Like Robin Williams in “Hook” I have finally found my Happy Thought. I had just docked the Lou Ferrigno and was finishing up some post belt ripping administrivia when the coms lit up. It was the director and our POS was looking to be in need of some fuel soon. He was moving a freighter out to the ice system and was going to need to mine some to insure he came back with a full load. I checked my flight time and saw that I still had a few hours left before my biological support systems crashed so decided I could lend a hand.

I enjoy icing a great deal and helping out the corp even more, so it was only natural. The last time we had needed fuel, I had went shopping and come up with a Mackinaw, and fit it out with Ice Harvester II’s and Ice Harvester Upgrade II’s and left it in the system where we generally go icing. All of this as a lead-in for the fact that I decided this was the perfect opportunity to put the old Jump Clone to use.

It had been several months since I had body hopped and can’t really recommend the experience. But the benefits far outweigh any temporary queasiness from transcribing your consciousness into a data stream and waking up light-years away. The first order of business was to get a clone out to the same system where the corporate icing runs. I wasn’t quite ready to trust the jump clone manufacturer’s recent announcement that their system supported same-station jumps. I flew to the station next door and pulled up the jump clone interface. As it had been awhile, it took a few seconds for the information I was seeing make sense. I pulled up the menu on the clone I wanted next door and jumped.

Well, almost. The system screamed and spit out errors. I had forgotten to offline the current mnemonic skill training regimen before the jump. I quickly jumped over to the skill interface and paused my Mining Laser Upgrades learning and then bounced back to the jump menu and jumped. Huh, what happened? Where am I? Oh, wait, that’s right. Clone jump. Different system/station. I quickly onlined my skill training and charted a course to the ice field system. I flew out and fired up the autopilot (it was a high sec route) and went about reviewing my market orders and research projects. There was something I was supposed to think about remembering to think about but it just wouldn’t solidify into a coherent thought. I finally got to the destination and loaded the Bobby Drake into the station dock and began checking the systems. Everything checked out and I was soon out of the station on my way to the top of the ice field, but there was something giving me a nagging sensation in my newly formatted brain. I tried to shake it off and just convince myself it was the jump that had me rattled.

I arrived at the bookmarked navigation point and locked the nearest ice cube. I cycled the harvesters on, sat back and tried to reconcile whatever it was that was bothering me. After a couple of trips back to the station to store my ice I realized that it was my skill training that was bothering me. By jumping into this clone I had added another 24 hours to my skill training. Sheesh!

This is when it hit me, what is it that I enjoy more than ghosting rats, stripping roid belts, out witting pirates? Training skills. My greatest joy comes when I hear, “Skill training complete” come over the coms. Floating out in the ice field I pulled up the market list and quickly grabbed a set of +1 implants. They aren’t great, but they’ll have to do for now until I manage to get some cash after buying the Bobby Drake and still owing for the Lou Ferrigno.