A soft gentle breeze flowed through the open door of the arbitrator, a vessel once flown by her CEO. What had been left of it was tucked away in the graveyard of ships and other random pieces behind the Praetorian Hall in Amarr. Some of the junior officers had taken it upon themselves to turn it into a sort of club to meet at on their downtime. The place was littered with old sofas, chairs, and whatever else they could manage to salvage and sneak in from other nearby ships. Most of it had been gutted out, only a handful of rooms remained, sometimes one could find a hungover ensign snoring from the backroom any given morning.
The door leading into the cockpit had long been torn down and replaced by a beaded curtain. The walls were graffitied with the names, her own in bring pink paint in the corner.
She sat alone, lost in thought, stretched out on one of the sofas. Ensign Atfal Alnudjum had left moments earlier.
For a long while she had done nothing but sit there and think about what they had spoken of. He had talked of God and scripture and made her so very aware of God's gifts for his people, things she had never really considered before.
Sometime after he had left, she had opened up the doors of the arbie to stare out at the pale blue sky beyond them, wondering where the others were at the moment. No doubt on patrols or doing something for the war effort.
She couldn't stomach the idea of getting in a pod at the moment. Since the night she lost the malediction Invelious had given her, she had been planetside, afraid to go back out.
Activating her personal drone, she started the recording.
"I know that I will have to go back, I know this, but at the same time I can't bring myself to actually do it. I've not left the Amarrian area, only taking a shuttle to Sarum Prime for a skill book. I just..."
She sighed wearily "I have no illusions that I will ever be a great pilot. But I thought at some point I'd be good, or rather, at least not an embarassment. However, that seems not to be the case. I make foolish mistakes, mistakes that a rookie right out of the academy would not. I freeze in combat, I panic, and for those mistakes, I suffer. I lose ships. I die."
A tear trickled down her cheek. She darted her tongue out and licked it away as it reached the corner of her mouth. "It is so frustrating and humiliating. I feel as if I am an embarassment, to both the Praetoria and myself."
The beaded curtain ruffled on the breeze, clinking together sounding almost like a windchime.
"I sometimes think I'd be better suited elsewhere. Perhaps mining. I went on a mining op the other night with Raphael and Kaiden, I did a bit of hauling in Raph's bestower. It wasn't the most exciting thing in New Eden but it was relatively safe and something I can't really fuck up."
"I was never supposed to remain in the Praetoria. I'm not really supposed to be here, I'm on borrowed time as it is. If they should ever find out my past they will chuck me out anyhow...maybe I should bail out before it ever gets to that point."
A look of distress washed across her face as she thought of her short time in PIE, of how she considered them family. If she left, where would she go, what could she do? "I just don't know what to do. I'm not a fighter pilot, that much is obvious. As much as I try I fail. I can't even support myself, I have no family left to speak of, no family trust fund, everything was seized when father was arrested. I have nothing, really. If I leave PIE...I just...I don't know what I would do?"
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