Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Tsuguwa system – Planet VI
Caldari Navy Assembly Plant Station
26 February YC 127
I haven’t heard from Ozanero Voiras for a while, and when I finally got a call from her I had an uneasy feeling. The memories of my desperate fight to save a girl which cost the lives of 10 marines were still raw in my head. The Level 2 Security Agent told me that she had a mission for which I was expected in her office, as always, at my earliest convenience. I shrugged – someone had to take the job and it was not like I had anything better to do – and 15 minutes later I was sitting in the familiar guest chair.
Ozanero smiled warmly and said, “How are you, Vladimir?”
The way she said it implied that she was genuinely concerned about my wellbeing and was ready to hear more than a usual “I am fine”.
I appreciated that personal touch and said, “Had to blow off steam by bashing a few Guristas’ heads in. If you are worried about my readiness for another mission, I am OK. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.” Then I changed the topic, “By the way, who was the guy I saw you with in the bar after the last mission?”
The agent’s smile became sad, “He was Sergeant Aoki’s commander. I told him that it was you who delivered the girl back to her father. He asked me to convey his gratitude to you. The fact that the mission was ultimately successful means a lot to the Navy and to the relatives of the deceased marines.”
I nodded, “It was an honour.”
As soon as I said it, something shifted almost imperceptibly in Ozanero’s eyes. The questioning expression disappeared and was replaced by some kind of acknowledgment but I was not sure of what. After a few heartbeats Ozanero took a deep breath and assumed her usual professional demeanour.
“Last time I sent you to save one girl,” she said, “Today I need you to save a planet. Are you ready?”
“What do you mean by a planet?” I asked, taken aback.
Ozanero’s face hardened, “We discovered a few convoys of Minmatar saboteurs carrying a heap load of viral agents. They are heading to one of the planets in Iidoken where they plan to carry out a biological attack on the populace. I need you to intercept them.”
My eyes widened, “Minmatar? Attacking Caldari civilians? But why?”
The agent looked at me in surprise, “If you listened to news any time since you were born, you surely know that we are at war with Gallente who are Minmatar’s allies, and Minmatar are at war with Amarr who are our allies. From Minmatar’s perspective, they are attacking not only the ally of their enemy, but also the enemy of their ally.”
“I know all that. But why do they attack the civilians? It’s pure terrorism! Although my opinion of Minmatar is not high, but even I thought they were above such atrocities.”
“I don’t believe that Minmatar are rabid dogs who want to sow chaos and destruction indiscriminately. My guess is that they want us to shift some of our Navy assets to Iidoken, away from another system where they or Gallente plan a big attack. That would be a solid tactical ploy.”
I narrowed my eyes, “And do we use such ploys?”
I was amazed at the transformation that the agent’s face underwent in a blink of an eye – a soft thoughtful expression was replaced with a blank, somewhat rigid grimace.
Stiffly, the agent replied, “No comments.”
I raised my eyebrow, “So, you do not deny it?”
Ozanero shook her head, “This is the only response that I may give to questions which can incriminate Caldari State, regardless of the answer and my knowledge of the answer. If we refuted false allegations and declined to comment on true ones, it would be too easy to figure out the truth. Always refusing to comment prevents people from jumping to conclusions.”
I scratched my head, “I guess, there is more to being an agent than just handing out the mission briefs. Talking of which, is there anything else I need to know?”
The agent relaxed and said in her normal tone as if nothing happened, “Yes, there will be interceptors.”
Still shell-shocked by the revelation that I could be scrammed, I boarded my capsule and woke up Aura. During my exploration days I expected hunters with warp scramblers, and I was ready to flee them in a fast agile frigate. For that matter, during most expeditions I didn’t see any hostiles at all. Now, I was an attacker who had to fly a not-so-nimble destroyer toward the enemy who was certain to possess warp disrupting modules. On top of that, the mission reward, decent as it was for Level 2, was nowhere close to covering the losses if my Cormorant was destroyed. On the other hand, how could I refuse a mission when lives of billions of people were on the line? But forget the billions! How could I refuse when a few days ago a squad of marines sacrificed themselves to save just one life?
“What shall we do?” I asked Aura anxiously. “Shall I get a brawler fit with blasters? Or shall I replace the MWD with an afterburner to keep the prop module running?”
