Addicted to EvE

NE*RA Season 2.0 Kicks Off

2011-11-06T21:49:00.002Z

I haven't been very active in Eve for the majority of the summer; partly thanks to some RL events and partly (I suspect) due to my bittervet status and my recent disenchantment after the whole Greed is Good debacle.

Only racing - the thing that made me really want to try Eve Online to start with - could manage to bring me back week after week.

Last season, my computer issues coupled with some clashes between my RL and the race schedules kept me somewhat disheartened and uninspired. I can't not show to a race if I possibly can make it, because even on a bad day it's easily the most fun I can have in Eve.

Now... I still have computer issues (biggest issue being not having cash to get me a new one :P) but at least the races have been rescheduled to a day and time that I can come back to racing in. For my part, I couldn't be more grateful to Gyra for the change ;)

Yesterday, Season 2.0 started. The race was... eventful, to say the least. My computer is still crap, I still struggle with system loading times, but my team was united again. Our team. And Quin was on the track. It was just like old times and I loved it. Even though by the end we at Scuderia Dragonstar were sad. But despite on-track setbacks, it felt to me like the races of old. I loved it.

My inspiration seems to be back. I wrote a report and posted it on the NE*RA forums. A blog is hardly the best venue for such a lengthy text, but if you want to know more about KayJay, the Scuderia, and how Quin's famous executioner met its end, that's the place to go.

Links:
Scuderia Dragonstar Race 1 Report
NE*RA Official thread on the Eve Forums
Quin's account of her loss
Norrin Ellis / Venture account of the race

I need to be where?

2011-06-24T17:06:00.004+01:00

Amusing factoid: even though I have CQ active and am visually up and walking around in my quarters, when I try to clone-jump across the galaxy it still says I need to be in my pod. (As opposed to having some other ship spinning around in my tabletop holo thingamajig.)

I realise I'm nitpicking because I'm still bitter about recent events, but for a feature which is supposed to make the experience more immersive this seems sort of fail.

Betrayed

2011-06-24T04:05:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I was giddy. Today I am depressed.

At first I didn't take the leaked CCP newsletter thingie seriously. Could be a hoax, could be a joke, could be a lot of things. Then it got confirmed that it was for real. I am depressed and I feel betrayed.

I need some sleep. I've been reading too many threads and blogposts about this. Perhaps tomorrow I'll find some words of my own to express my disappointment.

Incarnate!

2011-06-22T12:41:00.010+01:00

I have legs!

Right now I'm still giddy about the fact that I finally have legs! I remember going to Fanfest in '07 and being floored by the idea of a full-body experience in Eve, but the bright-eyed noob soon turned into a bitter vet whose words at the mention of Ambulation became "That's all very pretty, but I'm not holding my breath."

I've been waiting so long for this that I don't much care by this point if our quarters are somewhat small and there isn't much to do but walk from couch to balcony and back. I know more will follow, and now this particular snowball is rolling, it'll follow soon.

The sight of my ships at the balcony is impressive, and I don't even fly any big ones. I can only imagine what it's like to walk over there and have a glorious Machariel filling your vision. It's funny to realise for real how tiny my racing interceptors are, compared even to my other frigates. But old habits die hard: I keep trying to spin the ship to see the turrets from the other side ;)

Ship spinning replaced by vegetating in front of a TV screen. I'm not yet quite sure what to think of that, but I have to admit the screen is rather hypnotic, even if it keeps trying to sell me Rifters, of which I already have tons.

I have to say, however, I'm not impressed with the Noble Exchange. Yes, I want extra goodies, but I took one look at the prices and reeled back. Let me quote someone who was involved in a discussion about aurum and prices last night on the DUST514 ingame channel:

[ 2011.06.22 01:58:38 ] Alextrovarius > but i am not shelling out 45 euro's for a stupid eye piece that no one gets to see...

I am going to second that. The prices going on in there for ridiculously small things (like the eye implant) are through the roof. And to top that, these are things which, in good Eve tradition, you can lose if you get podded. So let me see, a month of gameplay or a new skirt: that's not a difficult choice. I'm not even tempted to buy any of the NeX items at those prices, which I imagine defeats the purpose. Perhaps I'm wrong but I assumed these were to be micro-transactions? They look rather macro to me.

So... back to my ship, undock, zoom in really really really close and drool at the new turret goodness. Giddy! :D

Now, if only my Tech 3s would stop flying backwards...

Season 1.0 - Race 2 - Placid

2011-06-04T23:00:00.001+01:00

Sixth to dock. Again. And this time none of the Re-Aw members of her roster had shown up. Not a single one.

So she had fleeted with reds, in one of her flashes of temper. She did seem to have a quicker temper whenever she was in her racing clone. But this time she didn't regret it one bit. She'd be damned if she was going to toss aside her personal beliefs plus her racing family and then be made to race alone.

Facing Ciarente wasn't going to be pleasant, but right now it didn't matter one bit how much she liked her CEO. Kayleigh Jamieson-Read was feeling both angry and betrayed, and not one bit repentant.

Season 1.0, Race 1 - Derelik - DSR Race Report

2011-05-29T03:37:00.003+01:00

The official results aren't in, yet, but I managed to jot down my impressions of this race soon after, while things were still fresh in my mind. Follow the link and I hope you find it interesting reading.

http://www.pleasure-hub.com/nera/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=51

Season 1.0 - Race 1 - Derelik

2011-05-28T21:20:00.002+01:00

The jin-mei groaned. Sixth place. Sixth. She probably hadn't had a result this bad since Season 1 of the previous league. Sixth overall, sixth in her class - barring any time penalties the official results might uncover.

Embarrassing.

The Night Before

2011-05-27T21:15:00.000+01:00

The night before was always one for fretting, worrying about all the tiny details. Spare parts placement, ship tuning, clone jumping... But this time around she had an added worry. She had had to let go of her old team and her new one was apparently leaving her hanging.

None of her pilots had confirmed they would be in Derelik tomorrow. Not a single one of them.

Kayleigh took a deep breath and rubbed her face. Right. It wouldn't be the first time she raced alone. But it would be the first time she felt angry and betrayed while doing so. Bugger the lot of them. She was a big girl. She'd pay for her mistakes - even if that meant an entire season thrown in the garbage - and then in the end no one ever again would tell her who she could race with or not.

Free Time

2011-04-20T16:19:00.004+01:00

Apparently Kay had too much of it. Free time. The sort you spend idly at some bar, sipping the same old drink and dwelling on the past instead of looking toward the future. People were starting to notice.

Hikari had challenged her to find something that would get her blood pumping again. As it turned out, it seemed going planetside and hopping onto unstable two-wheeled vehicles to go really really fast around a track was just the thing. In all fairness, her old friend made it sound exciting. Perhaps it would bring back a fraction of the excitement of epic races long gone. She had agreed to try.

And then there was this amarrian... Nicoletta. Kay remembered her from years ago, back at a time when she actually bothered to chime in on the Summit from time to time. Ms. Mithra had, at the time, invited a group of anti-slavery people to visit her estates and see how things weren't as propaganda painted Amarr slavery to be. Kay hadn't been terribly impressed.

Now here was this woman again, turning up at Daredevil's Lounge, of all places, and reading her well enough to suggest ways to occupy her free time. A visit to her estates had been out of the question - even though the races were on indefinite hold, Kay still had fans and followers and principles to maintain, not to mention she was now a member of Electus Matari, with all that entailed. She would not endorse slavery by doing tourism at a place she knew ran on slavery.

An invitation to go riding horses? Insanity. There was no disputing the fact that Kayleigh was of small stature. To perch a tiny jin-mei on top of a big beast with a mind of its own? It sounded like a disaster waiting to happen, of the kind with the potential to break a neck.

But an invite to dinner? Somewhere a little more neutral? Why not? One could have a civilised talk, perhaps a meaningful discussion with an opponent, yes? There would be no harm in it. And the alternative was to sip the same old drink, at the same old place, missing her wife...

Spark

2011-04-10T20:50:00.003+01:00

Often, of late, Kayleigh felt she'd lost her spark.

It was the sort of thing she was becoming more aware of in the company of younger pilots, such as Laria, who still had such enthusiasm for just about anything out there in space.

Kayleigh was finding it increasingly difficult to muster a whole lot of verve for the act of undocking. There was no challenge keeping her mind occupied, no excitement keeping her blood pumping, no overarching achievement to aim for.

So when Hikari mentioned learning how to ride a bike and race planetside, the jin-mei instantly took to the idea. Learning a new thing - driving on two weels? Sounded like a challenge! - getting back that rush which came from raw speed, from trying to outrun an opponent... it sounded like just the thing to get her blood racing once again.

Daredevil's

2011-03-20T13:24:00.001Z

One of the ways in which she might stave off the nightmares, she realised, was to go back to frequenting the Daredevil's Lounge.

No, not to drink herself into oblivion and make a fool of herself. The jin-mei figured it might instead be a good idea to avoid being alone in her apartment for long periods of time at night, to keep busy, to see people and fill her mind with random sights and sounds and sensations. Flying in person to Crielere to be there in the flesh would be but a minor inconvenience.

Daredevil's was no longer the loud, boisterous meeting point for fast pilots with quick tempers - and sometimes itchy trigger reflexes - which Kayleigh remembered from the League days. The twins still worked there, and the multiple screens still showed fast action sports, but the general mood was quieter, calmer... slower.

It fitted Kayleigh's current mood. Someone within the corp had pinned the title of "Speedster" on her - she suspected Kalahari had had an influence on that - and Ms Kohiko Sun had taken to calling her Speedy, which she secretly loved. It never failed to bring a smile to the jin-mei's lips. Despite all that, Kayleigh didn't feel fast anymore. She felt rusty and slow. Perhaps even old. You've just turned twenty-five and you're feeling old. That's depressing, Kay.

So far, the plan wasn't turning out too badly. In the past few days Daredevil's had provided her with opportunities to meet some of her newer corp mates face to face. Namely Laria and Adeste.

She wasn't yet quite sure what to think of the younger pilot. For a Gallentean, Laria Raven had seemed too analytical, too stiff, perhaps. And then Kayleigh had bumped into her at the Lounge and her initial perception had gone straight out the hatch, so to speak. The poor girl had already been rather tipsy by the time Kayleigh had entered the scene, and all the racer had seen instead was a vulnerable young lady trying so hard to fit in with all these new people. It was actually rather endearing.

Adeste was a different case altogether. They had been team mates, of a sort, if only for a single race back in... Season three? Was it? Goodness, Kay, you really are getting old if you can't even remember this anymore. Anyway, it had all been part of the protection detail Duty had been hired to keep on the then-defending champion. It all had been a very hush-hush operation. That had been how Kayleigh had come to meet Jude. She only vaguely remembered Adeste from that night, but remember she did. Now, years after the fact, they were going to be corp mates.

Kayleigh would have been intimidated by the civire, had she not spoken to her first via corporate channels. Seeing her in the flesh.. the woman was tall! And yet she had this hilarious easy banter going on with Jude, which made Kayleigh want to burst into fits of giggles. Adeste seemed so expansive, so nice and warm that she had simply cut through any of the jin-mei's walls of shyness and propriety, and made her open up as if they had been friends for years. No mean feat, that.

The thought of Adeste, curled up sleeping on the couch back at Daredevil's made Kayleigh smile. Maybe tonight she'd sleep soundly like that. And perhaps the nightmares would stay away, if only just for one night.

Nightmares

2011-03-19T23:51:00.002Z

The nightmares were worse when she slept alone. These days she often did, considering she was living in the Republic doing her thing and Nakatre was off in low sec doing her Cartel thing. Being in corporations whose ideals were at odds didn't make for much geographic proximity.

So the nightmares had gradually returned. Bubbles, the tower, alarms, exploding ships, mockery in local comms, but most of all the cold cold feeling of being all alone in a tiny little frigate, the last of her corp in that uncharted system. In those dreams, she always ran out of core probes.

Computer Issues

2011-02-16T11:09:00.002Z

My computer probably could have been the product of Matari ingenuity; it has been assembled out of bits and pieces from many different other computers throughout the years. The keyword here is actually "years," plural and all.

I recently solved some of its issues by replacing my main hard drive which used to be packed to the brim with stuff, being that it was tiny by today's standards. In doing so, however, I also changed operating systems (two birds with one stone, and all that) and now the result is I have a host of other problems centering around insufficient RAM for some things.

I basically had a choice of going to Fanfest or seriously upgrading the rest of my computer. I chose Fanfest <.<

So now I'm going to be stuck for a while with a computer which makes my Eve sessions freeze up randomly from time to time, especially if I'm traveling or shooting things. Kay is not amused that she can not go around speeding :(

But at least I get to go to Fanfest \o/

Anticlimax

2011-01-24T11:27:00.003Z

The day had come. Intel from just about all over New Eden seemed to agree that Kuvakei was going to make a move on Yulai. Electus Matari had readied response fleets.

After agonising a few moments on what to wear - or what to fly, rather - the jin-mei had picked the longest-range ship she had, in accordance to what Jude was requesting. She had boarded a Nemesis hull, the Requiem. She wasn't quite sure who the requiem would be playing for once the dust would settle, but stealthbombers were ships she felt comfortable in, despite their notorious paper-thin hull, so she undocked with head held high and the will to inflict damage on the Sansha.

Still, she couldn't help feel tiny and vulnerable alongside the other ships in the fleet, composed for the most part by battleship hulls. While the fleet gathered at the rally point Kayleigh took the time to trim down all she could on her interface filters, focusing on the task in an attempt to still her heart beating so fast.

It was silly, really. It was not like she had never been in a fleet before or shot anything before. Yet apparently that flutter in her stomach would still be there each time she prepared to take off with a fleet, no matter if it was her team undocking to race through low-sec or her alliance undocking to kick some proverbial ass.

And of course it didn't help that intel was reporting sightings of war targets already at Yulai. Kayleigh was psyched, determined to prove her worth in this fleet. And then Yulai happened.

Everything had gone well until the moment the fleet had been ordered to jump to the sun in Yulai, following a confirmed sighting of Sansha wormholes. But once the Requiem landed there, everything stopped. Kayleigh couldn't quite figure out if the little stealthbomber had overloaded, if spatial phenomena were interfering with all her sensors or if it was her own brain which was unable to process all that information. The end result, however, was that the Requiem simply sat there.

It sat. Helpless. Instruments seemed to indicate its cloak hadn't even been broken, but neither could the Nemesis move or fire or indeed warp away. Kayleigh had no choice but to watch the battle around her coming in through occasional stills from her camera drones, listening to her fleet mates engaging Sansha, then PIE, then Sansha again... and all the while she just sat there.

After what felt like many agonising hours, the fight was finally over and still her ship was overloaded trying to process information. Kayleigh had to attempt full systems restart twice, before the little frigate finally gave signs of life. By that point the fleet was already getting evac orders. The sun, they said, might go supernova. The CONCORD station, they said, was no more.

Shocked, feeling helpless and useless, Kayleigh rejoined her fleet once traffic control let her through to Ourapheh - she had become rather the expert at harassing gate operators into letting her through, considering all the racing she'd done in her life, and it was coming in handy right then.

She could have slipped off to Alenia, only two jumps off of Yulai, where she might have curled up in her old apartment and try to comfort herself out of the overwhelming wave of uselessness she was feeling right now, but in the end, she had come here with the fleet and she was going to leave with the fleet. Shame or no shame, one didn't leave one's friends to fend for themselves even if the way back home would likely be clear.

She sighed miserably. She could just feel a huge headache coming on.

Plastic Surgery

2011-01-19T11:52:00.005Z

Once upon a time, back in the days of fierce racing competition and secret racing frigate fittings, someone asked Kay what the fittings on her racing Firetail were. Although she didn't actually say "wouldn't you like to know" she certainly would have made the corresponding face. This one right here.

No, that's not what she looks like on her pilot license new picture. But I have to say it was an incredible amount of fun messing around with Kay's expressions in the new character creation. It's going to be a little strange adapting to a new face after almost 5 years of wearing the original avatar, but on the other hand it was worth it just to feel Kay come a little more alive during the photo shoot, of sorts.

I've been browsing some of the new pics ingame. Wow. There's no other word for it. Some look so real, some are pretty much works of art. I'm loving it :D

Now I just have to re-learn all my friends' faces. It's strange not being able to recognise people in chat windows at a glance.

An Embarrassing Start

2010-12-07T11:08:00.003Z

So, things on her first night could have gone a little better.

She realised she was a little rusty - undocking once a week to redistribute planetary production between planets and make a trade run to the nearest trade hub didn't exactly demand much flight technique. Even so, she hadn't realised just how rusty she was, or indeed that even her ships might be a little rusty.

The fact that the Verdigris II, a veteran of many missions in the past, had seized up and frozen so badly it needed a whole systems reboot, had made it painfully obvious. By the time it was done rebooting it was too late to turn on the dual repairing modules. The Ishtar hull had crumpled under the combined firepower of a dozen or so Cartel ships.

Best not to mention that little detail to Nakatre.

And that was how Kayleigh Jamieson-Read found herself in a pod, blushing with embarrassment and waiting to be rescued by a corp mate on her very first night as a Re-Awakened Technologies pilot. Racing star, flying for over 4 years (many of which working for agents throughout New Eden) and here she was, the proverbial damzel in distress. What sort of a first impression was she going to leave on her new corp mates, like this?

