It’s possible I’m just irritable right now, I’m tired after all. War is a tiring thing.

Yeah, bullshit, if that’s the case I’ve been tired for almost a month.

I would complain about a few of the losses we’ve suffered, but I suppose I shouldn’t have much to say on doing stupid things after what I did to Nagato while I was pulling her into Enaluri. How is it even possible to clip a part of the station like that? The entrance port is huge.

Whoever designed the jutting out bit that I gracefully scraped along my Fleet Stabber needs to be shot for designing something so ridiculous in the first place.

On the grander scale of things, Tibus Heth is a colossal idiot, President Foritain is a little girl and I don’t have any idea what the hell the Amarr and Minmatar are trying to prove to each other anymore.

What could have possessed this clown to go and start another war over a giant rock that’s sitting smack in the middle of Gallente space? If I ever meet him it’ll be a short introduction; Hello I’m Yuki gunshot gunshot gunshot Li from Omerta fucking gunshot Syndicate, start a war now you’re full of holes you cock sucker.

Maybe I’m being harsh, I’m sure he means for the best, and ultimately, his actions were the setup for our friend Mr. Gariushi having a Nyx mothership land on him, which has been the only up side to this entire grim affair.

Anyway, I’m going to go watch them put the rust (paint job?) back on the side of Nagato, so I’ll leave this here for now.

There’s gonna be a war.

I don’t mean just a little, limited, spaceship-only sort of war. A war. As in a big, messy, nasty clade-busting sort of thing. Zaitsev and I have been talking about this a whole bunch about this, lately. I can’t really tell what he’s thinking about Heth, and the State, and all that, he’s too good at hiding his feelings and I’m too poor at sussing them out. The one thing he is really clear with me about is the position it puts me in. Not just as a citizen of the GalFed, working in the State, but as an Akahoshi.

Maybe I should back up a bit. You never know what will be read for posterity’s sake.

I’m an Akahoshi. I’m not Gallente. I’m an Akahoshi. There were never many of us, only 38 at the moment. Now that Miho has returned to the fold, so to speak, I’m the only Emmigrant. All the rest are either back home in Luminaire, or in Tierijev. What I mean, of course, is that the rest are either back home in our asteroid habitat, or in our new habitat in Tierijev. They’re the reason I’m out here.

My clade.

JOEI helped me put together our whole story, I never knew it before. Hell, no one really did.

Once upon a time, there was a Caldari corporation, Red Star. Not a surprising name, really Akahoshi is Achushan for Red Star, after all. Back before the Caldari left the old Federation, Red Star based out of Luminaire. On the surface, they were a model microcorporation - a few thousand mixed Caldari and Gallente, working together to build a bright and profitable future in biotech. As inter-race tensions mounted, they kind of folded into themselves. Set themselves up as their own little pocket civilization. They even created their own dialect, so that they could speak to each other without either race being at a linguistic disadvantage.

Their brave new biotech world turned from “ordinary” biotech to self modification. Altered people. Attempts at creating superbrights, heightened evolution, that sort of thing. One of their projects was us - my clade, the spacefarers of the future, with none of the problems that baseline people had in space. They got off to a good start, setting us up with all the trimmings necessary for a healthy life in microgravity. There were a few mental problems - they thought we’d make better spacers if we were better at recognizing patterns, with limited success.

Then came the secession, and the war. It’s hard to make out what happened after that point, but it looks like Red Star was pulled out to Tierijev. We were left in our asteroid habitat, hidden away in a polar orbit, waiting for transport that never managed to arrive. Leaving us on our own, without the ability to do more that barely survive, for all those centuries. It was hard. I’m surprised to this day that we were able to hang on for so long. Oh, we had what we needed to survive - we had power, food, water, air - but we weren’t finished. Red Star had sterilized the original Gallente donors at the genetic level, to prevent mixing while they worked, and did not intend to make us fertile until they were finished. We could reproduce asexually, like Deteis tube children, and we had enough gear to allow this to happen. We had to play with our own genes, though. You can’t just clone yourself and expect your gene line to survive that way. There are issues. Telomere issues. Gene drift. Mutation. We had the equipment, and the theory, and we had to come up with a solution that worked.

