Killswitch: Chapter One

Chapter List:
Prologue

Meeting the Man

There are two kinds of people in this world, those that are gonna die, and those that are me.
Cruikias Mondet, Minmatar Racing Champion.

After a much quieter second leg, Hallan finally arrived in 6NJ8-V. Venal. The home of the Guristas pirates. He checked the system beacons and found two stations, he recognized the one the instructions had mentioned and engaged warp.

He came out of the warp bubble quickly, and angled his ship for docking.

Hallan Turrek then effortlessly glided his Rifter into the Guristas Logistics Support station, just like he'd done hundreds of thousands of times in the past. This time though the hangars were devoid of crew. He wasn't sure what that meant. He slowly lowered his Rifter onto a landing pad and felt his ship clang as it held his ship down.

"I'm grounded?" He thought from inside his pod, "Oh this ain't normal,"

"We ain't normal, get out of the pod," A voice boomed inside his head.

_______________________

Hallan Turrek was being led by several armed men through the station corridors. It looked as though it hadn't been cleaned in years, the normally shiny interior of the Caldari station was stained with a puke green hue. One of the men grabbed him by the arm and shoved him against a door. The door opened and he was kicked inside. He flew into the room and came down on his knees.

Hallan looked up to see a man sitting behind a desk, who reached forward to turn on a lamp on his desk. Hallan stood up and looked in the man's eyes.

"Sit down," The man said it plainly, without the hint of command in his voice.

"I'm good," Hallan said, dusting off his coat.

"You know, you remind me of a guy who used to work for me, went by the name Zippo," The man behind the desk leaned back and put his boots up in front of him.

"That's a funny name," Hallan said, looking up.

"They're all funny names. Thing is, he had a real problem with authority. Give the guy an order, he'd find some way to shove it up your ass. It's how I ended up with him. One day, 'bout eight years ago I tell this guy before a job, 'Make sure you bring a backup detonator.'

"I mean, Zippo was a professional demo guy. He could make a light show like you wouldn't believe. This was important though, so I felt like saying it. He didn't like it, but he shut up about it. We get to the bank, we break into the vault--"

"Where at?"

"What are you a fucking cop? It's a vault. We break into the vault, we rig up the charges, and it doesn't go off. So I tell him to break out the extra detonator. And he tells me, he didn't bring 'em,"

"So what'd you do?"

"I shot that prick and used mine,"

"What?" Hallan raised an eyebrow.

The man behind the desk threw his feet to the floor and leaned forward into the light, "I told you to fucking sit down,"

Hallan looked around for a moment, laughed softly, and sat down in the chair across from the man.

"Now, who are you?" The man asked, picking up a pen on his desk.

"I'm Hallan Turrek,"

"That's what you're going with, 'I'm Hallan Turrek?'" The man let a half smile cross his face and it quickly faded away.

"That's my name,"

"I know your name jackass. You think I'd let you in this room... you think I'd let you on this station if I didn't know your ident code, what you wear to bed, what you had for breakfast this morning, and who your mom and dad were fucking last night?"

"My Dad's dead,"

"And your Mom's a prude. Let's not get distracted," the man twirled the pen quickly between his fingers, but focused his eyes on Hallan, "Do you at least know who I am?"

"You're Jira..."

"No, that's wrong. We don't play by those rules here. I'm Fatal,"

"Ok,"

"Who are you?"

Hallan stopped for a moment and looked up, "I-I'm Jack,"

"Now we're getting somewhere,"

"I'm here to work for you,"

"I know that,"

"I can be useful," Hallan leaned onto the table as he spoke.

"If you weren't useful you'd have never made it here,"

"What do you need me to do?"

"I need you to prove to me that I can trust you,"

"How do I do that?"

"You tell me,"

"I've been killing miners, traders, and anti-pirates for months now. I've been stealing from and killing the Cartel on a regular basis," Hallan stopped speaking for a moment as Fatal's pen fell to the table.

"Yeah, the Cartel. They fucking hate you. And I hate them. But I don't really see where killing and stealing from thieves is supposed to get you currency in this exchange," Hallan shifted uncomfortably in his seat as Fatal spoke, "You know the difference between you and me and the cartel?"

"The rules?"

"Not where I was going with that, but I like how you think. You and me? Style. Them? Profit,"

"I try both when I can," Hallan said with a chuckle.

"Me too man, me too," Fatal stared at Hallan intently for a moment and sighed, "Listen, I can't really be sure Concord wouldn't send somebody like you down here to fuck with me, or to spy on me. So here's what we're going to do. Concord's got a nice blockade set up at a stargate we'd been using for smuggling into Empire.

