EVE®: Templar One (2 page)

As he knelt in the virtual sand, the base of his skull was removed so his brain stem could be implanted with a neuro-interface socket.

Vince looked up at the divine image of his Empress.

“I need you to defend our way of life,” she continued.
“There are those who are determined to harm us, and they cannot be reasoned with.
They will not stop, not ever, and the bloodshed will continue unless we strike the fear of God into their hearts.
You will become the first Templar—an immortal holy warrior of Amarr—on equal footing with True Amarr and, by virtue of your actions, even greater still.”

She looked past him, toward the ruins of her homeworld.

“This is how you will serve us,” she whispered.
“This is the redemption you seek.”

3

THE FORGE REGION—ETSALA CONSTELLATION

THE VASALA SYSTEM—PLANET V, MOON 15

ISHUKONE CORPORATE FACTORY—TEMPORARY HQ

SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CALDARI STATE

A fleet of Ishukone warships emerged from warp just outside of their headquarters station, turning in unison to align with the hangar bay.
The untrained eye might have suspected these menacing vessels just returned from the Gallente Federation border.
In truth, they were escorting their CEO on routine business, who never traveled anywhere without bringing intimidating firepower with him.
He flew at the front of the pack, inside the pod of a Raven-class battleship, immortal and powerful—but by no means impervious to harm.

Ishukone Chief Executive Officer Mens Reppola, one of the most influential figures in all civilization, had withstood the pressures of being responsible for 300 million people fairly well.

He was building a formidable legacy, having successfully guided Ishukone through one of the most tumultuous periods in Caldari State history.
Two years ago, the assassination of his predecessor and close friend, Otro Gariushi, had left the mega-corporation on the brink of financial default, and with it, the very high probability that many of Ishukone’s labor commitments would shift to purely military obligations under the dictatorship of State Executor Tibus Heth.

Leaderless for months, the mega-corporation lost hundreds of thousands of lives.
Workers were activated for military service and sent to die anonymously in the ongoing war with the Gallente Federation.
For Mens, who was running the security arm of Ishukone at the time, this was a senseless disaster he knew Otro would have never allowed.
With the support of investors, Mens bet his entire personal fortune on taking an ownership stake in Ishukone.
The strong-arm tactic impressed the Board of Directors, which, like Mens, was growing weary of the direction in which Heth was leading the Caldari State.

Mens worked tirelessly to salvage the fortunes of Ishukone.
He swam against the populist tide of those who believed in Heth’s vision of a centralized economy.
He redirected the mega-corporation’s focus from heavy industry to research and development.
He recalled Ishukone-supplied troops and equipment from a war he felt served no good purpose for the State, let alone his mega-corporation.

And he did it all with a brave face.
Ishukone today was in a better state than it was three years ago.
It had, despite Heth’s near-constant efforts to sabotage Mens, finally turned back into a profitable corporation.

By all accounts, Mens should have been proud.
But all victories come at a price.
In truth, his success was killing him, and for those who knew him best, it seemed like a matter of time before the weight of Ishukone would crush him completely.

*   *   *

“LORIN, I TOLD YOU
I can’t be there,” Mens snapped, briefly losing his concentration.
“It tears my heart out, but if you knew what we were discussing—”

“
Your
heart?
What do you think it’s doing to hers?”
snapped his wife.
“You
need
to hear what she has to say in person.
For God’s sake, Mens!
She’s that close to walking away from you for good!”

A lapse in concentration made the 99,000-tonne vessel at his command veer to port.
Mens quickly corrected the Raven-class battleship’s course, but not before his cruiser escorts turned high and wide to avoid a collision.

“What am I supposed to do,”
he seethed.
“I can’t be in two bloody places at once—”

He stopped himself too late.

“Ah … I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to say that.…”

Mens ignored the inquiries from his escorts, asking if he was alright.

“No, I understand perfectly,” she said.
“You can’t be here to look after us yourself.
Why bother when you can just hire muscle and tech?
You’re more obsessed with protecting yourself from a
ghost
than you are with spending time with us.
Face it, Mens: Ishukone is more precious than your own family.”

He throttled back the warship just outside the station’s bay doors, halting the entire flotilla in his wake.
A staggering amount of money had been spent developing an elite counterintelligence unit for Ishukone.
The team’s primary purpose was preventing Heth’s Provists—the political enforcers of his government party, the Caldari Providence Directorate (CPD)—from infiltrating the organization.
But they had halted dead in their tracks many attempts of espionage from their corporate rivals as well.

Ishukone had become a black box to the rest of New Eden.
Secretly, its prime directive had become a ceaseless search for a man known only as the Broker.
By far, there was no graver threat to the mega-corporation’s security.
The Broker was responsible for the murder of Otro Gariushi and had made threats against Otro’s sister, Mila, as well.
Mens Reppola was the only man who knew where Mila was, and that made him a target.

