He was getting tired of living in this wretched universe. He had seen too much, done too much that could never be forgotten. When he landed on Aramea, he was looking for a job to pay for servicing Crimson Skies, his hurricane. Then he was going to venture out into the lawless outer reaches of this constellation and hopefully be destroyed taking as many of those bastard pirates with him as he could.

But life has its twists and turns that can change futures in only a few seconds. Such was his encounter with Saeroth Syrkos, a local nobleman who was looking for a guarded escort for his daughter, Loreena Syrkos. Her studies required her to survey the asteroid belt around Aramea, and her dear father would not let her go there unguarded.

Aeon really was the best man for the job, having not only the fighting experience to keep her safe, but also the astrosurveying equipment required for the job – his real passion being deep core mining. It was to be a nice mission for once – dangerless, good pay, no jumping and with a rather beautiful young lady. It all went completely wrong, of course.

The survey was going along just fine, and Aeon rather enjoyed Loreena’s company. She was smart, and passionate about everything she did. It was a strange reading from the gravitational sensor banks that told him that something was amiss: Aramea’s gravitational pull suddenly spiked, enough to crush anyone living there to pulp right where they stood. Aeon is not the kind of man to just stand idly by and wait what happens – he immediately activated his emergency warp routine that safely warped them out to a pre-selected stargate.

From there, they were able to witness one of the most improbable events in the known universe: a wormhole appearing at the core of a planet, ripping it apart and projecting the remaining pieces into the unknown. Such a cataclysm it was that they had to jump out of system before the aftermath of that encounter destroyed everything else in-system. The ensuing collapse of the wormhole, overloaded by the mass of the planet, was visible even from their location two systems out.

His instincts had saved him, unwillingly robbing him of this golden opportunity to rid himself of this life in a classier way than going down all guns blazing against a bunch of pirate thugs. He knew why however – his passenger did have a say in this, even though she might have wished she died along with all the others. At least she looked like it when he explained the situation. Then the strangest of things happened, he realized this could give him a new purpose, to take care of this lost child – or at least, make sure he kept his promise to her dead father,

He thought about it for a while, and offered to take her to Ammold with him, and help her in any way he could. To his surprise, she agreed without any discussion and he turned back to Ammold, with the faintest of smiles on his lips for what seemed like the first time in a very long time.

In the next few years, Loreena grew very fast and learned even faster. She amazed him every day, and she had filled his life with such new hope that he was transformed. She even became a pod pilot and now works together with him for their joint venture, the Syrkos Technologies corporation. His demons were still there, but they did not scare him anymore. He was at peace.

What the future holds, is yet to be written.

She loved the feeling of walking in a haze after a sleepless night. It was not something that she could do too often, but over the years it had become a sort of monthly ritual. Where many relied on drugs, she found that a little sleep deprivation provided a much more healthy kick. When the sister she lost six years ago suddenly looked back at her from the wall screen in her living room, she stared at the screen in pure disbelief. She tried blinking and looking away and back, but she was definitely no hallucination.

Her own survival had been a great fuel for her shame, since her reasons to be out of the Aramea system when the wormhole appeared were of a frivolous nature. To be exact, she had slipped through her parent’s net to be with a boy. To her dismay, she did not even recall his name anymore. She had spent the last few years trying to erase everything that had happened from memory, and to some success. By some weird happenstance, Loreena had survived against all odds – and now threatened to bring down all her carefully erected protection barriers. And yet, seeing her sister alive filled her with such a profound relief that it did not matter that much. Still, the main question was if she should make contact at all. Would her own life be better if she did? She knew she was a selfish bitch, but she liked herself just the way she was. Loreena had always been the more sensible one, and she was certain they would quickly resume their usual fights about how ill-behaved she was. No, this changed nothing. She would just ignore her as she did her past.

Three months later, she had to face the fact that she had to call Loreena. The knowledge that her family had not in fact been wiped out entirely had changed her in a number of subtle ways, to the point where she was not able to enjoy her frivolous activities anymore. Loreena’s face haunted her like a tattoo she could not remove. It enraged and frustrated her. She damned her sister to hell for doing this to her, but there was no way around it. So it was that laden with anger, frustration and grief she jumped into her ship and made her way to Gamis. She had made an appointment with Loreena under a false name – she wanted to shock her as much as she had been shocked. When she entered the Anthean museum, she was strangely humbled by all the work they had done so far. She averted her eyes from all these things trying to yank her back into her past and made her way to Loreena’s office.

