Introduction

        “How the hell did I end up here?”

        The question caused the bartender to turn towards the large Matari who asked it. “Don'cha got your fancy pod computer to tell you that, pal?”

        The snide retort broke his chain of thought. He didn't realize he uttered the question. He was too exhausted to take offense, and merely sighed in reply. He already knew the answer to his rhetorical question. He didn't like the answer. He stared at his glass of spirits hoping it would provide some justification that he could find acceptable. It wasn't working.

        He stood up, pressed his thumbprint on the pad next to his drink to pay his tab, and wandered towards his suite. All he wanted at the moment was some sleep. He'd only been a full-fledged capsuleer for half a standard year, but it already felt like an eternity due to a side effect they didn't talk about in the academy: insomnia.

        Skill training had always been a somewhat unnerving process for him. The learning centers throughout New Eden claimed to have perfected the technique of subliminal education, feeding a reel of diagrams and lecture directly into the hippocampus. He swore he could hear the voices at night. The foreign thoughts and concepts gently flooded the back of his mind, keeping him awake as his brain tried to process and store it all. He always felt strange when he woke up able to use a new piece of equipment in his ship without even seeing it before. There were no quizzes, no essays, no drills, no need to prove he knew the material like in the academy. He just knew it. The only exams were administered by CONCORD for their certification program. He chuckled as he recalled the fitting on the test ship provided for the Elite Hull Tanking certification, which he claimed on a lark. Obviously built by a government committee who had never seen the wild realities of lawless space.

        Inside the pod, sleep didn't matter. Time stopped for his body while in stasis. He didn't need to eat or drink or even breathe; the life support system maintained it all. He could will himself in and out of consciousness, but it did nothing to satiate his need for sleep. He tried asking for solutions the last time he was in Kappas shopping for skillbooks. The Deteis sales representative on the other end of the channel expressed what seemed to be a mixture of contempt and sales gloss as she proclaimed, “Sleep? But you're a capsuleer! You've transcended the limits of human mortality! Why, you have the ability to-”

        “Goddammit, do you have anything or not?” his mind blared in an exasperated tone.

        The reply sweetly came back, “You sound like you need our improved Social skills program. Perhaps a Charisma implant?” He returned a Matari expletive and shut off the comm.

        All capsuleers had to deal with sleep at some point. Despite the body being preserved indefinitely in the pod through stasis, the mind becomes fatigued when subjected to the artificial stimuli of driving a ship for prolonged periods, and requires downtime in order to keep its owner sane. Most pilots retreated to the creature comforts of stations like the one he was in now. Those without such luxury available in low-sec, nullsec, or even wormholes resorted to warping to an empty area in space, shutting down the reactor, bringing themselves out of stasis, and sleeping in crew's quarters or even the pod itself. It left the ship completely vulnerable to any outside forces, but the energy signatures emitted by running only the life support systems were so small that the ship was indistinguishable from background noise, effectively unprobable.

        Inside his quarters, he laid down in bed and tried to calm his thoughts, but he couldn't get the nagging problem out of his head. “Jita.” The answer to his rhetorical question in the bar mocked him. How did he end up two jumps away from the biggest capitalistic mecca in the known universe? The convenience, of course. Where else can you find twelve Gistii B-Type Small Shield Boosters at a moment's notice? It wasn't the commerce he hated, it was the people behind it. The Caldari. The economic muscle behind the Amarr and their atrocities. Why did he work for the Caldari? Because they paid well. He felt dirty facing the answer. He was just another whelp suckling from the corporate teat, doing their bidding, being molded into a weapon of the Navy. He shuddered at the thought of how many Matari and Gallente he had killed when thrust into a tenuous political uprising to upset their diplomacy at the behest of his naval superiors. He stopped flying the Hurricane that did the deed, ashamed of the blood it spilled. Nowadays he only took missions that rivaled the Guristas. They seemed like the most deserving target within the Caldari scope of ire. He could have done courier or industrial missions instead and spared all lives involved, but that kind of work didn't suit his tastes. He was raised learning to fight. It was the best thing he knew. But how could he fight his way out of this rut?

        The memory of his grandfather spoke up, “Don't forget, boy. The best way to hit someone is to divert their attention, get 'em where they're not looking and when they least expect it.” Good old Grandpa. His words were a constant source of wisdom and guidance. In addition to the massive brawn commanded by a Brutor, they have an unmatched perception – the ability to detect an enemy's weakness in the heat of battle and capitalize upon it. ”Ever since you came up to my knee, you've been learning what it means to be an Anderthal.” Grandpa's favorite phrase. So much so that it became his nickname. Nobody called him by his birth name any more. Everyone simply knew him as Knee Anderthal.

        His mind at ease from his grandfather's advice, he faced his fear. He knew he had to break away from the Caldari. He was apprehensive about taking the offer he received from an interested party a few weeks ago, but it was a guaranteed ticket out of this drudgery. He mulled it over in his head and decided he'd been in the warm bosom of high-sec long enough. It was time to show them what it meant to be an Anderthal.

        They called themselves Dreddit. They sought to establish their own presence while encouraging their people to develop their best talents and put them to use in benefiting the group as best they could. It sounded very tribal, very close to home. He opened a secure link and sent a communication accepting the proposal and requesting a formal application. Satisfied, he settled down and fell fast asleep in the heart of his soon-to-be-former corporation.