Fan Fiction Friday! Alternative post in case those first three words made you break out in a cold sweat is this way.
This post is the epilogue for the Vengeance series. I hope you've enjoyed the series. I cannot believe this has been running eleven weeks! This post has been by far the hardest part of the series to write. I was going to end it on the last part where the full reasons were revealed and Captain Jorn became a True Slave or something horrible, but a posted comment on that one said it needed another, so here it is. Took a lot of staring at a blank page before I had the idea how I could do an epilogue.
For the near future, I'm currently finishing off two shorts and also looking ahead to the next series. The first short will be my entry for the Pod and Planet fiction competition and should be up next Friday.
The next one after that will be as a result of someone convo'ing me in-game with their ideas regarding one of my "game mechanics" type posts on here which led to "that is a good idea but it would be very difficult to incorporate that into the game, however, it would make a good story.
Then I plan a fiction break. I don't really want to do more than three posts a week, those who need daily fixes can easily get them at Evogander and Jesters Trek. That means when I'm running a series it takes up a third of the posts. I think I'll give it a few weeks break after the two shorts and the next series.
The next series I'm working on is basically the story that I would tell if I ever became a billionaire and decided to toss a 100 million into make an Eve Online Hollywood blockbuster movie. I think Sansha's Nation need to feature heavily given the pop-culture with zombies currently. And no, 100% no way will there be any sparkly vampires! Joss Weldon would direct obviously ;) Tempted to cast Nathan Fillion in the lead but would that be betting too Firefly'y? Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself, need to be a billionaire first and I'm not even a millionaire.... or a 100,000'er..... or a 10'000'er for that matter!
OK, lets finish off Vengeance.....
-o0o-
Vengeance - Epilogue
Dantan blew a low whistle through his teeth and took another drink.
"Wow. You're being serious aren't you?"
"Absolutely. I've never told the story to anyone before like that. When you look at it that way it is quite the tale isn't it."
"So what happened next?"
"Well I sold up everything. As a capsuleer you forget the real value of money. That Harpy class assault frigate is not considered a very expensive ship, but when you convert 30 million interstellar credits into local credits, then you have a lot of money. All I have left of my ship is that picture." he nodded at a framed photo on the wall showing a Harpy class assault frigate against a plasma planet.
"Next job was to get these damn implants out of my head. You'd be surprised how difficult that is. Every doctor I spoke to asked if I was mad."
The barman stopped his story as a woman entered the bar. She ordered a glass of wine and then walked away to the furthest booth by the window. Dantan watched her walk taking in the sway of the hips.
"I'd be careful with that one. She's more than you can handle!" laughed the barman quietly. Dantan smiled and turned.
"You're probably right. Go on."
"Well finally I found a medical centre who would at least cover the sockets on my back and neck. You thought you saw scars, they are not. Whilst I wanted them ripped out of my body I had to accept they were a part of me now. Like the pain. At that I point I realised that was it. I had no idea what to do next. Since the death of my wife and daughter all I ha thought about was killing those responsible and turning my back on capsuleering. Not for one second had I thought about what I'd do after than."
Dantan glanced over his shoulder to see if he could glimpse the lady but she had her back to them.
"If it was me, I think I'd go crazy. After all you'd been through, suddenly to be free and rich."
The barman smiled and chuckled.
"That is exactly what I did. I rented a pleasure yacht complete with crew. I went to my favourite club in the Federation and left with six girls and a contact number. A quick call to that number and a case of pills was delivered to the hanger. Whilst I was arranging all that the crew was stocking up my wish list of drinks. When we left Odotte later that day you'd think that a rock-star was on board. We partied and we partied hard. After about three weeks I woke one morning on the floor. The lounge was wrecked, everywhere I looked there was empty bottles, empty vials and unconscious half-dressed women. I started to rouse them but one wouldn't wake. Soon I had five panicking women and me. We rushed to a medical centre and got her help. Thankfully she was OK in the end. But the sight of her in the medical ward, well that's when I saw her without the tarty makeup and the whorish dress. She was just a young woman, like my daughter would have been if that day hadn't have happened. It hit me like a Matari 1400 shell. I left her enough money that she could live on for the rest of her life, flushed the contraband, emptied the booze down the waste and took the girls back to their station and cancelled the hire of the yacht."
