Entry Fifteen: Dying

When the ears hear only the mouth shouting and the eyes see only the fingers broken, the world has turned and God has gone. - The Scriptures, Apocalypse Verses 8:18

Activate Log.

Shalee is stretched out across her bed. The room is dark save for a hint of light glowing beneath the doors and a sliver of light streaking across the bottom of the closed window.

"Koronakesh is a bastard. He is the one who told Mitara about me going to the SkyHook. Apparently the two of them are friendly again since he is no longer a red. Though I fail to see how that matters in the grand scheme of things. If he couldn't be trusted a few days ago, he shouldn't all-of-a-sudden be trusted now. He told me she even went as far as to invite him to the Basilica! Gods! I bet he just couldn't wait to go running his mouth about me going to the SkyHook to get me in trouble. No doubt he was still angry with me in the first place for telling on him. Oh well. Superior or not, Mitara is going to hear what I have to say about this. I don't think it is fair to threaten my career over him and now she is inviting him to the Amarrian Basilica! The nerve. I bet she has a thing for him, wouldn't suprise me in the least."

"She had the audacity to send an apology to me via Zenton the other day. I was annoyed, not that she apologized but she couldn't do it to my face."

"Anyhow, it was just a bad day all around."

"Zenton, Jhaelee, and I went plexing with Kheth from the 24th Crusade. It went okay til the very end, til we were finished and heading back to Lantorn. I lost my ship in a trap on one of the gates. A pirate whom we had engaged much earlier had waited all of that time for us. As much as I hated losing that ship and being podded, I have to admire his patience and skill. He managed to take down both Zenton and I, pods and all."

She shifted in the bed, restlessly kicking the sheet off of her.

"Theres nothing worse than being podded. Dying. They try to tell you that it isn't a real death, that the body is just an instrument and what matters is the soul, but it is hard to believe that when you're watching laser beams barreling into your structure while being scrammed and jammed and knowing that you're completely fracked. You have but a nano second to respond. You tense. Smoke rolls through the cockpit and you desperately try every emergency evasive sequence that you can think of. You know it is in vain but self presevation kicks in and you have to try something. And then you eject because you know you've lost your ship, but in that moment it doesn't matter. Surviving matters. Material things are just that, material and unimportant and you focus all of your essence on that one damn button on the tatical display. Warp. For the love of God and Empire, warp, warp, WARP. You scream at the god damned display desperately as if that is somehow going to make it work any better. And then you hear that saccharine sweet, automated voice announcing it's all over. Some kind of paralyzing serum is released into your bloodstream so you don't actually feel the moment of impact. Everything is a blurr after that."

"You wake up sometime later suspended in a vat of goo, blinded by light, bombarded with a surreal amount of memories, your senses are disoriented and you just try to make sense of what the frack is happening even if you've been through the process a thousand times before."

"I hate it. The med techs barely give you time to get yourself together before slapping you into a new pod and sending you on your way. It's so cold and clinical, no one even cares that you've just died, that you've lost a part of yourself and that some piece of you is out there floating around in space. Or even worse, that your enemy broke open your pod and stole what was left of you. And you really don't want to think about what they end up doing with it."

"Usually it's best to just jump back into the action straight away. Don't stop to think about it, don't dwell on it. Ship up and get back out there on the front lines, that way you don't have to think about it."

She rolled her head to the side, looking at the window and noting the light beneath it. It was simulated, of course. There was no night or day on a space station.

"I probably shouldn't be here now, thinking about it."

She sighed.

"But I don't know where else to be at the moment. I can't stand the thoughts of getting back into a pod right now. Zenton is busy out on the lines so Inis is out. Can't go to the Basilica because I don't want to run into that tattle-telling bastard Koronakesh. The Utopia Dream is way out in zero making the rounds so that is out. God forbid I go to the Skyhook or Last Gate, not worth losing my career over, what little career that I do have. Maybe Paradise..."

She shifted on the bed again, frustrated.

"But then I'd chance running into Garst. He apologized to me the other night for not being there when I needed him, thinking that my transmission to him was a cry for help. He still doesn't believe me though, thinks I've fabricated the whole thing. Said I must have been dreaming or drunk when I sent it."

She shrugged.

"I wish he were right."

Terminate Log.