Stacking

Stacking refers to the use of multiple modules or ship modifications (rigs) that affect the same attribute, eg. optimal range, kinetic shield resistance, tracking speed, etc.

The modules involved do not have to be the same or even of the same type. For example, the benefit to kinetic armour resistance granted by an Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane module stacks onto the benefit from a Armor Kinetic Hardener module.

Whilst stacking modules is often necessary and desirable there are in most cases drawbacks to it.

• Diminishing Returns

  This only applies when the module affects an attribute with a definite limit. The most common example of this is shield and armour resistance modifiers – there is an absolute ceiling of 100% resistance that the module moves you towards. In cases like this the gain that the module grants is the stated percentage of the difference between your current value and the logical maximum.

  For example, if your armour has a base 40% resistance to EM damage and you fit a module that grants 50% to EM resistance, your actual gain is 50% of 60% = 30% (60% being the difference between your starting 40% and the maximum of 100%) giving you a new value of 70%.

  If your armour has a base 60% resistance to EM damage and you fit a module that grants 50% to EM resistance, your actual gain is 50% of 40% = 20% giving you a new value of 80%.

  So we can see clearly that the closer your starting value is to the maximum, the lower the actual benefit you receive.

• The Stacking Penalty

  You may have seen the wording “Penalty: Using more than one type of this module or similar modules that affect the same attribute on the ship will be penalized.” in the description of various modules.

  This functions in addition to the diminishing returns we see above and also applies to modules that affect attributes that do not have an absolute limit, for example the hybrid weapon damage module Magnetic Field Stabilizer.

  The stacking penalty reduces the base effect of the module by a fixed percentage depending on how many modules affecting the same attribute have been fitted.

  First module: 100% of stated value
  Second module: 86.9% of stated value
  Third module: 58.9% of stated value
  Fourth module: 32.4% of stated value
  Fifth module: 14.3% of stated value
  Sixth module: 5.0% of stated value
  Seventh module: 1.3% of stated value
  Eighth module: 0.3% of stated value

  So the highly detrimental effect of using multiple modules with a stacking penalty affecting the same attribute is clear. This is even more considerably pronounced when combined with diminishing returns. Using our EM resist example again with a base value of 40%, a fourth 50% EM resistance hardener would only actually add 1.7% resistance giving a total of 89.6%. An eighth would add 0.005% making a total of 90.3%.

But there are examples of modules that do not suffer either of these drawbacks. Any module that does not have a stacking penalty and the affected attribute does not have a logical maximum will stack normally.

The classic example of this is cargo expanders. A ship with a base 100m3 cargo bay and one Beta Hull Mod Expanded Cargo module, which grants a 25% bonus, would have 125m3. If a second module were added it would grant an additional 125 x 25% = 31.25 making a total of 156.25m3.

This article is brought to you by EVE-Mag.com - an independent EVE Magazine, ©2009 EVE-Mag.com. Read more of New Eden's finest writers here!

POE #4: Things all players should know

My head hurt – no, it really hurt. This was caused in part by it’s attempts to juggle twenty disparate factors into a cohesive plan but mostly by it being periodically hit against the wall in frustration.

This was one of the results of my attempt to start off a moon mining project in a low security system neighbouring my usual residence. I had poured over the starbase structures and moon minerals sections in the EVE item database and scoured the internet searching for guides on the subject. All the guides I found seemed to have been sourced from CCP’s original guide with a few bits of additional information added in.

These guides seemed to make it sound all quite simple. You put up a control tower then add some harvesters, silos and reactors taking care of how much powergrid, and more significantly CPU, is available. Then link the structures, online it all and then sit back and watch the isk trickle or flood, as appropriate, into your wallet.

However, it soon became apparent that there is a great deal more left to learn and a considerable number of important factors are not made very clear. I pondered why the whole process should be so complex and can only assume that this is because once you do have it all set up properly it does sit and make you money while you sleep.

Now there are some things that you can do which are simple, but true to EVE form they will not yield you much isk. Setting up a small tower and simply mining moon minerals is very easy to do but unless you can lay your hands on a moon with one or more of the middle to high end minerals you will quite likely not cover your tower’s fuel costs and if you do then it’ll take quite some time to make back the initial investment.

However, despite all the problems and gnashing of teeth I was undeterred and pushed ahead to complete the project. I’m quite sure that you won’t be put off either, so in the hope that I can set you off into your quest with your eyes open and aware of the potential pitfalls, here is the sum of my wisdom on the complicated topic that is moon mining! Yes this article is long, but I assure you that reading it will take less time than finding it all out by yourself.

This article will not go into depth regarding setting up and running control towers, except where relevant to moon mining, as this is well covered elsewhere.

Start at the beginning

A general rule of thumb for doing anything in EVE, probably in real life too, is to have at least a vague idea, preferably a very good idea, of what you plan to achieve. However when it comes to moon mining, in my opinion, the best bet is to start off with working out what you are able to achieve with the available resources – and by this I mean what minerals are contained in the moons that you have at your disposal. Then decide which out of these possibilities you want to try and achieve.

If your corporation or alliance has good control over an area of 0.0 space with plenty of vacant moons to pick from then these possibilities could feasibly cover nearly everything, if not absolutely everything and you can go right ahead and start with what you want to achieve.

However, if you don’t have access to 0.0 space then you are left with low security space, or more specifically systems with a security rating between 0.1 and 0.3 as you cannot use moon mining modules in systems with a security rating of 0.4 or higher. In this case you will generally find that the moons with the decent minerals will already be taken and probably won’t be given up without a fight. But you may not have stratospheric ambitions and only desire a small operation or you may well just get lucky!

However while we are on the subject of moon possession, I will touch on the topic of taking a moon from another corporation.