Aura was all business-like and said in a cool voice, “Stop panicking. Tell me, do we expect scrams or points?”
I shrugged, “I don’t know. Ozanero didn’t have such details.”
“Alright. Did she tell you how far the warp-in point will be from the hostiles?”
“Er… Yes, it was in the brief. The closest group in the deadspace pocket will be about 20 clicks away if they haven’t changed the position.”
Aura smiled, “Then relax. No warp scrambler can get you at that distance. In the the worst case, they’ll use a warp disruptor to disable your warp drive, but MWD will get you out of their range eventually. Then you can snipe at them to your heart’s content.”
“But what if the interceptor has a microwarpdrive?”
“Then you’ll have to kill it before it starts running circles around you. Inties are crunchy. With seven 150-mm rails you’ll need to land just one or two volleys.”
“But…” I started another objection when Aura interrupted me with a dismissive gesture.
“Stop it,” she said firmly. “You can’t foresee every eventuality. For all I know, it may be a one-in-thousand chance that Minmatar sent a battlecruiser which will alpha you off the grid as soon as you arrive.”
“This doesn’t sound reassuring,” I said plaintively.
Aura spread her hands, “It’s New Eden, baby. If you don’t want to take risks, you better stay docked.”
After some mental toing and froing I decided to take Aura’s advice and loaded the pod into Kaukokärki. Then we undocked and warped to Iidoken gate.
Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Iidoken system – Mission location
The acceleration gate to the deadspace pocket was lightly guarded. It took me just a minute to dispatch three Republic Baldurs and one transport. Normally, I would not attack a transport ship but that one, in all probability, carried the viral agent which Minmatar planned to release into the atmosphere of one of our planets. I didn’t feel any qualms when the hauler exploded in a ball of fire.
Having got rid of the guards I mentally prepared for the real battle which awaited me in the deadspace. One more time I repeated the sequence of commands that I would need to issue on the other side, and then activated the gate.
First thing I did when we I came out of the warp was fly full speed away from the nearest group of hostiles. With grim satisfaction, I noted that the distance between Minmatar ships and my Cormorant was steadily increasing. Only then I started looking at the tactical disposition. To my relief, Chief Republic Isak interceptors were in two farther groups which did not pursue me. The nearest group was indeed 20 kilometres away when I warped in, but now that distance increased to 30 clicks.
I smiled at Aura, “You plan is working!”
She snorted, “Of course, it is. And you would have come up with the same plan if you didn’t fixate on the worst-case scenario.”
“It was really unnerving,” I said lamely.
“Then why don’t you soothe your nerves by playing a merry melody on your seven railguns?” asked Aura sweetly. “You know, those Thukkers and Brutors aren’t going to shoot themselves.”
“Oh, right,” I said, hastily turning my attention to the overview.
The eight frigates that were chasing me were already out of my firing range. I was surprised to see that one of Republic Gleeda frigates managed to project a target painter on my hull from the distance of 122 kilometres. That didn’t do them any good, though, as they obviously did not possess weapons with such a long reach.
“If you wanted to play laser tag, mate, you came to a wrong party,” I sniggered.
Then I turned off my microwarpdrive and changed course so that I moved perpendicular to the pursuers’ path, giving them an opportunity to close in on me. They flew in a tight formation and entered my weapons range together. And together they died within a span of two minutes which passed from my first shot to the last one. Now it was time to tackle the tacklers.
While I was dealing with the first group the remaining two wings stayed put and were now more than 100 km away. Each wing had a transport ship, a Chief Republic Isak interceptor, and a mix of regular frigates and destroyers. I chose a fly-by trajectory which would briefly bring one of the wings within my firing range while keeping as far away as possible from the other wing. That way I ensured that I would not have to deal with two interceptors simultaneously.