So we did. Barely. There were problems, and terrible infant mortality, but we did it. We managed to hang on for centuries, until we were found and welcomed into the warm arms of a larger civilization.

Like so many other pocket cultures, though, by the time this happened, we didn’t want to leave. We were proud, we were civilized, and we didn’t want to give all this up to assimilate into some alien culture of Outsiders, crawling with germs. Oh, sure, there were a bunch of us who ran off into the wider world. The thing is, though, they all died. The Gallente were just too alien. Once that first wave failed, we pretty much holed back up and tried to pretend the rest of the universe didn’t exist.

We couldn’t pretend, though, that we were thriving. We were in a decline. Each generation had it harder, each generation saw fewer survivors. Something had to be done.

Every so often, someone will look at me - by all evidence a stretched Gallente with delusions of grandeur - and wonder what I am doing in this renegade Caldari corporation. In the end, it all came down to Zaitsev. Zaitsev, the mad hermit CEO, intent on his vendetta with Ishukone, decided for some reason or another that he needed me. Ever the thorough researcher, he figured out exactly what we needed, and got it. Red Star was almost entirely defunct, reduced to a shell owned by the Solurik family in Tierijev, unaware of what Red Star really used to do. He found them. He found their warehoused data, left over from the hurried wartime evacuation, in a dead habitat out past the Tierijev cometary halo. And he bought it. He bought the whole habitat from the Soluriks, who had no idea that the thing even existed, let alone belonged to them. I have no idea what he paid for the thing, he wouldn’t say, but he bought it and gave it with no strings attached at all to my clade, along with all the aid we’d need to solve our problems and set ourselves up to flourish. After all that, how could I ever leave the man?

Which brings me to the last four months. Four months of buying materials and gear; supervising its installation; making sure the habitat could support life, and was sterile; ferrying clade mates between Luminaire and Teirijev. Exhausting work, but necessary. We Akahoshi have always felt ourselves to be seeds, and seeds have got to grow. Thanks to the mad, renegade Zaitsev-haan, we stopped sitting dormant in our packet, and started thinking of soil.

It just figures, then, that Noir had to go and start a fucking war just then.

At least we’re a little more spread out, now. Tierijev may be a vulnerable border system, but Akahoshi in two systems are certainly better than one.

Nothing seems to be killing these headaches though. These strange white spots that keep flying across my vision, can you say that’s fucking natural?
If they don’t disappear soon, I’m going to claw the eyes out of my skull and throw them at the nearest employee.

Probably Mort.
Yeah… Definitely Mort.

What happened to throwing me a box of drugs that I could at least wash down with an expensive Whisky?

No, Mr. Ryoko. Its stress related.
No, Mr. Ryoko. I can’t prescribe you stronger drugs.
No, Mr. Ryoko. Put the gun down.

Bastard.

Oh and I suppose talking to myself is going to make the headaches go away?
Excellent. Your years of training to become a serious player in the medical industry have really paid off, my dear sir.

End yourself.

I wanted to stab him in the face with that shiny letter opener he had on his desk.
At least the adrenaline would have enveloped the pain for a while.
Plus it would have been fun.

Writing journal entries really isn’t my thing, but you know that already, don’t you?

God, I need to get back out in space.
Then again, the headaches didn’t start until after we moved back to Airkio. Maybe it’s nostalgia of sorts. Reminding me of the old days.
The good old days.

I just need to be back in a ship.
I don’t know what it is, yet I do at the same time.

Just… that feeling, y’know?
The disconnect.

Leaving your body behind, with all its pains and aches, memories and scars and instead, your mind just soaks into the veins of the ship…
And you fly.

It’s almost a high in itself.
…

I think that’s enough alcohol for me tonight.
What time is it…

…5 AM…

I wonder if Li’s awake for a game of Curve ball.

I want to say I feel something like relief. Upon setting foot on our old headquarters in Airkio for the first time in… how long has it been… I felt a shiver run down my spine, at any rate. Too long have I searched for answers out in the black. I rode with Rabbits, Snakes, and Angels, and too often I felt out of place. I was a leaf adrift on the wind, being blown any way it pleased, circumstance dictating my every move. Now, once again I’m grounded. The exiles have returned home, with little fanfare I’m sure. Even still, these are my people - Deteis, Achur, and Civire - and I’m so damned glad to be back where I belong.

