[netburnr]

In December of 02, another player, Adara inspired me to write my first RP. In the spirit of Jumpgate Evolution, I have again returned to Jumpgate and I figured its time to explain it....

Standing, looking at my self in the mirror, my hair was still wet from my first shower in 3 years. I am excited, I was to meet a lovely young woman by the name of Adara. I leave my room dressed to impress, wearing my new Leather Jacket I had imported from my homeworld of Earth. Excited, I hop in my nix, crank up the in-flight music and activate the launch systems. Looking at my guages, I see something wrong, low power, weapons offline, and I'm going horribly slow. I then realize that in my hurry to leave, I forgot to switch out the stock equipment that came with my nix. After redocking and setting up my nix with all the best parts, I leave Outpost and head to Octavius Core station.
On my way, I see a shuttle struggling with a c3 Squid, looking down at my watch I find I have enough time to help him out. "Hail from battle cruiser 'Tricky Bastage', do you need help?" I send over public communications channels. Before I know it, the shuttle destroyed the squid and sent back a freindly hail. Pulling up to OC station, I notice that for this time of day, there is no traffic. Flash firing towards the station, I flip over and stop in just the right spot, then landing in the tube at 99V. With a smile on my face, I hop out of my Nix and start walking from the hanger to the pub. But, something is wrong. I stop and look around, no other ships, no personel, no other pilots, the whole place is deserted. I check my watch and confirm that it is the most popular time of the "day". Confused, I walk over to the closest terminal and check station logs, to find that almost all of my freinds were last noted as launched and no landing, some have been out as much as one year.
Disturbed by this latest development, I walk to the pub and look for Adara, what I find saddens me, a note on the counter. Opening the note, I read what Adara has said from her heart, and begin to feel a heavy weight on my chest, HOW, how can I loose another friend. I rush to the station terminal again and check Adara's last flight log. Launched, no return. Almost in tears, I get back in my nix and launch, not knowing where I am going to go, but knowing, SOMEONE will pay for the loss of my friends.

To post face: This was during the "great depression" of player numbers. Adara was pushed out of the game by verbal abuse from a select few players.

I wake up in the cockpit of my nix, drowsy and very hung over. I try and open my eyes, but the throbbing in my head compounded by the bright light make it very hard. I turn around my flight chair and navigate my way around the inside of the nix with my eyes closed, after I find the asprin and another beer I open my eyes. Wondering to myself, "how, how could this happen" I sit back down in the cockpit and fire up all primary systems.
*Alarms going off*

I check my controls and find that there is a incoming shield storm, and decide to come off the rock I had been sitting on for......I can't remember, and where am I? Sliding off the rock, I head towards Solrain core in search for the people responsible, they WILL pay. On the way, I encounter a few people who tell me that I am not allowed to be in Solrain space as HG, and I quickly dispatch them to their high-tech pods and send them back home. Seeing the anger that comes from them when their pods launch, I decide that I will never again be a victim of TRI systems. Reaching under the control panel, I rip out a handfull of wires that tell the pod systems to launch when the ship is about to explode.

Before I know it, I am already at Solrain core, and just like the rest of space, it is deserted. Landing without any interference, I slide into the docking bay and wait patiently as my ships is parked in the hanger. Grabbing my gun, I hope out of the cockpit and start walking towards the TRI offices. I can smell the corruption, it smells so bad, its everywhere, in the faces of all the mindless workers running about their daily buisiness. I can see the corruption in the bar, 3 solrain pilots picking on a young octavian boy, hitting him, telling him to give them his last 10 credits. The Anger is growing in me, how am I supposed to control it, HOW am I supposed to live with the loss of so many of my brothers and sisters, HOW! I can see the offices now, and for some reason there is only one guard on post, aparently they have had some cutbacks on security, no matter, a army couldn't stop me now, this is one mission I will not fail.

"Stop there, and state your intentions" says the guard while raising his weapon to show he is serious. "You can't bully me around, TRI will pay for what they have done!" I scream back at the guard while pulling my knife from its holder and quickly advancing on the man before he could pull the trigger. I look into his eyes as my knife reaches its target, directly hitting his heart, his cold, empty heart. With the guard dead, there is nothing keeping me from killing the man responsible, he will pay, pay the ultimate price.

With a loud crash, the door to the TRI director's office comes slamming down from the force of my heavy footed kick. What I see next catches me by suprise, its Sarath V, and what is he doing?! "HOW COULD YOU?" I shout at him, he looks at me scared seeing the blood on my knife reflecting in the light. "My warrior, what brings you here, and why are you covered in the blood of my men?" Sarath says to me. "Your taking money from the most wealthy Sol, you are corrupt, and now you will die for putting my brothers and sisters in the hands of powerful and rich, not to mention greedy Solrain pilots. No longer will you be able to buy and sell us like slaves, no longer do we fight for you. Now you will pay the ultimate price, like so many of us have."