When they saw each other, no words were spoken. Loreena looked haggard, but when saw her long-lost sister she lit up in a way that made her lose all her carfully erected composure, anger, frustration and grief included. “How could you?” she murmured softly when they embraced, but Loreena just held her tighter. She never understood exactly what had felt so good in that moment, but for once she did not try to investigate any further.

From there she joined the Aramean Excavations project as lead planetologist, her talents now serving a purpose beyond funding her lascivious lifestyle. Loreena had been changed more deeply than she could have imagined, now a lot closer to the elder sister she had wished to have many years ago. Maybe she could have the best of both worlds after all, she thought and jumped back into bed for some afternoon fun.

Where she goes from here remains to be written.

Aramea learned very early that good looks are both a blessing and a curse. Being born into a wealthy family of the Jin-Mei caste was similar: she got almost everything she wished for as a child, but as soon as she was of age to marry she learned that she was not free to make her own choices. To escape forced marriage and a number of other potential abuses, she fled. She knew exactly that she would never be able to go back, so she stole whatever ISK and valuables she could put her hands on and paid an amarrian merchant to take her into Amarr space. She knew her family had many enemies there, so pursuit was less likely – even if she was certain they would try to get to her anyway.

She quickly realized that she was not quite ready to be on her own in this harsh universe, especially not as a young gallentean woman in Amarr space. Nevertheless, she managed to survive long enough to pay for a pod pilot’s license – though along with her ship it cost her everything she had left from her heist. She was now as independent as she had dreamed of countless nights, but she would have to earn her keep from now on. It was the beginning of a long trek that took her to the edges of secure space, always mindful to keep a low profile. She evaded a few attempts from her family to either kill her outright or bring her back into federation space, until they seemed to finally give up a few years later. She had tried to keep in contact with her older sister and one of her cousins, but as their destinies grew more distant from each other so did their friendships.

It was on a station in Derelik that the last few years finally caught up with her. Stranded until her ship was serviced, she suddenly had time to reflect on her life, and she realized that she had no such thing. While she had been able to safeguard her body and freedom, there was nothing else to her. Now that the reason for her flight and years of traveling around the universe was gone, the prospect of beginning a life truly of her own was daunting. She was an empty shell without a purpose, lacking even the knowledge on how to find a purpose. It was in this state of mind that she met Loreena Syrkos for the first time. She instantly recognized her as a lone wolf like herself, with very little interest in the thriving social games pilots like to indulge in. She watched as she navigated through the crowd, expertly avoiding to initiate contact with anyone. She followed her from a distance, not exactly sure why she had this effect on her. A few corridors later, she disappeared into her hangar booth and later undocked in a Prowler – a fitting choice of ship in Aramea's book.

The ship’s name allowed her to find out that it belonged to a Loreena Syrkos, CEO of the corporation Aramean Excavations. Reading about the ARMEX project proved to be a revelation beyond the similarity with her own name. Picking up the pieces of a civilization from among the debris of its home planet destroyed by a cataclysmic event sounded like what she was trying to do with her own life. The next few days while waiting for her ship to be ready, she read up on the project and Loreena herself. When she was finally back in space, she contacted Loreena and managed to convince her to meet. Instead of the eccentric personage she had expected her to be, she quickly found a true friend in Loreena, one who shared her broken soul. It turned out she was not the only one trying to piece herself back together through the project.

Her position as lead archivist was exactly what she needed. Cataloging all the artifacts and managing the dedicated museum’s expositions kept her on a tight schedule and filled her mind. Every little piece she added to their ever growing collection made her feel a little more at home here. Maybe her life could be mended after all?

Loreena Syrkos’ life was good in the protection of her family, her studies were progressing well and she showed a lot of promise to enter the ranks of the renowned Caldari scientists conglomerate. She had friends she cared for, and she knew what she wanted her life to look like. Life in our troubled universe being as unpredictable as it is, this was not to happen.

A massive wormhole appeared directly within her home planet’s core, which was obliterated in less than a heartbeat, rendered to pieces and sucked in by the wormhole to an unreachable destination. She escaped the blast by pure luck and the cool mind of the eccentric AeonOfTime. She was conducting surveys of the asteroid belt surrounding Aramea, her home planet and birthplace – as life would have it, only the reckless Aeon agreed to venture out there, and when the wormhole appeared he somehow managed to warp out before the attraction of the wormhole got its whole grip on them.

