Fast Fiction #2 "Blind Jump"

YC 17.09.112
0010 Hours     

     Hianmar sat on the Jump bridge, prepared to jump in to the next system on his route, waiting for the "all clear" from the those who were already in system.  He pinged the intel channel.
     "MT9Q-S Status?"
     No response.  This had him worried.  He pinged it again.
     "MT9Q-S Status? Anyone?"
     Again, no response.  Was the system so dead or uninhabited that no one would respond to a simple request for whether or not it was safe to jump in?  He entered the command to approach the jump bridge, and the engines in his Drake, a battle-cruiser class vessel, rumbled to life.  As he approached, he checked intel one last time.
     "MT9Q-S Status?"
     Still no response.
     "Stupid intel" Hianmar grumbled and accessed the jump bridges navigation network.  "Here we go" he thought, while simultaneously entering the password and confirming that he wished to jump.  The jump bridge cast an isolated wormhole that would send him who knows how many light years away and his sensors went dark.  The next thing he knew, before he could even relaunch his camera drone, he was bombarded by five or six different notifications at once.
     "*********** has started trying to warp scramble you","******* has started trying to warp scramble you", and so on.  As his camera drone finally made it out of the launch bay, he saw five or six stealth bombers, all with points on him, and a few recons and an interdictor.  It was the fact that they were all hostile that got his attention.
     "Oh fuck"  Cursed Hianmar.  He quickly located the POS and turned his ship in its direction, activated the micro-warp drive, and entered the force field password.   As this was going on, his overview and point defence systems were screaming at him.  He checked, and noticed that there were five or six bombs about to hit him head on.
     He watched as the bombs hit him, and noticed they were doing a lot more damage than they should have.  His shields absorbed the blow well, but he still dropped to 80% capacity.  Checking his systems, he noticed that his shield hardeners, which make up about half of his defense, along with his damage control unit were lying dormant.  He quickly turned them on with the amount of thought it takes to move a finger.
     It had now been about 10 seconds, but it had seemed more like 5 minutes.  Another wave of bombs was incoming, and having seen that their initial volley hadn't worked, they started to fire torpedoes in Hianmar's direction.  With 15km still to go, at 1.2km/s, it was going to be close.  If they breached his shield, his drake would crumple like paper, as they are notorious for.  Whether he was going to make it or not, he needed to warn others in the intel so they wouldn't make the same mistake.
     "MT9Q-S IS HOT! DO NOT JUMP IN, STEALTH BOMBERS ON JB's. 10 REDS IN LOCAL.  REPEAT, DO NOT JUMP!"
     As he continued on towards the POS, he realized he might actually make it.  Though he was taking damage, and his low shield warning was blaring in his ears, his ship was still around 30% shields, and he had only another 5km to go.  Though he was being bombarded by bombs and torpedoes and peppered with artillery fire, at the rate of damage he could easily make that last sprint.
    With one final push, he overheated his micro-warp drive.  Hoping to beat the last wave of bombs headed towards him.  As he entered the safety of the POS's shields, he decided to run a damage diagnostic of his ship.  Despite taking numerous torpedo and bomb hits, his ship had managed to come out of it without a scratch.  Well, minus the fact that he had only 13% shields left.
    Doing a quick sweep of the surroundings, the bombers had left his scanners completely, either cloaked up or had warped off, he noticed the 7 wrecks littered around the jump bridge along with numerous corpses.  2 Elite Frigates, 1 Elite Destroyer, 1 Frigate and 2 Elite Cruisers and 1 Battlecruiser wreck.  Hianmar quickly lost his feeling of confidence at having survived that camp was replaced with his relief at not ending up as another corpse or wreck out in the freezing cold.

Sometimes you get lucky.

Fast Fiction #1 "Easy Money"

YC 15.09.112 
2000 Hours 

Hianmar sat at his desk, surveying the space visible through the large glass window in the observation deck of his private quarters.  He never could get over the sheer vastness of the world outside, even though he had been a capsuleer for well over a year now.  Most people expected you to get used to it, the feeling of immense freedom as you piloted several tons of metal with the capability to destroy cities through the immeasurable nothing.  Hianmar simply couldn't, and he didn't want to either.  He loved that feeling of wonder as he undocks from a station, where you look around 360 degrees to make sure it is safe, but also marveling at the sheer size of you home, the station.  He would have gone on in his reverie for a few more minutes, had his terminal on his desk lit up and displayed a notification:

New ISCC Message
Transmission Type: Mail
From: Toobindicular Guy, Member of Deep Core Mining
To: Hianmar, Member of Therapy. Corporation in the Alliance Wildly Inappropriate.
Subject: Spot of Trouble

Hianmar sighed, and decided to see what his old mate had gotten himself into this time.  He and Toobs hadn't really spoken in a while, due to the fact that Toob's was grounded planet side because of his recent undertaking of advanced studies.  Because of this, he didn't have the time to fly too often, and when he did it was only to remind himself of how to fly.

So it was a surprise to Hianmar to discover that not only had his old buddy come back to the reaches of space for more than a joy ride, but he had also left his previous corporotion.  So it was with a sense of of apprehension that he opened the mail:

/Start Msg./
Hian,

I am in a spot of trouble, due to some of my recent actions.  Put it this way, I've angered the top brass in my last corp and now they are looking to send me to hell in a handbag should I set foot out of the station.  Sure I could take them, but it would be so much easier if I jump cloned out and if you gave my stuff a lift.  So I need you to move my assets to somewhere where I can eventually get into the action, hopefully somewhere near you.

Now your probably asking, where and what is in it for you?  Well, some staging system for whatever corp your in, or somewhere in low sec where I can lay low for a while.  As for reward, I can get you a good amount of cash, upwards of 100 million ISK for this.

Only question left now is are you in?

Toobs

/End Msg./

"What has he done now?" Hianmar wondered to himself.  But then he realized it didn't matter.  He'd washed his hands of the bounty hunting and mission running life of the high security pilot.  He was now in the war and fighting profession and shooting his fellow capsuleer was so much more rewarding than taking down the pathetic and stupid pirate scum of Empire.  And besides, he didn't want to get involved in whatever mess Toob's had caused and even though he'd been a capsuleer for about the same time as Hian, he was often spooked too easily.

/New Msg./
Toobs,

All right, I'm in.

Hian

/End Msg./


It was too easy, like taking candy from a baby.  54 Jumps for more than 100 mil?  Toob's must be really worried, but Hianmar sure wasn't.  He got up and exited his quarters, heading in the direction of the Jump Cloning facilities.

As he stepped in, he thought to himself: "Easy Money".  If he could only make this kind of money more often.