Bringing down a tower is no small undertaking and is very difficult to achieve without dreadnoughts or, at the least, a decent sized battleship fleet. As an example, a large Caldari tower has fifty million (yes, really 50,000,000) shield and four million armour hitpoints. If the tower is well armed then you’ll need logistics support to keep your ships alive and if the tower’s owners are organised then you’ll also want PvP backup as they will most likely turn up with a fleet and counter-attack. The tower’s “reinforced mode” will also mean you’ll probably need to turn up on the following day to finish the job off and you may return to find everything repaired and all your work undone. Even if you achieve your task and destroy the tower there is always the chance that the owners will then come back and attempt to destroy the tower that you put up in it’s place. So, in summary this is not a recommended option unless you know exactly what you are doing!

Finding a moon with an offline tower is a different matter. In this case, should the moon contain minerals you want, you can open diplomatic talks with the owners. They may be willing to give the moon up for a fee although don’t expect this to be less than nine figures. It is also a great deal simpler to destroy an offline tower. For a start there are no gun and e-war batteries to worry about as any that are there will not function, there is no bubble shield to prevent standard drones from getting close enough to attack the tower, also meaning that you can get your ship as close as you want to maximise damage. There will also be no reinforced mode that forces you to make two separate attacks. You may still face a counter attack from the tower’s owners though as they will still get a mail informing them the tower is under attack.

Moon Minerals and Simple Reactions

Moon minerals are the very start of the multi-stage process toward making the advanced components which are used to make T2 ships. Moon minerals are divided into 5 categories, as shown in the list below.

Gases: Atmospheric Gases, Evaporate Deposits, Hydrocarbons and Silicates
Rarity 8 metals: Cobalt, Scandium, Titanium and Tungsten
Rarity 16 metals: Cadmium, Vanadium, Chromium and Platinum
Rarity 32 metals: Caesium, Technetium, Hafnium and Mercury
Rarity 64 metals: Promethium, Dysprosium, Neodymium and Thulium

You can consider yourself lucky to find a moon with a rarity 16 (r16) metal in a low security system but forget about finding anything rarer outside of null sec space. I have heard of it happening but if these rumours are true then it is a very rare event indeed. I have scanned many hundreds of low security moons and have never found a single one. Even if I had found just one it would still be very long odds.

A moon can contain between zero and three different minerals. Your scanner will also give you an abundance rating for each mineral of between one and three. At present this number has no effect on how much of the material you will mine although, of course, this could change in the future. It has been rumoured that the Moon Harvesting Array II, which was once present in the item database but later disappeared again, may take advantage of higher abundance numbers.

As mentioned before, it is a relatively simple matter to set up an operation to mine one, two or even three of these minerals, but unless it is r16 or higher it will not make you much isk. A better plan is to react two of these minerals into a processed or “intermediate” material. There are 19 different processed materials which can be created by reacting together a specific pair of moon minerals.

Each moon mineral can feature in between one and three of these pairs making some minerals more versatile, and therefore probably more valuable, than others. Without a doubt the best way to see how comparatively valuable any mineral is to simply check market prices for it. Jita is probably the best place to do this as you can guarantee that there will a good supply of all the minerals and therefore that the prices are not skewed by local availability.

The table below shows which moon minerals will react together and the resulting intermediate material.

For all the nineteen different simple reactions, there are always two moon minerals going in and one processed material coming out. As you can see from the table, the different moon minerals are of different sizes, mostly dependent on the category they belong to, but all the processed materials are 1m3 in size. There are always 100 units of each moon mineral going into the reaction and 200 units of the processed material coming out every hour.

BUT! Please don’t go running off now to set up your simple reaction!

Given the time consuming, tedious and potentially dangerous process of setting up and taking down towers it is a very good idea to have the total goal in mind before you start. If you set up a medium tower to run a simple reaction and then find that you have the resources to run a complex reaction, you will most likely need to take down the medium tower and replace it with a large one. As an idea, it takes half an hour to anchor a large tower then another half an hour to online it. In this first hour you and your tower are vulnerable to attack as you cannot activate the shield bubble until the tower is online, although having said that you don’t need to hang around while you wait. That just covers onlining the tower itself, you still need to anchor and online all your moon mining equipment and armaments and you can only perform one of these tasks on one module at a time. Set aside at the bare minimum a couple of hours to fully set up a working tower.

So with this in mind we will discuss complex reactions before we talk in detail about setting anything up.

Processed Materials and Complex Reactions

Just as with the simple reactions where we mix moon minerals together to make processed materials, a complex reaction is the mixing together of processed materials to make advanced materials. These advanced materials are then used in a normal manufacturing process to make advanced (T2) components which are then used to turn simple T1 ships into super T2 ships.

However, the complex moniker is not just for fanciful display, the whole process is much more complicated for many reasons. Earlier I mentioned that most of the numbers involved in the simple reactions are identical across all nineteen reactions, however this is not so with complex reactions. Firstly, it can take between two and four processed materials to create a complex reaction. Secondly, although there is still always 100 units of each processed material going into the reaction, depending on the reaction you are doing, the output can vary between 200 and 10,000 units which can be between 0.01m3 and 1.3m3 in size. Thirdly, a complex reaction requires, unsurprisingly, a complex reactor whereas a simple reaction can be done in either a simple or complex reactor. The table below shows you all the information as with the earlier one for simple reactions.

The Mechanics of the Moon Mining Chain

The moon mining chain refers to the line of modules necessary to create an advanced material from scratch, but you don’t have to create the entire chain and can still make isk from just a part of it. Firstly we will look at the various modules involved.

Control Tower

Not specifically moon mining equipment but nonetheless you must first have a tower before you can get any moon mining modules working. It is generally accepted that Caldari towers are the best for this type of exercise due to the fact that they have a higher CPU output than the other race’s towers and you will need plenty of CPU to run all the modules you need. However, if you plan to mine the ice for the tower’s fuel yourself and you do not live in Caldari space then a different tower may suit your purpose better if it still produces enough CPU to run the modules you require.

Moon Harvesting Array

This is obviously the beginning of the process. The harvester is assigned to one of the minerals present in the moon at which it is anchored. It must be linked to an appropriate module that can handle it’s output, ie. a silo or a reactor.

