Awakenings
He awoke screaming.
With a hydraulic hiss the steel and glass sarcophagus opened, the last of the remaining fluid gurgling into drainage holes. Weak and disoriented, he fell to his hands and knees and dry heaved, sucking sterile air into his infant lungs.
The spell passed and he stood on new legs, teetering slightly as he found his balance, and surveyed his surroundings. The room was sparse and clinical, a multitude of identical cylinders lining the walls and filled with a viscous fluid that obscured the humanoid forms within. They were all eerily similar in their androgyny, flawless skin, hairless, and apparently lifeless.
A metallic, emotionless voice rang out through hidden speakers.
“Captain Saul Moreau. Report to hangar seventeen for deployment.”
A name. His name? It was familiar. Captain? He shook his head as if to shake loose the cobwebs within.
Hitherto unnoticed doors slid open and a military aide entered with a loosely folded bundle. The aide handed it over and left without a word.
The captain glanced down at the bundle, noting the green of Gallente navy fatigues. The word ‘Moreau’ was stitched on the chest.
He pulled on the fatigues and light boots, his memory returning with each passing moment, each fact and scene falling into place like so many drops of water slowly filling a pool. He recalled ships the size of cities reflecting the cold light from a blue sun, recalled sparking, flaming wreckage beginning their endless, spinning cosmic journey.
He recalled…
Dying.
“Captain Saul Moreau. Report to hangar seventeen for deployment.”
Startled at the repeated instruction, his reverie interrupted, he made his way to hangar seventeen.
A Taranis class interceptor was awaiting his arrival and silent techs readied his body for capsule insertion; a melding of man and machine, interface cables slotting into his flesh with disturbing ease and familiarity.
Now within the pod, the tranquillity of sensory deprivation belied the violence it represented. The captain’s body was suspended and inert; his eyes unseeing, his ears unhearing, his skin unfeeling, his voice silenced. Instead, his eyes were his ship’s cameras, his ears its sensors, his skin its hull, his voice the roar of its weapons.
With a thought, the ship blazed out of the hangar bay into the void of the Border Zone and was pulled into an intangible tunnel as its warp drive engaged.
Light years away the battle was recorded in real-time digital archives. Thousands of lives reduced to numbered entries categorised for easy consumption. The inexorable number crunching tapped out a macabre rhythm, hard drives whirring and screens flashing as ship names and their crew flashed briefly red to record a loss.
Within the multitude blipped an insignificant entry, low priority.
ISK loss minimal.
Battle impact negligible.
Pilot expendable.
MOREAU.S. > Cpt. > TARANIS
He awoke screaming…
-Nogusha.
With a hydraulic hiss the steel and glass sarcophagus opened, the last of the remaining fluid gurgling into drainage holes. Weak and disoriented, he fell to his hands and knees and dry heaved, sucking sterile air into his infant lungs.
The spell passed and he stood on new legs, teetering slightly as he found his balance, and surveyed his surroundings. The room was sparse and clinical, a multitude of identical cylinders lining the walls and filled with a viscous fluid that obscured the humanoid forms within. They were all eerily similar in their androgyny, flawless skin, hairless, and apparently lifeless.
A metallic, emotionless voice rang out through hidden speakers.
“Captain Saul Moreau. Report to hangar seventeen for deployment.”
A name. His name? It was familiar. Captain? He shook his head as if to shake loose the cobwebs within.
Hitherto unnoticed doors slid open and a military aide entered with a loosely folded bundle. The aide handed it over and left without a word.
The captain glanced down at the bundle, noting the green of Gallente navy fatigues. The word ‘Moreau’ was stitched on the chest.
He pulled on the fatigues and light boots, his memory returning with each passing moment, each fact and scene falling into place like so many drops of water slowly filling a pool. He recalled ships the size of cities reflecting the cold light from a blue sun, recalled sparking, flaming wreckage beginning their endless, spinning cosmic journey.
He recalled…
Dying.
“Captain Saul Moreau. Report to hangar seventeen for deployment.”
Startled at the repeated instruction, his reverie interrupted, he made his way to hangar seventeen.
A Taranis class interceptor was awaiting his arrival and silent techs readied his body for capsule insertion; a melding of man and machine, interface cables slotting into his flesh with disturbing ease and familiarity.
Now within the pod, the tranquillity of sensory deprivation belied the violence it represented. The captain’s body was suspended and inert; his eyes unseeing, his ears unhearing, his skin unfeeling, his voice silenced. Instead, his eyes were his ship’s cameras, his ears its sensors, his skin its hull, his voice the roar of its weapons.
With a thought, the ship blazed out of the hangar bay into the void of the Border Zone and was pulled into an intangible tunnel as its warp drive engaged.
Light years away the battle was recorded in real-time digital archives. Thousands of lives reduced to numbered entries categorised for easy consumption. The inexorable number crunching tapped out a macabre rhythm, hard drives whirring and screens flashing as ship names and their crew flashed briefly red to record a loss.
Within the multitude blipped an insignificant entry, low priority.
ISK loss minimal.
Battle impact negligible.
Pilot expendable.
MOREAU.S. > Cpt. > TARANIS
He awoke screaming…
-Nogusha.
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