Now, two days later, a new shiny Ishtar was ready to go. Older hulls she had brought over from Alenia were undergoing scrutiny by a slew of mechanics. Hopefully she wouldn't embarrass herself quite so badly anytime soon.

Life on Hold

2010-12-02T23:58:00.002Z

Kayleigh lay draped over Nakatre, wide awake despite the late hour. She lay listening to her wife’s heart beating a regular, soothing rhythm. She couldn’t sleep. Not with her mind working overtime.

It had been seven months since the last of them had been evacuated from J170132, and Kay had warped away one final time from the shimmering wormhole connecting the uncharted system to known space. The eviction Sphere had suffered had been a bigger blow than she had given it credit for at the time. Morale had been low, yes, but she had thought they would soon recover with other projects.

They hadn’t.

Pilots scattered around known space licking their wounds and then little by little began to fade from space. Corporation comms grew increasingly quiet.

After six months or so of living in near isolation up in J170132, with its ever-silent local comms and rare enough sighting of visitors, Kay had found the transition back to bustling Federation space rather jarring. Perhaps that was what had happened to the other Sphere pilots as well.

In the end, the noisy traffic of empire living had been too much to bear and she had joined Nakatre out in low-sec, where at least things were quiet and calm enough to bear.

For a while she had healed by simply spending quality time with her wife, but her continued presence living among Stillwater had started to gnaw at her conscience. It was one thing to accept out of love Nakatre’s choice of lifestyle, and quite another to live among her corp as if she actually approved of it.

The two months spent planetside catching some sun and fresh air had done wonders for her, but had set her mind working again, realising it was about time she stopped wallowing in self-pity and guilt for the events in J170132. She had returned refreshed and ready to get something going in Sphere… only to find that in her absence the corporation had left Nox Draconum alliance and was in the process of downsizing. All her colleagues were transferring to another corporation to try their luck out in null-sec.

Considering how long it had taken her and Sphere to recover from the J170132 setback, the jin-mei wasn’t quite sure setting her heart on holding sovereignty somewhere out where big alliance wars happened on the news was such a good idea at this point in time.

That is what was keeping her up at night: what to do now with her career? She couldn’t just keep living off the small fortune she had amassed (“small” by capsuleer standards only, of course) waiting for Nakatre to come home after a day’s work.

She had narrowed her options down to three. Rejoin the alliance she had helped to start by applying perhaps to Endless Night, where she might fly side by side with Loras and Gareth once again and help Nox thrive, but that would be going back to what she had already done before and which had brought her to this very crossroads. She could also join her previous Sphere colleagues out in lawless space and perhaps write a couple of lines in history books, or just end up losing everything like in J170132. And finally… she could just do something she had never done before, take a stand for a cause, join a bustling corporation, fly with old friends.

And then she realised she ought to discuss her options with Nakatre anyway instead of just letting her mind run in circles and lose sleep over it. Her wife had a capacity for seeing clear through the fog and going straight to the point as it was. Kay blushed, chastising herself in her mind for not thinking of that before. Careful to not wake the sleeping figure, the jin-mei placed a tender kiss on warm skin, then closed her eyes to sleep.

We’ll talk in the morning, love.

The Learning Skill Rant

2010-11-29T13:44:00.003Z

I was gonna make a rant on the impending disappearance of learning skills from Eve, but then I realised I don't care enough to turn it into an actual rant.

Having said that, I do feel a little cheated with this move. Yes, I know skillpoints get reimbursed and all that, but my main gripe is that I chose to invest time into these skills at a point in my character's life when you're eager to get a gazillion other things done, so you can board more awesome ships, etc. I made a choice to invest time then into something that would only save time in the long run. The fact these skills are going to disappear makes me feel robbed of that time.

Maybe I'm just too set in my ways. Or maybe I'm just bummed that Kay is at a point where I don't quite know what to train next so I'm just passing time by training the longest lvl5 skills I can find on my skill list, and these skill points that I get to reinvest are sort of useless to me, right now.

The points will come in handy, at any rate, for my alt who is scrambling to get into stealthbombers.

Still.. in a way, learning skills were a reflection of a certain playstyle which represents Eve, in my mind. They implied this game was not about instant gratification, so much as it was about patience, planning, and being in this for the long haul.

No biggie, I suppose. It certainly doesn't hurt any of my characters - possibly quite the contrary. Go figure players, for still whining ;)

New Chargen - 'Cause Everyone Else Is Doing It

2010-11-18T23:58:00.001Z

A while back, at some point in the two months' break from which I've just resurfaced, one of my friends pointed out to me that a brand new, gorgeous chargen had been made public on SiSi for us to mess around in. Uninspired to play though I might be, I couldn't resist firing up SiSi and messing around with it, especially once I saw some of the attempts posted out there on other blogs.

I naturally dabbled first on Kay, my long-suffering main who has been my face in Eve for about 4 years, 9 months. That's a lot, in my book. In my defense, I was still discovering functionalities so even taking into account that this was still very much the first incarnation of the new chargen, there were more things I could have tweaked that I only found out about a bit later. Anyway, this my first attempt at Kay:

She looks really pretty and I've managed to even make her look a bit shy, which she really ought to, so that's fine. I didn't mean for her to come off more mature than previously but on second thought I found I actually think it fits her well. She was never the most cheerful person in New Eden and she's seen her share of mishaps in her short piloting career. She has grown, and I like that.

My one worry was that I felt I didn't really tweak the base features all that much on her, and still it looked very much like my idea of Kay. So I'm worrying if all jin-mei are going to look the same. Or at best like sisters. Perhaps clothing, height, lighting, pose, all that will differentiate us all enough. Here's hoping, 'cause I don't wanna look like all other jin-meis out there :(

Looks-wise I was not so lucky with Kay's former assistant, a Gallentean Gallente young woman, so much so that I don't even wanna post the picture :/ The single pair of eyebrows available at the time somehow made her look a bit... hm... shall we just say simple? I hope the next incarnation of the chargen will give me more options to tweak her.

Welcome back, Kay! D:

2010-11-16T23:59:00.002Z

So, I was away from Eve for a while - what, two months or so? - and I recently came back to Tranquility to check things out, reconnect with some people. And this...

... was the welcome I got.

D:

Distress Message

2010-04-26T17:00:00.005+01:00

Message intercepted off relay beacon in Amarrian space.
From: Kayleigh Jamieson-Read // Location: Unknown
To: Nakatre Jamieson-Read // Location: [undeciferable]
Message heavily distorted.

[...] under attack. Being watched by Tempest and [...] on all sides. They podded Tor after taking ransom so things aren't [...] all alone in here, now. I need to save something. Going dark until I am [...] killed. Love you.

No Singularity for You!

2010-03-19T12:41:00.004Z

I remember having this prolonged discussion with Demon Flir – at the time one of my team mates in Scuderia Dragonstar – about the merits of trying out things in SiSi. He often went there; I had never once been to the test server at all.

In a nutshell, my argument was that I was a roleplayer anyway, and if I was going to experience new things in the game, I might as well get to experience them through the eyes of my character, and from that get a reaction I might use in-character. For someone who knows close to nothing about computers and often can’t tell a bug apart from a feature (ha!) it seemed like a waste of time to devote any of my gaming time to a server which is essentially out-of-character all the time, and where what you see might not make it to the game proper in the end.

All this time I’ve been playing Eve, nothing had managed to drag me over to SiSi – not wormholes, not modular ships, not exploration… But along comes planetary interaction and suddenly I’m all curious to see how it works (by the way, thanks Eve Uni for the early video!) and if there’s a way I’m going to use this new nifty feature with or for my corp. So I poked my friend Adri for info and followed her instructions to the letter.

Things started going a bit iffy with the SiSi patch download. It took a couple of tries to get it going, though I blame my router which has been acting a little choosy of late. Once I finally had it, it was the patching process which gave me an error. A second try had the patch thingie telling me I already did have the most current build. Despite that, I tried launching it. Obviously it reported some corrupt or damaged files of some sort or another. Well, then… *shrugs*

I shall take that as a message from the gods that I should just not bother, and I'll keep staying away from SiSi ;) Besides, they say patience is a virtue. I’ll exercise mine in waiting for Tyrannis to arrive in May.

First Solo

2010-01-28T21:30:00.002Z

Within the confines of her pod Kayleigh stretched. She liked the quiet days, true, but this endless staring at asteroids bored her to tears. With a sigh, she ran another directional scan around her. Nothing and more nothing.

Over in corporate frequencies there was some idle chatter going on which she didn’t much feel like taking part in. She had been unable to contact Nakatre for a little distraction, either. Kayleigh Jamieson-Read was stuck staring at a Retriever chipping away at rocks through her camera drones. Her strip miners finished a cycle and she watched the indicator for her cargo hold confirm the intake. Almost idly she ran another scan.

It took her a moment to realise something had actually changed. Core probes and a Magnate somewhere out there. Adrenaline immediately kicked in. She aligned the Dantan Express toward the tower and while it accelerated she shut down the strip miners and scooped whatever she could from the jet can, while she warned her corp mates that there was an intruder in their space. Sadly, no one was close enough to help.

The slow barge entered warp without incident. Grey eyes trained on directional scan and refreshing it often, Kayleigh was surprised the Magnate remained uncloaked. What was this guy doing? She kept wondering as she went out of scan range and her home tower materialised ahead of her.

Whatever he was doing, he was unlikely to home in on precisely the asteroid belt where she had been parked, not with core probes, so on impulse she changed ships into a hauler and turned back. It would be just a quick run. She’d be damned if she was going to be bored all that time and then see all her hard work robbed from under her nose.

As quick as she could, she maneuvered to scoop up her can and then realigned back home. Much to her surprise her scanner was still showing the five probes and uncloaked Magnate. Either he was trying to mess with her or – the most likely prospect – he didn’t know what he was doing.

Within minutes, she was boarding the Stalker after securing her cargo of ore. Scowling at her directional scanner, she warped to a safe and cloaked. “Where are you?” she thought to herself in a sing-song voice. It didn’t take her long to pinpoint him around the star. It still puzzled that he would be uncloaked all this time. Biting her lip, she aimed the Hound at the star and warped at range.

The Stalker came out of warp a good 500km away from the Magnate. That was bad. Without breaking cloak she would take forever to catch up to him. She tried anyway, true to the racer in her, and chased after this Von Brimstoner person. When a spatial phenomenon occluded him from sight, she was dismayed. Had he cloaked? Had he warped out? No, her scanner still put him squarely ahead of her somewhere in space. So she kept going and sure enough a few minutes later he reappeared, closer but still impossibly far away.

When next he disappeared from visual, she tried something different. Hoping the glitch was working both ways, she uncloaked and gave her engine a burst. Her lips curled into a smile; much better, now. Once the cycle was almost done she cloaked again. And that’s when the Magnate disappeared from her scanner. She cursed herself for her impatience. She had no doubt spooked her prey.

She warped out, tried several scanning spots but he was gone, either cloaked in hiding or gone back to empire space. After a while, things seemed quiet so she went back to her Retriever and the rock she’d been working on. Assuming all would go back to normal, she lowered her guard and the usual boredom settled back into her.

Not ten minutes after getting settled, she was jarred awake by the arrival of a ship. Another spike of adrenaline coursed through her as she scrambled to align and warp out even before she took a good look at it. A Sigil?! In this place?! As the Dantan Express gained speed she confirmed it; it was Von Brimstoner again.

This time she went straight for the Hound when she reached the ship hangars. She warped at range, cloaked, expecting to find the ship gone… but no! There he was, still in his Sigil and mining with his tiny little mining lasers aimed at the biggest rocks of Spodumain around the place.

The jin-mei hesitated, torn between defending her territory and reluctance to attack a basically unarmed vessel. In the end, she reminded herself that this was their home, their territory, their livelihood. They had paid dearly for the right to it in ships, crew, manpower and hours of patrolling. This man was able to be there in his little ship because she herself had cleared out the local Sleepers before. She started approaching, wary of any rocks that might break her cloak.

“It’s not like he doesn’t know people live here,” she thought to herself. “He saw me. I was in a mining barge. The tower appears on directional scan from the exit mouth. What exactly does he think I warped out for? This is a dangerous place. Not the high-sec he seems to think he’s still flying in.”

Building up her resolve, she did her approach. A simple act of aggression for most people, but something she’d hardly ever done before, much less all on her own. And this guy had no idea what was about to hit him.

At 30km she uncloaked and immediately launched a bomb. Grey eyes glued to the bomb’s trajectory, she maneuvered at the same time to place herself at a favourable orbit. She needn’t have troubled. Her single bomb instantly turned the Sigil into so much twisted metal. She cloaked herself again, eyes on the pod. “Go on, get away from here,” she spoke within her mind, as if he could hear her. And then when he did warp out, she realised he should count himself lucky. If any other of her corp mates had been doing the hunting Von Brimstoner would likely have found his trip home an instantaneous one.

She watched the capsule signature disappear from her directional scanner. “Be smart. Don’t come back.”

War Ends

2010-01-24T23:55:00.001Z

Looking back at the past week, Kayleigh had to smile. She had never been in a position where a war had been so profitable for the defending corporation.

No one had even quite figured out why this corporation, Schindler’s Ignore List, had declared a war on SPHERE. The best they had been able to guess was that they might have been spotted at the ice field in Vaurent, all on barges, mindlessly mining ice, and someone might have wanted to have some fun at the expense of clueless miners.

What had happened instead was that all SPHERE pilots had moved over to the facilities on J170132 and throughout the entire week had proceeded to mine, harvest and fight like a well-practiced team, and the corporation would be making a very nice amount of money once she could get all this stuff on the market.

There had been a few exciting moments when, in a bout of cosmic humour, the exit wormhole had connected J170132 first to the very home system of their war targets, then two days later to a system just next-door to them, but even then no action had happened. Even their friends in empire would barely get glimpses of their aggressors in local channels.

Well now the war was drawing to a close, Kayleigh found herself secretly sorry for that, as a number of her corp mates prepared to go back to their usual lives and occupations in empire star systems. She was sure it was about to get a little lonely out here.

War on Ice?

2010-01-17T23:55:00.001Z

Kayleigh sighed for what might well have been the hundredth time. Bored, bored bored. Corporate banter could only go so far, after all. Sittting still, staring at the very same huge chunk of ice tended to make people go quiet, most likely out of the same utter boredom she was feeling right now.

She couldn’t for the life of her fathom what made people harvest this for a living. Desperation, likely. She glanced at her own assistant, Laureline, sitting nearby in the Masalle, a Retriever which had started its career belonging to Kay. She as working hard to get a Mackinaw and mine even more ice. Kayleigh might not understand the appeal, but she was sure willing to buy her ice for Sphere’s wormhole control tower.

Another sigh. And then suddenly she noticed the blinking icon informing her a new message had arrived. The jin-mei took her eyes off the static scene outside and opened it. CONCORD? A war dec? She arched her eyebrows, incredulous as she read again to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.

A moment later, she broke silence on corporate comms. “Has anyone else noticed someone declared war on us? Does anyone even know who they are?”

First Batch

2010-01-03T22:55:00.000Z

Quintrala often said boosters weren’t really drugs, more like energy drinks. Unfortunately Kayleigh didn’t agree, which was why she was now looking on in dismay while Tor XianKun busied herself onlining and feeding their newest toy. SPHERE was about to make its very first batch of combat boosters.

When the XianKun sisters had seen her look of horror at the new structures – she hadn’t been able to help herself, really – they had patiently explained to her that such boosters were important for pilots in combat. They could mean the difference between life and death. And still Kayleigh swore to herself she’d stay well away from those. She knew they had side effects. She knew they caused addiction. These were not some simple energy drinks.

In the end, she kept her mouth shut and just shrugged. The gesture made plain the words she would not speak to her employer: Do what you will, it’s your corporation, your life.

So she floated in her pod, watching through her camera drone eyes, jaw set in a stubborn face which fortunately no one else could see. Head of logistics or not, I refuse to touch that. I didn’t lecture Nakatre about illegal activities to then turn around the next minute and do it myself. You make it, you sell it, you ruin pilots’ lives if you want. I wash my hands of this whole affair, she thought to herself as the array finally came online and started working.

Home

2009-12-29T22:55:00.001Z

I know even before I open my eyes: I’m home. I’m home in all senses of the word. Home where all my things are, in the apartment I’ve decorated to my taste, in the station where I’ve lived so much of my piloting life. But most of all I’m home where my heart lies because this warmth, this delicious weight on me, this soft breath tickling my neck, they all mean my love is back.

Lest I be dreaming, I open my eyes and there she is, in all her sleeping glory, half-draped over me. Her hand is on my breast, so warm, so soft, so close to my heart. Her leg thrown over my thighs keeps me deliciously pinned down. She keeps me warm. She makes me feel safe.

My heart fills with so much love that I simply must sigh, and I look at her face. She is angelic in her sleep, relaxed, vulnerable. I want to touch the curve of her cheek, kiss the tip of her nose, but she might wake up and I don’t want that just yet. I like to watch her sleep. So instead, being ever so careful, I run my fingers through her hair. I’ve always loved that it looked like spun silver.

