Final thoughts

What I could never figure out was how that thing worked.

OK, so maybe I was a bit out of place on a Caldari ship, but having received this great offer, I just had to jump on the deal. All the interfaces were somewhat familiar, although slightly different, but it took me little time to get used to how everything was set up in the cockpit.

Still, that one thing really puzzled me.

Never really flew Caldari ships before, you see.

The first years of my life, well, at least as long as memory serves me, I lived in Gallente space. Then I spent some time roaming around on my own, exploring the wonders and mysteries of our known systems, before I settled down in Amarr space, where I found a good corporation to fly with.

Those days are long gone now, nosec has made my life completely different from anything I ever imagined. Finally, I could look at carebears from the outside, and had I known then what I know now about this wilderness of systems outside of empire, I would surely have come here long time ago. There is no better place to be than on the battlefields.

(But what does that mysterious Caldari thing do?)

I've slowly progressed from my feeble attempts at fitting even the cheapest of frigates to where I am today.
You could say that I'm more of a self-made man than having been guided through this. Sure, I've spent lots of time studying, and many times over have I tried, and failed, and tried, and mostly failed again. That was my learning process after my first corporation suddenly shut down, and all its members scattered to the furthest corners of the galaxy.
From that day, solitude was my companion, and a strong one, giving me the first-hand experience of things not to do. Failure is the greatest teacher they say (and he definitely taught me well).
Even the greatest of talents have their limitations though, so I finally joined a group of people who had been more than just polite in being helpful, and rather than just finding new corpmates, I found friends I could rely on to have my back when I needed it. It was the start of years of commitment to a great corporate entity.

The workings of the great factions have never really bothered me. I've done work for them, sure, but my loyalty has always been to my brothers in arms. Perhaps, because of all my travelling to the corners of the galaxy and back, the fact that I never put my roots down anywhere, being granted the immortality of the pod pilots and finding people who did more to support me than the Federation or any other of the great factions ever did, perhaps this was the reason I bonded so strongly to these new wingmates of mine. We have seen eachother's ships and clones go down in balls of fire to the lament of other fleetmembers, but known that even though we failed to protect one another under these circumstances, we would do our best the next time around to improve on our tactics.

Strange Caldari instrument...

My lifelong ambition has come to fruitition; I am beyond the enforcement of CONCORD, out here, we lay down the law!
Oh how I can look back at the days of my failed ship setups and laugh at why I was so easily killed and podded. There is no forgiveness out here for doing it wrong. Caution, experience, a keen sense of observation; all are necessary to survive here, where all people not allied to you are your enemy and you have to kill them quickly; for they will surely get you first if they get the drop on you.

The thing about going back to hisec, is trying to forget that caution. Being in the shit for so long, you tend to forget that people can't just attack you at random where CONCORD keeps watch, and still you move carefully, suffering small episodes of angst when neutrals and reds appear in local. For all you empire carebears, just imagine what it's like being at war, if you've ever been at war. Nosec is war neverending, and that sticks to you; makes you edgy.
It's much more comfortable out in nosec, where you can kill anybody not your friend without cops around to grief you.

This happens everytime I'm primaried and know I'm going next; when I'm positive there's nothing I can do about it. Webbed, scrambled, neuted, and a gang of gatecampers emptying their entire arsenal at you, drones swarming you like some bizarre cloud of satellites in orbit around you; your whole life passes through your mind in a heartbeat.
Of course, soon I will wake up in a new clone, fresh out of the bank and ready to get my payback on, unless there is some hidden secret to these Caldari ships that I just started flying.

... Like this button I don't comprehend on the Rokh interface... maybe it makes the Rokh really rock? Can I turn the tide of battle even at this point?

I activate it...

Oh crap.

So that's what the Caldari eject button looks like.