"Please be seated, I'm going to take some readings from you. If you check out we can initiate the final step of the Capsuleer process."
I sat on the cold bench, my nerves getting to me. The training regime was supposed to make me hard and stoic, but I knew what the final step was, and with it so near I was beginning to have second thoughts.
"Oh my, you're quite nervous. This should take the edge off dear." I heard a hiss and felt a slight prick of pain as a medical multipen did it's job and flooded my system with nanomachines that neutralized the hormones that were sending me into alarm.
"Thank you."
"Oh so polite," She smiled at me. "Most state funded capsuleers are so callous." I smiled back.
"I'm not state funded. Ishukone Corporation is funding me,"
"Oh, I see that now!" She peered at medical tablet. " I didn't realize you were with one of the big eight."
"That I am, they want me to explore regions showing unusual phenomenon. Wormholes and such."
"How exciting. I wish you the best, but before you can get out there we gotta get you through this. Your scan are giving me the green light."
I gulped, perhaps there was no more adrenaline in my system but I was still dreading what was to come.
"No Capsuleer needs to fear death." I said, the nurse just smiled at me with a glint of sadness in her eyes.
I laid myself onto the table, and the nurse walked over and turned on the burning neural scanner. I felt it looming above my forehead, two circles of light seemingly burning into my skull, it had not even begun. I looked to my left and saw the nurse loading lethal neurotoxins and a paralytic into the injector.
"Lie straight, I'm going to initiate the sequence now." I did as I was told and I felt the line the neurotoxins and paralytic were going to come through link up to my neural interface port on the back of my neck, and then the paralytic was sent in. It washed over my instantly and the machine sprang to life and secured my head into place. The burning scanner primed and read was the last thing I saw. If I felt something I do not remember, the neurotoxin washed over me killing me instantly and the scanner acted in the moment of my death, destroying my brain as it gathered every last piece of each memory that was mine. It sent that information to a neural constructor which began imprint the information onto the blank slate of a brain contained in the clone that was but only two feet behind my now dead body. It's eyes jumped open. My eyes jumped open and the clone vat hissed as the hermetic seal was broken.
I took a wobbly step forward.
"Congratulations, Capsuleer, welcome to the first day of your new life." An agent clapped as she strode over to me. "Let's get you in your pod."
Iena Tano escorted my to my quarters, which were directly linked to my docking bay. We were in a orbital station anchored on a moon in the system Baviasi. Iena Tano was both my new agent, and my recruiting officer. She sponsored me and it was because of her I became part of an elite few.
"Get dressed and then we can see about your ship." she indicated towards the dressing room, I was still in scrubs.
I walked into the room and the lights turned on, I hopped into some clothes and looked in the mirror at myself. What I saw was no different than what I saw every morning, besides a few less scars, but I knew it was not the same. It was surreal.
"Jeez do all new capsuleers have to stare at their reflection?" Iena startled me.
"Have you ever died and woken up again?"
"Can't say that I have."
"I just did."
"Yep, now move on, you got a job to do. I got a ship lined up for you in the bay, let's go fit it for your mission."
"What is my mission?"
"A wormhole on the edge of a nearby system was discovered to lead to a system with some rather unusual properties. It's too risky to send a regular crew in, if the wormhole shuts they'll be trapped in, you on the other hand can just self destruct your pod."
I frowned, just cause I'll be reborn doesn't mean I revel in dying.
"Alright, so where's my ship."
"Over here." She lead me to the loading bay, where my pod was hitched up, ready to receive me and a few ships floated, held in place by gravitation distortion.
"That one there, standard issue Heron, not much in the way of offense but we'll fit it with a cloak. The big thing is the scanner; there's a launcher being loaded onto it now and you've got an assortment of probes. We need you to pinpoint the origin of the unusual radiation and do some telemetry scans. Once you have the information all scanned just upload it into your neocom and fly back."
"Into my what?"
"Oh right, you need a neocom." She walked over to a computer panel and clicked a few buttons. One retina scan later there was a sound nearby and a automated delivery cart came rolling in with a small device on the platter. She picked it up and walked over to me.
"This goes right here." She stepped behind me and I felt her thrust the device into my neural interface port. I gagged, the sudden stimuli was off putting. Lights jumped up in front of my face a whole HUD loaded up right before my eyes, but it was all generated by information injected right into my neural pathways. I blinked as if there was something in my eye, shaking my head, trying to rid myself of the odd feeling, but soon it faded.
"When you think, it responds. Think of it as a computer attached to your head." She smirked, "It's even got a petabyte of storage and a faster than light communication uplink. Watch this;" And she began to belt out some rapid Amarrian. At first I couldn't understand her, and then on the overview I saw the words 'language: Amarrian, translating', and within seconds I could understand her.
"few seconds to kick in but you should be able to understand me soon." And when recognition flitted across my face she stopped and reverted back to caldarian. "The perks of being a Capsuleer. Now lets get you in your pod and on your way."
She lead me over to the small set of stairs that led to the pod's chair. The pod was more than a small ship that I could link into and control other ships with. It was a neural interface suite. Once I sat in that chair and jacked in I would lose a sense of myself, the pod and any ship it links to would become my new body. Commands are executed on the level of thought. Everything regulated by my mind, and my mind was augmented beyond that of a normal beings.
"Here are some skill 'books' to chew on while you're out there. Some basic combat, I suggest missiles personally, and some here will help with your scanning, seeing as you only have some basic civilian equipment, it's best to get you hooked up with better gear soon." She handed me a bunch of multipens. "You know the drill, those go right into the neural link up on the back of your head. Basic comprehension should take around 15 minutes. It varies from Capsuleer to Capsuleer, but once you show proficiency you'll be authorized to fit certain modules to your ship, but without the meta data and drivers you won't be able to operate them and they'll interfere with the stability of your ships capacitor. Inject those and hop into the pod."
