Fiction Contest Submission

Blackness, the dark night shrouded all that was not illuminated.
An echoing wind screamed across the boundless plains.
Thunder rolled overhead, as light from the fires burning in the village echoed across the landscape.
All this and more were in to his mind’s eye.

A gruff male voice shattered his conscious thoughts saying something, but he couldn't reply, for the image before him was being seared into his mind and his long-term memory.

That memory of his home planet was still vivid five years later.

Since that event he had spent the better part of two years flying as a security officer for Capsuleers, taking the most dangerous and life threatening jobs he could in an effort to eradicate the memory. One day he was approached, in some shady bar in region he didn’t remember.
She had a picture of that fateful night, the light and the fires, but not the wind and the resulting pain. She made him an offer, of vengeance, to strike back at the very ones who had seared his mind with pain and life shattering grief.
He had no choice.

But that was two years ago.

It was the present now, although it barely felt like it.
He was now the leader for a strike team, headed for a prominent target, ready to wreak untold rage on his foes.
He felt alone.
The booming voice of the ships Capsuleer pilot resounded through the halls of the carrier, he barely noticed it. In his mind, all he saw was a dark night. The wind seared his face, etching the tears into his cheeks.

It was his moment of revenge.

Time passed but he heard no sound. Seconds and minutes folded around him, but did not reach him.

The drop bay doors opened.

There was light, the fire of the sun bouncing off the golden hulls and amplified by the reverberations of the engines, twisted by the firing of the cynosural fields.
Thunder rolled overhead as the miasma of refracted light merged and pulsed to devastating effects.
The violent explosions of projectile munitions shearing and melting everything in their path.
The wind of the solar re-entry tearing at the pod, throwing it around in the pre-dawn glow.

Then blackness and the pod impacted with the ground.

Emerging from the broken and scarred pod, he worked the cramps free. The epitome of death, his amplified war suit making every movement lethal and precise. He looked up the hill that now held that which he had sought or what felt like a generation, marching up the hill with a seemingly unending source of energy, the years of sadness and anger coming to within an inch of taking control.

At the peak, a small scared child stood and waited for he knew not what. He cowered under the balcony of his large home.
This child knew nothing about the war, or the fact that many would kill him simply for being who he was
The man in the war suit kept walking, preparing to exact his vengeance on those whom had caused him so much pain. He began to jog over the final rise, slamming the first round home into his rifle.
The child wept. He didn’t know not how to do anything else, this man of menacing appearance was not familiar and he looked so angry. The child wondered for a moment where his papa and mama were? Shouldn’t they be here?

A flash and clap of thunder coursed overhead, illuminating the tears on the young face before all went white.

The man stood.
The child didn’t.

A voice as cold as ice - ice pushed to the very limits of its endurance, ready to splinter and fragment into the winds, the words where not important, but the tone was glacial and spoke volumes more than any mere words could.

The man stopped; his rifle still aimed at the corpse, but something about that voice changed him in that second.

He turned to look at the source of the voice and saw a man with a face that once mirrored his own pain, and untamed fury.
His face became a mask, yet inside him came the feeling of anger, at life and its unfairness.

In that instant the man made a choice.
He raised his rifle and saved this man that mirrored his hurt and pain from a life of what burned inside him. A life of fury and vengeance, of injustice and callous regret; he pulled the trigger.

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It is 85YC and a teacher sits in front of her class.

She is ethnic Minmatar and she is telling the story of a man.
It is a tale of a Minmatar and his drive for vengeance.

This is something all children of the clan learn at an early age.

This one time, in this one class though something was different, instead of barely listening, one child looked thoughtful.

He raised his hand to ask the teacher question.
“Miss, what was the man’s name?”
“His name?” replied the teacher.
“Yes Miss, who was he?”
With a sad smile, she looked down at the child, whose face of projected pure innocence, whose eyes were unblemished by the scars of an unending war, of seeing your brothers and sisters enslaved for untold generations.
“Child he had no name”
“But why Miss, surely he had a name, we all have names”
“Because child, he is all of us, he is every Minmatar that has ever lost a member of his family, he is every one of us that has known the pain and hurt of those we love torn asunder”

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It is 85YC and a teacher sits in front of her class.

She is ethnic Amarrian and she is telling the story of a man.
It is a tale of a Amarrian and his drive for retribution.

This is something all Amarrian children are taught at a young age.
This one time though, a child payed more attention than usual, he raised his hand and asked the teacher.
“What was his name Ma’am?”
“His name dear child?”
“Yes Ma’am, who was this man?”
With a grim smile she looked down at this child, innocent and pure.
“He was every Amarrian that has been attacked and defiled by the heathens, every one of us that has been hurt and maimed for nothing more than being who he is.”

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It is 110YC and I am the Captain of a Matari starship.

The stories of my heritage call to me, I am a man of my race, I have no name.
In the history books, I shall never have a name.

For the name is not important, it is the purpose and result of my life and all of our lives that makes us what we are.

I am a Minmatar, born and bred to be a warrior in a race of warriors.
I am a man, raised in a race of murderers.

History shall not rule me; the future will not control me.
I live for the now, I live for the moment when I can make the impact on history that I was taught we all make, once in a lifetime.

That moment is now.
The moment when the Elders chose to strike; the moment when my ship shall lead the charge and bring the force of my race vengeance and the decades of pain in such a way that it shall leave a scar not even a God can heal.

I never payed attention to the old stories.
I never considered that they hold more truth than a history book.
A book tells you what happened, the story tells you why.

I am now in a story.
And I am telling you why.
We are the Matari, the fiercest warriors alive and we have come for our people.


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It is 110YC and I am the Captain of an Amarrian starship.

My name is important, but not to history.
I follow the old stories, I am steeped in a culture with a rich and powerful history and it shall know my name.
I am an Amarrian, born and bred to fight for the Empire unto death
I am a man, raised in a race of murders.

I am guided by the past and by the possibility of the future.
But I know, when the time comes I will be the one who writes his name into history.

That moment is now.

The Empress Jamyl has returned and our glorious salvation has arrived, I shall lead the push into the heart of the enemy; I shall rip it out and claim it for our Empress all that is our righteous vengeance.

I shall make a rift that even the Seven Clans cannot mend.

I have always payed attention to the old stories.
I always knew they were worth more than simple books.
A book tells you what happened, the story tells you why.

I am now in a story.
And I am telling you why.
We are the Amarrians, the righteous few and we have come for our people.

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It is 110YC and two ships find each other through the intangible madness that is some of the greatest fleet fights of our age.

These two ships have two captains.
Both are trained to perfection and fight for their individual races.

Two Dreadnoughts circle each other, turrets and launchers primed yet unable to fire a shot.

The immediate area of conflict slows to a crawl, the captains lose focus as the two ships circle their way into history, neither willing to make the final commitment to their cause, yet both inwardly burning to do so.

Then it starts, the calls are made simultaneously at the same time, each one’s tactics theoretically perfect.
The siege cycles engaged, the fires of refracted light met with projectile munitions in the exact centre of the conflict.

Untamed destruction met with precise amputation, like wild fury with tempered madness.
The two men, so different and yet so alike in ways neither will ever fully understand.

Two men, fighting for the same reason, for vengeance and retribution, for freedom and glory.
The same, yet infinitely different.
Fire and Ice, Light and Dark.
Amarrian and Minmatar.
Rage and Sorrow.

Forever entwined in the cycle of war, each indoctrinated and taught to hate, each trained to fight.
Gods and Spirits colliding in the hearts of mere men.

The never ending war.