"It's pretty obvious we can't use the gate again, but since you just fell in my lap, I've got an idea. Go find Orvyllerier Allerande on the promenade. He'll get you the coords for the stargate. Go there. Kill them. All of them. Talk to Orvy when you're done.

"If this works out, you report to Orvy from now on. You don't want to see me again. It means something bad is about to happen. I'm letting you know because if that time comes, there's nothing you can do about it,"

Hallan nodded and stood up. He extended his hand and the man shook it. Hallan turned around and walked out the door. Hallan realized the guards were gone and as the door closed behind him, he shivered.

Killswitch: Prologue

A Path Through The Cold

Run, Run as fast as you can. You can't catch me I'm the Gingerbread Man.
The Gingerbread Man - Traditional Gallente Fairy Tale

The Aces Wild jumped through the gate, and very loudly landed on the other side. The gate induced cloaking laid a veil over the ship as it's pilot surveyed the situation. Hallan Turrek's mind raced inside his pod.

A mobile warp disruption bubble and an Arazu laid between him and the next gate. He slowly turned his camera drones to view his surroundings and noticed a few asteroid belts behind the gate. He told his navigation computer to warp in it's direction, and it quickly did so, shrugging off the cloak as it entered warp.

He landed on three Angel Cartel Battleships and three more Angel Cartel Frigates. Hallan turned his ship around and selected the planet that the next gate orbited and engaged warp again. The Cartel hadn't even managed to target him. That was for the best he imagined, the Cartel would pay a high price for his head.

He opened his navigation menu and created a bookmark just before landing. He then stared at the scene before him in disbelief as he realized he'd been pulled into a warp bubble orbiting the planet. He engaged his prototype cloaking device and began to burn his way out of it. No ships were waiting for him, and he figured he had cloaked before they got a fix on his location as none arrived. When he emerged from the bubble, he engaged his warp to the bookmark he'd created. The Aces Wild shook as it came out of warp again and shimmered softly before disappearing again in the dark night.

Hallan's directional scanner showed five small bubbles surrounding the gate accompanied by a single large bubble and a Caldari Navy Raven. Imagining that support could be on it's way any moment, Hallan dropped cloak again and engaged his warp drive. The Rifter sparkled in the starlight as Hallan's heart began to beat faster. He came out of warp inside a warp disruption bubble, pointed his ship in a direction and engaged his cloak. He was twenty eight kilometers away from the gate. He watched as the Raven headed in his direction. He'd cloaked fast enough to avoid a target lock, but not fast enough to avoid detection.

Hallan cursed mentally as the Raven passed four kilometers from his ship. The cloak would malfunction if anything came within two kilometers and Hallan knew it. Suddenly the Raven released a full load of Ogre's that began an orbit. The drones were regularly coming within three kilometers of his ship. Hallan selected the gate, and readied his microwarp drive. He turned the camera to see a web of warrior one in the direction he was flying. He changed his trajectory and headed towards the gate. He zoomed his camera out and saw that a huge web of warrior one's surrounded the gate. These guys were good.

Suddenly the Arazu came out of warp within five kilometers. So these two were working together. It released it's own load of Hobgoblin two's and began to perform an orbit around the Raven. It inched closer.

"Arazu's don't usually carry warp scramblers," he thought "That Raven would take to long to lock me if it carried a scrambler,"

The Gisti-B type microwarp drive he'd stolen from the Cartel had netted him nothing but trouble from them in the past, but today, he imagined it could save him. If he was right, there was nothing these guys could do about it. The gate was now twenty six kilometers away and his reduced speed while cloaked made that a long wait. The Arazu worried him though, and he decided to stick to plan A until it became prudent to make a run for it.

Then the cloud of Hobgoblin's disappeared into the Arazu's holds. It stopped in space for just a fraction of a moment before warping away. Hallan smiled inwardly and decloaked. He activated the microwarp drive and headed for the gate.

He was faster than the Raven by a long shot. It's lock hadn't even resolved by the time Hallan signaled for gate activation.

His smile melted away as he realized that another bubble awaited him on the other side of that gate.

It was unattended but Hallan knew the Raven was lumbering back to the gate while the Arazu was likely in warp to the gate as well. This system was full of capusleers and his name was probably plastered across all of the local intel channels. Hallan decided to take all available precautions.

He warped to a belt and cloaked. He was thankful the next gate was in scan range. No activity on the scan. He warped in, activated the gate and landed in an empty system.

"That's better," he thought, before engaging warp.