I did as I was told, one by one I pressed each multipen to the port on the back of my head and was struck by the curious sensation of raw data entering my brain, slowly being deciphered. When I tried to think upon the skills I was now learning I received such strange sensations that I could not think right, I took my mind off of it all but there were whispers in those areas, small bits of decoded information making its way to the surface.
"Remember you just injected the raw data in, you gotta set yourself to decode that information before it will get broken down. Unfortunately it's not instantaneous, everyone's mind is different and like a computer your I/O system is a bit different so a special program has to run, decode, and package the information in a way your mind can understand. Once the decoding is complete the information will come to surface, and your mind will adopt the included driver so you can interface with the appropriate modules on a neural level. Spaceship command and frigate skills as well as basic science understanding, engineering and electronic information has already been decoded for you and added to your first neural transplant. If you think about it you should realize that you know more about that frigate than you think."
And so I did think about it, the information that came forward was staggering.
"Now get in the pod. You're wasting corporation time. I'll upload everything you need to know once you're in space."
"Ok, ok." I sat into the chair. A buzzer sounded and yellow lights flashed and the chair slid back and the neural links began to link up to me.
"Fly safe." She saluted me, and the pod's door closed.
I was enveloped in darkness. There were no sounds, no feelings. I began to get a little nervous but then my hud flashed and everything lit up, but I wasn't looking out of my eyes. I was looking through a camera mounted on the front of the pod. I willed it to move as if it were my own eyes and it did. It swiveled about giving me a fish eyed view of the bay, I could see Iena's back as she passed through the door leading to the halls.
"Uhh," My mind raced, what do I do from here? "Un-undock" I 'said' aloud. No sound was produced but it seemed as if I were talking. [UNDOCK?] appeared in flashing letters on my HUD. "Yes" I commanded. [RECEIVING SHIP?] flashed in my view. "The Heron". Suddenly I heard a voice.
"Just hold on a sec and we'll tow you to the launch bay." I was startled I could hear someone in my head, and then my pod began to move. A hatch on the Heron opened up and the pod floated in and it was dark again.
[CONNECTING TO EXTERNAL CAMERA] flashed on the HUD and once again I had 'eyes'. This time they were the heron's.
"Here we are, you're being towed out now, prepare for launch." My view lurched, I swiveled the camera until I could see a small ship dragging me along. "Fly safe, undocking officer out."
"Roger." I said aloud, unsure if he could hear me. I assume he could because I could hear a slight chuckle.
Then things began to accelerate. The little ship was lining me up onto a launcher that would send me out into open space.
[UNDOCK IN 3... 2... 1...]
[CAMERA DRONE ONLINE] I couldn't help but gasp. I was now looking down on my ship from above. I brought forward information about camera drones and learned that they launched after undocking and followed the ship and could move at my command and look anywhere I wanted it to. I saw another ship eclipse my view and looked at it. Suddenly the camera drone moved and positioned itself above the ship, I could make the camera move like I could the other cameras, but it wasn't fixed.
I concentrated on my ship again and my Heron was brought back into view. I wondered where I could go and then a list sprang up in my view.
[ASTEROID BELTS]
[PLANETS]
[STATION]
[STARGATES]
'Planets' I thought and the list expanded. I chose the first on the list.
[WARP DRIVE ACTIVE] Everything shook as the drive came online. A power supply indicator, my capacitor, reflected a small drain on resources and a meter per second meter began to reflect my speed. Slowly my speed ticked up and then it began to go up at an exponential rate. A warp bubble formed around me and I was flung through space at a speed that would distance the earth and the sun six times per second. (Or so I was told. I've never seen Earth, but I knew what an AU was based off of.)
I landed and was given the breathtaking view of a terrestrial planet from orbit. I just gazed out at it, unsure of how I got to where I was in life. This was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.
The ship responded like it was my own legs. The thrusters came online and pushed me wherever I wanted to go.
[MAIL RECEIVED] flashed on my HUD and with a thought a window opened up to the awaiting email. I read it over, inside were instructions from Iena. I took note of the location and suddenly a row of dots flickered onto my HUD, each one represented a step in my route to my destination. I concentrated on the first step and the warp drive came to life, once more I was aligning to some distant place, somewheres that would take years to reach at speeds such as 100 miles per second and I was going to be there in a couple of seconds.
I came out of warp near one of the New Eden stargates. These giant gates worked like warp drives. They concentrated a burst of energy that flings you across space, but it was instantaneous and the distances were much larger. I lined my ship up inside of its launching hub and commanded the jump to commence, and in a blink of an eye (which I didn't have to actually do anymore) I was so far away from where I just was my mind could not fathom the distance. I powered up my thrusts and continued this pattern of warping to and jumping through the stargates a few more times until I was in the solar system I needed to be in.
I referred to the email once again, there were apparently a few pilots sitting on the wormhole, keeping it open. I engaged warp and flew to them.
[COMMS REQUEST;
ISHUKONE FLEET COMMANDER, ACCEPT?]
I thought yes and was met with a new voice in my mind.
"You're the Capsuleer Iena sent to go do this little exploration project right?"
"That's me." I replied simply.
"Right well get in there, we managed to stabilize the hole you got maybe 72 hours so get it done and get out."
"Roger that, Patience out" I cut off the communications and flew into the wormhole. It was curious to fly through. It was like a tunnel that lead somewheres far away, and no matter what angle you looked at it from you always saw the entrance,and once you flew through it you were in this new place, the old place now on the other side of the tunnel.