Dantan lifted his glass to signify he'd like a refill.
"Then how did you get from there to here?"
"I was just getting to that. I withdrew pretty much. Spent far too much time in my quarters, had limited contact with others. I felt everyone I got close to got hurt. Then one day the buzzer on my door went. I opened it to find Amber stood there. Amber had worked in a club over in Caldari space where I was based when hunting the crew of the Night Terror. We had got on very well. I forgot I'd given her my details before I had left telling her to look me up if she was ever in the Federation. We had been good friends and lovers even if it was.... in that setting and nothing really more than a business transaction. She'd given up on that life and had taken an InterBus transport to Gallente space. Not knowing anyone here she looked me up to see if I had any contacts that could find her work that didn't involve swinging around a dancing pole."
The woman had finished her drink and came back for another. Dantan got a proper look at her this time. She looked Caldari with jet black hair and bright green eyes. She smiled at Dantan and returned to her booth. Dantan craned his neck around and watched her walk.
"I'm telling you, you do NOT want to go there." the barman said with a smile.
"Oh I don't know. I think I'm in there! Plus wearing boots like that! She's out for one thing and one thing only!"
"Sorry to disappoint you kid, but you're right, and it is not you I'm afraid. You'll see soon. Anyway, Amber and I spent a lot of time together. She pulled me out of the hole I was in and showed me there was more to life. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not stupid. She was a beautiful young woman who knew what she was doing and I was an older rich man. Lets not pussyfoot around, we men always pay for it in one way or the other. Someone even said to me 'You know she wouldn't be with you if you weren't rich!' to which I replied 'And I wouldn't be with her if she wasn't beautiful and amazing in bed!'.
Both men laughed.
"Anyway after a few months we were walking down the promenade on the station when a woman pulls a gun in my face. I thought it was a mugging until I realised it was a crowded street. She simply said 'This is for Mellisa' and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. I was shocked and couldn't move. Amber simply let go of my hand and punched the woman in the face. Knocked her out cold. The police arrived and took us back to the station. Apparently they had recently installed dampening fields that prevented blasters from firing in certain areas of the station. I got lucky that new covert blasters, immune to the weapons scanners, had been appearing on the station so the security people took extra precautions. Once the Police knew that technically I was still a capsuleer and the woman who tried to kill me was a member of the Guristas they let me go and advised me to stick to the capsuleer decks for my own protection."
"Did you?"
"No, I took Amber and we ran. We moved around, enjoying ourselves but being careful. After a few more attempts from renegade factions of the Guristas, eventually things quietened down and we settled here."
Dantan looked thoughtful.
"There is one thing I don't get there. Clearly there are people within the Guristas that want you dead right?"
"Yes. Friends, crew members, lovers of those I killed. I don't believe the leadership of the Guristas wishes me harm. They understand and do not want people like Jorn, Bull and Slasher in their organisation. But others, yes they want me dead."
"So you've told all this to me, a total stranger. I could be a Guristas agent or assassin!"
The barman nearly doubled up in laughter.
"OK" Dantan said with a smile "But I could tell them where you are and collect a reward for the information. Why did you tell me all this?"
"Two reasons. Firstly I've wanted to tell my story to someone for a long time. Secondly, it doesn't matter as the Guristas assassin was casing the joint last night and has already returned tonight to finish the job."
Dantan's eye's went wide in shock. He span around to look at the woman, the only other person in the bar. She was already out of her seat striding towards the bar with a compact blaster rifle in her hands pointing at the barman.
