Lair of the Snakes
Everyshore region – Chasnaye constellation
Harerget system – Planet V – Moon 1
CreoDron Factory station
27 April YC 127
When I entered Delphine’s office, she was nervously pacing up and down.
“Captain,” the agent cried as soon as she saw me, “you have to save her!”
“Save whom?” I asked, confused.
“Aspasia! I mean, Dr Aspasia Castille. She is one of CreoDron’s top minds.”
“Um… Save from what? Or whom?”
“From Serpentis. They kidnapped her!”
“Isn’t it a matter for police, or corp security?”
“There is no time! I know where they are taking Aspasia. If you act immediately, there is a chance to rescue her,” Delphine said in a pleading voice.
“I am sorry, but I have my own investigation to work on, and this mission looks like another distraction. I tried to help you as much as I could but it’s just one thing after another and there is still no progress on the datacore decoding.”
“But…” Delphine hesitated, “but there can’t be any progress on that datacore without Aspasia. She was the one working on it.”
That statement made me see the situation in a different light.
I sighed, “Okay… tell me the details.”
“You see, we got a toilet alert.”
“What?!”
“Oh, it’s just a surveillance thing. We can’t put cameras inside the toilets for privacy reasons, but we track people entering and leaving the toilet.”
I rolled my eyes, “By the Void! Do you actually track how much of their workday the employees spend in a toilet?”
“We do, but it’s for health reasons,” Delphine replied defensively, but her face became shifty for a split second. She then continued, “If someone spends too much time in a toilet it might mean that they have a medical episode – a bout of diarrhoea or a faint. In such cases we send a medical officer to check on the person. Today the alert was raised for Aspasia. When the officer checked the restroom, she didn’t find Aspasia there. When we reviewed the CCTV records, we found that immediately after Aspasia’s entry, a cleaner came in with a trolley and put up a sign saying that the restroom was closed for cleaning. After some time, she left. There were other people coming in and out but Aspasia was not one of them.”
“Let me guess,” I interjected, “you have not seen that cleaner and the trolley ever since.”
Delphine grimaced reproachfully, “I have to admit a fault in our security but it’s not that bad. There are more cameras around than you can see and we were able to track the subsequent movements of the cleaner around the station. She went straight to the docks and entered a transport ship. We believe that she incapacitated Aspasia in the restroom and transported her in the trolley to the ship which left the station soon after.”
“And how do you know it was Serpentis?” I asked sceptically. “Did the ship have their lovely S-hole logo on it?”
“Asshole logo?”
“Um… now that you have said it, I must admit that it’s probably a better way of spelling it, given Serpentis’s line of business. But what I meant was that the logo consisted of two golden plates, and the hole between the plates formed letter S.”
Delphine snorted, “No, there wasn’t any kind of hole logo, S-shaped or otherwise. It belonged to one of thousands of small corps some of which are created just for one trip. But we know where the ship is headed. Their destination is one of the Serpentis research labs! You need to go there and destroy the lab before they can transfer Aspasia to it.”
“And how do you know that they have not already reached that lab? If I understand correctly, the ship left the station hours ago. They must have already arrived.”
The agent rolled her eyes, “Capsuleers! You think everyone flies as fast as you? Most civilian transports can’t afford the advanced warp technology that you take for granted. Their warps are faster than jets, but it still takes them hours to cross the system. If you depart now, you’ll get to the lab well ahead of that transport.”
I ran out of arguments and headed for the docks.
I boarded Kaukokärki, undocked, and was about to warp to the Serpentis lab when Aura suddenly called out, “Look at this!”
“What? Where?” I asked, bewildered.
“A Corax!” replied Aura, switching the HUD view to a camera drone feed.
“A Corax? What’s so special about a Cor…” I started saying, then gasped when the screen was filled with an enlarged image of the ship in question.
It was a beautiful ship. A rocket boat, but a beauty nonetheless.