I’ve long since realized that I’m not quite charismatic enough, or perhaps strong enough, to be an instrument of direct change. The BoF movement was a complete failure, and I had my doubts about the extremes they were willing to go to. I do hope that, over the course of a couple years, I’ll be able to touch other Caldari in such a way that they’ll be able to see what I see in the State, so that they might lead the reform efforts it so desperately needs. I feel much better about working with the Cartel than I did with the Rabbits. I’ve come to the conclusion that the Guristas that would actually care to see change are misled. They are not bad people, but they are working for the wrong organization. Being a part of the Cartel I find doesn’t carry with it the necessarily inimical reactions I got from other Caldari when I was with the Guristas. That’s rather interesting. APEX even shows some interest in the Cartel’s affairs, and I’ve been asked about them several times in the past couple weeks.

I’m not faring too well outside work. I haven’t seen Nemesor in weeks, and I find myself moving further away from him. We got into a fight over my relationship with Aria. (Poor woman, I still feel that I owe her something for the trouble I caused her.) Fuck him, though - I’ll converse and socialize with the people I want to. I’m scared that I might have to call the relationship off if our arguments persist, that is, if I even see him again. I wouldn’t want him to see me the way I’ve been lately, either. More night terrors. Something to do with returning home, I’m sure. It excites me but makes me restless. Pill only works when I take it in risky doses, and of course I don’t want to go too far…

And, from all that I’ve soaked up the past three years, but especially these past few weeks, I’m starting to have my doubts about whether or not my nature is really… no… no, I can’t talk about that…

He swivelled around on his chair and tapped a blank interface panel on the wall behind him, it flickered to life and the green characters of the greeting screen requested his thumbprint and access code. He pressed his thumb against the panel, “confirmed”  it announced in a predictable female synth voice, he tapped in “****** ***” and she again confirmed its accuracy “Welcome Deks” he thought about the irony of that statement then carried on, tapping the ships and inventories button he reviewed the impressive array of vessels and equipment he had managed to salvage from the Fountain-lands, he scanned down the list muttering to himself “Raven, ********, *****, *****, Caracal, *****, ****, ****, ****, Kestrel” listed amongst the ships were the various modules and ammunition each would carry and fight with.

He looked up from the screen and out through the viewing portal on the other side of the room, his thoughts wandered ahead to the glory of the battles that lay ahead amongst the stars that sparkled so innocently in the dark sky and the genuine possibility that some of the people he had now come to call brothers may perish in the weeks that lay ahead.

He gathered his thoughts, then with a gruff bark, ordered the terminal to shut down before leaving the room with a last glance back at the stars…

…The War had begun

I made my first solo kill on a fellow capsuleer a couple of weeks ago, an Acheron Federation destroyer pilot who managed to weaken my Crow’s shields to about thirty percent before my missiles dispatched his ship and crew to the great beyond. A kid … a rookie … he must have been. I was struggling with flight control so much I could hardly maintain lock, much less warp scrambling; he had half a dozen chances to escape, at least, and never took one.

Or perhaps he was like me, caught up in the thrill of the hunt, of the kill. He came back moments after his first loss, only in a Thorax, which the rest of the gang jumped and proceeded to shred in about twenty seconds.

How many dead? … Ten to fifteen, maybe as much as twenty from the destroyer, another few hundred from the Thorax. Why am I even keeping count? The dead don’t bother me anymore, if they ever really did, but I still find myself trying to calculate the number of dead as though I’m picking a scab. The numbers are rhetorically useful, but the numbers on a capsuleer vessel aren’t even particularly significant next to the hundreds of thousands of dead from my assorted commissioned battles against conventional vessels. It might be a method of keeping track of my own contribution to eventual backlash and extermination, but that doesn’t ring true, either. I’ve known, ever since that first Armageddon, how much I enjoy this, the satisfaction of the hunt, the power to seek out, ensnare, and kill, the ecstatic glee of the successful predator. I seem to be fairly good at it.

