Of Interest

Genesis region – Sanctum constellation
Tar System

16 March YC 127

I nodded, “Agent Jak. How can I be of service?”

Tevis Jak smiled, “In many ways, Mr Korff. I need boots on the ground, ships in space, eyes in stations…”

“Erm…” I interrupted Jak’s enthusiastic enumeration of mission locations, “Ships in space – definitely, eyes in stations – maybe, boots on the ground – definitely not.”

Tevis Jak sighed, “I thought so. But let’s start with space. First of all, to preserve the evidence of sabotage, I need you to take out the pirates scavenging the explosion site.”

I knitted my brow, “Sabotage? Are we talking about the same incident?”

“I am talking about The Damsel explosion. That’s what Sister Alitura sent you to investigate, right?”

“Yes, but there was no sabotage. The Damsel was destroyed by an Amarrian dreadnought. I saw its wreck at the site of the tragedy.”

The agent pursed his lips, “No, no, no. I don’t know how well you inspected The Damsel’s remains, but I took a really close look and I can tell you that there were no signs of external damage on the hull. The Damsel was blown up from inside. Didn’t Alitura tell you about it? It should be in your mission brief.”

I looked at Aura. She shook her head.

“That bitch,” I mumbled.

The agent raised his eyebrows, “Pardon?”

“Sorry, ignore that. No, that information was not in the brief.”

“Hmm… This is strange. She is usually quite diligent. You see, this piece of intel is significant. If The Damsel was destroyed by another ship, you and I would not be having this conversation. I am a Level 1 agent. You, judging by your well-equipped Cormorant, can probably take a Level 2 mission, but neither of us is qualified to deal with a force which can kill a battleship in a space battle. But saboteurs, they don’t fly dreadnoughts and battleships; their ships are fast and inconspicuous – a shuttle, a corvette, a frigate at the outside. And this is where you come in. We need someone who can move quickly between locations and survive a skirmish with the usual small-time riff-raff plaguing our space lanes.”

I smiled wryly, “Such as the pirates looting The Damsel’s wreck as we speak?”

“Exactly!” exclaimed the agent ignoring my sarcasm. “Please take care of them. In the meantime, I’ll be looking for rescued survivors who I hope can shed light on what happened. They were sent to various facilities, and I need time to track them down. Any questions?”

The assignment was pretty simple, so I bid my good-bye and headed to Manarq.

---

Genesis region – Sanctum constellation
Manarq system – Mission location

When we arrived to the site of the disaster, I saw two Corpii Worshipper frigates milling around The Damsel’s wreck.

“Blood Raiders,” I muttered. “I hate Blood Raiders.”

“Don’t you hate all pirates?” asked Aura.

“Yes, but it’s on a spectrum. Serpentis, for example, operate in Gallente space. They tie up Federation Navy forces and undermine Gallente economy. Although I do not approve of their methods, especially when it comes to harassing civilians, they are the enemy of our enemy. Blood Raiders, on the other hand, are worst of the worst. Before you told me that they were followers of Sani Sabik faith, I could never have imagined that such bloody rituals would be practiced as part of a mainstream religion in our times.”

Aura shuddered, “If I ever tell you that I’d like to have a body, just remind me about those barbarians. At least in my present virtual form I will never become their victim.”

“Well, if you are talking about these particular barbarians,” I pointed at the overview, “no one will ever become their victim.”

I turned Kaukokärki toward the pirates and fired up the engine. In a few seconds, both hostiles were within my firing range. Ten seconds later they were no more.

“Love my one-fifties,” I murmured adoring the fireballs on the screen. “One salvo and a frigate is gone. Sometimes I wonder why I should bother flying Merimetso with her one-twenty-fives. Maybe I should fit her with blasters and convert to a brawler. What do you think, Aura?”

“I think,” replied Aura, “that we have more urgent things to do than theorising about the relative strengths of your favourite Cormorants.”

She pointed at the overview where three more red triangles appeared just outside my targeting range. I noticed with surprise that although they didn’t have any weapons that could reach me from 90 km, they did manage to acquire a target lock on me.

“That’s a stupid design,” I scoffed. “They allocated resources to increasing the targeting distance but could not fit a weapon with a matching firing range. I am actually quite proud of my sniper fit which ensures that the firing and targeting ranges differ by less than one click.”

Aura raised an eyebrow, “Your sniper fit?”

I raised my hands in a placating gesture – one had to give credit where credit was due. After all, it was Aura who crafted the combination of modules, charges and skills which produced such a harmonious fit.

“Of course, it is your fit. Come to think of it, maybe they are flying those jury-rigged rust buckets because they didn’t have assistance of such smart an AI.”

Aura beamed proudly. A little bit of flattery went a long way with her.

“Just make sure that you don’t squander the benefits of my sniper fit by letting those scoundrels get too close to us,” she said.

That was a timely reminder, as the Raiders had already entered my firing range and were closing in unmolested. I targeted the three newcomers and started picking them off one by one. Corpii Heralds were as squishy as Worshippers but a bit more agile. That meant that my first hit did not cause as much damage and I had to top it up with a second one. Corpii Upholder was a tougher bird but it too couldn’t take more than two hits. In less than half a minute the second wave of attackers was repelled.

As soon as the Upholder was reduced to stardust, three Corpii Followers and one Corpii Worshipper warped in. They, too, were sent to the warm embrace of their bloodthirsty god.

“Hehe,” I chuckled, “it’s not every day that one gets to loot a wreck of a dreadnought in hi-sec. No wonder those guys were so eager.”

I wish I could rummage in those gigantic broken hulls myself, but my mission was exactly the opposite – to protect them – so I had to settle for salvaging stuff from the pirates’ wrecks. When I finished looting the the last Corpii Worshipper, Tevis Jak’s head suddenly popped up on my comms screen.

“That thing, the datacore, that you just extracted, bring it to me,” he said excitedly and ended the connection.

I didn’t pay much attention to the exact contents of the wrecks, so I had to do a double take. Indeed, there was a strange object in my cargo hold which looked like a datacore. What made it even stranger was a foreign data interface that I had never seen before.

“Can you check what’s inside?” I asked Aura.

She froze for a moment, then shook her head, “No, it doesn’t accept wireless connections, and we don’t have equipment compatible with its cable interface onboard.”

There was nothing else we could do, so I jumped back to Tar to deliver the datacore and collect my mission reward.