Everything was gone in mere seconds – there was no one and nothing left that had mattered to her. The aftermath of the encounter between Aramea and the wormhole forced Aeon to jump out of system before even the outer star gates would be destroyed by the blast. He seemed to understand her loss in a peculiar way, and offered to take her with him to Ammold V. Minmatar space? She was in no condition to decide whether that was a good idea, but there was no point in staying either. Nothing was left that she could go back to, so she silently mourned her family and friends while a new, unknown future waited for her on Ammold.

In the years that followed, Aeon became like a new father for her, in his own weird way. He took good care of her, even helping her financially to finish her studies. She still could not fathom him, his obsession with mining and pastime mission contracting, allied with a keen interest in all things scientific. She would spend hours explaining her science projects to him even though he probably understood only a third of what she told him. They both enjoyed it, though.

The time on Ammold was both haunted by memories that grew ever more distant and yet more frightening, but also enjoyable because she was fulfilled in her work – and in her training lessons with Aeon which made her a full-blown pod pilot as she reached 23. Her first launch with Thalea, her hoarder, would be for ever engraved in her memory. It was an old tub salvaged by Aeon on one of his mission runs, but to her it was perfect. From then on, she never stopped studying to perfect herself in scientific research, funding her projects by helping out Aeon on his mining runs, finally creating the Syrkos Technologies corporation and becoming CEO.

More recently, the discovery of the Aramean debris field in Ammatar space led her to bring a new project to life, the Aramean Excavations corporation. Dedicated to salvaging the remnants of her home from among the debris, she was able to enlist the help of her long-lost sister, Anthea Syrkos as well as Aramea Syrion, their lead archivist. Together they run a permanent exposition of the salvaged Aramean artifacts in their office in the Gamis solar system.

Where she goes from here is yet to be written.

Part 1: Ambush§

Location: Emolgranlan VII Moon 3
Ship: 'Striker', Muninn class assault cruiser

Her ship was on fire. All things considered, that was a better outcome than she had expected. It was ripe for the scrapyard, but it had enough left to get her home. The Amarr strike team that had ambushed her would not get home though, so there was that. She was lucky, she knew. They had been way too good, and their ambush had been near perfect. No finesse in that battle, just bare survival. She had emptied nearly her full bag of tricks to prevail... but prevail she did, and that was all that really mattered. The question of how they were able to waylay her could wait. The priority was getting home alive. Her ship could not take another beating, and besides, she had no working gun turrets left. She was pretty sure the one smoking warrior drone did not count. To avoid falling into any more traps, she decided to take a fallback route no amount of surveillance could have seen her fly, as it existed only in her head so far.

She made it back in one piece, and laid the ship to rest. It had been a great ship, and she would have to replace it soon. After putting herself back in order, she hopped into her Devoter, a good alternative to the Muninn in the meantime. She went back to the ambush site to attempt to gather what intelligence she could. She was barely even surprised to find the area entirely clean, and devoid of any additional ambushes. Whoever these guys were, they knew their trade. Still, she knew which trees needed shaking to start tracking them down. The amount of people who knew about her latest mission was very small by design. She would start with Bjurold Erdolf in Balginia, who had been her contact for operational details. Following the mission payout she received, she knew, would lead nowhere. It never did.

She grabbed some foodstuffs on the way back to her Lustrevik quarters. She would wait for the next night cycle in Balginia, to avoid the usual daytime rush. The waiting did not bother her, or she would have chosen another profession by now. Her work was mostly preparing and waiting, interrupted by very short and extremely hectic bits of action. She took the time to place a number of market buy orders to rebuild a new Muninn. When her alarm chimed, she jumped into one of her covops clones to buy herself some time free of surveillance. Whoever was tracking her was sure to reacquire her location, but there was no way around the time it took the clone registry to finish its update cycle. She knew that she had at least an hour, so she took her kit and flew to Balginia in one of her throwaway shuttles. The Brutor Tribe Bureau station was as quiet as she had expected, with only one Freighter in the undock area. It was slowly aligning out towards the Illinfrik gate, so she dismissed it. She docked, and a quick hack of the station's citizen registry directed her to Bjurold's quarters.