Finally I can’t resist anymore and I softly press my lips to her forehead. I whisper so softly it’s hardly more than a breath, “I love you, Nakatre.”

A Surprise

2009-12-25T22:55:00.002Z

Instead of closing doors to new members and licking their collective wounds, SPHERE had reacted to the entire corp theft episode by taking in new blood after a few days. It was perhaps risky and it certainly was a pain in the rear end security-wise with all the new measures in place around the tower, but they refused to let Moonora stunt the growth of the corporation.

In a strange way, the theft had brought the rest of the corp closer together. Blood still raced in some people’s veins, but Moonora had gone to ground, disappeared within the bowels of one of the stations in Adacyne. Those bereft of their possessions couldn’t vent their fury on their target. Morale was a little low.

Kayleigh was scratching her head – figuratively speaking, since she was in fact on board the Second Breath – staring at the security measures, trying to fathom why the corporate hangars weren’t letting the newer members access the public sections. She was peripherally aware that one of the XianKun sisters was busy with something or other because she’d disappeared outside the tower shields, and she knew Nethys was patrolling the system. So the jin-mei was startled out of poring over security measures by a bleep indicating an incoming message from her boss.

“Maintain radio silence, Kay. Warp to me.” Tor’s voice sounded mysterious. Anything but staring at this, she thought while she promptly aligned her Loki toward the coordinates.

When she came out of warp, she gasped. A new, bigger tower was already online, and the sisters were clearly busy assembling and onlining more modules around it. “It’s a surprise,” her CEO was explaining. As she listened, Kay couldn’t agree more: they needed more self-sufficiency out there, more labs, more industry.. and most of all it was wise to perhaps move from the location Moonora was aware of, random wormhole exits or no.

The jin-mei felt optimistic. It was a good plan, a good move. It would make the corporation end the year on a positive note. She warped back to the old tower, re-evaluating Tor XianKun in her mind and finding she grew fonder of her the more she got to know her CEO. Underneath the mischief Tor seemed to harbour a genuine affection for her pilots and an uncanny sense for doing just the right thing to boost morale.

For the first time in days Kayleigh found herself giggling when Nethys reported in corporate comms that she was getting a second control tower on her scans and Tor essentially talked her into thinking she was perhaps getting ghost images from the one known tower.

A Thief Among Us

2009-12-20T22:55:00.000Z

The investigation revealed the window of opportunity had been rather small. Three hours at the most between when Kayleigh had disembarked from her ship and the first shout of alarm from Moonora in corporate mail.

Kayleigh hadn’t needed a corporate mail to know something was wrong. One of the perks of being a director in the corp was that she had actual windows in her quarters with a view to the nearby moon and some of the tower structures. The first thing she’d done when she’d woken up in her rather cramped quarters had been to stretch in front of her window as usual.

The view which had greeted her had been unusual, however: several ships were undocked and just floating around. She had rubbed her slanted grey eyes and squinted sleepily at them. The adrenaline surge had come when she’d recognised the dull, rust-coloured Loki hull outside. No one else in SPHERE had a Loki, much less one that would look exactly like the Second Breath.

Her entire day was a rush: reading messages, alerting the leadership, getting ships back into hangars and securing them, trying to figure what was missing and who had taken it. Once she pooled information together with the XianKun sisters, it became clear who had done it

And it had been Moonora.

She didn’t think Moonora was particularly bright. Why else post that alarming mail to all the corporation? The only reason Kayleigh could think of was to perhaps shift suspicion away from Moonora herself, but all the mail had really managed had been to narrow down the window of opportunity to a mere two or three hours, during which the logs showed only two pilots would have been active: herself and Moonora. If not for that message, the list of suspects would have been much longer.

Once all ships were accounted for, Kayleigh could only consider herself lucky, despite everything. All she’d lost had been the Alenia, one of her old Retriever hulls equipped with tech 2 strip miners and a choice of mining crystals in the hold, and the Racing Team III, the Iteron III which still sported the faded-out colours of the old Dragonstar Racing Team from the days when she used to assemble replacement ships in strategic points of the circuits. They had sentimental value, for sure, but they weren’t a big dent in her wallet. Other pilots had lost battleships, battlecruisers even the odd stealth bomber, with expensive fittings more often than not. She didn’t even want to think how broke she would have been if she’d lost her second Loki so soon after the first.

Moonora.

Kayleigh officially hated her, now. And it wasn’t just for the betrayal in trust; it was because Kayleigh herself had been the one to post the day’s exit on the billboard for all of the corp to know and come or go as they pleased even when the current wormhole dwellers were docked and getting their night’s sleep. Kayleigh had only posted it at all because some corp mates – and Moonora most vocally among them – had complained it was sometimes hard to get an escort into the system. By taking advantage of Kayleigh’s willingness to help corp mates Moonora had made the jin-mei feel particularly stupid and gullible. Kayleigh didn’t appreciate the feeling.

Going after the thief now was not a good idea. She was officially with a State corp, already, and CONCORD would frown on swift retribution without a sanctioned war which they couldn’t declare on Deep Core Mining, anyway. But jin-mei were nothing if not patient. And they do say revenge is best served cold. At any rate, Kayleigh had always been good at holding a grudge.

Reaction

2009-12-04T23:21:00.001Z

Trepidation was the word for how she felt, as Kayleigh boarded her capsule and started to prepare for another day of life at the SPHERE tower in uncharted space. After the podding incident she had been unable to sleep in her capsule, something she hated doing anyway. But the clocks said a new day had dawned, and flying was what she did, so she swallowed her fears and connected to her navigation systems.

As it turned out, getting back onto a ship was the easy part. Once she undocked, she just hovered aimlessly in space, hugging the corporate ship hangars, feeling ridiculous and yet not quite getting up the courage all by herself to go perform her usual scans around the star system.

Her eyes alighted on the new structures. The XianKun sisters had brought over a polymer reactor array and some silos which were installed off to the side. Kayleigh bit her lip and wandered over to inspect them.

Within minutes she had forgotten about her fears, slanted grey eyes hardening with resolve as she pulled up all the info she could find on GalNet about running these reactors. There sure was no shortage of assorted fullerites that she herself had been harvesting every time she found ladar signatures. Half an hour later, she was following a guide step by careful step, supplying and then onlining the relevant structures.

Finally, once it was all online, she had to try twice to establish the links on the tower interface but then with a satisfying hum faked by her capsule interface, she saw the reactor go to work. Her lips curled into a smile. Ten hours to completion? Certainly. In the meantime…?

In the meantime there were signatures to check and probes to launch. With renewed resolve Kayleigh boarded her Cloak and Dagger and set off – properly cloaked – to check on the known sigs and probe for unknown ones, her troubles pushed somewhere far to the back of her mind. Thank you Tor. Or Yal. Whichever one of you installed all that machinery.

It Takes But a Moment

2009-12-03T23:58:00.000Z

Kayleigh woke with a strangled yelp, soaked in sweat. As she gulped for air she took stock of her surroundings: dark room, small, a bed that was not her own, the covers tossed aside as if in a struggle. She was confused for a moment and then remembered. It wasn’t real, it had been a nightmare. At least this time, it had. Late night yesterday she had been podded for real.

She buried her head in her hands and tried to get her heart beat under control once more, but the horrible memories kept playing behind her closed eyelids, so she flicked a light on just to find something else to focus on.

It was still hard to believe how fast everything had happened.

She had been fleeted up with Yal, Loken and Morbick, the four of them working on dislodging Sleepers from a nest. Four SPHERE pilots, with four pairs of eyes on directional scan. It was supposed to have been reasonably safe. But the fight must have distracted them at the key moment. It all happened when the last Sleeper blew up and Kayleigh was still approaching the first wreck to scoop up some loot.

There were six of them.

The first alarms rang when the Phobos materialised so close to them. The jin-mei was the first to shout a warning and instantly aligned toward an escape route while the Second Breath resolved a lock on the heavy interdictor. Before that happened, a warp interdiction bubble had taken effect, imprisoning both Yal and Morbick. And that was when the other five revealed themselves. Yal shouted at them to warp out and return with stealth bombers.

Loken had been lucky enough to find himself outside the warp interdiction, so he had quickly warped to safety. Kayleigh for a moment thought she was going to lose another painfully expensive Loki, as she was within the bubble. But then she heard Aura’s beautiful voice: warp drive active. A glimmer of hope lit up in her heart. The Interdiction Nullifier subsystem on her ship had just saved her. She had still been lucky, however; among the attackers she had spotted an interceptor, no doubt on tackling duty. If he had targeted her specifically she would have been just as trapped.

As it was, fleet chatter was alive with orders and intel. Back at the tower, Loken was having trouble getting on board a heavier-hitting ship. Kayleigh swapped as fast as she could to the Ignebaener Wrath. Heart hammering at her chest, she followed Yal’s instructions and warped at range, fervently hoping the calculations would be correct and she would land outside that dreaded warp bubble.

But something went wrong.

Coming out of warp, Kayleigh found herself just a thousand metres or so from the Phobos, right in the middle of that bubble… and she with a microwarp drive on board. She tried to realign while locking the primary target, but in a matter of seconds the interceptor was on her. A Hound doesn’t have much in the way of a tank. They made short work of her, as she started to feel sick to her stomach. Not the capsule, please, for the love of everything you hold dear.

Her silent pleas were naturally ignored. Although she spammed the commands, struggled within the pod, physically tried to make it move, she was trapped. The attackers lost no time. First Morbick, then her, then Yal.

She awoke kicking and squirming for her life back in the Federation for the second time in her life, except now Nakatre wouldn’t be coming over to comfort or reassure her. She cried herself to sleep that night.

Soft at Heart

2009-12-02T22:00:00.002Z

Contrary to Dauntless I, the second stage of their wormhole operations was seeing an increased presence of SPHERE pilots in this new home of theirs. A good thing, too, because in their very special brand of insanity, as Kayleigh saw it, the XianKun sisters had brought them to live in a Class 3 wormhole and not the previously planned Class 2 that would have made transitions a little smoother. In sharp contrast to the corp’s previous home, over here pilots were getting ripped to pieces by the local Sleeper population whenever they tried to face them solo.

The increased presence manifested itself in ways Kayleigh hadn’t expected. Some of the newer people were positively itching to catch the unwary traveller off-guard. Chief among these seemed to be Nethys. Only the previous night she had caught the capsule of some unfortunate pilot by the day’s exit. Lots of corporate chatter had ensued about aggression, podding, ransoms, war stories.

Kayleigh, who always felt that knot in her stomach at the idea of shooting anyone not actively shooting her first, couldn’t help feeling somewhat out of place. She was glad to be in her pod at the time, so her colleagues couldn’t see her blush, or feel her embarrassment. Yet if she really thought about it, this was a lawless place, and Dauntless I had taught her death would come swiftly and spectacularly to the unwary, from anyone at all who happened to get the drop on them, security standings notwithstanding.

So when her directional scanner caught a lonely frigate coming in, she decided to practice her scanning skills and try to chase him in her stealthbomber. It took her a while, being relatively new at this. While she was still working at it, the signature her scanner was reporting changed. A frigate wreck showed up, then a capsule. She winced. Someone had warped to a Sleeper nest on a frigate. That never went well.

She had fully expected to see the pilot go back home, so she warped to the exit, trying to catch a glimpse of him leaving. Nothing. Ten minutes passed and Kayleigh started to suspect this pilot had forgotten to bookmark the exit coordinates. Time for another sweep of the directional scan.

In the end, she found him at a planet. He was clearly going nowhere. She orbited him in a lazy arc, debating what to do. Nethys would probably have got the pod, but Kayleigh could still remember how it had felt when she had lost Kanunu in a wormhole and how gruelling it had been to get him back home safe. Being lost in a wormhole was scary enough without getting podded in the process. She took a deep breath and tried her best to act mean and hard, like she imagined might be expected of her in this place. She hailed the pilot on a private frequency.

Instead of podding him, she had decided to ransom him for a way out. She had heard reports of this working, it would make her look fierce (she hoped), and it certainly would help pad her wallet some more. After all, she still owed people some money for replacing the New Dawn.

Kayleigh Jamieson > Did you get stuck inside the wormhole?
Allizard > yes =(
Kayleigh Jamieson > Would you be willing to pay for a way out?

It didn’t hurt to be polite… Or maybe it did. She clearly hadn’t intimidated him enough. As conversations unfolded the other pilot claimed to have even less money than her – hard to believe, given his age – and the haggling was bringing the payment to a value so ridiculous that it wasn’t really worth her bother.

Failing to get a deal, Kayleigh ended up prompting him to speak more of what had happened to him. It was what she had thought: pilot new at exploration had warped to the first thing to come up on scan and had been taught a lesson by the locals.

The next thing she knew, Kayleigh had taken pity on the pilot and was explaining to him the very basics of wormhole must-know information. Once she realised he was thinking of self-destroying to get back home, she finally gave up on all pretence of being tough. She tried to help him.

First she jettisoned the exit coordinates at the star. Once safely cloaked again, she told him where to find those. Sure enough, seconds later he was there. Risky. It could have been a trap. Although she supposed that for someone contemplating a capsule self-destruct a trap was the least of his worries.

However, that plan failed. Without a cargo hold, the capsule was unable to translate those coordinates into the onboard computer. Kayleigh sighed deeply. Against all common sense and against everything she’d learned during her time as a capsuleer, she invited a complete stranger into her fleet.

Hoping he wouldn’t have time to spring a trap on her, she warped squadron to the exit coordinates, cancelled her warp, then disbanded fleet. Only then did she warp herself to the exit at range, just in time to see the capsule go through.

True to his word, and despite Kayleigh having given up on any ransom early in the conversation, the distressed pilot wired her the amount he had claimed was the entirety of his wallet. 5 million. He even sounded grateful for her assistance, which confused her, since she’d started the whole talk to try to extort money from someone.

In the end, she didn’t care what anyone else thought of her. She would have felt rotten to the core if she had podded that guy. She actually felt good with herself for having helped him out instead. In a way.

I Did It!

2009-12-01T13:25:00.001Z

November is over and so is NaNoWriMo. And I did it! I wrote fifty-thousand words in the space of thirty days. \o/ I learned a lot more about my habits and failings than I had expected to, and about what works and what doesn't for me as a writer.

I did not, however, finish the whole story I was writing. I'll still be working on that, but I'll be taking a much more relaxed approach.

As for the in-character postings, I have had a few ideas and yesterday some things happened in game, so expect a flurry of posts in the near future. For those of you still reading, sorry for the hiatus and thanks for staying with me :)

Dauntless II

2009-11-30T22:00:00.003Z

One day before schedule, the XianKun sisters – most likely aided by Loken and Morbick – had surprised everyone by deploying the new tower and declaring a start to Operation Dauntless, stage two.

It meant the jin-mei – technically supposed to be overseeing logistics – had been no where near when things had needed moving. Not that she would have been able to aid spectacularly. Maybe with the probing, but certainly not with the moving. Big, clumsy ships were not really her specialty.

Truth be told, she was glad to be going back to living in a wormhole. The break back in empire had been good for her wallet, for getting reacquainted with Kalahari and spending some quality time with her friend, but Alenia felt incredibly lonely without Nakatre. Despite all the modern day technologies, it was hard to get a real-time link to her for a conversation.

So here she was, all packed and ready to go, looking forward to a season away from familiar sights. The XianKun sisters would have already carried over some of her ships. The rest she would gradually ferry back and forth. But the most important one, her little shield against the Sleepers she was going to take tonight. The Second Breath was fuelled, loaded to the brim with ammunition and sitting in her hangar in Hakeri, waiting for her capsule before it could come to life.

Thank you for the good times, Kalahari. And for the ammo. And for the chocolate cookies, she thought to herself, her lips unconsciously curling into a warm smile. Her capsule was in. It was time to go.

Dominion Oblivion

2009-11-22T16:03:00.003Z

Wow... is it the 22nd of November already? Where has time gone? I've been so busy obsessing about my NaNoWriMo project that time has just flown by, and the rest of the world has been ticking on without me noticing any of it, basically.

The good news is that my project of a novel has already reached the 38k words mark, which puts me well on track to finish this thing successfully. It has been quite the journey of discovery about my writing habits and failings. Another perk of it is that I find I'm not agonising through each slow day in wait for a much-antecipated new expansion. By the time I finish my project, Dominion will be just about to launch.

The bad news is that I'm a little out of the loop. I've heard vague rumblings about Titans and Motherships and PR disasters on SiSi, as well as something or other about null-sec upkeep costs... it's all a bit of a jumble in my head. I'm sure it'll all pounce on me when I lift my gaze from my scribblings on virtual paper and realise I'm still docked at Alenia V, Moon 4, Roden Shipyards but the drab moon outside my window has changed to a dramatic view of absolutely mesmerising beauty.

Note - Going to Hakeri

2009-11-10T02:58:00.001Z

Nakatre, darling,

I am broke like I haven’t been since I graduated from the academy, and I still owe people money. But Alenia is too empty without you and besides, the Roden agents here can’t pay me enough to get out of this little financial slump.

