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**jammi** · 04-01-2009, 05:36 PM,

There was a heavy silence filling the cockpit. Emptiness. I hung in my harness, still muzzy from my brief unconsciousness. Slowly I came around, blinking away the mist and peering out the view screen. It looked like I was near the battlefield. How long had I been unconscious?

My Titan had been jumped by Hessians as I had run against Rosenberg with my hermanos. An EMP mine had hit my ship. Engines, sensors, shielding. Gone. The others had been pushed back and the Rhienlanders had taken me for dead, another ghost ship alike the others that littered the system. I had wept tears of mute betrayal as the last Titans were chased away. Then the darkness had taken me.

Now it I was awake again I tried to pry the panelling off the main dashboard. I had expected all the systems to be powered down, but a back-up generator was working. A small light blinked in the shadows behind coils of wiring. Inside the panelling there were override switches and fuses. After a few minutes of fiddling, there was a cough from the rear of the ship as the main generator did a cold-restart.

Then the engines were active again. Wheeling around I eased my ship away, limping back towards Cadiz. I had the feeling Id sprained my wrist too. And yet, something seemed wrong. More wrong than the situation should have been anyway. I had the impression something had happened to me. Something I couldnt remember. Something that squatted on the very fringes of my memory. Something terrible.

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**jammi** · 04-30-2009, 06:09 PM,

The room was dark, the blinds drawn against Crete's volcanic midday heat. My physical appearance had altered drastically over the last few weeks - I had been losing weight like sand through open fingers and my previously bronzed skin was now a sick looking hue of white. In strong contrast to this, heavy black rings had gathered under my redened eyes - a side effect of far too little sleep.

I sat on the edge of my bunk, staring at my heavily shaking hands. I was ill. And the whisperings... My lips silently mouthed the cries of the voices that tormented me. If I concentrated I could bury the whispers, but I'd been concentrating so long... Occasionally things... Slipped. And the dreams! The horrible, horrible dreams!

I whimpered to myself as visions of purple plains and burning skies were drawn back to my mind's eye. The sight of alien ships burning cities, marching forward to quash the stem of foreign life that had stolen their birth-right.

Sometimes the voices were stronger than usual, but I'd a theory about that. The frayed edges of my mind had pulled together for a moment to suggest that the voices were following me... If I ran, and didn't stop, I could leave them behind.

I'd tried to escape one morning. I rented a sturdy truck and pushed it hard, riding out into the Plains. I'd stopped in the ruins of an ancient town, the alien architecture unusual and disturbing. But the voices had not been present. But then slowly they had returned, as if following me.

I stood up shakily, wobbling over to the keys to my ship. I would run. From one side of the Corsair Empire to the other if needs be. I would outrun my nightmares and the horrors of sleep. I had to.

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**jammi** · 04-30-2009, 06:50 PM,

I'd slid out through the front door for the first time in days, blinded by the sudden glare of the sun and seemingly pinned to the wall by the heat. Slowly I forced myself forward, constantly aware of the chittering voices.

I slipped through the crowd like a shade; a immaterial ghost, drawing no glances from the surrounding swarm. It was as if I didn't exist. People simply moved out the way with a slightly puzzled expression before continuing onward.

One man stopped stock still and stared at me though. Despite the heat, he wore a full length black blast coat, hair cropped short, with some sort of glasses covering his eyes and temples. He looked like an off-worlder. I quickened my pace as the voices reached a fever, screaming silently at me.

I looked back over my shoulder, but the man was gone. I hurried onwards, knowing I had narrowly escaped death. I didn't know how I had, but I knew it as surely as I knew the malevant orange sun that hung overhead. the spaceport was near.

Soon I would be free.

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**jammi** · 04-30-2009, 07:34 PM,

Now I sat strapped into my flight harness, the last wisps of atmosphere being whisked off my hull. The barren wastes of Omicron Gamma lay sprawled in front of me. In a rare moment of clarity my mind shuffled itself, wondering which direction to flee in.

As various thought processes clicked into place, blocks of thought dropped into place, booming through my mind like fallen monoliths. The Omegas. They were so remote, so far away. It made sense. Not Omega 5 though... Elsewhere. The Fes. Of course - the Fes! That was a long way away... And not Omega 5.

I shifted my Titan into cruise and wheeled around, headed for Omega 41. I barely noticed the Nephthys slide out of the docking ring after me. Then my very brain seemed to itch. An evil eye was watching me, tearing away my flesh to see what I am. What I was on the inside. But no voices. I'd left them one Crete! I giggled madly to myself. I was free. For now.

I squirmed in my seat, a cold sweat breaking out on my neck. Soon I was enveloped by the golden nebula that would lead me away and the feeling subsided.

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Das Wilde Wesen · 05-04-2009, 10:56 PM,

The Snubnose bomber sat in Omega 41, very close to the rift in space that led to Gamma.

Unmoving. Avoided by Corsiar Titan patrols. It waited.

A certain Titan hurled into Omega 41, propelled by the rift. Followed shortly by a Nephthys. The Nephthys quickly moved to get a firing lock on the Titan.

**We think not**

The Snubnose watched as the pilot of the Nephthys started to twitch, then writhe in pain. The being controlling the Snubnose concentrated. The pilot of the Nephthys screamed as blood started leaking from his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.

With a small twitch the Snubnose launched a ball of energy that turned the Nephthys into nothingness.

The Snubnose sat still as a certain Titan sped away.

