Signals in the Void 13

("Signals in the Void" is a character fan fiction story revolving around my adventures in exploration.)

Some say capsuleers are fearless, that they aren't afraid to die, maybe they're not, maybe I'm just an exception.  But really deep down, does anyone really want to experience death?  Why do we fight so hard to avoid something that seems to have no hold over us?  They say the technology is perfect, that mistakes can't be made, but who gave us the capsule technology?  The Jove as I understand it, and look at them now, slaves to their technology and yet still unable to prevent their disease.  How long until something similar affects the capsuleers?  What's even scarier, is that I'll be around if it happens.

I focus my thoughts to the task at hand as my Arbitrator comes out of warp near the old station.  I have my crew at full combat alert and my systems are primed and ready to target and destroy...nothing?  I'm greeted by the site of the pirate wrecks from earlier, but I don't see any rogue drones.  Running a quick check on my systems for failures, the report I receive has everything functioning correctly.  I'm not picking up anything to target in the area.  I was sure the garbled message was talking about rogue drones.

Bringing the Arbitrator closer to the station, I get a notice from Captain Erhan telling me he was unable to raise the salvage crews on communications and there seems to be some sort of interference affecting the area.  Finding this peculiar I turn my ship toward the docking hatch we used earlier to drop the salvage team off.  Making my way closer I suddenly have a ship show up on my scanners, and it's right on top of me!  I pull my ship away from the frigate class ship and target it.  Launching a flight of combat drones as the little frigate starts to move away I give control over to my combat pilots and inspect the frigate further.

It appears to be Covert-Ops class frigate which would explain how it appeared so close to me, I must have de-cloaked it when I was heading toward the maintenance hatch.  I also fail to see any life signs on board meaning this is piloted by a rogue AI.  It's very strange, we have never encountered rogue drones using cloaking devices before.  Perhaps this is how they have been infiltrating high security systems undetected.  Ordering it's immediate destruction, I watch as my flight of combat drones quickly shred the shields and armor of the little ship.  As the small craft explodes, my sensors start picking up rogue drones leaving the station by various holes and docking areas.

It appears I've kicked the nest.