I am taking off on the Second Breath toward Hakeri, where I’ll meet up with my friend Kalahari. Hopefully if we share the workload neither of us will get discouraged by the tedious tasks agents seem to come up with all the time.

If you do get home in the meantime, just call me. Day or night, I don’t care. Kalahari says Hakeri is twenty-three jumps from everywhere, but I’ll race those twenty-three stargates just to get to you and I’d be there in no time.

I miss you.

Love,
Kay.

NaNoWriMo

2009-11-05T11:55:00.002Z

Just letting everyone know that I am not dead in some ditch <.< I have been taking part in National Novel Writing Month, which means that I spend most of the day climbing the walls in frustration at how slowly my story is coming along and headdesking each time I realise that I am, in fact, a crap writer >.<

I'm mostly focusing on NaNo, so blog posts may be few and far between during November. Also I still have a couple of unfinished drafts for events that happened in October, so I may release those (and tamper with the release date on said posts *cough*) at some point in the next few weeks.

Now... 50k words in one month. I can do this! I can. I hope. I gotta! >.<

J120256

2009-10-23T23:50:00.001+01:00

It didn’t last as long as they’d hoped. The plan had been to inhabit a Class 1 wormhole for three weeks, reaping all the benefits from it that they could, exploring and mapping as they went along.

Week 1 had been busy and exciting, rife with new sights and new experiences. They’d spent some time getting to know each other as pilots, finally working together instead of being spread over the four major empires.

But week 2 had been a dismal affair. It seemed J120256 had nothing else to offer them. The Sleepers had vanished almost without a trace, and they had mapped every single signature they could find. Day in, day out, there was nothing new to see or do. They had run out of excuses to keep fueling Dauntless control tower.

Most importantly, perhaps, Kayleigh was broke. She had had to take on a loan from friends to replace the New Dawn and she was in effect penniless. The money being made in this system was trickling to nothing and was being split in too many shares to help her much in that regard. It was time to go back to known space and knock on some agents’ doors once more.

It was going to be hard to go back to Alenia. That empty apartment made her miss Nakatre more and more each day that passed. She sighed and tore her eyes away from the tiny window overlooking J120256, the system they had never bothered to name. It was time to board the Second Breath and go. All her ships had already been ferried back home, except for the Starcutter, which the XianKun sisters would be hauling along with them tomorrow, when the tower would finally be taken down.

At least tonight she would finally sleep in a decent bed again.

((OOC note: Yes, post is late by a few months, but in the interest of chronological sense I’m tampering with the post dates and will do so until I’m caught up to the “present”))

J135422

2009-10-21T22:45:00.003+01:00

Dear Nakatre,

Day 9 of operation Dauntless, and things have been quiet. A little too quiet. You know I usually like things quiet, but it’s got to the point where there’s nothing at all to do.

We raided all the Sleeper structures we could find, harvested all the gas, and now our probes haven’t been finding any more signals out there. We keep analysing, of course. This is a big system. We get the occasional hit on something new. Or Sleepers try to slip back in. But yesterday there was nothing to do all day long, except look at the sights.

Not that the sights are bad. I do like the way the sun shines off the moon where we anchored Dauntless tower. However, it always feels cold here. I know it must be the colours, because I spend more time in the capsule than anywhere else and it’s always warm when we fly, as you know. The light is all harsh and blue out here. It’s beautiful, in its own way, but a far cry from the warm colours of Aunia and Vylade, where I started my piloting career, or even the brighter and lighter shades in Alenia. Sometimes this place feels downright lonely.

It’s not so bad today, though. Our newest pilot, Taejin, has joined us out here and found me an exit into another uncharted system, a J135422. There was a tower out there somewhere as well as some ships on scanner. They looked like they might be parked in space, so I went in and harvested some gas from under their noses before the connection winked out.

I wonder… were they asleep? Were they off in their tower having a drink? Were they writing home to their loved ones? I miss you.

It doesn’t look like there will be much more to do around here. We will pack up and leave by the end of the week, one week earlier than we’d originally planned. I’ll make sure to take a day off planetside to spend with you, no matter what.

Lots of love:
-- Kay

PS:
I’m feeling much better, since the day I lost the New Dawn. The odd feeling has disappeared and I no longer get headaches which is a big relief. I hope that never happens again. It was quite scary. Don’t worry, though; I’m feeling well. I’ve enclosed a picture of the New Dawn parked by the hangars, taken on the same day I lost it.

K.

Haiku by Endjinn (III)

2009-10-18T16:14:00.001+01:00

Because it is ever so appropriate, considering Kay has been living in a wormhole, here's another of Endjinn's haikus.

A wormhole beckons
In I go, away I go
Battlecruisers lurk

Day After

2009-10-16T15:57:00.002+01:00

It took almost a full day before Kay realised she hadn’t even given the crew of the New Dawn a second thought.

The Lesson

2009-10-15T23:45:00.001+01:00

She bit her lip, ignoring the faint taste of pod fluid that it brought. Her hands were still shaking, but she’d be hard pressed to say if the cause was shame, anger, guilt, or all three at once. She could only be grateful that no one could see her flaming cheeks inside the pod.

She was still floating in space, now protected by the Dauntless tower shields. Unsure what to do, she simply hovered in space, trying to keep her voice as calm as she could whenever she had to speak to any of her corp mates in channel. She should probably dock up, leave her pod for the night, have a cup of tea and a lie down. Yet she couldn’t make herself leave the pod, walk the cramped quarters in just her flesh and bones, weighed by shame as she was. She couldn’t make herself run the risk of having to look the remaining XianKun sister in the eye.

The night the two sisters had shown up along with Loken and all four of them had gone out to clear Sleepers out of space, Kayleigh Jamieson-Read had made a mistake so grave, so basic and so costly that she could only wonder at the fact she hadn’t been fired yet. How could she have been so incompetent precisely then?

“Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

In a moment of distraction, she had lost the New Dawn, the very Loki she’d been so proud of. And she could blame no one but herself for losing a ship she’d worked so hard for and had paid so much for. She’d lowered her guard in a dangerous system while out at a place called “The Line” and had been jumped by six hostile capsuleers. Tor and Loken had warped back to help her but she’d been too far gone, and instead they’d ended up losing their ships and also their pods. All because of her.

Kayleigh herself had somehow managed to save her capsule. The ejection had felt different, somehow. For a start, she had a massive headache. One of the sockets which connected her to her pod felt… tingly, and not in a good way. The jin-mei didn’t quite know what to make of it. She could only sit and worry, and hope there was nothing wrong with her because out here there were no real medical facilities she could visit right now.

Outside, Yal was orbiting in a lazy circle. Kayleigh shivered and suddenly felt the need to have more of a skin around her. She willed her capsule to approach the hangar and boarded the Starcutter.

The Myrmidon-class battlecruiser was an old ship, as such things were counted among capsuleers. She hadn’t been flown in a long time, before Kayleigh had brought it back out of the Alenia hangars for Dauntless, but she felt comfortable tonight. Like an old friend. She wouldn’t be much help right now, fitted as she was with all gas harvesters and no weapons, yet being surrounded by the elegant Gallentean design gradually made Kayleigh relax a little more.

Chewing at her lip, she started planning for the next day. There was no way she was going to be able to afford another Loki so soon, but she could certainly work hard, make money go into SPHERE so they could replace their losses. Tomorrow she would start by probing a new exit, bringing in something she could shoot with, and then finding a market for all the odds and ends they already had gathered. It would be a start.

Yal still flew lazy circles around her.

Operation Dauntless - Stage 1

2009-10-13T17:40:00.002+01:00

The war hadn’t happened.

All things considered, Kay would have to count that as a good thing. While true that she would have loved to be back in Nox flying with her friends, there was no doubt that it was good to not have to jeopardise her fleet. She’d never been known for her fighting prowess.

But it was definitely a good thing that the peace SPHERE still enjoyed had allowed them to go on with their original plans. Operation Dauntless had kicked off shortly after the announcement that they wouldn’t have to fight, after all.

Proud to be a part of a corp that would so selflessly help her own friends, Kayleigh had plunged happily into this operation. It helped that it would be about living in uncharted space, an experience she’d enjoyed well enough back in the days of EndLand, but mostly she wanted to bond more with these pilots and wanted to help this outfit grow.

It had taken them two nights of arduous probing to find a suitable system in which to live. Then five of them had hauled and assembled what would be their home in unknown space, brought ships, fittings, perishables… Then sadly, amid the pressure of setting up in a hurry so they wouldn’t be vulnerable for long, an argument had ensued between Yal and Slayer. In the end, before their new home was fully erected, Slayer had taken his ships back outside to Mora and resigned his roles in SPHERE. By the next day, his name wasn’t on the roster anymore.

Even that blow hadn’t quite brought down the morale entirely.

The four pilots remaining in Dauntless tower seemed to be in good spirits. Kayleigh certainly was looking forward to the three weeks they were planning to stay there. Yal and Tor seemed to be enjoying themselves, as far as she could tell, though she hadn’t yet had much opportunity to mingle with them. Loken… he remained a bit of a mystery. She wondered how he felt, being the one male pilot among all the women, now that Slayer had left them.

She smiled, surveying their new home from the camera drones on the New Dawn. This would be the perfect opportunity to get to know her corp mates a lot better.

Either Way

2009-10-11T20:41:00.000+01:00

The diminutive jin-mei pilot floated inside her pod while she waited. Constantly on the periphery of her vision a set of numbers counted down the minutes while she absentmindedly browsed GalNet and kept an eye on the progress report for the stealth bombers she’d ordered bought and fit the previous day.

SPHERE had surprised her in the most pleasant of ways. As soon as they’d learned about Nox Draconum’s predicament, there had been a lot of contacting pilots and voting on a course of action. They had decided to help out by joining up with Nox for the duration of the war.

Kayleigh couldn’t help but feel touched by the gesture. Here she was, less than four months into a corp, and they were standing by her to the point of going to war for people they didn’t really know, just because Nox were her friends and meant so much to her personally.

And that was why she was keeping an eye on that counter. If the Rough Necks didn’t update the status of the war with CONCORD everything would be over at 17h11m, and SPHERE would go on with their lives as usual, having come just a little too late to really help. But if the war was to keep going, Kay would find herself among the ranks of Nox once more, and much sooner than she could have expected.

Feu D’Astres had got his hands on some intel, and was reporting heavy losses for the Rough Necks in one of their other three wars going on at the same time. That, and the fact that RN seemed to have got what they’d come for – namely the tower in Ignebaener – made them both think the war declaration wouldn’t get renewed.

Either way, Kayleigh had something to look forward to. If SPHERE were to go on the warpath, she would get to once more be a part of Nox, fly with her old friends, help defend the alliance she’d dreamed of and helped make reality. If the war ended, SPHERE wouldn’t join Nox but had operation Dauntless to look forward to and exploration of uncharted systems, a subject which fascinated her.

The minutes ticked by.

Haiku by Endjinn (II)

2009-10-10T15:17:00.000+01:00

I thought it was appropriate to post in here even though the theme recently is war, not low sec. Another haiku by Endjinn:

Was in Eve today
Things got scary in low sec
Must bring bigger gun

Nox at War

2009-10-09T23:45:00.002+01:00

Coming back from a planetside conference, Kayleigh had returned to her office to find a message from Gareth. Nox Draconum was at war and the jin-mei was missed among the ranks of pilots in the alliance she’d helped bring to life.

On the one hand, the message had made her smile. Gareth had always had a way of making her feel welcome and wanted in Nox. On the other hand it had made her feel guilty. Nox needed her and she couldn’t help; not without risking CONCORD intervention, at any rate, which was something she didn’t exactly cherish.

And what was more, by getting involved she might attract attention to her own small corp and could risk getting a war declared on them. As she had given it more thought, she had realised her association with current Nox Draconum pilots was far too evident and easy to discover. It really would be best if she let her CEO know about this situation.

It was while she’d been writing to her CEO that she had found out about Tatsu no Tsurugi’s tower in Ignebaener being in reinforced status. The call had come up for pilots to help repair structures as soon as the tower would come out of reinforced. Torn in her loyalties Kayleigh had finally opted not to show. She had responsibilities in SPHERE and she couldn’t just jeopardise those who had taken her in after the whole mess at Dragonstar.

And so it was that she now found herself cloaked at a distance from the tower. A gang of Rough Necks pilots in battleships were pounding away at the helpless tower and some scavengers were laughing away in local chatter, getting ready to pounce for the scraps.

Unless…

Nox pilots didn’t dare jump in there, outnumbered and outgunned as they were, but a neutral pilot like, say, one Kayleigh Jamieson-Read, could perhaps salvage something before the vultures got to it. After all, this was Nox property.

Not half an hour later, she had an Iteron Mk4 and was slow-boating it toward structures already unanchored. Heart pounding in her chest, unsure of how the Rough Necks or CONCORD would react, she approached a gun. Despite being bumped by a hostile, she managed to pull it in. No aggression, no police. She smiled, grey eyes hard as steel, and turned her sluggish ship toward the next structure.

More ships came and bumped her. At least three of the hostiles had her locked in their sights, perhaps trying to scare her into aggressing first so they could retaliate, or laugh whenever the local police blew her to pieces, but she knew better than that. Even if she wanted, she couldn’t do anything. She’d been in such a hurry that all she had had time to get fitted were some cargo hold expanders.

The going was slow and rough, being bumped constantly by the lighter hostiles. She filled her cargo with unanchored guns and warped off to the station. As fast as she could, she unloaded and warped back, this time directly to coordinates for laboratories.

She wasn’t so lucky, this time. The Rough Necks haulers were on the job and whenever she could get close to a structure after the bumpy ride, some hauler would already be pulling it into its hold. Much to her frustration, she was unable to save anything of real value. But she went back to the guns and got a few more, racing some neutral opportunists to them. Who’d have thought: the vice-champion of the ISRC league racing for leftovers in her hauler?

In the end, two and a half cargo holds worth of tower weaponry was all she could save. A poor showing, but better than a complete loss. As she met up with Critters in station to hand over Tatsu’s guns, she wondered if her little stunt would have annoyed the Rough Necks enough to retaliate in some way on SPHERE. She hoped not. Not for a few guns, at any rate.

Fanfest (3)

2009-10-08T05:00:00.007+01:00

First of all, my apologies for the delay. I'm used to sitting in front of a computer all day and doing little else, so the whole Fanfest experience drained me of energy toward the end, making me skip on my writing. I'll pick up where I left off, which I believe was me bitching about the weather.

After the miserable time I'd had on Friday with the weather, Saturday dawned such a gorgeous sunny day that it actually made me forget about going to the morning presentations and instead I took off for a walk by the seaside. No gloves, no scarf, and I even had to open my jacket some \o/ The bay was looking beautiful, with the mountains in the distance having been coloured a bit whiter the previous day.

So the first session I did find my way to was about Storyline Processes. Mostly Q&A, while I was hoping they'd actually talk more in detail about storylines and story-making within the game. It was still interesting, but most of it a repetition of what I'd already heard previously.

After that I hooked up with Adrielle and Mori again (my trusted companions in this year's foray into Iceland) and we settled down for a few hours in tranquility for the final presentations. Hilarious, as usual. Oveur's beer ship has been branded into my mind :D

I have to say I was a bit disappointed that we got no earth-shattering announcements as has been the hallmark for Fanfests in the past. Nevertheless, the glimpse into Dust 514 only reinforced the temptation to go buy a console, which is something I've never owned in my entire life, and play a FPS which is something I'm generally really bad at.

Of all the things I heard and saw at Fanfest I have to say the news about the new mail system and the upcoming T3 frigates are the two that really have me jumping for joy. The new sovereignty system being brought to us in Dominion, while very interesting in and of itself, isn't really something that affects me at this point in time. As for planets? I couldn't get in the room for that presentation on Friday :( By the time I got there the room was so full that people were spilling onto the lobby and craning their necks to peek inside. I'm not exactly tall so I went to lounge on one of the bean bags nearby and sulked on the interwebs ;)

I have to say by the time the party started I was already very tired. Also I hadn't dropped by the hotel to drop off my stuff, so I was going around with my satchel on my shoulder. Not very comfy.

Röxör were amazing, of course. I still remember how sceptical I'd been about this dev band back in '07, having played in a band myself and having seen many terrible bands in my time. They surprised me then, and I have to say they were even better this time around. Hell, they almost had me dropping my bag somewhere and going off to jump by the stage, despite this being extremely unlike me. Almost. But not quite. By then I was so tired I could do little more than nod to the music and yell some lyrics.

After Röxör I hugged Adri and Mori one last time and took off for my hotel, exhausted, a bit deaf, but happy. And definitely wishing I could afford going to Fanfest every year, which I can't. So maybe in two years I'll make it back once more.

PS:
Shyness is truly a curse. Despite seeing around a few names I recognised and who might even recognise my name back (depending on how good they are with names, I guess, since I'm not exactly an Eve celebrity) I confess I didn't have the courage to go up to them and say hi. I saw Verone, whose corp I seem to remember sponsored one of the past racing seasons, usually surrounded by a Veto posse ;) Roc Wieler, whose writings I read on and off, was seated not far from me at some of the storyline presentations. Lacrimae, who I met at a roundtable in '07, was going around posting stuff on twitter as it happened.