Why am I trying to stop myself? What purpose can I serve by scratching at this itch, by constantly reminding myself how many people I’ve murdered? It’s not even as though I still try to keep anything like an accurate count. It’s not as though I care.

And now I’m torturing myself over torturing myself without giving myself the slightest ounce of pain. It would make more sense if I were actually in anguish, or numb, or some other dramatically appropriate state, but as it is I can’t even tell what I’m actually feeling from what I think I’m supposed to be feeling– it’s that faint.

Mostly, as I think over all of this, what I’m feeling is just anticipation. Tomorrow, or the next day, I’ll get to hunt, again, another capsuleer, and, by the way, another few humans will die because of it.

… by the way. Collateral damage. Death as byproduct. Pick, pick, pick.

As for the disease itself, I have heard my doctor say that the roots of the disease had been found and indeed, a small paper on my condition was released. Although not overly happy about my details being posted publicly, no mention of me was actually made and therefore there is little point to get angry about it. I am sure that with such progress, a permanent solution to my problem can be found and although my faith in the Lord to rid me of this curse has surely gone, my faith in the ways of medicine has certainly improved.

It is indeed lucky that sometimes I manage to talk to people within Omerta that at least seem coherent and even intelligent. Miss Aria Jenneth especially, which in the last few weeks has managed to make me realise a lot more about myself than I even knew. She sees the world for what it is and indeed is able to judge and assess situations without being blinded by her own set of beliefs and that is something that I quite admire in her. She has certainly managed to make me realise a few facts about my own beliefs that previously I had kept hidden, probably due to shame or idiocy within my part. It could be said to be an epiphany of sorts.

Another beacon of support has been a person that previously I would haven’t had second thoughts of killing. A terrorist, although I use the word more out of habit, called Mori Felding. She visits me often and although some of her views of capsuleer life are quite naive, she is starting to discover what it means to be within a pod and the brutal reality that encapsulates our world, if you will excuse the pun.

With the good also comes the bad, though. A blooder called Leon has been especially annoying lately. I’ll have to make sure that if I get a chance to find him in space, a little “accident” happens with him.

I’ve been busy lately, trying to throw myself into every gang I could get involved with where possible. My social schedule has been hectic and with my condition worsening, my studies have been increased several fold. I’ve been informed not to divulge too much on my psychological profile, suffice to say it’s not good. My inner demon is more material than any of the medical records I’ve recovered going back several decades through many factional and corporate databases. The MIO was suprisingly easy to access and their records are extremely detailed. Suffice to say, she’s getting stronger and I’m running out of time.

One light in this encroaching darkness are the scraps of information I’ve been digging up from the Covenant archives and Sani Sabik libraries. It’s not unusual for patients who have gone through severe trauma to develop these conditions and not be in a position to control their split personality. Unfortunately, most cases have been permanently commited and/or terminated due to actions upon the population around them.

Due to the lack of information on pod-pilots, what with the caste only being around properly for the last 4 years, mental health has been disregarded. However, many theories point to pod-pilots facing increasing intensities of trauma due to factors such as the level of genocide in space, the factions and war, constant states of irregular behaviour and sleep patterns, but more importantly, the effects of serial termination and rebirth.

Finally, because of the nature of pod-pilot training, the majority of psychologists believe that the age and circumstances prior to training may increase the chance of psychosis as pilots come out of training. The general trend being that pilots of run-of-the-mill backgrounds are more likely to be dull miners that shun anything less than 0.5 sec space or lower, while a large majority of pilots who lost their parents prior to pod-pilot training end up joining the chaos and constant war of the null sec regions outside the Empires edges.

The thing that worries me is how the carnage seems to satisfy her for a while, but not indefinately. Her constant thirst for bloodshed and ritual sacrifice is rarely completely abated; my thoughts often tend to these alone, without her influence. I’m no angel, but I sometimes feel a saint if I manage to keep her lust in check. This brings me full circle to my first sentence in this update: I’m leaving Omerta.

I don’t know how long, but I’ve looked at this from both emotional and logical angles. Omerta and Exuro Mortis have been suitable treatment for my problem for a long while, but with the intensity of her control and the increased rate of ‘episodes’, I’ve decided that my best form of treatment is to immerse myself in an older passion - Piracy.