She was well aware that she might be heading into another trap, since talking to Bjurold was a blatantly obvious move. Hence her jump into this specific clone: it was fully kitted out for exactly this kind of operation. On her way to Bjurold's quarters, however, she realized that her little ploy to evade surveillance had probably been for naught. Precisely because going to Bjurold was so obvious. She swore, and paused in her stride. This called for a change in plans. She could not assume that the location in the system was falsified - hell, she would have planted false information herself if it was her operation. She headed down a side corridor, and swore some more. Scanning the quarters next to her, she found that it was empty and hacked the access system to let her in. She went to the next console, and hacked into the citizen registry again. Not bothering with Bjurold's fake entry, she brought up the ship registry instead. She knew he had several fancy shuttles, and these would have separate entries. Sure enough, there it was: an address for quarters four decks below. She had half hoped her paranoia had been whispering to her, but now she had proof that they were, in fact, expecting her. How very annoying. She logged out again, taking care to delete all traces of her access, even if it had been anonynmous. Bjurold might have notification triggers on those entries, but she doubted it. He was more the head bashing kind.

She checked the time. By now they would have confirmation from the clone registry that she was on the station. Yes, but fortunately not where exactly on the station. A grim smile on her lips, she made her way down. After a careful approach and quick scan, she hacked into Bjurold's empty quarters. As she had expected, he was gone - probably up there with the ambush team. The parlor was stock full of Serpentis paraphernalia, up to a big model of the Vanquisher capital vessel right in the middle of the room. The thing was several meters long... compensating much? Of course Bjurold would be someone to idealize those crazy cannibalistic bastards. She shook her head, and surveyed the rest of the quarters. As dubious as his loyalties were, she had to admit that at least everything was spotlessly clean. She dug into her bag of surveillance equipment, and let a few of her tiny recording drones place themselves strategically to cover all rooms. With the integrated cloaking, they were undetectable unless you were looking for them with specialized equipment. Next, using her toolset, she opened a wall panel and hid in one of the standardized maintenance corridors. It was a tight fit, but the location was perfect. To avoid triggering cleanup drones to come and try to dislodge her, she spoofed the few sensors next to her. Now she would, as her drill sergeant often said, "hurry up and wait".

She managed to get a welcome power nap in before her surveillance net woke her. She checked the feed, and saw the door open. Sure enough, it was Bjurold with four other blokes that she did not recognize. All minmatar, with Brutor markings. Clearly the hired muscle, judging from the bulges everywhere under their tight outfits. Maeia snorted. The only thing these brutes were good for in a real fight was as meat shields. They were studiously igoring Bjurold shouting inanities at them. What interested Maeia much more was the sixth figure that walked in. Definitely not Amarr, but with some Ammarr traits - possibly Ammatar. While his clothes looked like regular business attire, she instantly recognized the operative inside. The man walked like a cat, and his stance displayed a level of control only a trained soldier could have. This is who she needed to have a chat with, she was sure. However, the man was also extremely dangerous and not to be underestimated.

She concentrated on what they were saying.

"How should I bloody know where the bitch is hiding!" Bjurold shouted towards the Ammatar operative, throwing up one arm and sending some spittle flying. One of the muscle team shifted slightly to avoid its flight path.

"It would be quite foolish to protect her, Mr Erdolf," the operative said in a very reasonable sounding monotone.

"What? Me, protect...?" Bjurold stammered, his face gaining a slightly greenish cast. "You know I'm not that stupid."

"That is precisely what I am trying to ascertain," the operative added in the same unnvering calm voice. "So, are you?"

"Uh, am I...?" Bjurold managed, clearly confused.

"Are you hiding her?" the operative asked. Maiea thought a sliver of irritation slipped into that statement. Juding from Bjurold's sudden whiteness, he had noticed it too.

"NO! Definitely not! Everything was going according to plan! My men saw her head up to the deck we chose for the ambush, but then she never showed up. I've been up there until you called," Bjurold said in one hectic breath.

The operative fixed Bjurold with a piercing, unwavering stare.

"I believe you," he finally relented. "Unfortunately, this means miss Phoenos is aware of your involvement. My fault, really. I should never have let incompetents handle this," he added, with emphasis on 'incompetents'. Bjurold's left eyebrow twitched as he regained some color. Knowing his type, Maeia suspected that attacking his pride at this time was not a good idea. One of the muscle blokes tensed while Bjurold was visibly working up to a rage. Watching the operative, Maeia realized that jibe had been entirely calculated, and she knew what would come next.