But I did end up making a new acquaintance. I'm shy, but I'm not rude ;) The guy sitting next to me on the plane from Heathrow to Keflavík turned out to be an Eve player - I think 90% of the passengers on that flight were, to be honest. He struck a conversation and it turns out his corp is more or less neighbours with some Nox Draconum people, even if they're *ahem* on different sides of the law. So a shout out to Darius Falc, who I really enjoyed meeting in real life, and who I hope to meet and not get shot at by ingame :)

And of course, last but not least, I really loved having someone to hang out with this year. My fun would have been greatly hampered without the company of my travel buddies Adrielle Firewalker and Mori Felding. I loved meeting you for real, guys. Maybe next time we can hook up at Heathrow again ;) And now we do know where to find cheap, warm food near the venue after hours *grins*

Fanfest (2)

2009-10-02T13:32:00.003+01:00

Now that I do have shower gel and shampoo in my room, the hotel doesn't feel so crappy. The wonders a nice, hot shower will do.

There should really be an official designation for the current weather over here. I propose the term "miserable fucking weather" should as of now designate what I had to go through to get to the Fanfest venue this morning. It's cold (which is in and of itself enough for me to dislike it) and then there's a sort of rain. How to describe it? It's like the rain hasn't really decided what it wants to be when it grows up, and is trying to make up its mind between hail and snow, but is failing to be either. It stings when it hits my face :P

Not very pleasant when you've just climbed out of bed. Ah, the things we do for internet spaceships ;)

I realise this post could do with some actual news, but I can't really come up with anything remarkably coherent, since I had no breakfast and am just now at lunch time finally getting a bite to eat after listening in to the morning lecture/welcome stuff. Maybe later I'll have any actual content beyond weather whinage <.<

Fanfest (1)

2009-10-01T20:06:00.004+01:00

It was freezing when I hopped off the plane, my hotel is a bit crap (not that I plan on spending much time there, come to think of it), but Fanfest venue looks awesome,

And I don't use the word "awesome" very often.

I've been too shy to sign up for something with the tempting title of "Battle of the Bands"... Hmmm....

Anyway, despite the freezing cold (seriously, I wasn't made for this weather!) I'm having tons of fun and finding it easier even than last time around to just talk to complete strangers about the game, Iceland and traveling :D

J133417

2009-09-23T12:50:00.003+01:00

She couldn't help asking herself why exactly she hadn't come to Metropolis sooner. There had been some reason or other - distance, work, something - but as she hovered by the mouth of a freshly-probed wormhole she couldn't remember what had been important enough to keep her from this: flying with Kalahari.

The invitation had come weeks ago, and she'd delayed the actual travel plans - a fact she now regretted, looking over to the other Loki who'd just come out of warp. Kalahari's ship was almost like her own, but slightly different, much like sisters.

In they went, into a class 2 system which her instruments were naming J133417. As always she got that slight flutter in her belly, the thrill of being in an uncharted place, pristine. A dangerous place, too. Perhaps not so much from the mysterious residents (not on a class 2, anyway) but because a distraction, failing to catch a capsuleer threat on the onboard scanner soon enough might spell disaster for any expedition.

As it was, the place looked deserted. Kalahari and Kayleigh scanned down some signatures and warped into some sleepers. Side by side the Lokis made short work of them. The jin-mei was happy with the way the New Dawn was behaving, despite the speed at which it went through ammo. She was, indeed, having a really good time which was something she hadn't been having often lately. As they quickly salvaged the wrecks, Kayleigh gave it some thought.

Kalahari and her went way back, of course, to the very first few months after Kayleigh had graduated. Back then the racing league (still on its very first season) was a project of the Glamour Syndicate so Kayleigh had braved her innate shyness and had in time become a regular denizen of the GLS lounge. She'd forged a friendship with a core of Glamour Bunnies pilots, but with none quite so much as with Kalahari Wayrest. It was she who'd most taken an interest in her racing exploits, she who'd become her #1 fan and later even her #1 sponsor. All that while being a colourful, sweet, unwavering friend.

As the instruments warned her there was nothing else to salvage from that wreck, Kayleigh realised she wasn't just smiling fondly, she was also blushing at some of the old memories. She could almost hear the girls, "What happens in GLS stays in GLS." Her smile widened.

But Kalahari was saying something on comms so she turned her attention back to the present. "Yes, I'm done. All ready to go back home." The two sister Lokis warped out in tandem, leaving just an abandoned structure behind.

Haiku by Endjinn

2009-09-07T20:55:00.009+01:00

I'm down on inspiration right now, but fortunately my friend Endjinn Nevers isn't. Here's a haiku he wrote:

Such a nice stranger
Offered me some free cargo
Got a pod instead

ISRC Season 7 - Final Results

2009-09-06T00:11:00.002+01:00

Final results for Season VII of the ISRC are in. Here are the winners of each category.

Interceptors
Professional: Takashi Kurosawa [VRT]
Amateur: --
Rookie: Bloodpetal [SLB]
Team: Venture Racing Team

T1 Frigates
Professional: Demon Flir [SDS]
Amateur: Julius Rigel / Messita
Rookie: Ayre Rowan [SDS]
Team: Scuderia Dragonstar

Assault Frigates
Professional: Quintrala [SDS]
Amateur: --
Rookie: Koronakesh [VRT]
Team: Scuderia Dragonstar

I myself ended up securing my vice-championship in Interceptors, where SDS also got second place in the Team rankings.

Note:
SDS – Scuderia Dragonstar
SLB – Solar Babies
VRT – Venture Racing Team

"New Dawn"

2009-09-05T00:19:00.010+01:00

Whoever had worked on the reverse engineering of Sleeper technology for this ship had been Minmatar. For all the work that had been done on it, it looked at once alien and sturdy-rusty Matari-style.

"It's not exactly very elegant, is it?" The jin-mei frowned slightly at it through the glass separating her from the hangar where mechanics were still working on the finishing touches.

"That she ain't, cap'n."

The capsuleer crossed her arms and leaned a shoulder against the glass, slanted grey eyes narrowing a fraction as she peered at her newest acquisition.

The ship itself, a Loki-class strategic cruiser, was little more than a rod with one or two bits hanging off of it. And it was brownish, as if the rust had already started settling in despite the fact that the hull was brand new and freshly assembled together in that very hangar. It reminded her of a huge log she had once seen float downriver near her home, when she was a youngster still living dirtside. It certainly didn't look impressive enough for the amount she'd paid for it. For close to 600 million ISK she would have expected a far more stunning sight.

The stats on that thing were impressive in theory, however, and despite the somewhat ugly exterior she found herself itching to connect her pod to it and take it for a spin. At the same time, she felt uneasy with the idea. Except for the Rising Star, she'd never undocked in a ship so expensive. The Rising Star had had crazy speeds to her credit which had made her feel relatively safe - and even so the Ares had blown up into tiny little pieces at the hands of team Dirtside back in Season 5. This new one, while fast for a cruiser, wouldn't feel nearly as nimble.

Also... she hadn't yet acquired the guns which she wanted to mount on it.

"When will she be spaceworthy?"

"Technically, she already is, cap'n. The hull is sound; the crew you hired is already making itself familiar with the insides. It's just that some of the shield systems aren't online yet and the turrets haven't arrived."

"I see." The jin-mei pinched her lower lip gently between thumb and index finger, deep in thought. "Call a break for the workers. I want to take her out for a short test-drive."

"Yes, cap'n."

When she finally spun on her heels to make her way to the hangars, Kayleigh Jamieson-Read was smiling like a child with a new toy in hand. The money be damned. With a spark in her eye she wondered how fast she could make that cruiser go...

Season 7 - Race 12 - The Bleak Lands

2009-09-04T12:18:00.003+01:00

-- Excerpt from personal logs, 23rd of August --

We made history tonight. Possibly even twice. First of all, it's now official that Quin is the first ever pilot to earn a title in each of the three possible classes. Not only that, but with her insane clone-jumping technique she docked before Takashi - before anyone, really - in an assault frigate. That's not a sight we see often at all in the League.

I don't care that critics might say 'oh but Takashi wasn't racing as usual; he was anchoring the Venture assault frigate challenger'. I know for a fact he tried to catch her toward the end; he burned past me in the space of three jumps as if I wasn't there at all. Yes, my ego suffers each time he does that. It drives me crazy.

Nevertheless, he tried to catch up to her AF in the later stages and couldn't. All the records will say is that Quin's assault frigate beat him and everyone else to the finish line.

I should be happy, jumping for joy, throwing a party. I'm not. I mean, I was at the time. I giggled and cheered and whooped as much as any of them on our team comms. But now the blood has cooled, the adrenaline has worn off and I can only feel a heavy heart. That's because I know this will be the last race where I'll have Quin alongside me on the track. My good friend Quin is quitting the piloting side of the races.

Sure, she'll be involved in the organisation side of things - and I swear I fear the tricks her brilliant mind will come up with - but she'll no longer be suffering and cheering and stumbling right along with us on the track. It's-- I can't quite explain just how much of a loss this is to me personally and to the team as a whole. I can't find the words. There's just this heavy, heavy feeling in my heart, and it has cast a bit of a shadow over the celebrations I should be doing.

I'm going to miss Quin horribly.

Beacon in Alenia

2009-08-21T16:25:00.005+01:00

Alenia V - Moon 4 - Roden Shipyards Factory station
20.08.111

Dear Nakatre,

I hope everything is going well planetside for you. You missed our appointed time for a chat, so I thought I'd leave a message anyway. Maybe you're caught in traffic? Is it raining? Are you snowed in? Is there no coverage where you are? I remember how things seemed so less reliable when I was living in Lirsautton.

Anyway life has been going on as normal as can be. I've gone back to some exploration which felt, frankly, liberating after so long. And this week I've been busy alongside Quin, planning strategies for the Scuderia on the last race of Season VII which is coming up this Sunday.

One curious thing happened earlier when I undocked in Alenia: there was a new beacon in system. I'm sure news of the whole mess between Roden and the government reached you even down there. Well now there's a Roden Shipyards Logistic Center out here in Alenia. I've enclosed a picture I took when I flew by.

I wonder what Roden are up to. It can't be a coincidence that this has popped up so shortly after the troubles in the news. As if it weren't enough that Verge Vendor low-sec were under the watchful eye of the Caldari militia, now high-sec is seeing its share of tension too with all this mess. You know I worked a very long time with Roden. I'm still tied to them through R&D and racing sponsorships. I'd be hard pressed to know where my loyalties lay if something were to happen around here. For now I'm going to wait and see.

I hope to talk to you tomorrow, same time as usual. I miss you!

Your loving wife:
-- Kay.

J161138

2009-08-19T13:39:00.003+01:00

It was Saturday night, a time when she would typically be busy with preparations for a race the next day, such as the horrible clone-jump she always had to make. But not this time. Tomorrow she would be missing the second race in a row on unavoidable planetside business. The fact had her edgy and restless.

Which was perhaps why when she was about to retire for the evening and her eyes fell on the Melted she hesitated and instead decided to go back out once more. It was about time she stopped moping around and went back to doing anything productive. Exploring was as good as anything else. This mindless sorting through assets she'd spent her day doing was what was driving her insane, surely.

An hour later, she felt much better. Alenia had held no results, but next-door Vaere had. So here she was now, on the Eternal Flame II which she hadn't flown since bringing it back from EndLand.

It was not like she herself was being vastly productive - sitting there watching as Laureline mined away at some arkonor in a system her instruments were calling J161138 - but she somehow felt better about herself. Never mind that the pesky Sleepers had decimated all but three of her drones nor that she was now basically just hanging still in space on a ship that maneuvered like a whale. And yet the thrill of discovery, of sitting guard in a dangerous place.. it was making her feel awake and alive once more.

Try as she might, she couldn't quite remember why she'd stopped going out there in her Helios to find hidden treasures.

She even smiled at the sight of that Nox Retriever gobbling up ore. It had been a while since she'd flown with anyone from her former alliance. She'd have to admit she missed many of them terribly, although Laureline herself was actually someone she barely knew. She'd arrived on the scene shortly before Kay's troubles with Dragonstar and had kept mostly to herself, perhaps because Dirtside figured on her employment history. The same Dirtside which had once fielded a racing team who'd shot down Kay in that fateful Race 10, Season 5. She wondered briefly if Laureline thought Kay would hold that against her, or if she thought Kay might try to do some espionage.

It didn't really matter to the jin-mei. She didn't mix racing with her regular job piloting in space if she could help it, and Dirtside didn't have a racing team anymore. As she helped the Nox pilot clean up and haul, she wondered if she would be up for a night cap before they went their separate ways again, maybe catch up on the latest in Nox Draconum.

45 Seconds

2009-08-16T05:11:00.002+01:00

Kayleigh's sense of pride and joy disappeared almost as quickly as it had burst to the fore while she was poring over the results for the latest race. The feeling which replaced it was apprehension, self-doubt.

45 seconds only had separated Takashi's arrival at the finish line from the first Scuderia Dragonstar pilot. It had been a long time since she'd seen such a small difference in times between her team and their biggest rivals on the track - Takashi Kurosawa and Venture Racing Team - and this incredible breakthrough had happened precisely on the one single official race she had failed to start in.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and released a tired sigh. Could it be that all this time she herself had somehow been dragging her team down? Was it possible that she was somehow distracting, interfering, getting in the way? Or maybe she'd simply lost the spark. She felt so tired all the time, these days. Nothing quite seemed to go right.

Verge Vendor, the region she'd called her home for so long, was overrun by Caldari militia. The Federation government seemed to be about to stumble and fall. Nakatre was off planetside conducting business and for the most part out of reach. SPHERE hadn't taken off for great flights yet, as she'd hoped after leaving Dragonstar. And now her own racing team seemed to do better than it had in the entire season when she wasn't around.

She sighed again.

As she stood, her doubts assailed her once more. Was she really becoming a has-been in the world of capsuleer racing? Should she quit while she still had some dignity? Should she go on but step back into less of a leading role and more of a support one?

She made her way toward the bedroom and let herself fall on the bed, curling up into a tight ball, eyes closed. She felt like crying but the tears wouldn't come. "I miss you Nakatre," she whispered tiredly into the velvety darkness.

Still Here

2009-07-22T11:46:00.002+01:00

So I'm not dead. I'm still around. However, some real life has conspired to pretty much keep me terminally uninspired to write anything much, nor have I been playing a lot.

I am taking a two-week break, off to the beach to catch some sun. Maybe recharging batteries will do me well and I'll come back with some stories to post.

ISRC Season 7 - Race 8 - Lonetrek

2009-07-12T12:34:00.002+01:00

--Excerpt from personal logs: 5th of July--

But what a frustrating race. There were so many long dashes between waypoints! It was clearly a track made to Takashi's dreams. It would have to happen sooner or later, of course. Nothing we have been able to do so far even comes close to his gating times, although I shall have a staff meeting with my team of mechanics and engineers once more and I'll be damned if they won't find a place to shave off a few more seconds.

Maybe my mistake all along has been having a Minmatar leading the entire team which deals with my very Gallentean interceptors. I need to find a good Gallentean mechanical genius. Or maybe I need someone insane after all.

Speaking of which... I have yet to decide whether Quintrala is genius or insane. Out in Lonetrek she finally had a chance to use a trick for which she's been planning and preparing for on every single race for months. A mid-race clone-jump.

I positively hate clone-jumps. I do them out of necessity if and when I must. I'm always afraid I might be someone different when I wake up. I mean, imagine if the transfer is flawed and you forget something as essential as who your loved ones are, or how to undock in Dodixie traffic? Obviously Quintrala also doesn't go through the nauseating half-hour or so of disorientation after a clone-jump.

"I'm going to do it!" was what she said over team comms. We were facing a very long dash of about 12 jumps to one of the waypoints and her clone was really close to the destination. I said it to her face: "You're insane!" but I think the fact I couldn't stop giggling only made her want to do it even more.

Some reporter later asked me why I let her do it, why we risked a gamble which could have earned her a disqualification. There was absolutely nothing in the rules against such a tactic, that's the first reason. Secondly, what Caille brought to Dragonstar when we merged was precisely that: out-of-the-box thinking. I'm not going to stifle Quin's creativity. I'm going to laugh right along with her as we find new things to try.

And it would have worked in any other circuit in the season. After her clone-jump, Quintrala had a 2-minute advantage over Takashi at the next waypoint. But Takashi is a robot who gains 5 seconds on us at each stargate, and the track had many, many jumps. He gobbled up all that gap, overtook Quin, and got enough distance to not have to constantly look over his shoulder before he docked at the finish line.

As for me, I am so set in my ways of racing that I raced stupidly from then on. I mean, we had Quin feeding us the several waypoints over comms, so why didn't I think quick and do them out of the regular order as I came into the appropriate systems? I could have shaved quite a few seconds off my final time. Stupid.

Ayre and Demon flew more intelligently, at least - I was glad to see that. I will also cherish the holo of them docking exactly at the same time, side by side, two beautiful Firetails. I should display that somewhere...

Resignation

2009-06-27T06:16:00.001+01:00

3 years, 3 months, 3 days. That's how long her record sheet said she'd worked for Dragonstar. A funny date, a coincidence.