Simple Reactor

This module mixes 100 units each of two moon minerals every hour into 200 units of a processed material. It must be linked to two appropriate modules to provide the minerals needed for the reaction. These can be both silos, both moon harvesting arrays or one of each. It must also be linked to an appropriate storage device to store the output and requires the appropriate reaction blueprint to be installed in it.

Complex Reactor

This can perform the task of a simple reactor as described above but is best employed to make complex reactions. With a complex reaction it mixes 100 units each of between two and four processed materials every hour into advanced materials. The number of inputs needed and units produced depends on which reaction is being made as per the previous table. It needs to be linked to the appropriate number of silos to provide the inputs needed for the reaction and an additional one to store the output. A complex reactor also requires the appropriate reaction blueprint to be installed in it.

Storage Units

There are two types of storage unit that can be linked into a moon mining chain. The first and best is the Silo (without anything else in the name, eg. not a Catalyst Silo or Hybrid Polymer Silo, which are for different processes, eg. booster production) and the second is the Coupling Array. Contrary to the belief of some, a coupling array is not specifically for the purpose of sitting between moon-mining modules – this practice is not actually necessary. They both perform exactly the same task but hold different amounts of material. A silo will hold a fairly healthy 20,000m3 of material, using up 500 CPU in the process, whilst a coupling array uses a mere 155 CPU but unfortunately holds a paltry 1,500m3. Silos and coupling arrays can only have one input and one output and you must define what material it will hold before you online it.

Another factor to consider with silos and coupling arrays is that you cannot put anything into or take anything out of them while they are online. You must first offline it, fill or empty as appropriate then online it again. This doesn’t take long, just three minutes, but be careful that they are not offline at the point when your reactor cycles and expects an input or tries to output as this will result in a cycle’s worth of material being lost.

So on that topic, how do you know when everything happens? In reality everything on a tower happens together in a single second on the hourly “anniversary” of your tower’s onlining, which also happens to be the time when it chews up it’s regular meal of fuels and spare parts. If you didn’t note the time that you onlined the tower then you can find out by removing all but 23 hours worth of one of your fuels from the fuel bay. Within an hour you will get a mail informing you that your tower has less than a day’s worth of fuel left. The time of this mail is the time when everything happens and you can make your life much easier by noting it down. Don’t forget to put the fuel back in!

These tables show the PG and CPU produced by each of the 12 different tower types and the PG and CPU requirements of the various moon mining modules including the storage capacities of the silo and coupling array.

Moon Mining Set Up Theory

So on a purely theoretical basis, a basic moon mining chain with a two input complex reaction looks something like this.

Looking at this diagram you may wonder why you need the silos between the simple and complex reactors. This is because, if you recall, our simple reactors output 200 units of the processed material every hour but our complex reactor uses only 100 units from each input. I have never tried directly linking a simple reactor output to a complex reactor input but I assume it is possible. However, if it can be done then you will certainly lose 100 units of the output processed materials every hour wasting half your potential income.

So with this setup you will be producing a surplus of 100 units of each processed material every hour. You could either sell this surplus or use it to run a second complex reaction. You would of course need a second complex reactor but also additional silos to provide the input and collect the output. You will of course then need to manually transfer the accumulated surplus from your first two silos into the new ones (indicated by the dotted lines) making the complete chain look more like this.

If you are planning to run a three input complex reaction then you will need to add two more moon harvesting arrays, another simple reactor, two more silos and a third manual transfer creating something like this. Note that this doesn’t create the opportunity for a third complex reactor to make yet more advanced material.

I am sure you can work out what a four input complex reaction would look like.

However this is all theoretical. A quick look at the CPU need of the modules in even the first of these three diagrams will tell you that there is no way you could fit it all on a single tower. Two complex reactors and 3 moon harvesting arrays will exhaust all the CPU supplied by a large Caldari tower. In any case there is no way you would find all the right minerals on one moon. It is not that common to find on a single low sec moon the two minerals you need to make even one simple reaction and personally I have only ever found this with gases, which are the most common of moon minerals and therefore the most common, and least valuable, of processed materials.

So without a doubt a complete chain is going to need at least two moons, and quite possibly three, for even a two input complex reaction. This means that you are going to need even more silos as you will be unable to make as many direct connections from moon harvesters to reactors as shown in these diagrams. In addition to that, the single silo between your simple and complex reactors could need to become two silos, one to store your simple reactor’s output which will then need to be moved to the second new silo providing an input to your complex reactor at another moon.

You may also be in the situation where the two minerals you need for a simple reaction are on two different moons meaning even more silos and manual transfers.

Achieving your goal without all the necessary resources

If you started out with a specific goal in mind you may have to face the possibility that you might not be able to gain access to all the minerals you need but don’t despair yet as there are other possibilities here. The simplest answer could be to buy the minerals, or even processed material, that you are missing from the market. Whilst this obviously will not net you the same kind of profit you could have enjoyed had you been able to mine them yourself you should still be able to make an overall profit on the whole process.

Another solution to this problem is to cooperate with another corporation. Between you you may be able to produce the processed materials needed for a complex reaction that neither of you can alone. Given that your simple reactions will produce twice what you need to run one complex reactor it could be a simple matter of exchanging half the output from your simple reactions. How well this will work for you depends on which processed material you can make as in most cases one is likely to be worth more than the other. For example, Crystallite Alloy is around four times the price of Carbon Polymers. These two processed materials react together to make Crystalline Carbonide. Being the Carbon Polymer producer in such an arrangement would make you very much the poor half of the partnership.

So maybe you now begin to understand the cause of my headache. You may as well reach for the aspirin now because I’m going to throw yet another spanner in the works!

Time to react!

There is a fact casually mentioned in many of the guides I have read that illustrates very well a crucial factor in moon mining set up design. This fact is actually almost a myth.

Almost A Moon Mining Myth #1: “You can run a complex reaction on a medium Caldari tower.”

