My Name

It was a slow week. I had been out of the Republic Military School's training course for 5 weeks now, or was it 6? I had lost count as one day melted into the next. One of the first things they encouraged us...no, forced us to do, was to take an oath to protect the Republic from Pirates...scum. They told us we could be the next generation of space heroes, figures to inspire a nationality, a universe. We gladly took the oath. But after weeks of hunting Angel Cartel thugs with barely a few million to show for it things weren't seaming so glorious. Were was my recognition, no one knew my name, no one knew my hopes, no one knew my dreams, would anyone remember me after I die? This thought haunted me while I drifted in and out of sleep on my bunk bed in the pilots barracks. In the shadows the gray walls seamed to continue to eternity.

“Target locked, all pilots copy when ready to fire.”
“Red 1 copy.”
“Red 2 copy.”
...
“Red 3 do you copy?!” boomed the wing commanders voice.
“Red 3 copy.”
“Fire!”
The warm red glow on my face momentarily removes the thought of gray walls from my mind.
“I'm going to check Moon 4 asteroid belt 1 for Pirates” I inform the others.
“Roger, open comms if you find anyone.”
I enter the co-ordinates of the asteroid belt and start the warp drive. The asteroid belt is empty, scanning through these empty belts is my life, gray walls closing in. One last check of the overview to make sure the gang isn't here before punching in the co-ordinates of the warp gate to the neighbouring solar system where even CONCORD refuses to go. I pause, is this what I want, wouldn't it be safer to stay here in safety to live long...to let my name die with me.

This isn't so bad, it looks just like my old system. I open the scanner and see two other pilots in the system, the one furthest away, near a warp gate is wanted by CONCORD, with the push of a button I have readied the engines and I can feel the ship moving under me, aligning for the flight...ABORT. The ship stops. I have a look at the frigate closer to me again, they aren't wanted, their name isn't known. I feel my pulse rise as my Rifter screams towards them going several light years per second. I leave warp and find myself close enough to a Tormentor that I can smell his fear, that's when I realise that he's just a civilian...easy meat. I lock his ship and entangle him with my webifier and warp scrambler. Just as my guns charge my overview starts flashing at me, a Sabre (t2 Minmatar industrial) warps in and directs it's self right at me. Immediately the webifier and scrambler are disengaged and I warp to the nearest planet, in this moment of primeval fear I forgot my life, my problems, the ship I had trapped warps away in the opposite direction but the Sabre chases me, I can feel the sweat creeping down my brow, it catches me in the planet getting it's scrambler on me before I can warp away, I'm trapped. I energise the weapons but my hull is torn through in a matter of seconds. A bright red flash fills the blackness of space, then there is nothing. My pod is still here. Why? I rapidly warp away from the sabre into high security space and set the autopilot for home.

The journey seams to be stretching into eternity, I float all alone, staring at the gray walls of my pod, and wonder, if I had died today would anyone have known? Would anyone have cared?


[b]Note:[/b] Based on my first PvP experiance, I had the Tormentor targeted and an interdictor did enter the system and chase me, however being the newb I was (and still am?) I didn't think of warping to the gates in a 0.1 sec system, I just went from planet to planet with him chasing me. I convo'd him afterwards and his ship was worth 200mil against the 1-1.5mil of my Rifter, his killmail that he sent me said something along the lines of “Your 425mm gattling cannon II wrecks Demtalin le'Mercennaire for 385.2 damage” That was my first PvP fight and his first kill in his new ship.

Cleared for publication by: Ander