Kayleigh stared at the datapad, dotted line flashing at the bottom waiting for her to press her thumb there, and she hesitated. She lifted her grey eyes to sweep the room.

Her office was already empty, naked of everything but the very last personal touch: the old Dragonstar Racing Team poster from Season I. She smiled faintly as her gaze lingered there, on the image of herself, Iconath, Loras and Scavanger. It seemed like a lifetime ago. It made her sigh as her smile faded.

In the fast-paced world of capsuleer pilots, three years was a long time. It was depressing to see it all come to an end, when three months back everything had been going so well on the way to a healthy and thriving corp. Now, Dragonstar was a ghost of itself. Most pilots had left to other corporations within Nox Draconum. They were down to Druif, Quintrala, herself and Kiarra, basically. Kayleigh simply didn't have the strength anymore, not after the rug had been pulled from under her in that way. It was time to let go, start anew, change scenery.

And yet she couldn't help feeling she'd somehow let the corporation down, that she should be doing something, anything. With another miserable sigh, she turned her gaze again toward the datapad. That dotted line still there, blink, blink, blink... Grey eyes hard as steel, Kayleigh finally thumbed it. With a quiet bleep her life with Dragonstar came to an end.

She felt that she ought to be crying, but she couldn't shed a tear. She was too tired, too defeated. She simply got up, strode to the poster and retrieved it. At the door she cast one final glance at what had been the Director's office, her home away from home for so long. She lowered her gaze, shook her head and walked out.

In the empty office, the automatic door slowly closed itself.

Nox Tournament - Round Four

2009-06-25T06:53:00.003+01:00

I lost my fight with Timsinsal. It was a close one, Punisher vs Rifter, both really hugging each other's hulls. He was dealing more damage, but I was sucking his cap to feed my armour repairer and this was causing him trouble.

Eventually, though, he did break through my tank and that was that. A very good fight, but I finish my PvP stint in fourth place in our little tournament.

In other games, RedKiwi defeated General Ization and is now officially the winner. The General and Timsinsal now go on to play a match for 2nd and 3rd places. I'm curious to see who gets it.

ISRC Season 7 - Race 7 - Black Rise (II)

2009-06-19T22:55:00.003+01:00

Undock.

When the camera drones came online she could see the other competitors warp out. She tried to keep sharp but she was sluggish, her reactions dulled. Jump after jump, she was falling behind, losing touch with Takashi and even her own team.

She felt tired, weary. No matter how much she tried to focus on the race, the rush, the excitement, all she could do was fumble and make mistakes. Overshooting cans, slow selection of gates, bouncing off asteroids at waypoints...

It was doubly embarrassing because the League was testing new technology which kept track of each pilot's location and sent back telemetry to the viewers. Why did she have to perform badly precisely when all eyes got to see more?

Because she was tired. Because she'd lost her spark when the rug had been pulled from under her feet and Dragonstar corp had all but died out. Because she had been spending sleepless nights planning a move, trying to let go, and yet she still felt stuck. And it was getting in the way of her racing.

She struggled to push it all behind her back, to somehow recapture the thrill of the race. But it was a long struggle and by the time she managed to find her rhythm it was too late to catch the lead.

Or was it?

She caught a lucky break at a multiple-can waypoint: Demon and she tagged a can which might have been a fake, losing a little time to Takashi and Quin. But in a lucky break, it turned out to be real, so while the leaders had to go back, she kept on racing, fighting Demon for position.

They couldn't catch Takashi, even though this bit of luck had reinvigorated her. She found herself fighting for second place overall, almost like the old days, finally feeling the old thrill returning on the final dash to the finish line.

Then she got stuck at a gate. Demon went past. A delayed Quin went past and there she was, still stuck, error messages popping up. There was some problem with her authentication, apparently.

Her heart fell all the way to her feet, and the thrill was lost once more. She just felt so tired. She ended up docking in 4th place, third in her class. It felt hollow.

Kayleigh Jamieson-Read felt, essentially, defeated.

ISRC Season 7 - Race 7 - Black Rise (I)

2009-06-18T19:02:00.005+01:00

Half an hour until start time.

Natalie raised her head from her book and swept the busy hangar with her eyes. Organised chaos, as it was every Sunday night. And in the center, literally under the spotlight sat the Distortion, with its pretty green and gold design which looked like dragon scales, being tended by a team of mechanics busy with last-minute tweaking. Daniel was busy polishing the number 2 on the Ares' wing, now.

What she couldn't see was any sign of the pilot, Mrs Kayleigh Jamieson-Read - better known among the fans simply as KayJay.

"She's late," came the low voice at her elbow.

She set the book down on her lap and turned her eyes to the chief mechanic, Steele, a big Brutor and the only man in that hangar to manage making the Scuderia jumpsuit look uncomfortable. "Yeah, she is," she agreed, swinging her feet now. Perched as she was on a stack of crates, Natalie was still only just taller than him. "Tell your guys to watch out. I don't imagine she'll be in much of a good mood. It's not like her to be late for this."

Ten minutes later, she arrived. Natalie noticed, even with her nose in her book, because it was as if the spotlight had suddenly shifted from the interceptor to the petite jin-mei striding quickly straight toward Steele. She wondered if all capsuleers did that trick of getting all attention focused on them in a room full of mere humans. For a moment, Natalie watched the scene.

The mechanics themselves, usually a loud and lively crew, suddenly were keping their exchanges strictly to the business at hand. Natalie smiled wryly. No one wanted to get noticed by the capsuleer. She didn't mingle with the grunts, as a rule, and it was taken as fact among the team that when she did deign to speak to you, you were about to get fired.

When she saw the conversation was nearly over, Natalie put her book away and hopped off the crates. Sure enough, just a moment later Jamieson-Read started making her way toward the pod dock, greeting Natalie with just a little nod. Natalie followed.

At the smaller, more secluded dock, Natalie assisted the pilot out of her regular clothes and into the Scuderia flight suit. She noticed the pilot was pale, and had long dark circles under her eyes as if she hadn't slept in days, but the distant, hard gaze invited no questions. Despite the quick change, Natalie had time to wonder, glancing at the jin-mei's naked back, if it had hurt to get all the sockets, or how it felt having them on day after day, or even what it was like to have a ship plugged in there.

But there was no more time for wondering; Kayleigh had stepped onto the lower half of the pod. Natalie got the first cable, smiled faintly and asked "Are you ready, captain?" All she got was a nod in reply.

One by one, the assistant connected each cable to the appropriate socket. Then she stepped back. "All done, captain. Fly safe," she said, punching the button which would trap the pilot inside the egg and start up systems.

Booked for Fanfest

2009-06-05T22:29:00.002+01:00

So a couple of hours ago I did it: booked myself passage to Iceland and got me a Fanfest ticket. So I guess I'll be there come October \o/

At least this time it seems I'll actually know some of the people attending. I really hope so, because with my crippling shyness if no one I know goes I'll miss half the fun :P

Nox Tournament - Round Three

2009-06-04T15:33:00.003+01:00

Brackets for round 3 are as follows

General Ization
vs.
RedKiwi

Gareth
vs.
Kayleigh

Results to be updated as fights take place.

ISRC Season 7 - Race 5 - Genesis

2009-06-01T19:07:00.002+01:00

--Excerpt from personal logs--

I don't know how he does it. None of us can figure it out. Quin had the initial lead for a couple jumps off the start line and then Takashi overtook her and that was that; he never again lost the lead all through the race.

At least this time, despite all our little mistakes and mishaps, we didn't lose as much time as in previous races. When he docked at the finish line after fifteen waypoints I was four jumps from him. That's four to five minutes, roughly. There have been much worse gaps. And if Quin hadn't had the misfortune of a capsule systems reboot early in the race maybe the gap might have been shorter.

Of course we could get our act straight and stop miswarping, for one. And I personally could certainly use an intensive training session on how to handle multiple-can waypoints. It's unacceptable to keep losing so much time there.

On the other hand I'm really happy with the way Quin, Demon and I work together. It's such a seamless teamwork! It's really anyone's guess at the start line which one of us will arrive first at the finish line. Last night it was me, no doubt thanks to Quin's capsule glitch. A shame the rest of the team seems to have lost interest in the competition.

We may have got a new pilot coming in. It seems Demon convinced rookie Ayre Rowan to join our ranks. She was worried about team orders or that we would require her to change corporations, which surprised me. The thought had never crossed my mind. No one should quit their day job in order to race. That's certainly not what the Scuderia is all about.

Although in her case I doubt the term "day job" applies. Seems she's employed with the Hellcats, and therefor possibly makes her living as a pirate, for all I know. That's fine. It's always nice to have pilots on board the team who might know what they're doing if ever things get ugly on the track again sometime. But for now, I just hope she settles in well with the rest of us and finds fun racing out there.

Nox Tournament - Round Two

2009-05-27T10:13:00.007+01:00

The brackets for the second round are as follows (being updated as and when fights get played out):

General Ization (1-0) [Rifter]
vs.
Jadark (1-0) [speed/missile Condor]
(Fight was tied when Jadark couldn't break GI's tank; later Jadark withdrew from the tournament after a disagreement about the rules.)

RedKiwi (2-0)
vs
Timsinsal (1-1)

Breddy
vs.
Gareth
(Match forfeit as Breddy was a no-show.)

Kayleigh (1-1) [speedy Rifter]
vs.
Werewolf (0-2) [missile Inquisitor]

Tried and True

2009-05-26T00:49:00.002+01:00

Round two of the Nox Draconum tournament. I figure if the unexpected didn't work in round one, I have nothing to lose in my elimination match in trying my strongest point: speed.

I knew which ship I wanted all along. I'd raced in the T1 days often enough with the Rifter - a ship which I always thought was a good balance between speed and sturdiness. And of course I've heard many wonderful things about how the Rifter performs in combat. I called up some friends, looked up several fittings and picked one which came highly recommended.

I won't deny I got really nervous before the fight. I'd spent all day trying to visualise how the fight might go, what I'd need to do. I practiced in my head, but that's always such a fickle simulator, isn't it? Nothing to do but to go out there and do it for real. So that's how it was when I warped to the designated spot in Leremblompes to fight Werewolf.

I found he'd brought an Inquisitor to the fight. I didn't like that. Don't those have a lot of missile hardpoints? My Amarr frigate expertise is rather lacking. I do know I absolutely hate missiles and rockets with a passion. Damned things always seem to make the most damage on me, and I was in such a little frigate.

Butterflies in my tummy, Gareth gives the sign and off I go, screaming at the top of my MicroWarp Drive engine toward Werewolf. I want to hug his hull, not let him get away from me, suck his energy for my repairer because I'll need it.

But his missiles hit hard, making me cringe, my heart dropping all the way to my feet as I see I'm not doing as much damage. But I'm maybe doing mine more often. And he's not going anywhere, he's not denying my speed.

Out of shields -- almost time to turn on repairer -- distance is good -- his shields still about one quarter? Not good -- shoot, little Rifter, orbit fast! -- half armour? kick in repper -- goodness me, that sucks cap -- pulse it, just like the MWD...

And then the fight turned. My armour held, his started melting. Could it be..?

Yes it could. My Rifter performed beautifully. His Inquisitor is no more. I think I owe a certain friend some exotic spiced wine.

I'm still in the tournament, and I have no idea what to fly next.

Nox Tournament - Round One

2009-05-21T17:12:00.005+01:00

The brackets for the first round were as follows:

breddy (0-1) [missile Kestrel]
vs.
General Ization (1-0) [autocannon Rifter]

Gareth (0-1) [blaster Tristan]
vs.
Jadark (1-0) [speed Kestrel]

Kayleigh (0-1) [ECM Maulus]
vs.
RedKiwi (1-0) [rocket Kestrel]

Timsinsal (1-0) [blaster Punisher]
vs.
Werewolf (0-1) [auto-cannon dual-rep Punisher]

Next round the losers of previous matches get a final chance to stay in the tournament. Brackets are as follows:

Breddy
vs.
Gareth

Kayleigh
vs.
Werewolf

((Edited to include the delayed Breddy vs General results ))

Nobody Expects...

2009-05-20T23:15:00.003+01:00

I finally found my way out of EndLand today - a civilised way out, that is - and managed to get in contact with RedKiwi so we could have our match in the Nox Tournament.

I hadn't expected to find myself in a capsuleer tournament, but once in there, I felt compelled to give it my best. And in this case it involved trying not to be too predictable. Everyone in Nox Draconum knows I'm fast; everyone knows my strong point is in drones, when it comes to damage. They'd be expecting it. So what could I do to catch them off-guard?

Electronic Warfare.

I'd never done it. So much so, that I had to forego any normal pilot activities and just sit down the whole day trying to learn how to use it. I put orders out for fitting a Maulus, possibly the one Gallentean frigate I'd never flown.

And when the time arrived, there I was with butterflies in my stomach and a shiny new ship wearing modules I'd never before used or tested. Nobody expects the E-war Kayleigh.

However, I ended up having to face a rocket-Kestrel. I'm told that's pretty much the worst case scenario for me. I wouldn't have known, initiated as I am into such arts. I still gave it a go, with all I had, of course.

My two drones did bite Red hard, but I couldn't break his lock on me and it went downhill from there. I didn't have the speed to catch up to him to suck much-needed cap or even to manage to hit him with my blasters. I had to micro-manage drones while also trying to manage unfamiliar e-war equipment... I lost.

When the ship disintegrated around me I believe he was down to 25% shields, give or take a bit. Small consolation that my alliance mates tell me this was probably one of the longest matches - I still lost and don't even feel it was very close a match. I'll file it away as a learning experience.

Next round I face elimination if I lose to Werewolf. We shall see...

Nox Tournament

2009-05-19T18:40:00.004+01:00

I'd very much like to know who was the smart ass who signed me up for the little tournament we're having within the alliance. Maybe someone thought I needed to let some steam off in a shooting match? I don't know.

What I do know is that when I turned on Alliance comms today I was greeted with news that I was supposed to be setting up a sparring match with RedKiwi no later than tonight. I checked and there was my name in the brackets, along with seven other pilots. And I'm the only one who's still in Dragonstar, too. I suppose I can't bail out; the brackets would go all wonky and there would be no one defending Dragonstar colours.

Ha. Me, of all people, holding up the DS colours. Right...

So... I need to set up a tech one frigate on tech one specs and fight RedKiwi. Goodness, that's going to make for a very short and very painful match, I'm sure.

Losing It

2009-05-12T00:31:00.003+01:00

I think I'm slowly losing it. Lately I've had so much paperwork to do, so many people to talk to, so many things to take care of that I found I actually almost missed a real season race.

I checked the calendar on Friday night to make sure and I misread it. I thought Sunday, May 10th was to be the Cruiser Exhibition. So imagine my surprise when comms managed to filter through to Endland and I realised I was going to miss a race.

Except I didn't, because it ended up canceled. And somehow, even though that saves me the embarrassment of losing 25 points in a single race to Takashi, somehow that didn't make me glad at all. This season is limping, I believe. We have to stop canceling and postponing races. The viewership is going down, racers are showing less and less at the start line... *sigh* For crying out loud, even I got the calendar wrong, what with all the changes.

The End of an Era

2009-05-07T12:52:00.003+01:00

3 years, 1 month, 13 days. That's how long her records indicated she'd been a Dragonstar employee.

Three years since she'd graduated (seemed like a lifetime ago.) Three years since she'd joined a private corporation (seemed only yesterday.) Three years of racing under Dragonstar banner. Three years of camaraderie, joy, hardships endured together with amazing people she'd come to love and cherish. In one single night it was all now falling apart.

She'd come back from a stint in uncharted space to find that Kiarra, Dragonstar's founder and original CEO from those same three years back, had seized the leadership of the corporation. Now, Kayleigh was under no illusion that she was a good CEO; she'd only taken the job in a desperate attempt to keep the corporation from dying just the past winter.

And actually she'd have been more than glad to hand over the reins, especially now that so many questions had risen among the corp which she was struggling to keep up with and answer to everyone's satisfaction. She would have loved to hand it over to someone more experienced.

But to come home and find it done in her absence, after three years of unwavering loyalty and hard work? That hurt. Deeply. And it had also outraged not only the majority of Dragonstar pilots, but also their sister-corp, Endless Night.

Her director, Kanunu, had panicked and raged, she'd been told. He'd locked down everything and secured every cent and every asset somewhere. She was going to have to go over everything with him, give back what belonged to Dragonstar, split EndLand proceedings among people who worked there, return donations to rightful angry owners. It was a dirty and painstaking job. She was going to be at it for days.

Then of course she'd have to go around talking personally to all the active pilots. She already knew it was not going to be easy. There were many hurt feelings beside her own, and much outrage at what had been done. She could tell Dragonstar was fragmenting. Some people were even already gone.

The outspoken Jikomanzoku, who lately had been demanding so many answers, had been the first to go. Which was ironic because from what she could gather of the whole incident, Kiarra's sudden move might have been done in such a hurry precisely in an attempt to keep him on board. Sadly, if such was the reason, it hadn't just not worked: it had backfired spectacularly. The personnel records Kayleigh was poring through right now showed Jiko had already registered his own corporation. She sighed.

Evaya Starflight had been the second to bolt. It wasn't really surprising. She'd had her share of minor clashes with Kiarra in the past. The records showed she was already with Endless Night.