During my approach I had time to take a closer look at Minmatar ships which, come to think of it, was the first time I saw them live – the state that I was intent on changing very soon. More than anything, they looked like a product of a garage project where an enthusiastic amateur bolted a barely space-worthy ship together from spare parts. My assessment of the Minmatar quality was confirmed by my railguns which dispatched most frigates with a single volley. The transport ships and destroyers lasted longer but not because of the strength of their shields and armour but purely because of their size. All that, however, I discovered only after dealing with the main threat – the Chief Republic Isak. The interceptor proved to be less crunchy than Aura made it out to be. In fact, it was harder to kill than Republic Austri destroyers. If it had an MWD and was located 20 kilometres from me when I warped in, I don’t think I would be able to dispatch it quickly enough. Even from my advantageous sniping position where the angle speed was not a factor, I spent 15 seconds and 42 Spike charges to kill the pesky tackler. But once it was gone, dealing with the rest of the wing was a run-of-the-mill job.
I didn’t dilly-dally with the last group, flying directly toward it and shooting at each ship as it entered my firing range. My 85-km reach ensured that all the hostiles were destroyed before they managed to land a single hit on me.
As the last Minmatar ship exploded, I relaxed and looked at Aura, “This was easier than I thought.”
She giggled, “If you can call that panic-stricken wide-eyed raving of yours thinking, then yes.”
I smiled, accepting the barb graciously, then looked at the overview which was filled with Minmatar ship wrecks.
“Why don’t we take a look at what these clunkers were made of, eh?” suggested I and willed Kaukokärki toward the closest debris.
Examination of the wrecks revealed that the inties were armed with Faint Scoped Warp Disruptors and Fleeting Compact Stasis Webifiers. The former could have shut down my warp engine from the distance of 22 kilometres but they never got a chance to get that close to me.
“Hey, what’s that?” asked Aura pointing at a container icon on the overview.
“Don’t know. Let’s check,” I replied and approached the object.
The next words which I uttered when I inspected the contents of the container were “Holy shit!”
The box held 10 bottles of the viral agent! I immediately moved away from the accursed container and started targeting it. The last thing I wanted was to stain Kaukokärki’s beautiful skin with the virus and bring it back to the station.
At that moment, the screen showed the head of Ozanero Voiras who said urgently, “Vladimir, you need to bring the virus back to the station.”
“What?” I cried out in disbelief.
“We need this container as the evidence of Minmatar’s nefarious plot.”
I narrowed my eyes, “Just as the evidence?”
Ozanero sighed, “This is what I’ve been told and this is what I am telling you.”
I didn’t like the idea a single bit.
“And what if I simply destroy it?” I asked.
“Then you won’t get your mission reward.”
“Hey, my mission objective was to destroy the Minmatar convoy and I achieved it.”
Ozanero pursed her lips, “You need to read mission briefs more carefully, Captain. There is a clause which requires you to surrender any discovered hazardous materials to the Navy.”
I looked at Aura questioningly. She nodded with an apologetic smile, confirming Ozanero’s words. I, however, had not done resisting yet.
“I am sure that the saboteurs had more than one such crate with the virus. For all I know, it is covered with the remains of the viral medium from the destroyed containers, and there is a regulation which prohibits bringing contaminated goods into the station.”
To be honest, it was a pure bluff, as I had no idea if such regulation existed. But, as they say, even a blind squirrel can find a nut once in a while.
The agent’s face became thoughtful and after some deliberation she said, “Depressurise your cargo hold before collecting the crate. When you come to the station you will be directed to one of the external docks where the container can be picked up without a risk of spreading the virus through the air.”
I knew I was losing the battle but I was hell-bent on making that transaction as expensive as possible for the Navy.
“And what about my cargo hold? It will be contaminated through the contact with the crate.”
Ozanero’s face stiffened and she said, “We’ll send a biohazard crew to clean the hold.”
“At your expense,” insisted I.
After a pause, the agent nodded, “At our expense.”
There was nothing else to do. I picked up the container and warped to Tsuguwa gate.
As we were making our way back to the station, Aura suddenly looked at me with excitement, “Hey, Vlad. Do you know how much that crate is worth on the market?”
I shook my head.
Aura made a dramatic pause and said, “For the 10 bottles you can 775,088.20 ISK. It is twice more than the mission bonus!”
“And who do you think will buy it?” I asked cautiously.
“Does it matter? Anyone who has enough money.”
“Someone like an agent of the Republic Fleet?”
Aura started nodding enthusiastically, but then the penny dropped, and she shrunk visibly. There was no way such amount of viral material could be used for a peaceful purpose like research. Whoever possessed it would think of it as a weapon or, in the best case, as an evidence. And the best case was all we could hope for.