Bjurold exploded, launching himself at the operative with a great guttural shout of rage, followed closely by the four muscle blokes. Maeia shook her head. This battle was over before it even started. Nothing she did now could change the outcome, so she studied the operative in action instead. It would give her invaluable information for when she faced him herself. And she would, there was no doubt in her mind. Not that Bjurold needed (or even deserved) avenging, but the operative was her key to finding out who was after her. He dispatched the five men clinically with two blades that slid out of his business suit, with an impressive economy of movement. When the last man had toppled to the ground, he let the blades drop on the heap of corpses in front of him. Two seconds later, they disappeared in a blinding flash. Very neat, Maeia thought. She had used blades like that herself before, with a thermite core designed to leave no usable trace when they self-destructed.

The operative gazed absentmindedly at his victims. Maiea suspected he was communicating using his implant. She forced herself to concentrate on her conundrum: how to proceed? Bjurold was no use to her dead. He would have no electronic trace of his dealings with the operative, and her background face matching of the operative had come up empty. So... face him now, or attempt to follow? A surveillance device would not work, she knew. He would find something like that right away. She looked at her feed again, only to find him looking right at one of her surveillance drones.

"Nicely played, miss Phoenos. Whenever you are ready to talk, meet me here," he said in his monotone, placing what looked like a slip of paper on the floor. "I guarantee your safety," he added.

Maiea felt a trickle of cold sweat glide down between her shoulder blades. The operative simply turned, and walked out. The door closed behind him automatically. Maiea carefully let out a breath she had not realized she had been holding. What the hell... he must have detected one of her drones, she thought without entirely convincing herself. To be safe, she waited another hour in her cramped hideout, reviewing the battle and the little she had learned from the encounter. It really wasn't much. To be entirely honest with herself, she had absolutely nothing useable. She sighed, and extricated herself from the maintenance shaft. She meticulously put the access panel back, and pocketed the operative's slip of paper. After a quick scan of the station corridor outside, she went out and made her way back to the main concourse.

The address scribbled on the scrap of paper required her to go to Hek. Of course. It just had to be infamous criminal capital of minmatar space. Scowling, Maeia thrust the paper back in her pocket. Hek was not a problem in itself, she had been there many times. She just loathed the place - it was a squirming cesspool of human filth. She shuddered. Somehow she did not feel like undocking in her paper thin shuttle. Instead, she suffered paying the premium for an early clone jump. The prices were prohibitive, but for some reason she suddenly craved some good armor plating between herself and the rest of the universe. Once back in her Lustrevik clone, she prepped "Crimson dawn", her Vargur class battleship. Yes, this would do. No reason to dally around she thought, and with grim determination, undocked and plotted a course for the Krusual Tribe Bureau in Hek.

Part 2: A job§

Location: Hek, Krusual Tribe Bureau
Ship: 'Crimson dawn', Vargur class marauder

Maiea was fidgeting in her seat. Her resolve had evaporated on the trip over, and she was trying to convince herself that staying in the ship any longer would not help. The part of her that was content to stay had some good points, though. Fresh tea and cookies, for one. Hard to beat cookies... Frowning at her cup of tea, she sighed. It was completely unlike her to beat around the bush like this. Yet something smelled fishy in this whole situation. She was used to having control, and right now she did not. She had met and fought operatives, but somehow she sensed that this guy was not in the same league. And she feared that she was not in his league either. And that, she thought, was the crux of the problem. She was afraid, and did not want to accept it. Bloody hell.

She chewed another cookie absentmindedly, and decided that her only choice was to accept the operative's invitation. He did say he would guarantee her safety... Which would matter if she actually knew how much his word was worth. Same lack of choice regardless. She emptied the cup of tea, and put the remaining cookies aside. She knew where to go; she only had to actually go there. Best not to think about it at all, and just get moving.

The station was as busy as she'd ever seen. She had successfully buried the memory of the smell though - now it came crashing back to her with a vengeance as it filled her nostrils. No other station she had ever been on smelled quite like this. In fact, she thought it fit its population rather well. If any smell could combine extreme misery and the entire spectrum of human crime, this was it. She fought the urge to gag, which would attract the wrong kind of attention. She forced herself to push the assault on her senses into the background, and joined the flow of people towards her destination. It was with grim satisfaction that she noted the yelps of surprise and pain of the usual pickpockets trying to get into her pockets. Her countermeasures dissuaded them from trying again for a while. She grinned. Maybe this could be fun after all.

