Essense region – Peccanouette constellation
Arnon System – Planet IX – Moon 3
Sisters of EVE Bureau station
9 August YC 127
As I arrived to the SOE station entrance in the smoking wreck of my destroyer, I became a centre of attention. Not that anyone contacted or approached me, but a veritable swarm of camera drones from other ships enveloped Kaukokärki as I was waiting in the docking queue. With all the ship entrails and even my capsule visible through huge holes in the hull, and only a shield as a protection, we were a sight to behold. I was not sure if I should be proud to have survived, or be ashamed of allowing someone to give me such a beating. The latter was especially poignant, since the damage was partially self-inflicted and partially came from a puny Coreli Defender. On the other hand, I thought, I didn’t have to tell anyone the whole truth. Just drop “You should have seen the other guy” with a faint smile and let their imagination fill the gaps.
The news of my arrival spread fast — when I finally berthed and left the ship, I saw the local repair crew already waiting for me. The foreman’s face was a mixture of awe and greedy anticipation.
“G’day, boss,” he greeted me and, nodding at Kaukokärki, added, “that was quite a fight, eh?”
I put a faint smile on my lips and said nonchalantly, “You should have seen the other guy.”
The foreman laughed, “If he can still fly, I’d love to! We are a repair crew after all.”
His easy acceptance of my evasive answer and the way he followed it up with a self-deprecating joke warmed me up to the man.
The foreman continued, “But it looks like you could use our services too. Whaddya wanna do about your bird?”
I was surprised at his question and said, “Repair it, of course. What else?”
The foreman put a doubtful look on his face, “The state it is in, y’know, it may be cheaper to buy a new one.”
I finally understood what he was driving at. If he could buy the Cormorant as scrap he would make a much better profit from selling parts than from painstakingly restoring it.
I added firmness to my voice, “No, not cheaper. Do you imagine it’s the first time I have to repair the hull?”
“No, no, of course, not,” the foreman raised his hands in a placating gesture, “but it will take days to rebuild the hull and the armour.”
“I’ll wait,” I said brusquely, ending this line of conversation. “What’s your best price for the repairs?”
The foreman looked pensively at the destroyer, then typed a figure on his datapad and showed it to me.
I looked at it and laughed scornfully, “No way! Halve it, man.”
And so we haggled for a while until we arrived at a figure which was barely acceptable to either party, or so we said. I declared that the price was a total rip-off, the foreman announced that I was ruining his business, and we signed the deal.
My next stop was Alitura’s office.
The agent looked even paler than before.
“Captain Korff, what happened?” she asked as soon as she saw me.
Apparently, she was aware of the condition of my ship but didn’t have time to review the mission logs. I gave her a brief summary and then asked a question of my own.
“Tell me, Sister, what kind of explosive did Burgan plant in his hideout?”
“I am not sure,” Alitura replied. “I think he mentioned a torpedo warhead.”
My jaw dropped, “A torpedo? By the Void, what was he thinking about? It’s battleship-grade ordnance!”
“But we didn’t expect you to get stuck. Sixty seconds should have been plenty of time…” the agent started saying defensively.
“Forget that. It was a mishap,” I interrupted her. “Torpedoes are used to punch holes in capital ship armour. If it detonates near a soft human body, the said body will simply evaporate. The idea was to blow that clone to pieces, not to break it into atoms.”
Alitura was taken aback by my words. After a few seconds of silence, she asked dejectedly, “So, you think it was all for naught?”
I shrugged, “Maybe or maybe not. If they believed I was hired to kill Burgan or if they found a single cell with his DNA which survived the blast, then we are in with a chance. We’ll have to wait and see.”
Just remembering that explosion made me shudder. Having been so close to the epicentre, without shield and armour, my destroyer should not have survived. I wondered which gods smiled at me that day. Then a thought occurred to me which made me smile.
Alitura noticed my facial expression which was incongruous with the gravity of the situation, and asked somewhat testily, “What’s so funny, Captain?”
“I just thought,” I explained affably, “that the only reason why Kaukokärki survived that blast was the station armour plate attached to its hull — the same plate which I couldn’t detach myself from when it was part of the outpost. I find it rather ironic.”
Alitura stared at me expressionlessly for a few moments, then a slight smile appeared on her lips, and she snorted, “You have a strange sense of humour, Vladimir Korff.”
“Stranger than blowing up a DNA-infused slab of biomass with a torpedo warhead?” I asked sarcastically.
“It’s… on par,” said Alitura.
We stared at each other for a few moments, then burst out laughing. I felt that the tension that was always between us started to fade away.
“I think both of us need a good rest,” Alitura suggested when we calmed down. “We can’t do anything until we confirm that Serpentis stopped chasing Burgan.”
“That’s just as well,” I nodded, “since my ship will be in no shape to fly any missions in the next few days.”
We agreed to have a checkpoint in three days and I left the agent’s office.