for reprocessing.
There was nothing else to do, and Aura promptly connected me to Purkkoken to ensure that I would qualify for the time bonus.
“Hey, mate,” I said, “the mission is accomplished. There is a couple of things that I’d like to discuss with you, though. Are you going to be in the office in the next 30 minutes?”
“Oh, great news!” Purkkoken exclaimed, clearly elated. “Sorry, I don’t have time today, I need to run now. Don’t worry about the debriefing, I’ll review the logs myself later.”
“Erm, but…” I started objecting, but the agent just waved his hand at me and ended the connection.
Aura and I looked at each other.
“What’s going on with Purkkoken?” I asked, puzzled.
Aura shrugged and said, “Diarrhoea?”
I snorted and jumped back to Tsuguwa.