Once again I stand on the command deck of my ship and await the sirens song of the void, the clarion call of the Guristas, the call to battle. As I look over the command readouts I see the systems powering up one by one, each weapon system showing a full load of ammunition, the missiles waiting in their bays to track down the enemy.
I take my seat and issue my orders to the crew. Docking clamps are removed, sirens sound both aboard ship and in the docking bay. With what may a final farewell I look and I see Carmilla standing in the great bay window of Section 8, other members of TGA there watching. I sit back in the command throne and plug my neural network into the ship. In an instant my body changes from flesh and blood and sinew to the energy field caressed steel plating of a battlecruiser. I am no longer Angelina.... she is now a central component of a far greater being, a delicate wafer of flesh surrounded by other wafers of flesh in a pocket of air surrounded by plasteel and layer after layer of enery shielding....
I am now the drake known as 'Woman Scorned'. A delicate chill settles over me as I leave the dock, a thousand impulses fill my crystal synapses as sensors send out tendrils, searching, exploring, reporting. As I come out from behind the fifth planet the sun warms my hull. A sub-synapse feeds reports on ship status, another on the traffic in the system, another on the decoded frequencies of messages from friend and foe alike. With an undulating cry I throw myself foward, the au's flickering by as I approach unheard of speeds.....
With a flash I appear, decelerating from the darkness of space into the asteroid field. Thrusters fire to avoid a veldspar roid the size of a carrier... and to position me towards my prey. There! Forty klicks away.... two ships fight.... a Guristas and a Caldari.. cruiser class.. Moa. Momentary hesitation is thrown away as I kick my engines forward... my warp disruptor powering up... missile launchers uncovered.... targetting.... jammed... a slight jarring as a full broadside of navy missiles screams across the silent wastes of space..... a part of me opens and five drone also linked to me flame across the sky and begin a dance around the prey.... shields gone... armour gone... hull spared....
"We are the Guristas.... 5 million for your ship..... there will be no negotiation....."
Time passes, second in infinate slowness before the reply comes..... isk deposited. I reel myself back to the ship and release him from his doom. Before he can fully understand I am off, heading back into space.
As I sit in a distant place, orbitting a lost asteroid... I remember the times before. Back when I would have been the one in the moa. Back before the Guristas.... back before my Fall From Grace......
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