Yes, this is technically true. A complex reactor needs 3,000 CPU and a Caldari Control Tower Medium provides 3,750. The problem is that, of course, you need at least two silos to hold your inputs to the reaction and another one to hold the output.

The obvious difficulty is that a silo needs 500 CPU so you can only fit one with the 750 CPU you have remaining after fitting your complex reactor. A coupling array needs 155 CPU so after you put in your silo you are left with enough CPU for one coupling array and we know that we need at least three storage units.

However we of course can scrap the silo and just use coupling arrays. With our 750 CPU we can run four coupling arrays. We could run a three input complex reaction with a coupling array to hold each of the inputs and one to hold the output. Unfortunately whilst this may work in theory, in practice it isn’t very convenient.

Remember that all processed materials are 1m3 in volume and that the reaction needs 100 units of each processed material per hour making 100m3 per hour and our coupling array holds a mere 1,500m3. So you will need to refill your coupling arrays at intervals of less than 15 hours.

Not a problem you say? You’re on twice a day, every day anyway? Fantastic! Oh wait, what about our output coupling array? You’ll need to empty that every 15 hours too? If only you could be so lucky!

Let’s say you’re making Phenolic Composites, a three input complex reaction. This outputs 2,200 units every hour and each unit is 0.2m3 making a total volume of 440m3 every hour. Your output coupling array will need to be emptied before the fourth hour is up or you will lose any further output until you empty it. Reckon you can be online every four hours? Ever want to sleep again?

OK then, plan C. What you can do is link silos and coupling arrays to each other in a line. Two coupling arrays linked like this effectively doubles your storage capacity. How this functions is typically EVE in it’s strangeness. Assuming all the silos are online, it takes the material from the furthest silo away in the line from the reactor that has enough in it. A coupling array can hold 3,750 units of Cobalt but will only supply a rector with 37 hourly feeds of 100 units before it then begins to take material from the next unit in the line leaving 50 units left behind in the first one doing nothing.

So you could run a two input complex reaction and have two coupling arrays linked together to store your output. Let’s go with Tungsten Carbide which, as we can see from the table, outputs a hefty 10,000 units per hour. Since the Dominion expansion this is oh so much easier as CCP reduced the size of the Carb(on)ide processed materials from 0.05m3 to 0.01m3. At 0.05m3 each in size, this added up to 500m3 per hour which would fill your two coupling arrays in 6 hours. Now your output amounts to just 100m3 per hour but your dual coupling array setup will still only last 30 hours.

So, in summary, yes you can run a complex reaction on a medium Caldari tower but, unless you can guarantee your availability to maintain the tower processes, you will need people to help fill and empty your coupling arrays or you will have to face losing lots of output cycles.

The basic point I am trying to make here is that you must also think carefully about how long your silos and coupling arrays will run before they need to be refilled or emptied.

Other Considerations

You may be asking yourself why I have not yet mentioned Corporate Hangar Arrays as of course they use up some of your tower’s CPU too. I haven’t mentioned them so far because with these we can utilise to our advantage the timing and mechanics of tower processes. As I indicated earlier, when it comes to silos and coupling arrays, the only time they have to be online is when the tower makes it’s hourly cycle. They must be offline before you can empty or fill them but as long as you do this between the tower’s cycles then it makes no difference to the operation of anything else.

With the Corporate Hangar Array this fact works out even better. You can remove items from them even if they are offline although you still cannot put anything into them. They only require 150 CPU to online and as we will have to offline our silos and coupling arrays anyway we will have plenty of CPU available to online the hangar array for long enough to transfer our finished product into it. An added bonus is the fact that modules only use fuel if they are online when the tower cycles so our hangar array will not cost us any fuel to run! Our only concern here is that the hangar array does require 100,000 powergrid and if you are close to using all the tower’s powergrid under normal operating conditions then you may be forced to also offline a turret battery to release enough pg to online the Hangar Array. Having said that offlining a silo will free up 50,000 and each coupling array adds another 10,000 so unless you’ve really taken the tower’s powergrid output right to the wire this shouldn’t cause you too much of a problem.

So that about wraps up the theory of moon mining. In part two of this article we will look at the equally complicated practical elements of moon mining setup design and maintenance as well as calculating and maximising profit margins.

This article is brought to you by EVE-Mag.com - an independent EVE Magazine, ©2009 EVE-Mag.com. Read more of New Eden's finest writers here!

The Comprehensive Guide to Moon Mining Part 1 – Theory

You may have noticed that EVE-Mag has been rather quiet lately.

Well we’ve just been taking a break but are preparing to once more enter the fray and begin publishing again in the New Year.

In the pipeline are more “Proverbs of EVE”, “The Comprehensive Guide to Moon Mining” and others.

If you think you can write EVE related articles or short stories as well or even better than what you see on this site then we’d be pleased to see what you have to offer. Please check our submission guidelines and contact either Smakalicious at smak@EVE-Mag.com or Ecaf Ersa at ecaf_ersa@hotmail.co.uk.

Have a great New Year and keep an eye on us in 2010!

This article is brought to you by EVE-Mag.com - an independent EVE Magazine, ©2009 EVE-Mag.com. Read more of New Eden's finest writers here!

Just Taking a Break

Picture credit: Wotlankor

Jaret Kosh’t, now safely placed in the gunship, gazed onto at the organized chaos that surrounded him. Propping himself on his elbows as he lay on a makeshift cot, he watched as the gunship’s medical team tried to save what was left of his company. Medics huddled over the wounded and the dying, desperately trying to save whom they could. He watched, as one medic desperately tried to revive Prashesh, trying to prevent the Grim Reaper from claiming another soul. Medical drones impassively floated in the air scanning the patients and forwarding their medical data to the orbiting hospital cruisers.

