Wednesday 26 January 2011

Midnight on the Firing Line


Hello Great Wildlands! This is Rocking Ricky, bringing you another slice of audio heaven in stellarcast brodcasting across the region, into the next one and beyond! As ever we have music, news, hot gossip and all the sounds that you rave about. But lets start off with an oldie, this is Chromium Oxide Rifter with Shiny Love....


1st Instance...

Carmilla sat at her dresser deep in the Geisha House, head in her hands weeping. Before her on the top of the dresser there was a box that was opened, inside glinting in the light was her downfall. A chrome collar nestled in a silk wrap. Whisper sat beside her, her arm around her comforting her. At the door several other Geisha looked in, perplexed.

She wept, the chrome circle burning it's way into her mind. There because of what she did. Removing the emotion chip, bringing Ithiria back, she knew there would be consequences. But this? Before it was easy. The love, the lust, the feeling of belonging, the knowing. To serve someone so strong and place them above all others. A more pure love she had never known, so pure she had married her. Slave and wife.... Then just wife.

After all the she had done being discarded had been the ultimate failure. More scathing, more painful than anything Gallicia had done. Even the burn from the plasma torch when her collar had been removed by force was less painful. And yet, now, here with the collar before her, she found she couldn't put it on. Angelina was right, the last few words she said before they parted in anger, words that even Ithiria didn't know about had come true. So bitter that they echoed the words that Mizhara had said so long ago.

Never take that collar off, my dear sister, or allow it to be taken from you. For if you do when it is given back to you, you'll not want it. Freedom is a natural state, and we Minmatar are realising that it is our true birthright. Freedom has to be fought for. People are fighting for your freedom, just as people are fighting for my enslaving. One day you will realise why I must flee to the ends of the universe to escape my fate. One day, you will forgive me.

She was right. They were both right. And yet, they were both so wrong. And yet she looked at the collar and weeped for soon she would have to make the decision and either way, she was damned.


Of all the places I like to go and hangout and eat there are few I enjoy more than 'The Broken Piano'. You see people from every walk of life there, mostly friendly. Caldari navy sitting with slaves, Minmatar patriots rub shoulders with Khanid slavers. Sure, there are the occasional tussles, but mostly it's a relaxed place. The beer is cold, the food is hot and we are reliably informed there are no ladies of pleasure in the back rooms. A waste if you ask me. Lets spin some air with Murasama Lady and Neon Radiation Burn....

2nd Instance....

There was a sharp sound, of a blade being sharpened on a whetstone. The woman watched the security camera footage. It was a pirated feed and there was static. But she could hear every word. Snick. They were there, the man and his contact. Emotions were dulled by memory, but memory was tainted by desire and loathing and hatred. Snick. She listened to his words, as they spoke in the hotel room. Listened with fear and anger. Snick....

The blood dripped onto the table as she listened to the two of them arguing, the blade having cut a deep gouge into her hand. He had said it, what she had known to be true, but confirmation was required.

Placing the blade down she wrapped her hand in a bandage and looked at the picture, then pulled her terminal over and began tapping away. A stream of access denied came up on the screen as she tried various attempts to hack into the security system. Eventually she accessed what she was after and looked at the name. It was the same, the bounty hunter had returned and his contact had said two names. Two names that meant they both had to die. Gathering her things she handed them to her assistant and pulled out a grenade. As she left the room and stood at the door next to her room she pulled the pin and kicked in the door. The bounty hunter spun around and reached for a weapon as the contact looked at her and screamed and pointed.
"Its her! It's Marika Jobias, the reaper is back....."

