The hum of the warp drive lulled me into a trance, the rhythmic pull of space stretching and snapping me forward like a heartbeat. I had been diligent—so damn diligent. The dangerous parts of space were behind me, the ones where PvPers lurked like wolves in the dark, waiting for the faintest scent of vulnerability. I had made it through the gauntlet, past the hungry nullsec hunters, past the chaos of low security.
And yet, it was in the quiet embrace of highsec, just a few jumps from home, that I let my guard down.
The dream is hazy, fragmented, like watching myself through broken glass. A system so unassuming, so routine, that I barely registered the jump. My ship—a lifeline, a home, a coffin in waiting—floated through the stargate, systems humming with the certainty of safety. CONCORD patrolled these lanes. What could go wrong?
Then, a ripple. A subtle shift in the air, a shadow at the edge of perception. A flash of red on my overview.
The suspect flag didn’t register at first, but the consequences were immediate. The scram hit, my warp drive stuttered, and in the dream, I feel it like a hand tightening around my throat. What was it… a Raven, a Vexor? I don’t know anymore, and it did not matter. They closed the gap, weapons glowing with hellfire. Caught in a place I thought safe.
Panic. A scramble for countermeasures. A realization that where I thought a warp-core stabilizer should be was instead an expanded cargohold. But the story was already written. My ship buckled under the first volley, armor peeling away like wet paper. I remember the sound—not just the alarms blaring in my ears, but the silence underneath. The silence of inevitability.
A second volley. Then a third.
Then nothing.
I drift in the void, my escape pod shuddering as I flee—an afterthought to the hunter who had already claimed his kill. It was clearly well planned. The haulers arrive on site to loot my wreck as the gate fades behind me, just another moment in the abyss.
I wake up, my hands clenched around phantom controls, my heart still racing from a fight long since lost. The lesson lingers in the darkness of my quarters.
Diligence in danger is easy.
Complacency in safety is what gets you killed.