Kanunu, Feu, Maeliki... they would be gone as well, she just knew it even before talking to them. The same with Taco and Kakko; those two would undoubtedly join Jiko sooner or later. She wondered what Batuka, Tim, Gerrard, Qua would do.

And then there were the newer people. Nosfer and Faith, who must be so confused about all which was going on around them. And Quintrala. Her good friend Quin, who had been accepted into the corp just before taking a celebratory vacation for graduating from Uni Caille.. she'd come back to a crumbling Dragonstar. Kayleigh couldn't help but feel horribly guilty about that.

And yet how could she have guessed?

She sighed, checked to see if Kiarra was reachable yet for a private conversation, and saw that she was not. She rubbed her tired eyes, sighed again and went back to poring over records.

A Strange Family

2009-05-04T19:08:00.003+01:00

Dinner had come and gone. Ayane had left rather early, so Kayleigh and Nakatre had settled on the sofa watching the holo. The jin-mei wasn't listening anymore, however, her fingers idly caressing silvery hair at her lap.

What a strange family she'd landed in.

The meal itself had gone well.. or as well as could be expected. The shocking revelation that Nakatre actually had a restraining order on Ayane was.. well, disturbing, to say the least, considering the reasons.

She'd tried so very hard to be the charming guest, to forgive her sister-in-law for the whole incident with the gun at her head, to make her welcome in this little capsuleer family. Yet now that they had settled down and she could mull over the entire evening, she found herself feeling angry that Ayane would have assaulted her sister in such fashion.

Apparently she was seeking treatment, which was a good sign. But still Kayleigh wondered if she really could deal with all this with a welcoming smile on her lips. She hoped so, for Nakatre's sake.

Hax!

2009-05-04T18:09:00.003+01:00

Amarrian Engineering prowess? Interceptor pilot's mad dream? Artistic sculpture?

They sure sound like much funnier explanation than "oh it's a bug" for the sight that greeted me the other day when I tried to hop from one interceptor to the other on my evil secret amarrian alt >.>

Dinner Plans

2009-04-27T19:31:00.003+01:00

A lock alarm bleeped, bringing Kayleigh out of her reverie. Serpentis reenforcements had arrived. With barely a second thought she sent her drones after the faster frigates, glanced at the displays to check on Nakatre and make sure she was doing alright, then went back to her thoughts.

She had a family dinner to plan.

Well, maybe that was a little too fancy a name for it, but the fact remained that they would be having Nakatre's sister for dinner. And that, of course, was the unusual and in fact unexpected development.

She had had nightmares for months after the first time they'd actually met face to face. You don't forget easily the sight of a gun pointed to your head, and Ayane had looked like she really might press the trigger. But she hadn't, and time had passed without further encounters.

Now Ayane was working for Nakatre in Stillwater and in a stunning turn of events had called up Kayleigh, arranged to meet (somewhere public, thank goodness) and... she'd apologised. She'd looked like she meant it, too.

So here was Kayleigh, trying to give the woman - her sister-in-law, really - a second chance. Hence a little family dinner. She'd be cooking herself, instead of ordering out, and it would be fun to drag Nakatre along into the kitchen to help out. She found herself smiling. Maybe the evening wouldn't be so bad.

Inspiration...

2009-04-27T18:17:00.001+01:00

... sometimes I seriously lack for it. I feel a wave coming over again, so expect more posts in the near future. Apologies for the dry spell.

Exhibition race - Domain

2009-04-05T22:00:00.008+01:00

[CENSORED] is what I have to say about it.

Took me 45 [CENSORED] minutes to get as far as waypoint 3/10, after much pulling of hair and puzzling at the [CENSORED] directional scanner to find cans. And then what happens? Yeah, KillJoy, that was a [CENSORED] genius idea putting that waypoint there.

2009.04.05 20:46:00

Victim: Kayleigh Jamieson
Corp: Dragonstar
Alliance: Nox Draconum
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Rifter
System: Milal
Security: 0.3
Damage Taken: 1015

Involved parties:

Name: Gallente Control Tower / Kermit Space Industies (laid the final blow)
Damage Done: 1015

I died while I was inserting the [CENSORED] password. Great. Well [CENSORED] that. >.<

J142617

2009-04-03T18:45:00.006+01:00

Sometimes you just have to take a break from the daily grind and go off on something different. After days of toiling first in EndLand for Nox and then in Ney for Ms. Estisen I was in quite a dire need for a break.

Opportunity presented itself one day when my good friend Quintrala was feeling a little low. "We should do something together," I said. The 'something' turned into a little expedition into wormhole space, since Quin had seen little (if any) of it, to date. Last night we took off, she in a Helios doing the probing and me in my best-tanking ship, which just so happens to currently be an Ishtar.

And yes, I know the Sleepers come after drones something awful. I made sure I carried in my hold quite a number of replacements, and I definitely planned on doing a lot of micro-management on them. It's not like I am much good with my guns, anyway. But I'm quite fed up of only seeing the gas clouds out there. I wanted to see something else.

So we took off on a little roam throughout Amarrian space, Quin probing and me either just chatting (girl talk!) or dispatching some pesky Sansha while she kept looking for an unstable wormhole.

We ended up finding one out of Sizamod. We took the proverbial deep breath and jumped in.

I always find the lack of comms unsettling out there, I have to confess. I'm suddenly straining to peer farther, or to make sense of the sounds my sensors are translating from radiation floating around. It all sounds so... eerie.

The place might have been empty of people, according to our sensors, but it certainly wasn't uninhabited. We picked up a Gallente control tower somewhere out there which we didn't dare investigate, of course. And Quin, brilliant in her probing, found us some Sleepers.

And this is where I cursed myself for being all sorts of foolish coming out and trying to take them on all by myself. What if they warp-jammed me from insane distances? What if my tank failed? But this was our little adventure together, and I was determined to learn some bravery from Quin!

After some initial scouting that Quin did, I crossed my fingers and warped into what the sensors were calling a Perimeter Ambush Point. Two Sirius cannons stripped me of shields pretty much with just one volley, which didn't do much for my self-confidence. Still... I turned on the armour rep before their next volley hit, just in case.

Good thing I did, because they kept hitting hard from far away. The frigates, however, were very much ignoring me, so I had to maneuver much closer. When they finally locked they were fast in getting close. I launched my drones and... well what I remember most about the rest of the combat is keeping an eagle's eye on the damage indicators on my drones and on my armour while Quin lay nearby, cloaked, making sure I had a warp-in point in case things got ugly and I needed to break lock.

Despite my best efforts I lost count of how many Warrior and Valkyries II I lost. Fast as they are, they often wouldn't return to the drone bay quickly enough and poof! We got three waves of Sleepers and then nothing. Just the damnable Sirius cannons still taking big chunks off my armour and me fresh out of cap boosters to turn on the second repairer when the hits were better aimed.

I warped out, to let my cap and shields recover... and in all honesty to recharge my courage a little bit. Quin kept an eye on things but in the absence of more Sleepers and seeing my cap and shields all green, I warped in at close range, convinced that within seconds my Ash Green would be just another wreck in w-space.

Was I glad to be proved wrong! Those bloody cannons had an awful time hitting me at such close range. Despite my fears, my surviving Valkyries made short work of them without my even needing to turn on the first repairer.

I'm so slow that by then it was quite late in the night. Quin uncloaked, did most of the looting and then we got nosy around the ruins for a little, taking pictures, after which we went back home, feeling great about overcoming our first little challenge in uncharted space.

All in all, we had a great time. Can't wait to go out there again with her.

Extra Credit (I)

2009-04-02T19:26:00.004+01:00

Hurried footsteps trotting along a corridor; three sets of footsteps, in fact. A thump. "Watch it, punk!" Huffed breath. "Sorry, mister!"

Running, running, turning a corner. "There!" A girl's voice, this time.

Three sets of running feet draw to a messy halt, punctuated by gasps for breath. "Here, guys," again the girl, still somewhat out of breath. "DS 20. It's this boarding gate."

"Bordel, where's my ticket?" A boy, this time, and the sound of hands patting pockets. The girl, next: "For God's sake, we're late already!"

"Now boarding shuttle DS 20." The soft, efficient but bored tones of a flight attendant.

"Found it!"

Three sets of tickets validated and three students let through the gate. "You're lucky to still catch the shuttle, young gents and lady. Your pilot got delayed and is only now getting connected to the shuttle. Enjoy your flight!"

"Connected?" The quiet boy, now, in a soft but low tone.

"Putain! We're going in a capsuleer shuttle? D'you think it's her flying us there?"

"Don't be silly," the girl again, in a practical tone. "I'm sure Ms Jamieson-Read has better things to do than ferry around you lot."

Many Returns

2009-04-02T17:56:00.004+01:00

Kayleigh found herself thinking about the past week as she sat docked at the Caille station in Ney, waiting for her cargo to board.

Evaya Starflight, the first person who had taught her anything about flying interceptors, was back in space flying for Dragonstar after an absence of about two years. She hadn't changed a bit, either. According to comms she was right now busy at the wormhole trying to get RedKiwi dizzy by orbiting him fast, in the absence of anything juicy to shoot at.

Druif, too, had made a brief appearance just the previous night. Krak'a Tau and Kessica had also been spotted moving assets around, after being off the spacelanes for well over a year. Last but not least, Dragonstar founder and Kayleigh's old CEO - Kiarra - was back.

Funny how many people had approached the jin-mei in private with a worried look asking how she felt about that. It had surprised her mostly because she felt great! She felt happy to get her old boss back; they'd always got along well. Not to mention Kiarra had always seemed to know what she was doing, whereas Kay herself always felt out of her depth as a CEO. For now Kiarra seemed happy just getting back into the swing of things, but what would happen if in time she wanted the CEO office back? Kay smiled in her pod. She knew exactly what she would do, no regrets.

Nox Draconum

2009-03-26T22:35:00.003Z

Space was pretty much at a premium in this hangar. Or rather, there was still quite a lot of room for ships themselves, but as for a place where one might stretch her legs after being in a pod all day? There really wasn't much of that around. After having slept in rather small, confined quarters for the night, the jin-mei was already in a flight suit, stretching lazily as she surveyed the ships.

Most ships had Endless Night markings, some more scuffed and worn out than others, but a few had Dragonstar symbols. And all of them had an alliance logo conspicuously newly painted. And this structure in space belonged to Endless Night, technically, but really it had been a team-work effort to get it all in place.

She sighed as her slanted grey eyes gazed at some vacant spots. A week ago, or so, there would have been some WuXi vessels around, for sure. Such a new alliance - what, two, three weeks old? - and already some scuffle over possessions had put a wedge between WuXi and Endless. They had had their feelings hurt and had left in a huff. The alliance had dwindled to just two corporations.

That wasn't too bad. Despite the ability to work together, there had always been some tension between a few Dragonstar elements and a former Dragonstar pilot in the employ now of WuXi. That, at least, was one less worry in her mind. And yet... And yet she was sorry to see her team mates Demon and Searaph no longer in alliance comms.

Well, life went on. With a sigh, she got ready to board her capsule. Dragonstar and Endless Night had strong ties that went way back. Things would work out for the best, no doubt.

Night of the Dragon indeed...

A Tempting Offer

2009-03-20T19:26:00.003Z

Kayleigh sat at her desk in the Dragonstar offices, arms crossed and legs outstretched, crossed at the ankles. The map of known space was showing in the little holo display, and though her slanted grey eyes were turned to it, they weren't quite seeing as alliance comms chirped discretely in the background.

She had just had a most unexpected conversation with a complete stranger. The man had called himself "The Agent" and had claimed to be sent by someone interested in her exploits out there in wormhole space. The fact that the man flew for Etherial Dawn had narrowed the field down to just one person she was aware of. So Ms. XianKun wanted to keep tabs on her, did she?

The jin-mei bit softly on the inside of her lip. What to do? What to say?

There were alliance ops out of the wormhole Endless Night had claimed to live in, and where just earlier in the day she'd been harvesting gas. She also wanted to join Nakatre and her people out there at some point - mostly for some quality time with her wife, but she also liked knowing the people who got to work with Nakatre day in and day out. And now this third option to consider: going off exploring with a complete stranger.

A complete stranger claiming nice combat skills, part of a somewhat well-known null-sec alliance... And the deal looked far too sweet. As in Kayleigh had the feeling she was getting all the benefit. Would it be a trap? Would it be for real? She owed a debt of gratitude to this woman, living so far away. To take the risk or not to?

The jin-mei smirked. Racers didn't usually even give it any thought at all. They'd just jump into it. Well, why go to such length just to trick her? It's not like she made much of an elusive target on her day-to-day activities, right? With a nod she made up her mind. She'd bite, and see where it would take her.

Career Guide

2009-03-20T19:07:00.005Z

I haven't been able to stop blushing ever since I realised that it was true and people weren't just pulling my leg. Somehow I got mentioned in an official CCP Career Guide. As a Speed Specialist, no less, right along with my racing arch-nemesis Takashi Kurosawa.

I feel proud and self-conscious all in one. Looking for a hole in which to hide, really as I'm used to going through the game in a sort of anonimity, to be quite honest.

And yet... It's such a heart-warming feeling to know someone out there has noticed some of what I do :) I'm all giddy!

...

Does that mean I'm expected to go fast, now, everywhere I go? >.>

Kanunu Phone Home

2009-03-19T15:14:00.002Z

Ship's Log Entry #4
(Wednesday 18.03.111)

We heard from Kanunu again, still alive out in the same uncharted solar system, and still mired in signals, trying to puzzle through them.

Throughout most of the afternoon and evening Nox Draconum egged him on, tried our best to help him with remote advice. Then finally he reported he was chasing a signal likely to be a wormhole. I could swear I heard a collective sigh over comms, and there was certainly no mistaking the cheers when he found it and jumped through... to another uncharted system.

Hope was well up, however, now that he had found a way out. And indeed within less than an hour he'd found an exit through to Zahefeus, in the very-charted Khanid region. Kanunu is back with us and I will be able to sleep easy tonight.

[end log entry]
[end expedition log]

Needle in Haystack

2009-03-18T15:41:00.003Z

Ship's Log Entry #3
(Tuesday 17.03.111)

Probes, solar system views, dozens- no, hundreds of signatures to sift through. I have a headache from looking so hard at the elusive red circles and red dots until they turn yellow or green. Some turned out to be wormholes into uncharted space, but (unsurprisingly) none into Kanunu's last known location.

Jikomanzoku did manage to find an exit out of J160014, the same into Maturat that I'd left through less than 24 hours before. That, at least, is one less worry for me.

I'm not sure what else to do. It worries me that we haven't heard a peep from Kanunu all day. Is he still alive? Is he just too far out for his signal to reach us? If he gets killed so far out there will he still be able to download into his medical clone?

I've given all my friends Kanunu's last known location in the hopes that if someone happens to find a way in by sheer luck they'll be able to help him out. At least one pilot I've never actually met before has offered to help. Thank you to all keeping an eye out for J210247.

[end log entry]

Leaving People Behind

2009-03-17T12:15:00.006Z

Ship's Log Entry #2
(Monday 16.03.111)

I didn't wetgrave by sleeping in my capsule. That's something. I did sleep longer than usual and I can't figure out if it's something this J160014 place has done to me or if it's the capsule trying to take care of me.

I'm glad I did get some good sleep because I woke up to terrible news: Kanunu had not docked up in high-sec like I thought he had the previous night. He hadn't even moved over to the less-signal-ridden J160014. As I caught up with the faint signal of corporate comms, I realised Kanunu had in fact gone to sleep at a safe spot in J210247 - the place Jiko and I had found linked to J160014 and had elected not to sleep in because it was so filled with confusing signals that we couldn't find any other exits.

I have left a man behind in a horrible, horrible place and now he can't find a way out.

Of course I immediately checked to see if both systems were still linked, but they were not. There was nothing else I could do for Kanunu except show moral support as he reported finding more and more signals, pinning them down one after the other. The last I heard he'd mapped 29 scanner signatures, and still he could find no way out.

All I could do was launch my own probes and work on finding an exit for both me and Jikomanzoku. After pinning down a few more gravimetric signatures I finally narrowed down a wormhole signature and found a way out. Into known high-sec, no less.

Now I was faced with a dilemma. Jiko wasn't logged on to comms. No one had, in fact, heard from him all day. Should I leave, trusting he'd find his way out, or should I stay and risk another night of sleeping in a capsule?

In the end, and considering J160014 isn't really too confusing as signatures go, I elected to leave. Jiko has equipment with which to scan for an exit and in there he won't have too many conflicting signals to sift through, unlike poor Kanunu.

That's where I ended up. I lingered at the mouth of the wormhole, torn as I hoped Jiko would miraculously show up. But he didn't. So I left yet another corp mate behind, and it weighs heavy in my heart.

I clone-jumped out of my racing clone and hopped back into my Helios. I went back out. I don't care that the chances of finding an entrance to precisely the system Kanunu is trapped in are slim. I'm going to bloody well try.

I almost immediately found yet another wormhole opening into Ney. I hopped inside, deployed probes. J142649 seemed to be some sort of hidey hole for Sleeper among asteroids. I didn't stay long. I have to find Kanunu.

