Chasing a Nighmare
Essense region – Peccanouette constellation
Arnon System – Planet IX – Moon 3
Sisters of EVE Bureau station
22 August YC 127
It took Sister Alitura more than three days to prepare the next mission. When I came to her office for a briefing, she was alone.
I made a grimace, “Judging by the absence of our famous tracker, I take it our last mission was a failure.”
“Not necessarily,” replied Alitura. “I don’t have sources within Serpentis, so I can’t say for sure. What we know is that the pirates stopped actively looking for Wolf.”
“Then why is he not here? I thought he would fly with me.”
“A few reasons. Firstly, although Serpentis stopped chasing Burgan, my informers told me that the pirates developed a keen interest in the capsuleer who obliterated their fleet. You may be shadowed, and it will be most unfortunate if they see you meet a person who looks very much like their erstwhile prey.”
I shivered and said, “Thanks for letting me know. Need to refresh my infomorph backup, just in case. As to Burgan, I understand he can’t be seen in public, but why don’t we sneak him into my ship in a cargo crate? Shouldn’t be hard to organise, eh?”
“There is another reason why he is not flying with you on this mission. I sincerely hope that you’ll find the rogue drone and get back in one piece. But, since we are tracking the entity which is responsible for the destruction of two capital ships, the latter is not guaranteed. Burgan, unlike you, is not a capsuleer. If you get into a fight and lose it, it will be Burgan’s last mission. He will not take such a risk.”
“Ha!” I exclaimed in frustration. “That was true from the beginning. If he couldn’t participate in the mission, what was the point of engaging him at all?”
“He will participate in the mission, but his physical presence is not required. All information you obtain in space is collected by sensors. You just need to forward the data stream to him. Burgan will analyse it and advise you on how to proceed.”
“Hmm. Fair enough,” I grudgingly acknowledged Alitura’s point. “Send Burgan’s address to my navigational AI, and she’ll organise data forwarding.”
Essense region – Peccanouette constellation
Arnon System – Mission location
To my surprise, the pesky drone was last spotted in Arnon, so I didn’t even have to jump through a stargate. When I warped to its last known location, all I saw was an acceleration gate surrounded by a few ship wrecks and gas clouds.
Wolf Burgan, who was connected through an FTL channel, said in a raspy voice, “Well, it looks like we missed the party.”
“So I gather,” I grunted in reply.
“Something has been here and jumped through the acceleration gate. We must follow it.”
“How do you know?” I asked doubtfully.
Burgan smirked, “It’s my trade secret. Trust me, I rarely make mistakes.”
I shrugged and followed his directions. The other end of the warp tunnel turned out to be even emptier – there was no gate.
“Damn, another graveyard,” cursed Burgan. “Wait! What’s that?”
Suddenly, a red cruiser icon lit up on my Overview. While I was frantically trying to get a better view of the ship through my camera drones, a new icon labelled “Spatial Rift” appeared next to the cruiser, and then the cruiser icon winked out. My jaw dropped. I slowly turned my head to Aura and saw that she looked as shellshocked as I felt.
“Aura, are you pondering what I am pondering?” I asked her, too scared to voice my suspicions first.
“I think so, Cap,” she replied cautiously.
“And what is it specifically?”
“That we are out of our depth here.”
Our exercise in equivocation was interrupted by Burgan’s stammering voice, “Wha-what has just happened?”
I sighed, “I can’t say for sure but it looked as if a cruiser had punched a hole in space and jumped through it.”
“Is it not how warping works?” asked Burgan.
I shook my head, “The warp drive doesn’t leave the warp tunnel open for anyone to follow.”
“Oh! So we can follow it?” Burgan sounded excited. “Then what are you waiting for? Jump through before it has closed!”
“Jumping through a spatial rift is a crazy idea, as you never know where it leads. But then, that’s what capsuleers are made for — to do stupid things,” I smiled wryly and willed Kaukokärki into the rift.
To my immense relief, and slight disappointment, the rift led to another nondescript corner of Arnon system.
“Aha! There it is,” Burgan shouted.
I looked at the Overview window and saw that the cruiser classified as Mysterious Drone was 300 kilometres away from me. The scene looked like a copy of the previous location — there was a ship wreck and a drone. The only thing missing was a spatial rift… As soon as that thought occurred to me, an acceleration gate icon appeared in the window. Unsurprisingly, it was named “Spatial Rift”. The red cruiser icon vanished again. I knew the drill and willed Kaukokärki to jump through the hole.
Again, we emerged in Arnon. For a change, the place did not have any debris — the vacuum was as pristine as it was the day before the Big Bang. Except for the mysterious drone. It was 372 klicks away — way beyond the reach of my railguns. I started closing the distance when the drone did something unexpected — it just warped away. There was no tunnel in the sky to follow it.
“At last!” I heard Burgan’s triumphant voice.
“What are you so happy about?” I asked, annoyed. “We’ve just lost it!”
“Nah, mate. We would have lost it if it jumped through the rift and we hadn’t followed — there is no way to tell where those rifts lead. But tracing warps — that’s my bread and butter. I’ve got enough data now, just need a bit of time to process it. You can go back to base.”
With that, Burgan dropped the connection.
I sighed skeptically, “I hope he knows what he is doing,” and warped to the SOE station.