"For Captain Jorn" she hissed as fired. The green bolts of plasma erupted from the gun and the barman just faced them, unflinching, with his arms folded with a look of defiance on his face.
The air above the bar flashed blue and ripples expanded out from where the plasma bolts struck the invisible shield. The assassin looked shocked and continued to fire screaming as she slowly advanced. The barman just stared her down. Suddenly the gun clicked and bleeped indicating the magazine was empty. She jettisoned the clip and was removing another from her handbag when the side door to the bar was kicked open. Dantan couldn't believe his eyes. The barman's, or capsuleer's, or what ever he was, wife was stood there, in her high heels, mini cocktail dress and holding a large plasma rifle at her hip in both hands.
"Hey bitch! I've got a present for you."
The assassin had spun around when the door had been kicked open. She tried to load the clip for her gun but never got close. The plasma bolt from the barman's wife's rifle slammed into her chest and errupted in a blue flash out the other side. A painting on the wall of a Dominix was holed and sprayed with blood.
The bar was silent. Dantan jumped as a hand patted him on the shoulder. He turn around and saw it was the barman.
"What? How? The shield? You knew? What the hell is going on?"
"The force-field is built into the bar. Scanners in the roof detect weapon discharge and activate it to stop any fire hitting me. Bio-scanners in the door are linked to a central database and tell me everything about the person entering the premises. I thought the Guristas had stopped chasing, but I'm not stupid, I'd taken precautions. I think it's time for you to leave."
Dantan just nodded. He felt numb. The attractive woman he'd been eyeing up was laying on the floor with a fist sized hole in her chest. The pool of blood surrounding her body was growing. He reached for his wallet.
"No need lad." the barman laughed as he walked to the side door and took his wife in his arm. "The drinks are on me." And with that they both disappeared into a side room.
Dantan left the bar and walked away trying to make sense of what had happened that night. As he reached the end of the street he heard a powerful hovercar accelerate heavily followed by a small explosion. He looked back and could vaguely see the cars lights disappearing down the street as fire started to emerge from the front of the bar. Sirens could be heard far in the distance.
Dantan smiled and thought to himself. "He might not be a capsuleer any more but it would appear he will be reborn again to new life in the morning."
-o0o-
This post is the epilogue for the Vengeance series. I hope you've enjoyed the series. I cannot believe this has been running eleven weeks! This post has been by far the hardest part of the series to write. I was going to end it on the last part where the full reasons were revealed and Captain Jorn became a True Slave or something horrible, but a posted comment on that one said it needed another, so here it is. Took a lot of staring at a blank page before I had the idea how I could do an epilogue.
For the near future, I'm currently finishing off two shorts and also looking ahead to the next series. The first short will be my entry for the Pod and Planet fiction competition and should be up next Friday.
The next one after that will be as a result of someone convo'ing me in-game with their ideas regarding one of my "game mechanics" type posts on here which led to "that is a good idea but it would be very difficult to incorporate that into the game, however, it would make a good story.
Then I plan a fiction break. I don't really want to do more than three posts a week, those who need daily fixes can easily get them at Evogander and Jesters Trek. That means when I'm running a series it takes up a third of the posts. I think I'll give it a few weeks break after the two shorts and the next series.
The next series I'm working on is basically the story that I would tell if I ever became a billionaire and decided to toss a 100 million into make an Eve Online Hollywood blockbuster movie. I think Sansha's Nation need to feature heavily given the pop-culture with zombies currently. And no, 100% no way will there be any sparkly vampires! Joss Weldon would direct obviously ;) Tempted to cast Nathan Fillion in the lead but would that be betting too Firefly'y? Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself, need to be a billionaire first and I'm not even a millionaire.... or a 100,000'er..... or a 10'000'er for that matter!
OK, lets finish off Vengeance.....
-o0o-
Vengeance - Epilogue
Dantan blew a low whistle through his teeth and took another drink.
"Wow. You're being serious aren't you?"
