From the Journals of Bishop Harcourt: Part 3

I was nervous sitting in the waiting room of the Mannar HR department. I knew that my service records would be pulled, and with the war going on my chances looked slim. I was of course surprised to learn that they cared little about it, other than the fact that I was skilled in nanite containment fields and drone delivery systems. Coupled with Jessica’s recommendation, I was hired on the spot. Working in the private sector was a bit of an adjustment to say the least. Living the military lifestyle for 6 years is a tough habit to break.


For the first few weeks, I still came to attention when my supervisor walked into the room(much to my co-workers amusement). Still sir’ed and mam’ed those above me. Jess was a big help. She would tease me relentlessly. Sometimes she’d walk into my lab and start a conversation with the drone I was working on, then act surprised when I started to speak. She was head of their nanobot lab, so we were in the same department. Together we(the two teams)built a self repping attack drone for the Minmatar. Nasty little bastards that attack you from behind when you think their destroyed.


Life was good. I was making money hand over fist, Jess and I were dating, and eventually I was promoted to head of drone research. The new job put me out in the field more, and it was then that I first came in contact with the clone mercenaries. My first impression of them was one of disgust to be honest. I couldn’t understand how someone could allow themselves to be dissected, and then have to go and put a bullet into their own brain to complete the process. Bunch of knuckle dragging army rejects. That tune quickly changed during a research mission in an abandoned mining facility in the Okkelen constellation.


Our mission was to capture a live rogue drone for study. We set up a base on Josameto IX - Moon 3, and made jumps to systems with reported drone activity. The hard part about what we were trying was, it would be too dangerous to bring a drone into our lab. Everything had to be done onsite, and thats what almost got me killed. We received a tip that a small swarm of RD’s was located in the asteroid belt of Otomainen III, so we headed out. Our intel showed the drones recently over ran a Caldari mining operation and haven’t had enough time to mine the necessary materials to begin replicating in large numbers. We thought it was our safest bet. We were wrong.