Next thing I know, a loud weapon goes off and I've been hit hit from the right, my shoulder is bleeding and it feels like I have been hit with a sledgehammer. The shot has already half spun me around, and looking left I see the attacker, a very powerful Solrain defense pilot by the name of MadJackal. "What are you doing here, and why have you shot down my pilots to get here?" he asks me while holding his gun steadily aimed at my chest. "MJ, we have fought against each other for a long time, and we have both sent each other home in our pods many times, but this battle we fight is corrupt, look at Sarath, standing there like he is a great leader, but the facts show, he has let too many of us die, too many of us are still suffering, and now I do what I must do to end this."

Without as much as a flinch, I quickly pulled my weapon out and shot MJ squarely in his hand making his gun go flying out the door and down the hall. Doing a complete 180 I then line up my shot on Sarath V, "Sarath, now you die, you will never let us down again", the gun goes off and the once great TRI leader now sits dead in his chair. Before my head clears completely MadJackal is already attacking me with his one good hand hitting me directly in the gun wound in my shoulder. White flashes are all I can see, and the pain is overwelming. I turn around to catch the second punch in the chest which hurt considerably less. Acting in more of a reaction than offensive move, I hit MJ directly in the throat sending him to the floor gapsing for breath. Before he can get up, I am already out the door and jogging to my nix. As I climb in the cockpit I hear the alarms going off and MJ running towards my ship with more security personel behind.

With a loud bang, I slam through the launch bay doors using a missle to soften up the impact. Using everything my battle hardened nix has, I blast out of Solrain space and find myself at Lothar's Landing, tired, dirty, and empty. "Sarath is dead, along with my many freinds, there is nothing left" I think as I fall asleep in the cockpit of my ship.

I wake up, so very groggy. There is some kind of music playing... What is it? As the blurry objects begin to focus, I notice I'm in the place I've considered home for many years. My battle hardened Nix had served me well, and then the memories of what had happened flashed before my eyes.

All the death, all the pilots lost, where did they all go?

I get up from my flight chair, noticing that I appear to be in a station. I attempt to turn on the trusty ship's main power, but I get nothing. Using the manual release I hop out of the nix, but as I hit the ground a sharp pain hits me in both the shoulder and chest. I realize that my arm wound has healed, however the pain in the chest could not be as easily explained and would not heal easily. Dark thoughts swimming through the pain, I made my way over to a station terminal to check the date. It had been 5 years.

Wondering how I had gotten here I start to get a weird feeling in the air. Call it an Octavius sixth sense, call it an electric charge, but it was very real. With electricity flowing through me, my keys started typing on the terminal, first slowely, but quickly speeding up to the point I was amazed at how fast they were moving. The console was flashing at a pace I could not keep up with until all of a sudden the screen stopped and I was introduced to one of the most amazing and primal pictures I had ever seen. It appeared to be a new super Conflux and I knew from then on, I had a date with destiny. While trying to find more information about what I had missed in the last 5 years, I found a small group of people who had survived the struggle, and I've tried to move on, to forget the past. There is a bright future ahead, and I plan on helping one recruit after another until the feeling of treason towards Octavius went away.

[Algore]

What is an Octovian?

[QrazyKermi]

An Octavian born in October.

[Hornet]

Interesting read. I tried making an RP once for Hornet, it didnt work.

[netburnr]

Leaving the station's terminal I head over to the repair station and turn on the ship scanner. I find that my nix while scared from years of abuse is not completely dead. With little experience repairing the TRI ships, I simply refuel my ship and do a quick repair to get the hull space worthy.

Hopping back into the cockpit I fire up the main computer and find that my registry tag seems to have reset itself back to Civilain. With a dirty feeling, I launch from Lothar's Landing and head back to Oct space to get rid of this nasty Civ tag and back into something more honorable. As I head towards the Far Point gate my Nix is shaking badly and it appears my engines are only putting out about half of their normal trust.

Slowly making my way through sector after sector of empty space, I wonder to myself what has become of our universe. "Where are all the people?" I think outloud, speaking to myself as I often do. After what seemed like forever I am welcomed to the Outpost station with the familure sound of the docking clamps latching on to my nix. After docking I put the nix in for repairs. As the ship slides into the repair facility, a lonely looking man approaches the cockpit. "Hello sir, what can I do for you?" he says. "I just need a wash and a wax" I say smartly back to him. With a very unamused look on his face he barks back at me "this isn't a ship wash, wash it youself."

