Loosing is fun: The story dump thread (Aka the R.R.Martin thread)

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Accessing Maltese National Database

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Isabel Santillian
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Entry Two

They're not what I expected.

[Santillian crouched on her Dagger's wing, the camera swaying from its perch atop the ship's cockpit.]

Not Liberty. Liberty was exactly what I expected. Opportunistic pirates and equally brutal lawmakers. It's the Spirits that were different.

A pair of Bounty Hunters were on my tail as soon as I poked my nose out of the California field. The first one never knew what hit him. The second nearly took my wing off. I was lucky that a Rogue raiding party rocked up when it did. They were decent, for Libertonians, and agreed to show me to a base in New York. I suspect they were only in it for a share of the loot from those Hunters, but they were welcome to it. Along with the ship not being airtight, it seems that the tractor beam doesn't work either. It took me twenty minutes of kicking the thrusters around to get one of the Hunter's pods into the bay. I felt like some sort of demented interstellar hen.

The Rogues tossed me the co-ordinates for Buffalo before they headed off, leaving a trail of ship parts in their wake. And I thought my fighter was in a bad away.

Things started to get strange when I arrived in New York. It wasn't a long flight from the California jump gate to the Badlands, and the fields were all over my sensors before I could do much about it. My head started to ache, the only way I can describe it is as the feeling you'd get with an insect clawing at the inside of your skull.

Then my scanner started playing up, flagging ships in the field, but labeling them as organic. At first I thought the Rogues must have had a prison ship, but the shape was too... Solid to be remains. It was around then that I realised that I could... Hear? I suppose it's as good an analogy as any. I could hear emotions in that itching in my skull. There was fear there, and curiosity. It was like having a newborn child linked directly to your mind. The way they see things... I can't even begin to describe. It's all colour, all emotion. It's like nothing else I've ever seen or heard of. Trying to describe it would be like describing sight to the blind... How would I begin?

[Santillian shook her head, as though it would banish the memory of that first contact, probing and hesitant, like a spider creeping through her mind.]

There was a second Spirit there too, bigger and quieter. I think it was there to protect the one that I was communicating with, although it's hard to say where communication ends and existence begins with them. Who knows what they do intentionally and what just happens because they're there? I think I must have grown used to the headache by that point, because I can't remember noticing it.

We 'talked' for a while. The one I talked to seemed to find my ship amusing. He -I'm not sure why. He just felt like a he.- thought it was strange that we flew around in ships that were just dead material and metal. It must seem weird to them, when they can fly just as they are. Perhaps that's how the Maltese look to the rest of Sirius, with our re-breathers and our masks. I'm glad to be rid of those.

I agreed to show the Spirit Buffalo Base, I thought he would find it interesting, considering his focus on my ship. The Rogues didn't take the same view and opened up on him as soon as he was in range.

And I defended him.

Spirits, I don't know why. I've been wondering what possessed me to engage a Rogue gunboat all the way back to Malta. I couldn't dodge something like that, its opening barrage tore through my shields like they were cardboard. I was certain I was going to die. My life didn't flash before my eyes, I didn't get the soft music playing in the background, nothing like that. There was just a turret and the certainty that I would take my last breath in some freezing asteroid field at the back end of nowhere.

Then the second Spirit was there. It cut down the gunboat like the harvest falling to a scythe. I've never seen anything like it before, the power of that creature... It ripped apart an armored gunboat like it was a toy. It was twenty minutes before my hands stop shaking. I cruised after the spirits in a daze, muttering some sort of apology. I'll spare you the details. It was disgusting, really. I'm disgusted with myself.

It wasn't long before our presence drew the attention of Liberty's Navy, but a Navy fighter wasn't the only thing waiting at the Pennsylvania gate. A Spirit, bigger then any I'd ever heard of hovered by the gate. I could feel it, as soon as it jumped in. I think everyone in the Badlands felt it. I managed to salvage a shot from my guncam, one of the few parts of this heap that seems to work without me having to hit it.

With the arrival of the larger Spirit, the Navy backed off. The first Spirit seemed to have forgiven me for the Rogue attack and had been asking questions about the Maltese. It's strange how something so alien can be so... Childish. After what I'd done to him, I couldn't leave him in Liberty while the Navy gathered ships.

So, I turned for home. Even Jonas can't touch me if I'm working under the direction of a spirit. Besides, I feel like I really do want to understand them. No-one I know has ever seen one, and I saw three. Maybe there's some sort of reason for that.

We kept clear of the trade routes, and the journey back to Malta was silent, although that itch in my skull reappeared. It only seems to show up when I'm talking to the smallest Spirit. He left once we arrived in Alpha, although I've got a feeling he hasn't gone far.

No-one else knows I'm back yet. I think I'll keep it that way. There's enough traffic coming through to cover my arrival for around a week, so I just need to find a way out of this debt by then.

In the meantime, maybe the Oracles will have some answers.

Isabel Santillian

Entry Ends

Name: Isabel Santillian
ID Progression: Outcast ID
Ship Progression: Dagger*
Ships lost: None
Current Cash: 6, 000 Credits
Role: (Self Appointed) Nomad Guardian
Mode: Ironman (Dead is Dead - At least until she can get a ship with a functioning escape pod.)

*Cheated a little here and went out and purchased a Dagger before I officially started Santillian. Say what you will, but Outcasts don't fly CSVs.

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May you live in interesting times.
| Sarah McFarlen | Jane Hartman |