As she reached the target deck four decks above the main concourse, the crowd started to thin out. The air was markedly better here, and she relaxed a little. So far no sign of pursuit. Since her encounter with that operative however, she was starting to doubt herself. That would not do, she decided. Stopping at a floorplan screen, she checked her surroundings and took a moment to focus. She had to trust in her training, or this could go sideways real quick. Even if the operative was better than she was, she could not suddenly dismiss her years of experience. Granted, he had managed to wow her, but all this could have been a carefully orchestrated plot to destabilize her. She scowled. No, she would not let that happen. She headed towards the target quarters with long, purposeful strides.

Watching behind her with with the small surveillance drone in her collar connected to her implants, there was no sign of anyone watching or following her. That did not have to mean anything, she knew: she herself would have hacked the station's surveillance systems and observed remotely. It was tricky to do so without being traced, but doable. As she reached the quarters noted on the operative's slip of paper, she took a second to bolster her resolve. A quick scan showed a single life sign inside, and none nearby. She half expected the door to open for her, but it seemed she would have to ring after all. Scowling, she accessed the station's grid and did the remote equivalent of pressing the door chime. She knew at least a dozen ways to booby trap a door chime, so she avoided using them on principle.

The door opened almost immediately. She headed inside, all the while letting her eyes and surveillance drone's eyes sweep everything from floor to ceiling. Nothing suspicious was in sight, which make her instantly suspicious. That, and the fact that the person waiting for her was not the operative, as she had expected. The man was Minmatar, in his fifties, with a suit clearly custom tailored for him. His stance was relaxed, but she could see the controlled tension. He was watching her intently from behind thick brows, and trying to show her that he represented no threat. She knew the type. Former military, most likely, and definitely dangerous. Still, he represented a known quantity for her, which, maybe, was the point.

"Miss Phoenos," he said a deep baritone that fit his figure like a glove. "My name is Alger Erand, Brutor tribe security division. I am glad you accepted our invitation," he added, and extended his hand.

Maeia's mind was racing. What did the Brutor security division want with her? She shook his hand. His grip was firm, but not overly so. Usually military types liked to make a contest of the hand shaking, using it to establish their superiority. Her regard for him went up a notch.

She smiled. "I expected a different kind of... reception," she said.

Alger smiled in return, a genuine smile as far as she could tell. "The agent you met, Tarine, likes to by cryptic, often overly so. It is his only real failing, though, so I tend to overlook it," he said, gesturing for her to take a seat.

Maeia slowly sat down, focusing for a moment on the feeds of her surveillance drones that had taken up strategic positions.

"So Tarine is one of your agents?" she asked, curious how much he would be willing to reveal.

Alger looked pained. "Not... exactly. It's complicated, as things often are with spies," he added lamely.

"Why would you even tell me this much?" she asked, surprised that he'd mention the s word. She had surmised as much, but admitting it openly went against spycraft, even if everybody knew what it was.

"Because I would like to offer you a job."

She frowned suspiciously. "A job."

"Yes. We have a problem, miss Phoenos, and Tarine was very impressed by your skills. You have a set of talents that would be uniquely suited to our current dilemma, and we would make it worth your while," he said seriously.

He put two glasses on the table between them, followed by a bottle of whiskey. He opened the stopper, and lifted one eyebrow in a silent question to pour her a glass. She eyed the bottle. They had done their homework extremely well - it was her favorite brand, one of the few native minmatar whiskeys, this one from the Nakugard system. Aged 18 years to boot, a very special treat. Alger shamelessly winked at her.

Suppressing a grin she eyed him and said, "This is clearly an attempt at bribery, but for the sake of this conversation I shall accept a glass."

Alger nodded sagely, and poured. She took the glass, sniffed, and tasted it. It was as glorious as it had promised to be. Sighing, she leaned back into the couch.

"If you had led with this, you could have avoided all the cape and dagger shenanigans," she said.

Alger actually managed to look embarrassed at that. "Ah, well, that would be Tarine's doing. He only approached me after 'testing your mettle', as he called it. He wanted to make sure you fit the job profile."

Her eyebrows drew together, and her knuckles turned white as she gripped her glass. "So that Amarr strike team ambushing me was his doing? Executing Bjurold? Not that anyone will miss him, but all that seems a little... extreme," she half snarled.

Alger winced audibly. "Yes, and I apologize on Tarine's behalf, as he never apologizes for his actions. However, as misguided as his methods may have been, I am now convinced that you are the perfect person for the job," he said, now all business.