All of sudden one Caldari marine, his armor unstained and unmarked, a clear indicator that he had yet to face death, nudged Jaret, and motioned to the transparent steel, that was the gunship’s windows. A tattoo on the nape of the man’s neck, identified him as a Provist, an admirer of Tibus Heth. He leaned forward and shouted above the noise that reigned in the passenger hold of the gunship.

“Behold! See the glory of the State!!” the man shouted into Jaret’s ear and pointed towards the sight. Jaret glanced towards the indicated direction and his lips curled into a grimace at the sight he beheld.

Through the transparent steel, Jaret watched as Tibus Heth, self-declared leader of the Caldari State, brandished the flag of the Caldari State and planted it on top of the Gallente Legislature building. The flag, unfurled by the heavy winds, proudly displayed the symbol of the Caldari State. As the Marine beside him cheered, Jaret slowly lowered his head and quietly relapsed into unconsciousness.

For this company of the Pathfinder legion, even as their brethren fought furiously to liberate their former home, the Battle of Caldari Prime was over.

Three Year Laters

Jaret Kosh’t, the former captain of the Pathfinder legion, introspectively inspected the spicy, golden amber liquid in his glass. He carefully swirled it around, each with each swirl chanting the names of those he had loved and cared for. Tears filled his eyes, as he imagined and remembered what their final moments must have been like. Men and women, whom he had been proud to call brothers, sisters and comrades, lay buried on planets faraway, their cold corpses slowly returning to the earth where they lay.

Jaret Kosh’t however did not join in their sentence of death. For his crime of failing his comrades, he was to live out his life among the cold emptiness of space. For his failure to adequately adjust to the situation, he was cursed with immortality. Forced to walk among the stars, Jaret chose to lived a lonely existence, his closest friend being his Hawk; The Justice. Apart from letters, Jaret had never seen his family after the Battle of Caldari Prime. Were it not for Mordu’s Legion pod training, Jaret would have ended his life a long time ago.

Pausing after reciting the names of the former comrades, Jaret took a deep, slow drink of the liquid. As the spicy, amber liquid slowly burned its way down his throat, Jaret slowly began to chant the Pathfinder’s Psalm. Soon a voice, in the bar, filled with pride and grief and in an old tongue filled the empty silence of the station’s bar. Jaret ignored the stares from the bar’s patrons as the former Pathfinder sang the battle hymn.

“…And together we charge over the hilltops,
bearing in our hearts,
the Caldari flame,
Brothers all,
and glory, eternal glory,
we shall bear its weight together,
drenched in blood we may be.
Together with my army of brothers,
we shall all fight,
through the Darkness of Death,
through Hell…”

This article is brought to you by EVE-Mag.com - an independent EVE Magazine, ©2009 EVE-Mag.com. Read more of New Eden's finest writers here!

Vengeance of the State – Epilogue

Picture credit: Wotlankor

In an innocuous forest on Caldari Prime, a strange sound can be heard. It first starts of with rumble that slowly grows to roar. Trees are knocked aside and vegetation is crushed as the roars rise to crescendo. An MTAC steps through the brush, swatting aside an ancient tree. It scans the area and then gives an all-clear signal. Squads of elite Gallente Security Force Kommandoes, push through the vegetation, their rifles sweeping the area around them. Behind them more MTACS and Kommandoes work their way through the forest, carefully making their way to reclaim the Orbital Cannon Control facility.

Admiral Jorus Fringer, watched the progress of his troops courtesy of the command implant that was buried somewhere in his temporal lobe. Safely cocooned in the command room of a gigantic armored command vehicle, he organized and controlled the squads as they made their way through the forest. Responding to an alarm raised at the facility, he had been distressed to find no response to his queries to their status.

However what troubled him even more, was the fact that no one at High Command seemed to respond to his alerts. He had contacted his fellow officers and they too confirmed what he was experiencing. It seemed that none of the command staff were available.

Tucked away in the hallways of High Command, a normally busy room was filled with dead silence. Instead of the hustle and bustle that normally filled this room, there hung the aura of death. At a table at the centre of the room, 10 bodies sat slumped in their seats. All the corpses on them had a variety of expression that ranged from shock, rage and fear. Some of their hands clutched at their necks, others gripped the handles of the seats, in a desperate bid to escape the room of death.

A young lady, dressed in revealing clothes that proclaimed her beauty, moved through the room. She was fitted with a re-breather mask, and hidden behind it her lips curved into a deadly smile. In her hands she gripped a handgun and with it she walked up to each body and put a round in its forehead. A small tattoo at her delicate nape of her neck identified her as being one of Heth’s provists.

She had been the ‘surprise’ for the generals. A large cake in the center of the room, gave a clue to her arrival. When she had burst through the cake, she watched as the surrounding generals expression of lust and desire soon gave way to shock and horror, as she triggered the release of the poison gas. Were it not for the boosters she had taken and the re-breather mask she wore, she would have joined the generals in their death.

In her former life she had been a stripper, desperate for cash and drugs that would ease the pain and trauma. That was before she met Heth. The man, through his words and actions had inspired her to join his Provists and since that day she had never looked back. With the Provist,s she now worked for something that was bigger than her, bigger than her life nay her very soul. True there had been times they committed acts that the State would have frowned upon. True there were times when they worked with pirates, thieves and murderers. But it had all been for the moment when they could guide the State towards greatness and power. Caldari Prime was only the first step and soon the entire world of New Eden would soon rue the day that they ignored the State.

Captian Prashesh Kobai, watched through his scope as the Gallente Security Force Kommandoes moved through the underbrush and approached the facility. While their camo suits would usually render them virtually invisible to the naked eye, on thermal view they showed up as bright as day. With a near silent whisper, he ordered his lieutenant to activate the mines.

Without a sound a thousand packages of death and mayhem activated, their sensors now primed to detect human or mechanical movement. While landmines were officially banned under the Concord Convention of Warfare, the Pathfinders felt that point was moot. They had already executed any Gallente wounded, so detonating a few thousand landmines really wasn’t going to make a difference.