The Broker’s tireless vendetta against Ishukone was because Otro had the audacity to defy him.
The Amarr Empire used a mutating virus called Vitoc to control its legions of Minmatar slaves, and Otro Gariushi gained possession of an antidote called Insorum.
This drug was priceless: The Empire would pay any price to squash it from existence.
The Broker offered a king’s ransom in exchange for the formula, but Otro refused to sell it, and the decision cost him his life.
But even that wasn’t enough for the Broker, who vowed to strike down everything else dear to him as well.

There had been no trace of the Broker in years.
If it were any other man, there would be enough forensic evidence to convince any police agency that he was indeed dead.
But that was exactly what the Broker wanted his hunters to believe.
He could be anyone and, thanks to cloning technology, several people at once.
Worst of all, he had the patience of immortality.
When the time was right—even if it was decades from now—he was bound to strike.

Since Otro’s death, Mens had placed a barrier around his family, literally surrounding them with so much physical and technical firepower that even a State-sponsored military effort would have trouble penetrating it.
And even then, it might not be enough.
The strain of being surrounded at all times by weapons and prying eyes was reaching critical mass.
It was a maddening paradox, because the more evident the security measures, the less secure everyone felt.
Yet it was all that Mens could do to protect his family, and it was more than anyone else could provide.
But it was still a life of fear, which for Lorin Reppola meant it was hardly a life at all.

“That’s not true, and you know—” he started to tell her.

“Prove it,” she interrupted.
“Your daughter needs the assurance that her father is going to be there when she needs him most.
This is one of those times.
You can’t hire someone else for this.”

Harbor Control hailed the ship with a direct broadcast: “Commander, you’re cleared to approach.
Is everything alright?”

Mens ignored it.

“Lorin, please—”

“Show us you’re not a selfish bastard,” she said.

Before he could get another word in, the comm signal terminated.

*   *   *

THERE WERE NO CHAIRS
in this conference room, and the counterintelligence team gathered around the chest-high table.
Because his time was allocated in exact quantities to his many responsibilities, Mens felt that meeting areas had no reason to be comfortable.
Time was precious, and both he and his closest lieutenants shouldered enormous burdens.
Whenever they met, everyone stayed on their feet.
By these virtues, meetings were necessarily prompt, short, and directly to the point.

Under normal circumstances, it would have been extremely uncharacteristic for Mens to arrive two minutes late.

“The Citadel,” he said, strolling to the head of the room.
“Tell me what happened there.”

Counterintelligence Chief Anton Markov spoke first.

“Pursuant to the passage of TRUST by the CPD, Heth has deployed Provists to each of the mega-corporations to perform detailed audits of financial and military assets.
Despite our refusal to participate, Provists appeared at our station in Korama demanding access to classified datacores.
When the techs refused, the Provists threatened them, and security was called in.
In the resulting scuffle, one of our guards was killed.”

“In our own facility?”
Mens erupted.

“Yes, sir.
The guard’s neck was broken in the fight.
Ishukone Watch arrested all Provists and wants to bring a capital murder charge on the one responsible—with your approval.
The CPD already warned us not to do that.”

TRUST stood for Transparency for Unity and Strength, a controversial bit of legislation passed by Heth requiring more disclosure from mega-corporations about their activities.
On the surface, the act was beneficial to investors and equitable for State-controlled institutions such as the Caldari Navy, which relied on corporate funding.
Most people believed it was just the continuation of Heth’s unsubtle efforts to consolidate his grip on power.

“Of course they did,” Mens fumed.
“So what’d they threaten us with now?”

Anton paused, as if caught off guard by the question.
“Sir, I—”

“He doesn’t know,” muttered Ralirashi Okimo, the Chief Technical Officer of Ishukone, a grave look on his face.
“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but the State Science Academy has formally revoked your daughter’s enrollment, citing our lack of participation in the TRUST Act.”

The words nearly took the air out of his lungs.

So that’s what she wanted to tell me,
Mens thought.

“They made a scene of it: Bastards literally pulled her right out of class, in front of everyone.
The same exclusion criterion will likely be applied retroactively to all Ishukone residents,” Ralirashi continued.
“Heth is using the example of your daughter to send a warning to others.”

I’m losing my family for this,
Mens thought, lost in a trance as he stood among colleagues who were helpless to do anything except avoid looking at him directly.
The only thing that I could give her to make up for my absence in her life was that institution, where the best minds of Caldari science and culture had gone.
She’d opened that door by herself, using her own smarts and work ethic.
All I had to do was hold it open for her.

Instead, I slammed it in her face.
For Ishukone’s sake.

It started like a siren approaching from far away: rage, swelling within Mens Reppola.

“The CPD will use this as leverage to free their Provists and force our compliance with TRUST,” Anton continued.
“Thousands of Ishukone civilians are enrolled in programs there.
Strategically speaking, they’re taking tomorrow’s intellectual capital away from us.
As of now, the press is unaware of these events.”

Tibus Heth.
Going after my own family.

“Mens…” Ralirashi urged.
The two had been close friends for years.
“There’s no wrong answer here.”

The words of his own wife haunted him:
Show us you’re not a selfish bastard.