"Absolutely. I've never told the story to anyone before like that. When you look at it that way it is quite the tale isn't it."
"So what happened next?"
"Well I sold up everything. As a capsuleer you forget the real value of money. That Harpy class assault frigate is not considered a very expensive ship, but when you convert 30 million interstellar credits into local credits, then you have a lot of money. All I have left of my ship is that picture." he nodded at a framed photo on the wall showing a Harpy class assault frigate against a plasma planet.
The barman stopped his story as a woman entered the bar. She ordered a glass of wine and then walked away to the furthest booth by the window. Dantan watched her walk taking in the sway of the hips.
"I'd be careful with that one. She's more than you can handle!" laughed the barman quietly. Dantan smiled and turned.
"You're probably right. Go on."
"Well finally I found a medical centre who would at least cover the sockets on my back and neck. You thought you saw scars, they are not. Whilst I wanted them ripped out of my body I had to accept they were a part of me now. Like the pain. At that I point I realised that was it. I had no idea what to do next. Since the death of my wife and daughter all I ha thought about was killing those responsible and turning my back on capsuleering. Not for one second had I thought about what I'd do after than."
Dantan glanced over his shoulder to see if he could glimpse the lady but she had her back to them.
"If it was me, I think I'd go crazy. After all you'd been through, suddenly to be free and rich."
The barman smiled and chuckled.
"That is exactly what I did. I rented a pleasure yacht complete with crew. I went to my favourite club in the Federation and left with six girls and a contact number. A quick call to that number and a case of pills was delivered to the hanger. Whilst I was arranging all that the crew was stocking up my wish list of drinks. When we left Odotte later that day you'd think that a rock-star was on board. We partied and we partied hard. After about three weeks I woke one morning on the floor. The lounge was wrecked, everywhere I looked there was empty bottles, empty vials and unconscious half-dressed women. I started to rouse them but one wouldn't wake. Soon I had five panicking women and me. We rushed to a medical centre and got her help. Thankfully she was OK in the end. But the sight of her in the medical ward, well that's when I saw her without the tarty makeup and the whorish dress. She was just a young woman, like my daughter would have been if that day hadn't have happened. It hit me like a Matari 1400 shell. I left her enough money that she could live on for the rest of her life, flushed the contraband, emptied the booze down the waste and took the girls back to their station and cancelled the hire of the yacht."
Dantan lifted his glass to signify he'd like a refill.
"Then how did you get from there to here?"
"I was just getting to that. I withdrew pretty much. Spent far too much time in my quarters, had limited contact with others. I felt everyone I got close to got hurt. Then one day the buzzer on my door went. I opened it to find Amber stood there. Amber had worked in a club over in Caldari space where I was based when hunting the crew of the Night Terror. We had got on very well. I forgot I'd given her my details before I had left telling her to look me up if she was ever in the Federation. We had been good friends and lovers even if it was.... in that setting and nothing really more than a business transaction. She'd given up on that life and had taken an InterBus transport to Gallente space. Not knowing anyone here she looked me up to see if I had any contacts that could find her work that didn't involve swinging around a dancing pole."
The woman had finished her drink and came back for another. Dantan got a proper look at her this time. She looked Caldari with jet black hair and bright green eyes. She smiled at Dantan and returned to her booth. Dantan craned his neck around and watched her walk.
"Oh I don't know. I think I'm in there! Plus wearing boots like that! She's out for one thing and one thing only!"
"Sorry to disappoint you kid, but you're right, and it is not you I'm afraid. You'll see soon. Anyway, Amber and I spent a lot of time together. She pulled me out of the hole I was in and showed me there was more to life. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not stupid. She was a beautiful young woman who knew what she was doing and I was an older rich man. Lets not pussyfoot around, we men always pay for it in one way or the other. Someone even said to me 'You know she wouldn't be with you if you weren't rich!' to which I replied 'And I wouldn't be with her if she wasn't beautiful and amazing in bed!'.