“Vlad,” Aura asked, mesmerised, “can we get such a SKIN for Kaukokärki?”
“I wouldn’t mind. What’s it called? And how much is it?”
“It’s called Deathglow Remnant, and…” Aura froze for a second and then groaned, “there isn’t one for Cormorants.”
“What, not on sale? Have you checked Jita?”
“No, such a SKIN simply does not exist for a Cormorant. It was never produced!”
“Shame,” I exhaled and looked wistfully at the majestic Corax.
I checked the lucky pilot’s info and found that she had an unusual call sign ‘xx Creator xx”. Chuckling at the irony of a creator flying a destroyer, I aligned to the Serpentis lab and warped away.
Everyshore region – Chasnaye constellation
Harerget system – Mission location
The Serpentis lab was a bunker complex with four research modules. It was guarded by five small ships.
“Okay, let’s see what we’ve got here,” I said focusing camera drones on the closest pirate, Coreli Initiate.
“Looks like a Velator, although the overview classifies it as a frigate,” noted Aura.
“Maybe the Serpentis have upgraded it,” I hazarded a guess. “In any case, I expect it to be the weakest of the lot. They won’t give a powerful frigate to a rookie.”
Apart from the Initiate, there were two Scouts, one Agent and one Spy. Each of them flew some variation of a Gallente frigate – either an Atron or a Navitas.
“This Gallentean job gets better and better,” I chuckled. “Now I’ve got a target practice with Gallente ships but without losing my standing with the Feds.”
“Don’t get too cocky,” Aura warned me. “The pirates may hide nasty surprises.”
“There is only one way to find out,” I replied nonchalantly and burned toward the lab.
I started shooting as soon as I got into the firing range, focusing all seven rails on one target. If there was a surprise, it was a nice one – the pirate ships were as crunchy as eggshells. They were nimble enough to avoid direct impacts but even one or two glancing hits were enough to blow them up.
“That was disapp…” I started saying when two pirate destroyers, accompanied by three frigates warped to the grid. “That’s more like it!” I grunted and targeted the newcomers.
To my surprise, Neocom flashed an error message.
The target Coreli Patroller is too far away. It must be within 73 km.
“What?” I exclaimed, baffled, and tried to lock the target again.
Same result.
“What the hell? My targeting range is 86 klicks! Aura, is there anything wrong with our sensors?”
“Yes, it’s called sensor dampening,” Aura replied. “I hope they told you about electronic warfare in the Academy?”
I looked at the HUD and discovered a small icon which I hadn’t seen before.
“Yeah,” I said uncertainly, “there was something about it, but Guristas never used it.”
“Oh, shall I inform Serpentis that they shouldn’t use sensor dampeners on Caldari capsuleers because they are unused to such treatment?” Aura asked in a pleasant tone, sarcasm oozing from each word.
I ignored the barb and checked the overview.
“Look at that!” I cried out in frustration. “It’s an Incursus which dampens me! Who puts a sensor dampener on an Incursus? It’s a combat frigate!”
“I told you to expect surprises,” Aura said triumphantly.
“You told me that about the first lot, not about these ones.”
Aura didn’t grace my lame excuse with a riposte and just stared at me with a smug expression on her face. I sighed and got to to work. The first order of business was to get into my reduced targeting range. I willed Kaukokärki into a 70-km orbit around the lab, and soon acquired a target lock on the insidious Coreli Patroller. I eliminated it with extreme prejudice and proceeded to destroy the rest of the gang one by one. The toughest of the lot was Corelior Soldier but its robustness came at the price of agility. I needed four salvos to destroy the pirate, but every one of them was a solid hit with maximum application.
When the reinforcements were gone, I took a deep breath and was about to congratulate myself on the resounding victory; then I saw Aura’s eyes go wide. A quick glance at the overview revealed that a second wave of reinforcements led by a cruiser, no less, had arrived to our neck of the woods.
