The [[Kestrel]] entered a sharp turn pulling into the acceleration of the afterburner as it ignited giving an extra boost of speed. Trying to maintain the ridiculously small orbit, the pilot could "feel" the ship strain under the stress, but he knew she would hold, she always held.
The Gurista ship turned and looped and dived in an attempt to shake the Kestrel but her pilot was just to good. It dawned on the pirate that the Kestrel must be a capsuleer's ship, it was the only way it could be keeping up so well. Checking his status board he saw that his shields had melted away under the barrage of missiles the Kestrel spat at him. In a last ditch effort the Gurista pulled the ship into a hard rolling turn, headed straight towards the Kestrel. But it was a futile effort, the last of his armor was blown away and the ships delicate internal structure was taking damage. Alarms were blaring in a deafening cacophony as the ship screamed in pain. "This is it," thought the pirate. He watched the brilliant trail of the missiles engine as it streaked towards him.
I smiled as felt the slight shudder of my missile launchers release another volley of pure Sabretooth death into the on coming Gurista. It had been a rather dull fight in all honesty. The capsuleer's POD gave the pilots quite an edge over normal ships. The beauty of the cybernetic interface was a greatly reduced latency as mere thought alone was enough to control my ship. In pleasing fireball the Gurista's ship exploded leaving nothing but a scared and twisted wreckage behind. Checking my overview showed the immediate grid was clear of enemies. My comm beeped at me and an agent notification popped up indicting the target vessel had been destroyed. With the mission complete I aligned to the Science and Trade Institute School at Itamo VI - Moon 6. My ship picked up speed and then slipped into the familiar warp tunnel.
At some point in the past week I had moved my home base to Itamo VI - Moon 6 - Science and Trade Institute School, a place from my past. Itamo is a great system. With a .7 security status it allowed the anchoring of GSC for my mining runs and had enough agents in system to keep me busy. Its also somewhat of a dead in system, while it has 7 gates, 5 of them lead to true dead in systems, one is only yet one more jump from a dead end, and the last leads to Maurasi, which leads out into the rest of The Forge, including to Jita. This made for a great spot to settle down for a bit and get the hang of being a capsuleer.
While STI had served me well it was time to move onto a real corporation. I spent a couple of days looking through recruitment bulletins and talking to various recruitment officers. Someone had told me that looking for corp was a two-way interview, that not only was the corp accepting me, but that I was choosing the corp, and should ask all the question I wanted to. So, I took that piece of advice to heart and grilled all the recruiting officers trying to find a corp that would fit my needs. Determined leaderships and strong vision for the future were the key components I was looking for, not to mention some galactic domination in the future.
The problem is I'm a bit impatient and also rather new to the life of a capsuleer. While I managed to find one corp whose recruiting material was excellent and had me wanting to join up right away, the problem was I was to new. They didn't want fresh recruits but moderately seasoned pilots, it would take about 7 months before I could even begin to be considered. So, I had to set my sights somewhat lower and focus on corps recruiting fresh capsuleers.
After a bit more searching and a couple more interviews with recruitment officers I finally found a corp, that sounded like it would be a good place to join up. New Interstellar Order was a relatively new corp, but was growing and eager to expand. The CEO is Arondor and seems like a nice enough guy, so I decided to join up. This required plotting a course to Aokannitoh to get to a corp office to sign up. It was a short trip, 5 jumps from Itamo, and I was there. Aokannitoh was dead-end system with only a single station, so finding the correct station was mind numbingly easy.
I don't relish the process of leaving my POD, its rather long and annoying. But there are times when you actually have to be somewhere in person. Once aboard the station, cleaned up, and dressed to impress, I made my way towards the corporation offices section. Checking the directory I located the NIO office and headed that way. Finding it with ease I told the receptionist I was there to apply to join the corp. I filled in the application marveling to myself that beuricratics haven't changed in millennia and they still want red-tape and triplicates and they like to make you show up physically and use an electronic pad to fill out a form, by hand, just to be difficult. Even the immortal capsuleers still had to obey the red-tape.
With my application complete I headed to the station concourse to find something to eat. Our PODs are great, amazing marvels of technology, but intravenous feeding gets old and a body misses honest to goodness food. Perusing the selection of restaurants I picked a mom-n-pop shop that looked greasy and delicious. I found a table in a corner towards the back where I could keep an eye on the entrance and examined the menu. The waitress came by and I ordered iced tea, a favorite drink of mine that supposedly traces its roots back to the old world. Not being a picky eater I asked her what was good and took her recommendation on the best dish they served.
A few minutes passed and I sipped my tea waiting for the food and taking in the sites as people bustled about the concourse browsing the myriad of shops and kiosks. My food finally arrived and it was a sandwich of sorts, a greasy meat patty topped with some whitish vegetable chopped up and served with a side of wedged shaped starchy vegetables. I dug in and it was fantastic. When the waitress returned to fill my drink I asked the name of the dish and she said, "Its called an onion burger with fries. Its from the old world." And off she went with a wink, to serve some other customer.
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