A Gallente MTAC, at the head of the formation, marched through the forest. Durasteel legs pounded through the forest, as its sensors corrected its placement for the curvature of the forest floor. Gatling guns, mounted on its arms, sweeped, the area in front of it, in 90-degree arcs. It operator, thanks to his implant, was fed a variety of sensory and tactical information. Dull green armor plates, covered the mechanical behemoth, protecting vital components.

As the MTAC approached the facility, a corner of his mind registered a small, innocuous click. While normally he would ignore small sounds like those, since a MTAC operator would be usually be barraged by the full spectrum of noise, which ranged from the stomp of metallic feet to the whine of its motors. Whether or not he would have done something about that click would remain unresolved, as a mine was detonated by the presence of the MTAC.

A surge of heat and pressure radiated from the mine, smashing through metal support structures, crushing armor and burning electronic circuits. Suddenly bereft a leg, the MTAC flailed helplessly as it crashed into the ground, its control cabin crushed by the fall. The surrounding Kommandoes were incinerated by the blast and heat that radiated from the mine. Formerly silent comms, were now suddenly filled with the screams of the wounded and dying, and desperate requests for medical aid. Medics ran to their comrades, desperately trying to stave off the Grim Reaper from claiming more souls.

Captain Jaret Kosh’t watched, as the first wave of the Gallente attack force was ripped apart as the mines unleashed their deadly packages. He winced as he saw another MTAC fall to the ground and crush an unlucky Kommando that was nearby. He grimaced as he saw another Gallente soldier, lose both his legs as a landmine ripped them from underneath him.

He had positioned the remainder of the assault team in the surrounding forest. The overall plan was to buy time for reinforcements to arrive. Medium Assault Rifles (MARs) and shotguns were now wielded. A few members of the assault team carried with them rocket launchers. Every third soldier wielded an under slung grenade launcher. Camo suits were activated and the Pathfinders had complemented these suits with sticking part of the surrounding foliage into the seams of their suits. Every man and woman waited with baited breath, all waiting for the signal to unleash hell.

Jaret watched as the remnants of the first wave of Gallente soldiers were reinforced with the second wave of Kommandoes. He quietly watched as discipline was quickly re-established and as the dead and wounded were brought to their rear. He quietly watched as the second wave carefully passed his position, the Kommandoes scanning their surrounding. With a silent signal, he motioned his assault team to attack.

With flick of his hand, he now wielded his combat knife and in a smooth motion grabbed a nearby Gallente. Clamping his hand over the unlucky soldier’s mouth, he pulled the knife across the man’s neck and in an even stroke severed the man’s jugular artery. Blood gushed forth and covered his hands, as the man suddenly collapsed from lack of the blood. All around Pathfinders were repeating his actions, as they rose up like specters of death and claimed their victims.

Selecting another victim, Jaret carefully stalked him and began to position his knife. He was almost prepared to deliver the killing stroke, when in an instant the soldier whirled around. An instant passed, when killer and victim started each other in the eye, connected through that moment of death. Then it all went to hell.

In the hallways of the Gallente High Command, a team of Gallente Spec Ops soldiers carefully made their way through. Their eyes darted and scanned the hallway, noting the unnatural silence. CQB rifles were hefted and Night Vision Goggles pierced the darkness and gloom that now reigned in the hallways. Rebreather masks and HAZMAT suits prevented them from inhaling the toxic gas that now filled the corridors.

Their goal was to retrieve and rescue the Gallente High Command, whom were undoubtedly cocooned in the command room. Rated to withstand all manner of attack from the outside, it was a virtual fortress. Without the Gallente High Command, all military forces on the planet were virtually leaderless, the nearest command centre being located on Gallente Prime.

With a quick hand gestures, the spec-ops team investigated each room, noting the bodies that lay in odd postures. As they slowly approached the command room their pulses began to race as each soldier prepared for what they might find. Approaching a hidden console, the leader of the team entered in a code that granted him access to the room. With a whirr the blast doors slowly opened. A special forces soldier chucked in a flash-bang and for a moment a bright flash of thunder and light erupted from the room.

In a well polished maneuver the team streamed into the command room, rifles scanning their designated sectors. Night vision goggles pierced the darkness as each soldier registered what they saw.

CRACK! A shot rang out, and one soldier was thrown back, his armor sparking as it struggled to compensate for the slug, which smashed into it.

In a honed maneuver, driven by years of training and experience, another soldier raised his rifle, spotted the figure, a young attractive female clad in revealing attire and clutching a pistol, and fired two rounds into her forehead.

CRACK! CRACK! The young female suddenly had two extra eyes drilled into her forehead and she fell to floor in an almost graceful motion, her fingers firing the pistol in a final death spasm. The flash from her pistol illuminated the room and for an instant revealed the full scale of what had happened.

One by one the operators checked the slouching occupants of the room for any signs of life. Each corpse yielded no sign of life, as the pallor of death was fixed upon each of their faces.

The leader of the squad broadcast a quick terse message to his commanding officer, which revealed that almost everyone in the command centre was dead.

Jaret leapt the distance between the soldier and him, his knife flashing in the light of the rising sun. The soldier fired a round, which barely missed the Pathfinder. Almost in response to that lone shot, a thousand more shots rang out as the Gallente soon realized that they were being quietly ambushed. Jaret sunk his knife into his victim’s neck, his eyes locking onto the unfortunate man’s eyes, as his lifeblood drained from him.

Nearby another Pathfinder hefted his rocket launcher, aimed and then fired. A flaming explosive projective, was propelled towards its target an MTAC, whose operator had just opened fire. The unfortunate Pathfinder was immediately thrown backwards, as the heavy rounds slammed into his chest, blowing away armor and parts of organs. The rocket continued on its deadly path and it slammed into the MTAC. Armor plating was ripped apart and the operator was vaporized as the rocket unleashed its deadly payload and converted the former mighty MTAC into a bright red explosion.