Tonight I get to sleep in Ney - I'm too exhausted to go on. Tomorrow I will be looking for my corpmate among the stars.

[end log entry]

J160014

2009-03-16T15:46:00.006Z

Expedition #1
Pilot: Kayleigh Jamieson-Read
Hull: Helios
Registered Name: Melted
Plate: GF-946738DS09-SL

Ship's Log Entry #1
(Sunday 15.03.111)

I should have known better than to venture into unknown space on a whim, knowing the bad luck I've been having all weekend long. While working with Feu on a gravimetric sign I'd pinned down in Ala, report came over corporate channel that local pilots in Ney were reporting finding a wormhole into the system. Kanunu and Jikomanzoku decided to practice their probing skills and undocked to pin it down. They managed to do so just as Feu and I were finishing up, and they went in to an uncharted system.

I forgot I wanted to be cautious. I forgot I was in the medical clone with all the expensive racing implants on. I forgot how badly the race had just gone for me, with all the glitches and mishaps. I boarded my Helios and set off to pin down the Wormhole. I forgot this was a highly traveled system with a Uni Caille station filled with eager explorers.

By the time I pinned down the signature, the sensors were already registering the anomaly as volatile, to say the least. I jumped through, knowing I'd be equipped to find a way out of there. I was still cloaked from my jump when someone showed up in a Kestrel and jumped back to Ney, collapsing the hole and leaving Feu alone back in Ney.

We went about pinning signatures down and found two other wormholes, one leading into Pochelympe and another into more uncharted territory. As we were charting this first one we noticed it might be uncharted but it certainly wasn't uninhabited: our onboard scanners were detecting no less than three towers anchored out there somewhere.

As time progressed and we couldn't find a more convenient exit back into known space, we moved over to the second uncharted system, J210247. This one didn't seem to be inhabited by anyone. It had, however, an inordinate amount of signals to chase. Hour after hour we worked, and all we could pin down were asteroid belts and gas clouds, but no exit.

Kanunu left to Pochelympe for the night. Jikomanzoku elected to go to sleep in his pod at a safe spot in J160014. I worked a while longer with no luck in finding a new way out. Being more experienced and having more probes in my hold, I'm going to stay the night in here. Tomorrow, Jiko and I will find another way out.

It's the first time I'm going to sleep in my capsule. I hope I don't wetgrave. If I do, you know I love you more than anything, Nakatre.

[end log entry]

Having a Bad Day

2009-03-14T21:50:00.002Z

I'm having one of those days when quite frankly I'd be better off not getting out of bed. Let's see...

Didn't get much sleep - partly (I suspect) because my sleep cycles are a little messed up, as Apocrypha goodness has kept me up late gawking at stuff. Went off later than I'd like for archery practice. I was there for a whopping hour and a half to two hours, or so, and in that time managed to lose an arrow and break or damage three others. I won't even get into just how appalling my aim was, today. To finish the practice session with a bang I had a little episode with low blood pressure. Just great.

Having recovered from that, we went to lunch. On a miraculous lucky break Fiancé and I actually bumped into some friends with their little daughter, and lunch was actually nice. But later on as I tried to make dinner it all went pear shaped and dinner consisted of warm-ish steaks with half-burnt potato salad. Just great.

I've just now logged in to Eve and i'm not sure I dare undock, to be honest. I'm afraid if I do I'll get killed in a freak accident mining in 1.0 space, or something >.<

I hope things go better tomorrow. Kayleigh has a race to run for the League and in this luck I'd get stuck at some stargate and be overtaken by everyone, I'm sure.

The Unknown

2009-03-13T02:50:00.003Z

It's funny how most signatures nowadays get left alone in Ney. I've been sitting at a Gravimetric site for the better part of an hour, now, and no one has come to see what it's about. Am I just getting lucky or is everyone truly off exploring uncharted territory?

I know most of the alliance guys are busy off who knows where. Chatter is filled with references to uncharted space, talk of dumping things in stations and plans for other encounters.

And I don't know why I feel slightly left out. It's too late and I'm too tired to go far from home, anyway. So why? Maybe I just envy them the fact they are adventuring into the unknown.

...

I think I need a change of scenery.

Bridge in Ney

2009-03-12T14:05:00.005Z

Last night Ney local was abuzz with chatter. Busy bees that the local Caille students are, within 5 seconds (I imagine) someone had found this in system.

It's a rather scary moment, after the horrifying images of Seyllin still burned into my mind, to find one of those in the system where you and your corp have made home. I don't think I've ever been so glad to be a capsuleer, to know I'd have the means to not only transport myself to safety but also bring along all of the Dragonstar employees and a fair number of refugees along with them.

But anyway, apocalyptic fears aside and because things seemed to be relatively safe I took the opportunity to take the Melted out there with some probes and try to pin this wormhole down. Which I did after a while; and it was still faster than many, many probing sessions in the past. I do believe I'm beginning to like these new probes.

As for the wormhole itself it was already very unstable when I got there. I found fellow racer Cai Lun there at the mouth of the thing and he reassured me it was quite safe, while I was still hanging around, taking pictures and hesitating. I took a deep breath and jumped through, only to find myself in Yezara, out in Khanid Kingdom high-sec. The first thing that crossed my mind was that with such random portals, the slavers must be rubbing their hands. No customs at wormholes, no police. Just grab a few unsuspecting souls and voilà, hop right into the wolf's den.

I jumped back while the thing was still there, swapped ships, went and sat at an ice field doing some thinking.

J144636

2009-03-11T15:37:00.004Z

Such a strange day, waking up to the terrible, horrifying news of Seyllin, stuck in Ney myself with no real way of helping. When confirmation came of the final fate of Seyllin I, it was too late for anything. I still shiver when I think of the fate of so many out there.

In the end, staying at home staring at the news holos only kept chilling my heart. So I went out, hopping from star system to star system, trying not to look too closely at planets, haunted by images from the news.

I picked up the Melted from Amarrian space and flew it back, taking the chance to try out the new probes. They certainly seem to be a lot more effective.

However, I got interrupted by cheers in alliance channel. Deathlords had found a wormhole. Trust pilots who really believe they are demigods to defy laws of physics and Concord warnings; they dived into it.

Soon reports were coming back of encounters with alien species and gas clouds! There were gas clouds out there to be had, and only a few in alliance with skills and equipment for it. I am one of them. I ran 17 jumps to get my harvester, then 25 more to where the wormhole had been found. Together with Deathlords, I jumped in.

It was strange being in a place where you knew no other capsuleer had ever been. I later wished I were sharing it with Nakatre, but first I had to deal with the pesky locals. Who are these - Sleeper, I hear people calling them? Nasty guys. They came after my drones with a vengeance, but they refused to reply to hailing calls.

I repelled the few frigates which came at my harvesting Brutix, while over comms the other alliance guys dealt with much bigger threats elsewhere in system. I finally sat in my cloud with Deathlords in his hauler by my side and I gathered gas.

It was eerily calm, out there. Nothing showed in local channels, because there were no gates, no beacons, no nothing relaying signals. It made my hair stand on end. I'm glad the wormhole held and we're all back in charted space.

ISRC Season 7 - Race 1 - Molden Heath

2009-03-09T01:05:00.004Z

The entire press conference after the race had been somewhat of a blur. Moreso than the race, actually. Maybe she was simply getting old and these all looked the same nowadays. The diminutive jin-mei now could finally go around more or less anonymously in the more select gathering afterward with just pod racers, some jet-set guests and the organisers.

She nibbled on a cookie despite the fact she really wasn't hungry. She could never really eat just after getting off a pod, and to add to that she still had too much adrenaline from the race coursing through her veins.

The first race was done. She felt rusty, she felt clumsy; she'd been overtaken not just by tech-ones but also by Quin's assault frigate. That was always a blow on her ego, only somewhat lessened by the fact the ship was piloted by such a close friend.

But she kept grinning when she was too distracted to school her face into a more polite smile. They had done the impossible as a team: they'd got the entirety of Scuderia Dragonstar in at the finish line before the legendary speed of Takashi Kurosawa. All of them! Even Arcmako, the rookie. Even Quin in a Jaguar. It was such an incredible feat of team work that it still had her somewhat stunned.

A big part of that had been Nakatre. A missing waypoint at a turnaround on the track had brought Nakatre from last of the Scuderia to being in a very important first place and able to pull the rest of the team up into recovering from the extra jumps they'd had to do, compared to most other racers out there. And the civire had held on to that place until the very end, when Demon had finally gone past her.

She watched as Nakatre came in from somewhere and swept the room with her eyes, no doubt looking for Kayleigh herself. The jin-mei made no move, just gazing at her wife across the room, a little smile playing with her lips. I am so proud of you, Nakatre, so happy you're racing again.. At this point those keen blue eyes had picked her from the crowd and she'd started walking toward Kayleigh. I love you so much.

For the first time in many, many months, they left the post-race party together to share the journey back home.

The Night Before

2009-03-08T16:00:00.003Z

She couldn't sleep, try as she might and despite the warm, reassuring presence of her wife snuggled up with her. It was the night before, of course. Not only the night before a race, but it would be the first race of a new season. It was typically a night when she got little if any sleep.

This time, however, adding to her worries about the upcoming season she was worried about Nakatre and her new venture, Stillwater. Despite her promise years ago, Nakatre was going back to a life of crime. No deaths, she had assured Kayleigh when they'd spoken about it. No more murdering. Yet.. she'd once thought Nakatre would never again engage in crime of any sort. How could she possibly know things wouldn't spiral out of control? She just couldn't.

In the velvety darkness of the bedroom the jin-mei sighed. She didn't even notice her fingers played idly and tenderly with the civire's silvery hair.

What could she, Kayleigh, do? Absolutely nothing. It seemed Nakatre couldn't leave her Angel Cartel past completely behind her. The only thing left was to be there for her love, through thick and thin. But she worried. Crime had a way of getting out of control and ruining people's lives. She desperately hoped it would never take Nakatre away from her.

Fight Night - 2

2009-02-19T15:16:00.003Z

Last night, after a couple of weeks of finding myself too busy or too far away, I took part in another of those fight nights Gerrard has been organising. They have so far been a success. Even the new recruits have been curious and enthusiastic about it. It's frankly good to see those many Dragonstar pilots in one place again and it bodes well for the corp. I think we're finally growing once more.

But as for the event itself, well at least I did a little better. I took part in four or five matches, won one convincingly enough, and gave quite a bit of a fight in another one (until my cap ran out, Batuka got a little too close and once that web got me two volleys stripped me of all my armour.)

I'm still bad. Very bad. But at least I think I'm making some progress, which is encouraging. It was annoying to not be able to touch Jikomanzoku and his Breacher from hell; I usually pride myself in being fast, but he was certainly faster than me in my Incursus, last night. A good thing he was once part of Dragonstar Racing as it saves face a little for me, but still.. I'll catch you yet, Jiko!

No Luck

2009-02-17T17:10:00.006Z

Sometimes the universe just hates you. As she docked back in Dantan, Kayleigh couldn't help the feeling that it was her turn to be hated by the universe in general.

First, only a few days ago, she'd lost her Ishtar. Then on Sunday night the party at Daredevil's had been less than she had expected. Nakatre had not made it there after all and neither had anyone else from the Scuderia - except for Quin, of course, who was there more as part of the organisation PR. It had been nice meeting some new faces and seeing Takashi again after so long, but truth be told the event had felt more like a pre-season briefing than a party proper.

She'd left Sinq after that, hoping to spend some quality time with Nakatre out in Kador, exploring or just doing anything at all, really. But probing today had yielded absolutely nothing. They'd visited just short of twenty star systems; all they got was nothing, more nothing and a few Unknowns in which they were not interested anyway. By the time they did find an uncharted asteroid belt it was so far from base and so poor in quality that they'd left it there for others to find.

She'd pretty much run out of Multispectral probes and had nothing to show for it. What a waste. Except...

... Except she found she wasn't as annoyed and frustrated as she used to get around Ney. She missed flying with Nakatre and she'd barely noticed time go by in her company. They couldn't find what they wanted? So be it. They'd simply park themselves near some rocks and talk while the lasers worked. And later.. maybe later they could try that quaint little restaurant she'd walked past just the other day on station.

Overconfidence

2009-02-15T14:46:00.004Z

Don't die on me, Verdigris. Come on, warp, warp, warp!

Explosion.

"Warp Drive Active" - Aura's cool, mechanic voice.

Sonic boom.

This time, however, the shivering wouldn't stop so soon. She kept her eyes closed, shaken to her core. The jolt to her senses, the sting of a milisecond of feedback on her mind, told her all she needed to know without pulling up her instruments. She knew that when she opened her eyes she wouldn't find the Verdigris around her anymore.

Stupidity was never forgiving in space. Add overconfidence to that, and the results were universally disastrous. She had just proven that.

Somewhere in Ainaille she had butted heads with Caldari and Amarrian navies, infiltrated in Federation territory. Right now she couldn't even recall the particulars of the mission. Something about a secret slave complex?

Why couldn't she remember it? Was she really so selfish, so self-absorbed, so overconfident that she didn't even listen anymore? The agent had told her to go somewhere and she had. That's how it worked, day in, day out. See agent, board ship, warp somewhere, shoot the evil people who tried to kill you, save whatever innocents were left in the wrecks, hand in proof to agent, get reward, go back for the salvage and to make sure no stranded people were left to die a slow death in space.

Not this time.

She swore, hit by a wave of rage. She cried out her frustration, her pain, her anger - not at the little amarrian bastards who had webbed, jammed and shot her, but at herself for being so stupid, so blind, so... incompetent.

She wanted to go back to station, tell the agent she'd failed miserably and couldn't do this anymore. The Dragonstar guys were rallying forces, though. They managed to push through her wall of anger and frustration by coaxing and good-naturedly bullying her into staying in space, going back for the Sweet MacKenzie III, her salvage-fitted Catalyst hull.

By the time she got back to the site, it was all over. Feu and Gerrard had done her work for her, avenged her loss. It warmed her heart a little bit that they'd rally like that to her aid. It seemed the Dragonstar spirit was still alive.

With a heavy heart she approached the twisted mass of metal that had once been an Ishtar-class hull and started looking for survivors.

Alliance Tournament - Finals

2009-02-09T22:07:00.003Z

Ah well, Electus Matari got eliminated by Star Fraction on their very first elimination round, which was such a shame. It left me with no one to root for from then on.

However, EM put up a hell of a fight. Good to see some racers out there - hi Teo and KillJoy! - and even refusing to die *grin* That was the first time I heard the term 'Hero Tanking' and to me it'll always be associated with EM. Way to go, guys.

As for the rest, I was left without favourites so congratulations to Pandemic Legion for pulling some surprises out of the box when they really were needed. I'll still be there to watch whatever happens in the next Alliance tournament.

Happy

2009-02-05T20:22:00.003Z

I was with Nakatre last night, after being apart for so long. Our duties keep us apart so often!

Anyway, I'm happy.

Happy, happy.

A Narrow Escape

2009-02-05T15:51:00.004Z

It was the dead of night, at least according to the official New Eden time. Tired after a long day of work, Kayleigh finally made the last jump into the solar system that was her destination, following on coordinates she'd picked up just the night before from some drones that had escaped her fire.

While still cloaked at the gate she checked her intruments: all systems go, drone bays full and ready to deploy, coordinates loaded... She sighed and warped the Ishtar hull.

As soon as she came out of warp the adrenaline kicked in: she'd landed right in the middle of a swarm of little drones, which usually meant trouble, and they had bigger friends right beside them. Immediately she willed the ship to turn and burn toward an exit point; as it aligned she heard the lock alarm, and in the same second released a flight of drones.

The missiles hit her hard, nearly wiping all shields in the small ship on the first volley. She heard her own guns fire, having aquired target - funny, she didn't remember turning those on. The hum of her engines went down in pitch: webbed. Shitshitshit! Then a soft beep indicated one of them was jamming her warp drive. Oh, nonono!

With heart hammering in her chest, she overloaded everything: guns, engine, web, armour rep. She had to kill that jamming drone and do it now! Her armour was gone, then back one-third, then gone again and bleeding heavily into hull, then back one-quarter...

Come on, come on!! Kill the little bastard already! she willed at her drones, her wide grey eyes glued to the stargate dead ahead of her but oh so unattainable. Half hull. Stay with me Verdigris, don't you die on me, damn you. Thirty percent hull. She put all her willpower into getting the ship to warp, but kept getting again and again the error message. She shut her eyes and yelled within her mind, finally realising she was going to lose her beloved ship.

Explosion.

"Warp Drive Active" - Aura's cool, mechanic voice.

Sonic boom.

Shaking like a leaf she opened her eyes just in time to see the display go up to one-third armour. Everything else was very, very red. Unbelieving she looked up hull integrity. 8%. If anyone even sneezed, the Verdigris would disintegrate.

Not that there were probably many left to sneeze. At 8% structural integrity surely most of the inner compartments would have been exposed to space, to explosions... She wondered if she had any crew left at all. It had all happened so fast!

If her drones hadn't been tech 2, if her ammo hadn't been nicer than norm, if she hadn't overloaded so much that every single module was now showing damage in the reports she was getting, the Verdigris would be no more.