Recovery
Devoid region — Kisana constellation
Lisudeh system — Planet IV — Moon 4
Theology Council Tribunal station
5 September YC 127
Yesterday, I didn’t rush to complete Doctor Canius’s mission. Instead, I rented a room at a nearby hotel for the night and asked Aura to arrange installation of the relic analyser provided by the Doctor in place of the kinetic shield amplifier.
This morning, refreshed after a good night’s sleep in a luxurious bed, I entered my dock and froze. For a few moments, I glared at an ugly protrusion on Kaukokärki‘s side and then called Aura on the commlink.
“What’s that?” I pointed my finger at the anomaly and turned the camera so that Aura could see the object of my disgust.
“That?” Aura raised her eyebrows. “It’s the relic analyser you asked me to install yesterday.”
“I didn’t mean a bloody toy. That thing is a civilian relic analyser which isn’t good for anything except training missions at the Academy.”
Aura shrugged, “That’s what I received from Canius. If you don’t like it, feel free to take it up with the good Doctor.”
“I surely will,” I replied gloomily and ended the connection.
Then I called Doctor Canius.
“Hey Doc,” I said. “I think there must be some mistake — the relic analyser that you sent is of a civilian variety.”
“And why is it a problem?” Doctor Canius asked testily.
“It is a problem because that thing is useless. I didn’t expect a Tech II version but even the basic Tech I variant is much better than this… this junk.”
The Doctor looked unfazed, “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure, he-he. Trust me, Captain, this thing will do just fine. We are dealing with a rather ancient technology here and, in all my experience, there was never a case when a civilian relic analyser could not crack its defences.”
“Hmm… I am not convinced but I’ll give it a try. If it’s too weak, a Tech I analyser is on you.”
“Nope,” Doctor Canius said firmly. “If you can’t disable the relic defences, either train up your skills, or I’ll find another contractor.”
Before I could protest my expertise — all my exploration skills were maxed out — the Doctor ended the call.
Quite a piece of work, this Doctor, I thought to myself and boarded the ship.
Devoid region — Kisana constellation
Lisudeh system — Mission location
“Okay, let’s see what we’ve got here,” I said as my destroyer was emerging out of the warp.
“We’ve got company, Cap,” said Aura, business-like. “Two destroyers and a cruiser. All belong to Blood Raiders.”
“A cruiser?” I scowled at the Overview window which showed three red icons. “What would a Blood Raiders cruiser do here? Doesn’t look like a base.”
The video feed showed remains of some temple and a few asteroids.
Aura made round eyes, “How would I know? Ask them if you are interested.”
“What a brilliant idea!”
I opened the local channel and called the captain of the cruiser.
“Dear Captain,” I said, “may I ask you what brought you to this god-forsaken corner of New Eden?”
Aura suppressed a chuckle, “I didn’t mean it literally.”
“You are mistaken, pagan,” a voice boomed from the receiver but no image appeared on the screen. “The God is here and we have an honour of guarding his sacred place.”
I looked at Aura smugly, “See?”
Aura rolled her eyes.
“Ahem,” I said into the the local channel, “thank you for enlightening me as to your purpose. Correct me if I am wrong, but it does seem to complicate my mission of extracting an artifact from that spectacular ruin.”
“It does, indeed,” replied the voice with a hint of amusement. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll turn back and warp away. Your destroyer is no match to our fleet.”
“Funny you should say that,” I retorted coolly. “This was exactly the offer I was going to make to you. I don’t mean it as a boast, but as a warning. Have you ever fought a capsuleer?”
There was a pause and then the cruiser captain’s face appeared on the screen.
“A capsuleer?” he said with interest, leaking his lips. “If you are a capsuleer, forget what I said about warping. You are very welcome to stay here and donate your blood to our worthy cause.”
“I thought that you, vampires, were more into innocent kids’ blood,” I replied, feeling goosebumps on my skin despite the perfect temperature of the pod goo.
“We don’t care about innocence,” the cruiser captain said devouring me with his eyes, “but we appreciate freshness. With age, blood becomes stale and polluted. It loses its rejuvenating qualities.”