Attempting to calm the man down I replied "Sorry bro, just a little humor, I havn't seen another person for quite some time, so I guess my sense of humor is a bit twisted. I need you to do a full check on my Nix, its been sitting for years and I fear the worst." Without a word the man goes over to the ship, plugs in a data recorder and starts running diagnostics. "Ahh, it appears your power plant is very out of date, and I'm surprised this engine even got you here, just give me a few minutes and I'll have this ship back into fighting shape"

As I walk away from the repair station, I go to the Tag Registry system to restore my Honor Guard status. Punching in the required commands I had so long ago memorized the system beeps back at me as if I were an idiot. Hitting the console I request the database system to figure out why my Honor Commands will not go through only to find that a new system has replaced the HG tag. After glancing at the very lacking documentation for the new "Military Tag" I decide I will just have to learn as I go. Switching to Military while muttering to myself I leave the registry console and head back to the repair center.

"Your ship is done" the repair tech says as I walk in the door. "How bad was it?" I ask. "Worst I had seen in some time, I had to pull out my space helmet to even get inside..." he paused "what died in there?" he asked. With one word I headed to the ship "me" I said under my breath.

Getting back in the cockpit of my Nix I find a the same controls, maybe a little better lit, but nothing to show for 5 years of factional growth and development. "Welcome to the future" I mumbled to myself.

With a quick check of the map, I notice that some of Oct space's Beacons have been flipped blue. Thinking to myself about the old days of chasing sols all through oct space in their faster ships, I decided I'd rather just get payback in their space instead of chasing some lone pilot all over the place.

Equiped with an Oct BCU, I launch from OP heading towards sol space. As I'm flying through Dark Gateway I see a Solrain cargo ship marked as an enemy. Before opening fire I notice the pilot is running a civilian tag. Unsure of what to do I simply fired off my sector greeting "Hail from the Octavius Fighter 'Old N Dusty'"

Appearing to be feeling safe behind the civilian tags, the cargo pilot simply said "hello" back. A little confused at the new tag system I continue towards Wake station quietly flipping beacons to the correct red color as I go. As I jumped into Purian Lake I was suprised by a sudden flash of my shields. "CRAP, gate camp" I yelled to noone. As soon as I exited the gate I quickly scanned the sector and found two high level pilots flying Solrain Medium Fighters. With my shields screaming I had no choice but to make a run for Wake, hitting the first of my two flash fires I ran as fast as I could, pressing the battle hardened nix to its maximum speed towards Wake station's gate. Before I had reached half way to the gate one of the Solrain MF pilots had used a flash fire to catch back up to me, and was once again lighting up what was left of my shields. Quickly scanning for his wingmate I notice he is still far enough away to give me just enough time to try and fight off the nearest MF before needing to run again.

Flipping over 180 degrees, I nail the afterburner to get the correct forward momentum to allow my ammo a chance to hit the very thin profile of the nearest Medium Fighter. With ammo explosions reverberating through my entire ship, I unload a hailstorm of ammo in the direction of the enemy pilot. Before he knows what hit him, my ammo is tearing into his ship's very light amount of armor. With only a sliver of armor left he quickly changes direction and flash fires away. With only a small distance between my Nix and his wingmate, I flip back over as quickly as possible and flash fire the remaining distance to Wake station.

As I jumped into the sector I gave the ship full throttle and quickly scaned for the station so make a quick dock. As the sector comes up on my targeting computer, my heart sinks. "Access Denied" the computer tells me. "CRAP!" I again think out loud, "This new tag system didn't mention anything about not being able to dock" I mumble to myself in disbelief.

With very little time, I quickly make a wide circle around the station just as the two Medium Fighters jump in together. Knowing the injured pilot will most likely try to hang back, I immediately target the fresh fighter and wait for his approach. Sure enough he is in the lead, and closing the distance between him and the station blocking his view of me. Once he is within my ammo range I quickly manuever my ship around the station and head right at the newest target, unloading rounds and rounds of thundering ammo directly in his flight path. Unsure of his target, he quickly turns and attempts to lure me into a circle. Using my head and previous experience I know that if I let this paper thin ship get me in a circle I will be dead before I know it, so I use every bit of speed I can to run back to the Purian Lake gate.

Jumping through and quickly targeting the next gate back to my home space I afterburn away from the gate. Glanding at my HUG I notice I'm very low on AB fuel, and I will soon be at a great disadvantage, I flip over and prepare for one last stand. Sure enough, the two MFs jumped in together again, once armored with full shields, the other hanging back allowing his shields to recharge. The first attacking pilot heads slowely towards me, unsure of what I am going to do. Thinking before attacking he suddenly turns his ship to a 90 degree angle and starts flying up and above me.

Smelling another circle set up, I fire up my engines full throttle and kick in the AB trying to close the distance between me and him before he can vector again. Just as I entered ammo range I start unloading the thunderous ammo at his bottom profile, once again tearing his shields into shreds. Noticing that I am once again locked on to his wingmate, the second MF approaches me from behind. Before I know what hit me, my shields are once again taken down, and what little valuable armor I have is being torn away by laser fire. With the first Sol MF running again trying to save his last bit of armor, I turn to take on the new target and before I can line up my target I hear the familure sound of explosion just as my pod ejects.