Ruins
In space, it’s always night time, despite the nebulae that set the sky on fire. In the dark little corners of the Metropolis slums, some constellations just don’t see as much traffic as one might expect. Occasionally, a gang of thugs moves through, looking for honest pilots to assault. Or Local will show a small squadron of militia looking for complexes in the shifting tides of war. Even the occasional solo hauler flies through, trying to get through the dangerous rookery as quickly as possible on her way to taking care of business.
So when I spent some time looking for more data centers, I didn’t hesitate to dodge through some of the more dangerous crossroad systems and head right to where I could find the sort of action I wanted. After all, the Angel Cartel swarms all through Republic space. They inhabit the little deadspace crevices where the Fleet doesn’t look. Actually, I have an arrangement with some groups inside the Cartel, but that only goes so far. When I fly out to Curse, I play by their rules, but on my turf, anything can happen.
But a cosmic signature appeared in Arnstur, one that didn’t fit any of the “standard” templates for Cartel facilities. I spent a bit of time with my Cheetah cloaked up in a nice little intermediate safe, and it didn’t take long before the system just reported back “ruins“. I noted the exact location in my navigational systems and flew back to a nearby station where I’d stashed Asymptotic Security, a decent Drake battlecruiser that had served me well.
The crew moved my pod over to Asymptotic quickly. After a quick preflight check of all core systems and fitting, we undocked and headed back. A Hurricane on the Todifrauan gate in Evati didn’t bother us any, nor even hail us on local comms, so we pressed on. Once there, we warped quickly to the deadspace pocket and found an ancient Amarrian station, almost certainly pre-Rebellion.
Vented gas surrounded the site and debris floated nearby. I immediately noticed that we had company in the pocket, though: rogue drones swarmed everywhere, ranging from tiny frigate-sized creatures to behemoths that had captured and infested Dominix-class battleships.
Threat management systems didn’t detect any sort of sentience at all among this hive, so when they engaged us, I turned on the hardeners and set to work with my Scourge heavy missiles for the larger enemies and a flight of Hobgoblin II light drones for the smaller ones. At the same time, though, the local open communications channel would occasionally show the presence of other pilots coming through. I kept a close eye on the directional scanner, and when one of the other podders finally deployed some combat probes and got within 4 AU, I recalled my own drones and warped out. At the time, only my hunter and I showed up on Local, so I couldn’t have any doubts as to his quarry (not that I would have stuck around much longer to find out). This breather gave me the chance to go fetch the Cheetah back, and when I got back into Arnstur, I noticed he had a corpmate in system. The corpmate disappeared a few moments later and my hunter returned. Cat-and-mouse games only entertain me for a short bit, so after a few minutes I headed back to Helgatild where I’d left my crew and the battlecruiser.
The Republic Fleet stationmaster feigned an obsequious sort of politeness, but his charade didn’t really matter. As far as I care, the Fleet can go hang, for all that they’ve done (or not done, truth be told) over the last several years. Even after the Elder War, I don’t believe for a moment that the corruptive poison has left the Republic, and the Fleet represents some of the worst of it. So after a bit to recheck everything and attend to a few minor business matters, we launched back out and headed into Arnstur. No other podders showed up, so we finished off what remained of the drones.
One wrecked part of the station drew particular attention. My systems detected light activity inside. I couldn’t tell whether the drones had a hive inside, or whether some sort of devolved human society inhabited it, or something else entirely.
After pondering this for a few minutes (and salvaging what remained of the twisted wreckage from the drones themselves), I decided to obliterate this active section and let whatever souls might have breathed their last in this ancient graveyard rest.