“But I am not young,” I said defensively.
“You? Maybe not. But how old is your clone?”
“Oh…” I gasped, the realisation dawning on me.
“Yess,” hissed the Blood Raider. “So, how do you want to play it, Captain? Do you want to die in agony in the remains of your capsule? Or do you want to surrender and end your life in pleasant sedation while we gently bleed you?”
“Tantalising choices!” I snorted. “In case you didn’t know, a capsuleer’s death is always painless and instantaneous — a destructive brain scanner takes care of that.”
“The hard way, then,” the cruiser captain said regretfully. “Boys, let’s give him his ‘painless and instantaneous’ death!”
With that, the Blood Raiders ships accelerated towards me.
Sixty klicks which separated me from the pirates might not seem like a huge distance but cruisers aren’t fast. While it was turning and accelerating, I already managed to send two volleys of Spike its way. Another thing about cruisers is that they are not very manoeuvrable. This means that every charge hit it really hard — there were no misses, not even glancing blows. It had solid defences though — all in all, it took 13 volleys from seven railguns to disassemble the bastard.
The two destroyers were faster but crunchier. Just as the cruiser, they didn’t have any prop modules so their approach was rather sedate. That gave me enough time to blow them up before they came into their firing range. In case you are wondering how they could even approach Kaukokärki which was equipped with a microwarpdrive, I can tell you I didn’t bother turning it on. For that matter, I didn’t even use the regular drive — my ship was stationary throughout the battle.
When the cruiser and the destroyers were finished, two frigates popped up on my Overview: Corpii Collector and Corpii Seeker. I wasn’t sure what they were going to do there after their larger fleet mates had been destroyed. Maybe, in anticipation of my defeat, they were called to seek my corpse and collect my blood? I’ll never know what their intentions were but the reality was that they collected quite a lot of hybrid charges and found death.
I waited for a couple of minutes in case the Raiders sent reinforcements but all was quiet. Cautiously, I approached the ruined temple and targeted it with my civilian relic analyser. The Doctor was right — the defence field was half the size of modern green-core protection systems, and I hadn’t encountered any defence subsystems before I reached the system core. Soon, the lock was opened and I eagerly peered into the container. As you know, I had plenty of experience hacking the relics but none of them was as old as that one. I was about to make my first archaeological discovery! The tractor beam reached inside and produced… a ‘Mysterious Statuette’.
I stared at my trophy in confusion. It was a vaguely human-shaped figurine made of some dull light-coloured metal. There were a few illegible engravings but that was pretty much all I could say about it.
“This feels… bathetic,” I said, grimacing.
Aura shrugged, “What did you expect? To my knowledge, 99% of all archaeological discoveries consist of rather unremarkable, usually broken, objects. You are lucky to find this thingy in one piece.”
“I hope our Doctor will not be disappointed,” I sighed.
“If he is the kind of an archaeologist that he claims to be, he should be ecstatic,” Aura said drily, warping us back to the station.
Devoid region — Kisana constellation
Lisudeh system — Planet IV — Moon 4
Theology Council Tribunal station — Dr Canius’s office
“Unbelievable!” gasped the Doctor, when I placed the statuette on his desk. “This is… this is pre-Codex liminality encoded in matter! This statuette isn’t a relic, it’s a keystone, a devotional instrument calibrated to early Amarr transit vectors. It has seen the birth of Empire space lanes! Do you understand what this means? The Blood Raiders must have venerated this object, perhaps even misunderstood it as a conduit of divine spiritus! Oh, I must document this immediately…”
“Ahem,” I coughed politely, interrupting the Doctor’s ravings. “It’s all very exciting, Doctor, but we have an unfinished business. I’ve held up my end of the bargain, now it’s your turn. You promised to tell me where Dagan had holed up.”
For a moment, the Doctor looked bewildered as if it was the first time he heard Dagan’s name, “Dagan?.. Oh, Dagan! To be honest, mate, I have no idea.”