**We Protect** it whispered.

**jammi** · 05-05-2009, 05:29 PM,

I gave a small startled scream as the fighter behind me erupted into a seething ball of flames, before winking out into nothingness as fast as it had been immolated. I rammed the accelerator forward with such force that the stick nearly snapped off, but I didn't care. The voices were sending their demons after me. I had to escape!

Fleeing away past Leon, towards the Omega 47 jump hole, I noticed the small ship coasting along next to me, twirling around me lazily. In desperation, I cut the engines as the jump hole neared and blazed away at it with the one turret the ship possessed. The stubby ship didn't move, but every time I fired, my hands would jerk on the targeter, causing the shots to fly wide.

Screeching in desperation and fear, I aligned my ship with the hole and plunged through, screaming towards the waiting safety of the Fes. The ship did not follow. And then the Osiris erupted into view from the swirling clouds. Gibbering with relief I sent the dock codes then allowed the automated embrace of the docking sequence.

As the bay doors slammed shut and the airlock was pressurised I pulled at my hair absently. The ship was on a night phase. I stumbled out of my ship when the room had been filled with air and set off to look for a room. A deck supervisor looked suspiciously at me until I showed him my ID. Then he pointed me to a flight cabin and left me to it.

The voices weren't here... I'd outrun them.

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**jammi** · 05-06-2009, 08:58 PM,

I twisted and turned in my sleep. I dreamed fitfully, sleeping an uneasily for the first time in days. I dreamt I was wallowing in a cloud of shadows, hiding from a omnipresent searchlight that blasted away the gloom to find me.

I wriggled further away from the burning light, covering my face and averting my eyes. With horror I realised that a small lighter-flame of illumination existed with me, calling to the beam, calling to be reunited. Then the light swung round and hammered me to the floor, like Crete's midday heat had not so long ago.

Tendrils of light forced their way into my eyes, my ears, my nose, my mouth. Burning like molten magma, it seared through my veins, the light reunited with it's buried brethren. I screamed, thrashing around madly on the bunk as I was tormented by the burning agony.

Then the whispers burst back into life, howling screams blasting through my phych, snagging on the corners of my mind. Bursting back onto the conscious plain, the visions subsided and the whispers faded to a dull whickering, murmuring darkly, hidden from view under my subconscious mind.

The voices... They'd returned. I rolled over weakly, bathed in my own cold sweat and fell off the bed onto the cold steel floor. I had to run once more. They'd followed me. Staggering, with mad eyes rolling, I made my way to the door and painstakingly slowly, blundered away from the cabin towards the hanger.

It was time to leave.

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Das Wilde Wesen · 05-07-2009, 12:26 PM,

**We Probe..........We Inquire**

***Interest***

**jammi** · 05-12-2009, 08:53 PM,

I'd jumped into Omega 49 a few minuets ago, and just hung there with my mind blessedly blank. I hung there, suspended in my harness for a little longer before a Zoner patrol buzzed me angrily for loitering around the jump hole. I flared the engine and drifted away slowly, vanishing into the ice cloud.

Slowly thoughts filtered into my head, like mist gathering at the bottom of a deep well. Mindelo. It was a new base in Omega 50. One year old and said to be deadly calm. In the middle of no-where. Perfect. I stretched my arm forward to engage the cruise engines, but it felt like lead weights were hanging around my wrists. Everything took so much effort lately. It would be so much easier to just give in... To drift away.

With a grunt I stabbed at the cruise toggle and was rewarded by a jolt from the engines as they charged up. Flapping at the NavCom, I plotted a course for the jump hole and then fell back into the chair. After a short while I jumped into the system.

Already things looked good. There were no people. Complete emptiness. I could see one station orbiting a planet, but I knew that was a Zoner place, not Mindelo. That was in an asteroid field to the right. Wheeling the ship around I engaged cruise again and flew away, towards the mined out rock that might be able to protect me.

I took one glance back before the asteroid field engulfed me, then I returned to gaze at that in front of me. But I could have sworn... There had been a flash from the now distant jump hole, and a tiny black speck had been ejected. I started the shiver uncontrollably once more. *We* needed to sleep again.

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**jammi** · 05-14-2009, 07:33 PM,

I'd been here for several days now. I'd been sleeping peacefully for a change, but still waking up exhausted. That had been scaring me. I'd been losing my appetite too, although I didn't seem to be losing any more weight, which was unusual. Maybe I was stabilizing? It's not like I had much more to lose anyway...

Now I was in the canteen, idly toying with a bowl of soup, but I didn't really want to eat it. I sat there with it for several minuets as it slowly cooled. Then a young Corsair of perhaps 20 slid onto the seat opposite me. I flicked a paranoid glance up towards her before returning my gaze to the soup. She had dark black hair and the flight jacket of a fighter pilot.

"Hola" she said, but I ignored her. "I saw you last night after the night cycle." That interested me, because I'd gone to sleep before the lights had dimmed.

"No, you're mistaken hermana, I was asleep." She watched me coolly for a moment, which made my eyes itch until I averted my gaze.

"You're probably right, you looked like you were sleep walking. It's not the first time I've seen you do it either. You've been wandering around the corridors at night ever since you arrived here - the kitchens, the armoury, the flight deck. You should probably see the Doc. Or lock your door at least."

Why was she taking an interest?! And I'd never sleep walked before. Abruptly I shot to me feet.

"It's none of your business" I hissed, surprising myself. My attitude was changing... Startled and slightly ashamed I stalked off. As I left a mixture of pity and distaste was etched onto her face.

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