I can still remember the lectures they gave at Pator Tech as my cohort of capsuleers prepared for our new lives. They were full of the bullshit you expect in government-sanctioned propaganda (You're the hope of the Republic. Remember your Tribe and always act in their Honor. Let us down and we'll come blow your fucking pod to pieces!). I remember the lessons we had on using our new clones too; make sure we sync up regularly; make sure we don't fly in a ship OR a clone we can't afford to lose; always remember to change our primary medical clone to the station we're going to call home.
What they never told me, though, was that waking up a vat of biogel is one of the worst things you'll ever experience. It's not just being surrounded by a vat of body-temperature gel. It's the jarring of not being where your mind last remembers. It's the tug of the cables plugged into the ports along your spine, the eerie glow of the light coming through the goo and the walls of the cloning pod, and inevitable need to suck in a deep breath and finding protein gel suddenly burning in your lungs.
You might think that the death that brought you to the cloning chamber would be worse, but I don't know. You rarely remember those, as they come after your last sync. The memory of the death is gone. And even if it wasn't, most of the time you at least know why it happens.
No, waking up a cloning pod means you've lost time and nothing makes sense for a few minutes.
And here in Rokofur, where I let Rivers talk me into moving, there's something even more to the whole process. Every time I wake up feeling weak. I know, I know. The techs at Pator told us that there was no functional difference in the body we would die in and the one we're resurrected in. But that's bullshit. The techs here tell me it's because the muscles are new and aren't used to moving yet, but if you want my opinion? I think the techs here resent capsuleers. We're not like them. We have more money, we have more freedom, and we're not under the same strictures of government slavery that they are. I think they're purposefully fucking with my clone.
Whatever. I have things to do.
So choking on biomass gel, spitting the medicinal flavor of it from my mouth, I towel off on the metal grating of the bay. I clean up, get dressed, and step back out into the corridors of the station. It's weird being in a Caldari station, after spending most of my life on Minmatar structures. Everything is a little too clean. The station bots come through with such frequency that there are almost no signs of the place being lived in. It's sterile, institutional. I don't think I can live here long term.
In my quarters the lights start to brighten as soon as I've walked inside. The door seals behind with a hiss and whirr of gears and hydrolics. I could have came here to get dressed, but I learned early on that some of the Caldari get upset when you walk naked from the cloning bays to your quarters; that's when I started paying for the extra locker.
I call out to my AI, "display financials, factoring in the loss of ship just experienced."
A display on the wall lit up, displaying a series of numbers in red and green. The short of it was not a lot of liquid capital. I swore in my head and didn't stay in the room long. I needed some quick ISK to get the Rifter replaced and there was one sure way to do that in short order.
An hour later I was seated in my pod, surrounded by the garish yellow of a Venture mining frigate. I settled into an orbit around a bit of Golden Omber and hit the lasers and tractors to get the process started. "Aura, synthesize music; 140 bpm with syncopation and distortion."
I had read a little into the creation of the original Aura AI. The voice they copied for her was based on some old singer. It seemed right and natural to have hacked the AI programming to give it music in its life once. Even if all it was good for was synthetic tunes. It still helped pass the time. I started reading through messages while the ship did most of the work, orbiting the rock that'd give me enough ISK to rebuild my ship.
Damascus Rivers wanted to grab dinner tomorrow. Sure.
Zim still wanted me to join his mining consortium. Not likely; fuck off man I hate this shit.
I had just about started moving on to the next message when the displays lit red and the warning bells overrode the bass wobble of my music. I minimized the personal messages and pulled up the scanners. Five red blobs appeared at twenty clicks off, formed in a tight group. Launching camera drones and sinking in closer to the asteroid I was mining I took a better look.
Glistening black metal shells of giant insectoid ships resolved on my screens. Shit. I could feel my heart racing. I'd seen ships like these before. It was this kind of ship that destroyed my cohort just a month ago.
Killing the mining lasers, I issued commands to the ship to align to the station and prepare to warp to it. The camera drones were sent closer and a single scanner probe added to the mix to start gathering information.
"Aura, compare current targets to the data from Pator Tech attack and the Sisters of Eve destruction," I speak out to the AI.
A metallic voice, which I understand is how the original model really spoke after some accident or another, answers, "Analyzing." I close my eyes and let the camera drone feeds enter my mind through the implants, viewing it with my own eyes, while waiting for the analysis to complete. The sun glints strangely on the black hulls and one of the ships in the blob separates itself from the others and opens fire on an asteroid.
They're mining. The drone ships are mining.
"Analysis complete," Aura informs me sometime later. "Current targets bear striking similarities to the Drifter ships initially encountered. However, a detailed analysis reveals modifications to the current ships. Interfacing with ARC databases reveals that these are classified as Auththysian Lancers, a variant drone ship. ARC records advise not to aggress and simply leave the system."
Yeah. Fine. I recall the drones and set course back to the station. Something about this whole thing bothers. me. The Drifters, the Sisters... even now they leave a nagging feeling at the back of my mind I can't quite shake.
I sell the ore, procure a new Rifter, and continue to gnaw over the conspiracy.
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