Both men laughed.
"Anyway after a few months we were walking down the promenade on the station when a woman pulls a gun in my face. I thought it was a mugging until I realised it was a crowded street. She simply said 'This is for Mellisa' and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. I was shocked and couldn't move. Amber simply let go of my hand and punched the woman in the face. Knocked her out cold. The police arrived and took us back to the station. Apparently they had recently installed dampening fields that prevented blasters from firing in certain areas of the station. I got lucky that new covert blasters, immune to the weapons scanners, had been appearing on the station so the security people took extra precautions. Once the Police knew that technically I was still a capsuleer and the woman who tried to kill me was a member of the Guristas they let me go and advised me to stick to the capsuleer decks for my own protection."
"Did you?"
"No, I took Amber and we ran. We moved around, enjoying ourselves but being careful. After a few more attempts from renegade factions of the Guristas, eventually things quietened down and we settled here."
Dantan looked thoughtful.
"There is one thing I don't get there. Clearly there are people within the Guristas that want you dead right?"
"Yes. Friends, crew members, lovers of those I killed. I don't believe the leadership of the Guristas wishes me harm. They understand and do not want people like Jorn, Bull and Slasher in their organisation. But others, yes they want me dead."
"So you've told all this to me, a total stranger. I could be a Guristas agent or assassin!"
The barman nearly doubled up in laughter.
"OK" Dantan said with a smile "But I could tell them where you are and collect a reward for the information. Why did you tell me all this?"
"Two reasons. Firstly I've wanted to tell my story to someone for a long time. Secondly, it doesn't matter as the Guristas assassin was casing the joint last night and has already returned tonight to finish the job."
Dantan's eye's went wide in shock. He span around to look at the woman, the only other person in the bar. She was already out of her seat striding towards the bar with a compact blaster rifle in her hands pointing at the barman.
"For Captain Jorn" she hissed as fired. The green bolts of plasma erupted from the gun and the barman just faced them, unflinching, with his arms folded with a look of defiance on his face.
The air above the bar flashed blue and ripples expanded out from where the plasma bolts struck the invisible shield. The assassin looked shocked and continued to fire screaming as she slowly advanced. The barman just stared her down. Suddenly the gun clicked and bleeped indicating the magazine was empty. She jettisoned the clip and was removing another from her handbag when the side door to the bar was kicked open. Dantan couldn't believe his eyes. The barman's, or capsuleer's, or what ever he was, wife was stood there, in her high heels, mini cocktail dress and holding a large plasma rifle at her hip in both hands.
"Hey bitch! I've got a present for you."
The assassin had spun around when the door had been kicked open. She tried to load the clip for her gun but never got close. The plasma bolt from the barman's wife's rifle slammed into her chest and errupted in a blue flash out the other side. A painting on the wall of a Dominix was holed and sprayed with blood.
"What? How? The shield? You knew? What the hell is going on?"
"The force-field is built into the bar. Scanners in the roof detect weapon discharge and activate it to stop any fire hitting me. Bio-scanners in the door are linked to a central database and tell me everything about the person entering the premises. I thought the Guristas had stopped chasing, but I'm not stupid, I'd taken precautions. I think it's time for you to leave."
Dantan just nodded. He felt numb. The attractive woman he'd been eyeing up was laying on the floor with a fist sized hole in her chest. The pool of blood surrounding her body was growing. He reached for his wallet.
"No need lad." the barman laughed as he walked to the side door and took his wife in his arm. "The drinks are on me." And with that they both disappeared into a side room.
Dantan left the bar and walked away trying to make sense of what had happened that night. As he reached the end of the street he heard a powerful hovercar accelerate heavily followed by a small explosion. He looked back and could vaguely see the cars lights disappearing down the street as fire started to emerge from the front of the bar. Sirens could be heard far in the distance.
-o0o-
I love the picture of the Domi.
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