The grenade landed in the middle of the room and exploded, throwing the bounty hunter and the contact back against the walls. Flames and smoke filled the room as Marika Jobias, also known as Doctor Kim Leannder, and known by few as a genocidal madwoman walked in and closed the remains of the door. Two shots in the forehead took care of the bounty hunter and then she looked at the contact, crawling along the floor, her entrails dragging behind her. Kim's assistant was busy covering the bounty hunter with fuel and setting alight to it while Kim stood on the contacts guts. She screamed and turned around.
"I wasn't going to tell him!" she screamed "I swear on the Empire!"
"But you did. You told him my name. You told him my husbands name. You gave him my daughters name!"
With every sentance she stamped on more of the guts eventually letting her foot rest on her neck. As the contact writhed in unbearble agony she lifted her foot and dug the stiletto heel into the base of her throat with a thrust. She watched the blood well over her boot and the eyes flicker and slowly die. So her assistant couldn't see she pulled a box from her pocket, placed it beside the head and pressed a button.
"I thought you were going to keep that one for your jars?"
"No, just burn them both. Then I'll burn their offices, their homes. I'll check on their closest friends and family. I may find a head there for a jar. Finish up here, I'll be next door cleaning up."

Kim Leannder walked into the next room, leaving bloody footprints where she walked and stripped off all her clothes, leaving them in a pile and changing into a tight fitting flight suit and strapped on a heavy backpack. Looking in the mirror she smiled and wiped some blood from her face as she heard the whoompf as the room next door exploded, the screams of her assistant loud as the box opened spraying a volatile chemical into the air, coating everything nearby and catching fire. She didn't see him running from the room in flames and over the barrier, falling over the edge and down the side of the hotel, but she heard his dwindling screams. Moments later she left the room and pulled out a small transmitter as she too leapt over the edge, triggering the explosion that tore apart the hotels foundations, letting the whole structure shake and moan and then finally crumble into what would be coined a terrorist attack. The parasail opened from her backpack and she flew over the city for a while, occasionally turning to see the pyre of flames that was the hotel.

She laughed into the night as she spiralled downwards, another who dared to tell people who she was dead, and hundreds with them. One never stops being a monster to protect the ones you love.


So once again the Goons are taking the attack to the land of the IT. Whole fleets of ships and capsuleers are heading down to a fight that could spill out for regions on all sides. Well, we've seen this before, we've seen how it ends. As the old saying goes, war is hell. I can remember when the Goons were just a bunch of low tech wannabes who literally flew a cloud of rifters. Now they have titans and super carriers. One can't help wonder if they have grown up as they have gotten older, either way the war is a long way from here so lets hear the sounds of Noctollis Billy and the Salvage Queens, I'm going to tear out your reactor core.....


3rd Instance....

Angelina Ballentyne woke to darkness. She remembered the recent events, helping the cruise liner escape, her ship being destroyed and being dragged into the bay of the Nightmare. Once again it seemed she was in the hands of people who wanted her for some reason. Feeling down her body she was naked, the floor was metal, as were the walls when she found them. Through her stumbling around in the dark she found a bunk on one wall, a thin mattress and a pillow.

If they want me, she mused, they can wake me. Lying down on the bunk she looked up into the darkness. Why does this always happen to me? Is this time to change my lifestyle? Was saving that cruise liner the force I needed to do what is right? She drifted off to sleep.

"She did what?"
"She went to sleep. Took a few moments to find the bunk, then she laid down... and went to sleep."
"I thought I told you I wanted her kept awake and offbalance."
"You did sir, but I had higher orders. When she found out that we had her here, she told us what she wanted done."
The adjutant handed over a datapad and saluted. The Captain of the Nightmare looked at it, then over at the optic on the wall that was a link to the pod that ran the ship. The capsuleer was watching, godlike from her pod. He read the instructions again, and saluted the optic.
"Post extra guards outside the quarters and I want that corridor locked down. And get us back into the wormhole. Take us back to the barn."

In her sleep Angelina dreamt of the old days, of piracy and fire and death. It was an unsettled dream. In the pod in the centre of the ship, the capsuleer watched the pirate sleep. So strange to see her here. Life, she mused, was so unexpected at times.


And so that wraps up another evening of musical delight from Rocking Ricky as the old chrono ticks aroudn to midnight. As you fly off into the blackness of space, and dance through the nebula remember this. Life is fleeting and no matter what you are flying you will loose it one day. Everything dies, but the music lives on. This is Rocking Ricky signing off as I head over to grab my battleship and join my corp members on the firing line and safeguard our territory, remember if you see me in space, dont' shoot. The music may never die, but I sure can!

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