Jaret whipped out his MAR and instantly opened fire. Rounds tore through foliage, armor and flesh. The silenced roar of his rifle, soon became louder, as his silencer overwhelmed by the fury of the unleashed rounds burned out. Around him the cries and clamor of battle reached a crescendo as the Caldari Pathfinders and the Gallente Kommandoes fought and grappled with each other.

Rockets flew threw the air, creating bright red explosions that consumed both man and machine. Soldiers fell to the ground, some clutching at their wounds and other continuing to fight where they lay. The formerly green foliage and trees was now caked with on odd mixture of engine oil, shrapnel and blood. Rifles, which had expended their rounds, were now turned into impromptu clubs, smashing skulls and breaking necks. Grenades exploded releasing their deadly waves of heat, pressure and shrapnel. Mines detonated impaling both friend and foe alike.

Sniper fired, their rounds flying at impossible speeds to their targets. Camo-systems overwhelmed by the surrounding chaos desperately tried to work, as platoons of half men, half phantoms engaged in a deadly struggle with each other.

Jaret desperately ordered a fighting withdrawal, and with ragged discipline the Pathfinders slowly withdrew back to the facility, making the Gallente pay for each inch they gained. Wounded were dragged or carried by their comrades and the dead were left where they laid. Hoisting one of his wounded brethren onto his shoulders, Jaret slowly inched his way back to the facility, trusting that the snipers would cover the remnants of the assault force.

The snipers fired, desperately trying to protect their comrades. Magnetically charged steel slugs flew through the air, striking both man and machine in the critical areas. Mechanical joints were shattered, leading to MTACs toppling to the floor, their Gatling guns still firing as they fell. Soldiers lost their throats and heads, as the steel slugs smashed and tore threw flesh and bone.

Admiral Jorus Fringer snarled as he saw his casualties mount. While they were slowly advancing they were taking horrendous casualties. He had lost entire battalions, their formerly proud warriors now reduced to the silent dead or the moaning wounded. MTAC divisions were ripped apart as explosive rockets, precisely aimed railgun rounds and deadly mines took their toll.

Any logical tactician would have immediately called off the assault, but Fringer knew that he didn’t have that option. If the Caldari still retained control of the orbital cannons, any invading assault possessed a potential advantage.

An alert over the command network, revealed by a fellow officer, that Gallente High Command was dead. Chaos soon reigned over the command network as officers argued over what to do. Soon reports began to stream in of Caldari Naval vessels moving through surrounding solar systems.

Fringer, realizing that he was the highest ranking officer on the planet, immediately took command. Fringer now more aware of the importance of retaking the facility, immediately ordered in more reinforcements. One officer, responded that he was dispatching a regiment of shock troopers. Another officer added that he was detailing a team of heavily armed tanks to support Fringer.

Out in the dark-emptiness of space, the Caldari Navy approached the planet, as the heavily outnumbered Gallente Defense Fleet attacked the immense formations. Every man and woman on those ships, knew that they didn’t stand a chance against the immense Caldari fleet. All they were able to do was buy more time for the ground forces to retake the orbital cannon centre, which would almost certainly reduce the Caldari to bits and pieces.

As the Caldari Navy approached the planet, a stream of missiles and railguns rounds erupted from the formation and flew towards the Gallente fleet. Majestic Caldari Chimera carriers and Wyvern
Motherships disgorged their streams of nimble fighters and heavy bombers. Heavy armed dropships streamed towards the planetary surface, escorted by the hordes of Caldari Dragonfly fighters. Wings of Caldari Navy Hookbills, covered by Harpys and Hawks opened fire on Gallente frigates and cruisers.

Missiles tore through durasteel plating and exploded, ripping apart the orbital cannons. They exploded in impressive display of fireworks, their deadly charges of cruise missiles and bombs detonating. Waves of thermal and electrical energy spread out from the wrecks of the orbital cannons as the Caldari Navy set to work at demolishing the orbital cannon network with impunity.

A flight of gunships flew straight towards the orbital cannon control centre, filled to their capacity with Caldari State Marines. Eager to rescue their brethren, the Marines made final checks on their equipment. The lead gunship broadcast a coded message to the Pathfinders, indicating the help was on it way.

Captain Jaret Kosh’t was thrown to the ground as a Gallente tank round tore through the foliage and exploded right in front of him. The wounded man he was carrying, was thrown away from him, crying out in pain as his injuries were worsened by the blast.

Jaret slowly pushed himself upwards and painfully crawled towards his comrade, each movement sending a wave of pain through him. As he reached his comrade, he noticed that the man had in fact died on impact. He flipped himself onto his back and prepared to make his final stand. Whipping out his pistol he started firing, noting that with every Gallente tank round fired, the stream of slugs and rockets erupting from the Pathfinder’s position seemed to lessen. Time seemed to slow down as he watched as a Gallente Kommando, step into his field of vision and raise his rifle.

Prashesh Kobai, watched as his close friend collapsed to the ground. With a roar he continued to fire his sniper rifle, his rounds continuing to leave their mark on the Gallente. The snipers continued to fire their rifles, desperately trying to hold off the enraged Gallente Kommandoes who seemed to ignore hail of slugs and rockets the Pathfinders put out. Prashesh, aimed carefully at the Kommando who was now aiming at his comrade and in a single motion fired a round that removed the man’s head from his shoulders. However, in the corner of his vision, he could have sworn he saw a tank’s turret swivel, aim and fire on his position.

Prasheh Kobai, slowly watched as his vision blossomed into fire and destruction, as the tank rounds blew him and the nearby snipers off their perches. Prashesh, slowly watched as his vision darkened into blackness. In a testament to his warrior spirit, Prashesh’ last words was the chant of the Pathfinder code, as the darkness claimed him.

In orbit, a Caldari Navy commander noted the huge concentration of Gallente military around the orbital cannon facility. While normally, he would have ordered a bombardment of the facility and its surroundings, the fact of the matter was that there were comrades defending the facility. Additionally high command wanted the facility intact, something about useful intelligence hidden there. However he just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to give, the Gallente Defense Forces, a black eye and so ordered an orbiting battery of artillery cannons to fire on his marked targets.

