Moving South

        Knee noticed the level of activity around the station was higher than normal. Things were usually quiet around Deklein these days, as the military operations were focused in the South. Knee took it as an opportunity to continue his recovery and soak up some training on the fine arts of Jury Rigging.

        Today, however, was impossible to ignore. Nearly every capsuleer was either on the hangar floor or in motion to and from it. Knee asked a hangar attendant what the story was.

        "We're moving."

        "What? Where to?" Knee inquired.

        "Fountain."

        "Everybody?"

        "Everybody. TEST is packing up and giving Deklein back to the Goons."

        Emotional reaction would normally be the first thought to such sudden and life-changing news. Instead, Knee's mind was already worrying about logistics. He had a lot of ships and cargo stashed here. He was already familiar with liquidating assets from leaving Lonetrek to come here. He just wasn't used to having to plan things so quickly.

        First to go were the ships. He went through his ship inventory and stripped the lot, repackaged all but one, and priced them aggressively: 30% below market. Only fools would pass up such prices. He was not among fools; the ships sold within a matter of hours.

        Next was his stash of ammo. Ammo was disposable, fungible, cheap, and took up too much volume in his bay. It had to go. 30% off.

        Then there was the mass of equipment. A load of modules he couldn't possibly go though in a short timeframe to sell individually. Luckily the alliance was hosting a courier service for just a couple of days to deliver things like this to Fountain via Jump Freighter. Only problem was the launching point for the freighter was several jumps away. He quickly bought a Wreathe and loaded it with the whole lot. Nearly 4600 m³ of goods. Before leaving, he bought one final piece of equipment - a cloaking device. That one piece was the straw that broke the camel's back. It was simply too large to fit in cargo, but it was necessary for the final step. Knee grumbled and pondered.

        "Wait. This ship's got a high slot, doesn't it?" He quickly consulted the fitting. It had one. Perfect. "Plug it in!"

        The lowly industrial creaked its way out of the docking bay. Knee swore at its sluggish operation due to the heavy load it was barely carrying, and at his own ability barely being adequate to fly the thing. An industrialist he was not.

        At the rendezvous point, Knee set up the courier contract, stripped the Wreathe and put it up for sale, and headed back for the last piece of equipment - his most precious one: The Darkblade.

        The last time Knee made a suicidal solo run through nullsec was in a Reaper with nothing to lose. This time he had something to lose. His implants. Clone jumping would not transport them, it would simply transport his consciousness into another body. The only way to move the implants was the old fashioned way.  In person.

        The ship of choice for the mission was his beloved Dramiel, named after Kirith Darkblade, a Matari pirate famous for using frigates as his ships of choice. It amused Knee that the smallest ships had potential to be the most devastating when used correctly. He purchased the Dramiel after learning that Kirith's had achieved over 70 kills before finally meeting its demise.

        Knee fit for absolute worst case scenario. Inertia and Warp Core stabilization, Microwarp, Medium Shield Extender, and the Improved Cloaking Device he hauled in the high slot of the Wreathe. He couldn't force anything else into the hull without starving its CPU. The ship would only do so much and Knee would have to do the rest.

        Satisfied that the rest of his logistics were taken care of, he set out for the 30 jump journey. The jumps out of Deklein were quick and uneventful. It wasn't until he entered Pure Blind that he encountered a threat. Three hostiles in Local among the friendlies. No vision on any of them. He quickly warped to a planet near the gate, cloaked up, and waited. No change in activity. They were either hiding or waiting. Knee consulted the solar system map and looked for a route to lead him to the next gate. A series of planets was in between the gate and his current position. He warped there and cloaked again. He was now about 16AU from the gate. He activated the directional scanner. Drake, Daredevil, Guardian. No way to tell if they were friend or foe, better to assume the worst. The cruisers posed no threat, but the Daredevil made him uneasy - another pirate frigate potentially deadlier than his own when up close with blasters. Knee couldn't fit dual-prop to escape such a situation - there simply wasn't enough CPU. One warp scramble and he was dead.

        Wait. 16AU from the gate. That's too far for Directional to reach. He narrowed his angle of scanning and pointed at the gate. The ships disappeared. They were behind him, but were there more at the gate? Knee warped to 100km from the gate and triggered the scanner for all it was worth. Still no ships. He was safe. He burned for the gate like a madman, screaming into the jump at 5000 m/s.

        Cloud Ring was empty save for his allies from Wildly Inappropriate. Fountain was equally quiet, despite gatecamps reported on intel. He had made it. He docked into station, chatted with his corpmates for a while and made arrangements with Medical to transfer his emergency clone to this new station. He found the market to be sparse, but that would improve once the logistics team finishes their fine work.

        He sat back in his new suite and wondered how difficult it would be to procure a Daredevil for his hangar. He would have to restock his ship collection, after all. Might as well make it interesting...