When I moved to the Bleak Lands a long time ago, I learnt my trade under some of the greatest names in the field at the time. Hira’razhir was my main mentor and his love of Covenant teachings encouraged me to join his corporation - Blood Inquisition. I started as a pirate, but very soon I was able to voice my understanding of the complex practices of the Covenant and Sani Sabik faith. Pretty soon, the piracy took a back burner. I think it was around the time of Mabnen I’s destruction - the decimation of an entire planets population - that seemed to summon her. My piracy calmed down and she drew me further down the spiral into the occult practices. She seemed to draw power from the rituals and sacrifices, delighting more as the body count rose.

I deduced from this, that I am likely to have more control of her should I dedicate myself to piracy. I thought of my old friends and the like in the field and, although tempted to join many of my former fellow cultists, I decided on chosing the most professional group known to all: Veto.

Ethan Verone has been very helpful and as I write this, I’m finishing tidying up my loose ends and gathering equipment in place to join the corp tomorrow. I feel I won’t miss Omerta as the corp is as much part of me as my own blood, but I will miss the people in the time I’ll be away. Kale and his charm, Yuki and hers, Kyoko and her strong sense of order and compassion… but even more, I’ll be hopefully putting behind me the hurt of losing Nooey.
For those who read this and care, send me a mail wishing me luck. For my enemies, I look forward to the increase of corpses. Don’t worry - I’ll be gentle…
This is Meb, dropping my roles but keeping my robes.

Sometimes I start to wonder if all this is really worth it, though. Collaborating with heathens of all kind, all in order to return to the service of God. I had a chance to talk to Admiral Gaven, and he reassured me somewhat, but talks with Sister Laerise and my own doubts have given dark shadows to the things that I before held sacred. It is like the Lord has forsaken me, one of His most trusted and devout servants, enacting this test for no reason but to spite me. I feel like I deserve better from Him, that my life’s work at least entitled me to enact my atonement to the best of my abilities, instead of being strapped to a heathen constructed wheelchair. If this is indeed a test, why do I have to endure so long, so hard. Surely I have showed him my commitment already, simply by being within a pod? If the Lord is fair, why does He allow me to suffer, while heathens and heretics live long, happy lives, unburdened from torment? It is something that I have begun to wonder long and hard, and although my faith is still with the Almighty, the Lord is surely pushing it to the extremes. I can only hope that this will end soon and that these are not machinations from some unknown enemy, to make me lapse into heresy, as Sister Laerise feared.

On another note, now I understand the pleading, desperate tones that she had when we talked in St. Ageroth’s Chapel. Although at first her motivation seemed to be that she wanted me to return to the realm of the Lord, a recent mail sent by her made me aware of the fact that she claims to love me. I can see now why she was nearly in hysterics, wanting me to return. Maybe she was worried about my own spiritual well being, but now I can see that it was merely her love of me that wanted me to return. I can only guess that she was blinded by this love, but this ulterior motivation has only helped me push her away further, for it seems that she wished me to return for her own petty needs rather than my own. What to make further of this, I honestly do not know.

Venal was the rough and tumble, and it’s every man for himself up there. No one there has much purpose to their lives other than making it through. I met plenty of officers claiming they were all for making the State better, but the look in their eyes said otherwise. The real reason they were attracted to the North and the Guristas was money.

I’ve never been like that. I wanted to institute some real change, but was never sure how to go about it. I suppose I’ve come to realize that trying to fix the corruption that plagues the State is a hopeless cause. We rocked Ishukone and hardly made the right impression. All the Brothers of Freedom are now missing or dead. I just can’t see the State changing, and I can’t see myself caring anymore. Not the way things have progressed.

There’s something else though… Fountain is different. The people down here have a purpose beyond acquiring money. The Serpentis Corporation, and indeed my friends at Coreli as well as my cousin Sayuri, sees booster development as the way forward. They genuinely believe that they’re working to advance humanity… it’s an idea that intrigues me in all honesty, especially being a Pill addict and knowing just what it can do.

What’s more, I found something that Zaitsev might be interested in after roaming the Angel stations for a little while. It’s just a rumor, but he likes those. I’ll have to send him the message tonight.