“Uh-oh,” I muttered, “shit just got real.”
I didn’t know anything about Serpentis cruisers but, but based on my experience with Guristas, they should be bitey. This time, however, I had an 85-km firing range which I intended to take full advantage of. And so I did. I started with orbiting Corelum Chief Spy at 85 klicks while targeting and picking off its escort ships which could have been equipped with sensor dampeners. Twenty seconds later the cruiser found itself devoid of any support.
I rubbed the hands gleefully and said under my breath, “If you’ve got any surprises, now is the time.”
Silence was the answer. The cruiser doggedly kept turning in my direction as I orbited it but was unable to catch up.
“Well, your loss then,” I shrugged my shoulders and opened fire.
It took me 10 direct hits to go through the cruiser’s shield, armour and hull, but in half a minute the one-sided battle was over.
“Spies,” I scoffed, “they are good for cloak-and-dagger stuff, but one shouldn’t bring a knife to a gunfight.”
“Don’t jinx it,” Aura chuckled. “For all I know, the next wave will bring a battlecruiser.”
I looked nervously, first at Aura, then at the overview. The seconds ticked by but nothing was happening. Suddenly, a message from the lab popped up in the local channel.
Transport Ship Bitis, abort your delivery. Our location is compromised. Move on to secondary site!
“Who are they talking to?” I asked, bewildered.
Aura did something to the overview and it showed a new icon labelled “Bitis” and classified as a civilian transport ship. I focused my camera drones on it and saw a non-descript hauler… which was aligning for a warp-out. All I could do was watch it fire up its warp drive and disappear.
Delphine Xarasier’s head appeared on the comm screen and said, “Well done, Captain. Your mission is over. Please return to the station.”
“Hey,” I objected, “but I haven’t destroyed the lab.”
“Don’t worry. By turning away the transport ship you fully earned your mission reward.”
“I don’t like to leave the job half-done. If the Serpentis were willing to send a cruiser to defend this lab, it must be really valuable to them.”
“You can leave it to CreoDron security force. They’ll take care of the lab.”
I snorted, “And how long will that take? By the time you get around to sending warships, the pirates will have evacuated the personnel and relocated the equipment. How long did you know about the existence of this lab?”
Delphine averted her gaze and said in a subdued voice, “All right, Captain Korff. Do the needful but don’t take too long.”
She then signed off.
I turned to Aura and said, “Now, boring but important part – structure bashing.”
Aura yawned demonstratively. I replaced Spike with iron charges, targeted the first research module and started demolition. Ten long minutes later I watched the explosion of the fourth and last research module.
I was about to warp back to CreoDron station when Aura stopped me.
“Look, Vlad,” she said pointing at the overview, “an escape pod.”
I smiled evilly, “Well, the spacefaring law requires me to rescue the poor souls on board this pod, but they won’t be happy with my being a law-abiding citizen.”
“Why?” asked Aura.
“Because, not being law-abiding citizens themselves, they will find that the only path out of my cargo hold leads straight to jail.”
With that, I scooped the escape pod and dragged it into the hold.
“Hello, jailbirds!” I said cheerfully after establishing a video connection with the pod.
“Yay! Not anymore!” I received an enthusiastic reply from a young fellow in a lab coat.
“Not yet,” I retorted.
The guy frowned, “What do you mean by ‘not yet’?”
“I mean that you’ll be sentenced and jailed as members of a pirate organisation.”
“But we are not pirates! We are researchers. We have been kidnapped and forced to work at gunpoint. Why would we be jailed for that?”
That was awkward. Apparently the people in the pod suffered the fate that Dr Castille managed to avoid, at least for now. I glanced at Aura. She was covering her mouth with a hand, trying hard not to laugh.
I took a deep breath and said haughtily in an attempt to save face, “That will be for the court to decide.”
Having ended the connection, I looked at Aura and muttered with a grimace, “I don’t like Gallenteans.”
Aura burst into laughter.