Maeia gradually relaxed her death grip on her glass. Instead she sipped some more as she considered this, then slowly put the glass back down on the table. She was definitely intrigued. All this just to 'test her mettle'? And she had passed the test, which was embarrassingly comforting, to the point of eclipsing the fact that she nearly died in that ambush. She crossed her arms, and looked Alger in the eyes.

"Let's say I'm interested. What exactly is this job, and what are you offering?"

"I cannot tell you about the job, you would have to accept it and sign a non disclosure agreement first. Regarding compensation however, I have been given rather free reins. I would say you can set the price, within reason of course."

"Don't mind my saying so, but this sounds a bit too good to be true. And I do not like the mystery."

"Be that as it may, my hands are tied unless you accept. I can only say that we would put your talents to good use, and that your work would benefit all Minmatar. If it goes well, I can guarantee follow-up work."

It sounded like political crap. Whatever it was, however, Alger cleary believed it completely. She could see that he desperately wanted her to believe him. She picked up her glass again, sipped some more. The guys and girls in Nakugard were some fine distillers, all right. Well then, she thought. Only one last thing to check before she made her final decision. She already leaned toward accepting, if only to get a foot into the good graces of the security service - that was a good connection to cultivate. She had always been partial to do work that profited the minmatar, so it did match her own criteria pretty closely.

"What happens if I say no?" she asked from behind her glass.

"Nothing. We part ways, and I might call you for some other work in the future."

One of her eyebrows went up. "Just like that?"

"Just like that."

She leaned forward, putting her glass down on the table. She looked at him intently. "Bullshit. You did not go to all this trouble for nothing."

Alger sighed. "There is no catch. All this trouble, as you say, came entirely from Tarine's methods. I would have approached you... differently. Without Tarine, chances are high I would not have found you at all though - so I can't say I'm really sorry," he said with a smirk.

She found herself smiling back. "Tarine, huh. Who shines by his absence."

"He wanted to be here to meet you, actually. I decided against it, if only to put him out of reach of your righteous wrath."

She laughed at that, especially since she was pretty sure Tarine was listening in on this conversation. Her wrath? She supposed she did have a score to settle, but somehow knowing that she survived a carefully orchestrated test from the security service mitigated that a lot. She looked at Alger, who was studiously observing her reactions.

"Do you have any cookies here, by any chance?" she asked, her cookie craving suddenly surfacing again.

"Uh...cookies?" he asked, the confusion clear on his face.

"Yup. You know, little round, crunchy pastries, often with chocolate chunks in them?"

Alger shook his head slowly, still puzzled. "I'm sorry, no, I don't have any cookies."

"Quite an oversight in your intelligence brief, that," she chided him. "Also reassuring, that at least one of my vices was left out," she added.

Alger laughed at that. "It would seem the brief was not thorough enough, indeed. I will make a point of bringing cookies to our next meeting. If there will be a next meeting?" he asked.

Slick, she thought. And good question, too. Had she made up her mind? Yes, she decided.

"If you'll pour me another glass, I'll accept," she said.

Alger smiled, and poured for them both. He raised his glass, waiting for her to do the same.

"What shall we drink to?" he asked.

"To the Nakugard distillers," she answered without hesitation.

He laughed. "Aye, to the Nakugard distillers."

They drank in silence for a while, and she signed the necessary paperwork. There were some forms for the payment agreements as well, waiting to be filled. She perused the stack of documents, marveling at how thoroughly everything had been prepared. She nodded at Alger in approval.

"So, what is this job about?" she asked, curiosity getting the better of her.

Alger turned on his serious face.

"In short, we need you to save the minmatar republic."

She nearly dropped her whiskey. "Seriously? Or is this some elaborate prank?" she asked, checking her drone feeds for the telltale camera team.

Alger shook his head. "No, I'm afraid this is dead serious. Of course you won't be saving us all on your own, but with the current plan, you would play a critical role."

"And which role would that be?" she asked, sobered by Alger's serious tone.

"Intercept a minmatar infiltration team that will try to assassinate empress Catiz."

"Well, crap," she said with feeling.

"Quite," he said, nodding.

Maeia grinned at him. "You know, I think I'll need a lot more cookies."

From there, Maeia started a challenging and lucrative career in the Minmatar security service. Working in the shadows, she has become a specialist in covert operations. She is rarely seen, but is know to have been active in pretty much all regions of space. If you see her, cookies and good whiskey are a good conversation starter.