Deadly Arrival

Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Tsuguwa system – Planet VI
Caldari Navy Assembly Plant Station

13 January YC 127

Today I decided to finally make use of my ‘promotion’ and try my hand at level 2 missions. I walked the familiar route toward the Security Department offices which took me to Purkkoken Honuken’s door. This time I had to remind myself that my destination was a bit farther. It felt like the extra length of the corridor that I had to traverse symbolised my elevation to the next level. The door I was looking for had a plate with the name of Ozanero Voiras, Level 2 Security Agent. I knocked on it and waited for a reply.

“Please, come in,” said a female voice.

I opened the door and found myself in a copy of Purkkoken’s office. In a typical military style, the Navy provided the same simple functional room to Level 1 and Level 2 security agents. There were some personal touches though: an electric kettle on the kitchenette benchtop was replaced with a coffee machine, and the walls were decorated with printouts of hand-drawn space combat scenes.

After quickly taking in the surrounds I turned my attention to the lady of the house, so to speak. Ozanero Voiras was sitting at the table and… writing something on her datapad with a stylus. I was surprised – these days only calligraphy artists produced handwritten text, everyone else preferring typing as it was faster and the result was easier to read. I wondered what was the story behind that quirk, and hoped that one day I would hear it. In the meantime, the agent was totally focused on completing her current task, ignoring my presence for a while. I didn’t see a reason to interrupt her and used that time to study her appearance. Ozanero was in her mid-thirties; her determined face with high cheekbones was softened by honey-coloured hair which fell loosely around her shoulders. She wore tailored Caldari Navy uniform which fitted her perfectly. This was emphasised by her straight posture which she maintained without using a backrest. All in all, she produced an impression of a motivated perfectionist. I was not sure if it was a good sign.

Ozanero Voiras
Ozanero Voiras

When the agent finally finished her writing, she put aside the stylus, closed the datapad and looked at me inquisitively. Suddenly, her austere face lit up with a warm friendly smile.

“Mr Korff,” she said raising from the table and extending her hand to me, “I am so glad to see you.”

“Nice to meet you too, Ms Voiras,” I answered politely, shaking her hand.

Her firm grip indicated that she was a regular gym visitor.

“Please excuse me for not greeting you immediately,” Ozanero pointed at the datapad with an apologetic smile, “but I really had to write down my thought before it escaped me.”

“Not a problem,” I said graciously, “it’s not like I am in a hurry.”

“Oh, we can change that,” Ozanero said with a mischievous smile, “Are you ready for your first level 2 mission?”

“Can’t say until I see the mission brief.”

“Fair enough,” laughed the agent and invited me to take the visitor chair.

She opened her datapad, typed a few commands and said, “The brief is in your inbox, Mr Korff.”

I opened her message on my datapad and read the following:

Our surveillance teams have discovered a disturbance near some old ruins in Tsuguwa. I’d like you to take a look, it’s awfully close to one of our outposts. Report your findings to me.

Reward: 103,000 ISK
Time bonus: 98,000 ISK

“Is that it?” I asked, surprised.

Ozanero shrugged her shoulders, “It’s a reconnaissance mission, Mr Korff. We don’t know much about the situation there. However, I have done a risk assessment based on the available information. If you are interested, you can find it in the appendix.”

I opened the appendix and gasped – the document listed possible hostiles which spanned all the way from frigates to battleships.

“Battleships?” I scowled. “That’s quite a jump from Level 1 missions.”

“I had to include battleships because I could not completely rule them out,” the agent explained patiently, “but if you look at the second column then you will see that the probability of encountering one is really low. In fact, even the chance of finding a frigate is not that high.”

There was indeed a second column which indicated that the probability of finding a battleship in that place was 0.01%. A chance of encountering a single frigate was about 60%. As the potential number of ships increased, the probability rapidly went down. Such detailed analysis showed not only the difference in threat levels between Level 1 and Level 2 missions, but also the difference in skills between Level 1 and Level 2 agents. Purkkoken really had to lift his game if he wanted to get his promotion.

Despite the chance of clashing with a battleship, the mission didn’t look too bad. In fact, it looked much more promising than most Level 1 missions that I ran so far.

“And what if I don’t find anything there? Will you still be prepared to pay me 201,000 ISK?” I asked curiously.

“The payment takes into account the risks and represents a weighted average across various scenarios. So, to answer your question, yes, we will pay even if the result is negative.”

“Okay, I take it,” I said hastily, thinking that it would be the easiest 200 grands that I had ever got for a mission.


“Congratulations,” I said, waking up Aura, “You are now officially a Level 2 Navigation AI!”

“Ooh, did Purkkoken get a promotion?” asked Aura.

“Nah, that guy needs to get up earlier and work harder to get to the next level. I am now working with Ozanero Voiras. She is level 2, and she just gave us our first mission.”

“How exciting! Do we need a bigger ship?”

“No. For all I know, we can fly an Ibis, but I am taking the Cormorant in case there are juicy targets.”


Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Tsuguwa system – Mission location

We undocked and I warped to the location provided by Ozanero. The place looked like a junkyard – space shuttle wrecks, broken engines and station debris floated in space, surrounded by a foul-looking red gas cloud.

Mission Location
Mission Location

I waited for a minute. Nothing happened.

“Is that it?” I wondered.

Aura, who was monitoring the comms, said, “No, there is a new instruction – you need to approach Ripped Superstructure.”

I looked at the overview and did not find such an object.

“There are no Ripped Superstructures here,” I complained, “Is the overview configured to show all objects?”

Aura thought for a second and said, “The overview shows everything. Maybe the base misidentified some object. Just approach that pile of junk and hopefully they’ll get the data they want.”

I grimaced uncertainly but followed Aura’s suggestion. As the debris were growing larger on my screen, my eyes were glued to the overview. The distance indicator was counting down the kilometres remaining to the nearest piece of junk: 100… 80… 60… Nothing was happening. The place was quiet as a cemetery. 40… 30… 20… Suddenly, silently, the overview exploded with red icons. Reflexively, I willed Merimetso to turn around, and enabled the afterburner and the kinetic shield hardener.

“We have him!” I heard a triumphant female voice in the local channel, “The fool walked right into our trap. Reduce his rusty scrap-bucket to space dust, NOW!”

The transmission came from a Federation Insidiator frigate which was out of my firing range.

“It’s an ambush!” cried Aura.

In the meantime, the hostiles, which were hitherto concealed Gallente Sentry Guns, targeted me and started firing. As the damage alerts scrolled on the screen I noticed with horror that it wasn’t just kinetic, but also thermal and explosive. I wasn’t much worried about the explosive type, as my shield resistance to it was 57%, but a thermal shield hardener wouldn’t go amiss. My fit was still fine-tuned to fight Guristas with their Scourge missiles and I was paying a price for that mishap.

Suddenly, another icon with an image of a spider popped up on my HUD, and my speed fell dramatically.

“Stasis towers!” Aura shouted, “We need to warp out of here!”

The situation was indeed dire – crawling at a snail’s pace I was an easy target for the sentries, as they were rapidly demolishing my shield. Still, there was a solid buffer remaining and I decided that it was too early to give up. I continued on my course and targeted the nearest stasis tower. Since the tower was not moving, my guns didn’t miss a single volley, and half a minute later the pernicious structure exploded in a ball of debris. My speed increased but not to the maximum as there was one more webifier. I immediately aimed my railguns at the remaining stasis tower and opened fire. I managed to hit it five times before it went out of my firing range. Unfortunately, I didn’t get out of the sentry guns’ range and they continued peppering me with their charges. I tried to change course to get closer to the tower but at that time the first alarm blared in the pod, indicating that I had only 25% of the shield left. Even if I could back into the firing range, I wouldn’t have enough time to destroy the guns before they killed Merimetso. With a heavy sigh, I selected the Caldari Navy Assembly Plant on the overview and commanded the destroyer to warp to it. The last thing I heard before the warp drive kicked in was a frustrated curse of Federation Captain in the local.


Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Tsuguwa system – Planet VI
Caldari Navy Assembly Plant Station

“Congratulations, Captain,” said Aura, as we were approaching the docking perimeter of the station, “you have successfully completed your first Level 2 mission.”

“Have I?” I asked, surprised, “But I didn’t manage to clean up the hostiles.”

“It was a reconnaissance mission. The Navy got their data and it’s all that matters.”

“Hmm… Let me discuss this with Ozanero,” said I.

Twenty minutes later I was in the agent’s office. As earlier, she was rapidly writing something on her datapad, but this time she stopped it as soon as I entered the room.

“Mr Korff,” she said, looking pained, “I am so sorry that you were ambushed. It was totally unexpected.”

“I didn’t expect it either,” grunted I, “especially the stasis towers – they were not even a possibility in your mission brief.”

“No, and I need to update my threat assessment model with this new information,” admitted Ozanero, “but I must say that in my line of work the pilots quite often encounter webifiers, both anchored and ship-mounted, so you better be ready for such contingency.”

That was news. I could hardly remember any webifiers in Level 1 missions, so I was totally unprepared for them. My fit definitely needed rethinking.

I nodded, “I’ll keep that in mind. And what about the mission? Have you got the info you were after? Do I need to get back and clean things up?”

“No, please don’t. Your mission is over and you earned your reward and bonus. I have already sent a wing to that location to take care of the remaining Feds. If you go there you will just get in their way.”

I smiled and shook the agent’s hand, “Thank you, Ms Voiras. If anything, it was an educational experience.”

“Thank you, Mr Korff,” replied the agent squeezing my hand, “You have exceeded my expectations by destroying one of the stasis towers, and I’ll make sure you will get an appropriate reward for that.”

Later that day the datapad notified me that additional 35,000 ISK were dropped to my bank account.

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