The commander allowed himself a slight grin as the rounds sped through the atmosphere to rain hell and destruction on the unlucky Gallente below

Admiral Jorus Fringer slumped forward in his command chair, as he registered the destruction of the orbital cannons. Despite all their best efforts, despite every maneuver they tried, it was only a matter of time before Caldari Prime fell. But what they could do was vanquish those bastard Pathfinders, whose numbers were dropping steadily by the minute. With a roar of rage, he threw all his forces onto Pathfinders, ignoring the officers who protested such suicidal orders.

In retrospect, that would be Fringer’s undoing. Having thrown all his available forces, he had in fact made them all an attractive target to the orbiting Caldari artillery ships. Fringer barely had time to glance at the nearby photo of his dear wife and child, before the artillery shells incinerated and destroyed him and his division.

All that Jaret do was watch as the tank blew the snipers off their perches with explosive rounds. His legs failed to respond to his will. His rifle and pistol having expended all their ammo, now lay at his feet. A MTAC stomped its way towards him, its feet sounding like thunder. Jaret slowly began to chant the Pathfinder code and prepared to join his comrades in death.

All of a sudden, like the wrath of an angry god, thunder and lighting erupted from the sky, as artillery rounds slammed into the assaulting Gallente Defense Forces. Man and machines were ripped asunder as the artillery rounds swept through the formations. Tanks were smashed into pieces, MTAC’s exploded and men were simply vaporized by the rounds. The forest, having long now been destroyed by the fight, erupted into flame as the shells ignited the streams of oil and blood that flowed through the forest.

Jaret slowly massaged his eyes open and gawked at the sight that greeted his eyes. Less than two feet from him lay the broken body of an MTAC. The charred corpse of the MTAC operator lay halfway through the broken windscreen, his burnt hands still clasping the ripped controls of the machine.

For the first time in hours, silence reigned in the forest. Jaret could hear thunder and lightning and felt raindrops on his skin. The rain started slowly first and then became a downpour, as if nature itself wanted to wash away the scars of this battle. The streams of rain that blanketed the charred remains of the forest soon washed expended rounds, blood and oil away.

A steady thrum of plasma engine soon greeted his ears, Caldari gunships landed and emptied their load of Caldari State Marines. Marines rushed to their positions, checking for any survivors and executing any Gallente wounded.

In a corner of his vision Jaret, saw the Marines stream into the facility, carrying out wounded Pathfinders out and marking the dead. Jaret saw one Marine Corporal approach him and say something. As Jaret was hauled to his feet, with two Marines supporting him, he regarded the full scale of death and destruction that had been unleashed in the past hours.

The corporal’s HUD registered the man as barely alive and the commander of this company of Pathfinders. The Marine Corporal, truth be told, thought he was talking to a corpse more than anything else. The man was pockmarked with wounds and blast marks. The man’s legs barely supported him. His eyes, were lifeless and they slowly moved from left to right.

The Marine would have thought the Pathfinder dead, if the man hadn’t suddenly started to cry, tears descending from his tired eyes, down his dirt-stained face and onto the blood soaked earth.

This article is brought to you by EVE-Mag.com - an independent EVE Magazine, ©2009 EVE-Mag.com. Read more of New Eden's finest writers here!

Vengeance of the State – Part 3

Picture credit: Wotlankor

Goresh Forsan, senior commander of the orbital canon control facility, watched as reports flooded in detailing excessive damage to the facility and mounting casualties. Through a implant in his brain, he had access to live feeds from cameras located in the forest, and watched as one by one the camera blinked out. Another implant gave him top command of the attack drones and he ordered their deadly swarms to find the snipers. Around him officers barked out orders and updates pertaining to the situation

Without a pause for thought, Forsan declared a code red, alerting the nearby garrison for support. He was ready to order the MTAC’s to continue their advance into the forest, when a priority alarm was broadcast over the speakers.

“They’re inside!!” A voice screamed over the comms “We need backup, sector 22…”. Forsan flinched as he heard a shot ring out over the comms. Quickly accessing the database, Forsan started to sweat as he looked the thermal scans of operating rooms, that would be usually be warm with the body heat of technicians and soldiers, instead registered cold corpses.

“Dear God…” He murmured “those bastards are inside”

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At the rallying point for the GSF forces, instead of the quiet discipline of an assembled regiment rang out the roars and cries of battle. The Pathfinders carved their way through GSF forces, using assault rifles, shotguns and even knives. Soon the heat of battle gave way to the cold stillness of death, as the wounded moaned and the dead remained silent. The surviving Pathfinders, quickly restocked their ammunition, counted their dead and killed the wounded Gallente. One Pathfinder sergeant noticed that their leader, Jaret Kosh’t was missing. The odds of him fleeing the battle were low, as the Caldari honor code forbade leaving one’s comrades behind.

Mystified as to where Jaret could be, the sergeant surveyed the corpse littered zone, taking note of a hole in the wall. As several Pathfinders surveyed the area, they knew that they had to regain the initiative. They were ready to press on their attack, when out of nowhere they heard a loud bang.
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As Jaret’s vision began to blacken, in a move borne out of desperation, he whipped out his knife and started to stab furiously. Cold Caldari vibrosteel punctured skin, slashed flesh and yet the giant Brutor still maintained his grip. As Jaret looked into the Brutor’s eyes, he noticed blue streaks the ran through his eyeballs, as a portion of the Pathfinder’s mind ascertained that the giant was high on some cocktail of combat boosters and drugs.

Desperately, Jaret started clawing at the giants immense arms, desperately trying every possible technique to gain some release from the giant. Instead the giant’s deadly grin grew even wider, as he became amused at Jaret’s feeble attempts.

Deciding that he was out of options, Jaret’s arms clutched at his combat vest and he activated a grenade and shoved it at the giant’s face. As the world around him flashed bright white, Jaret’s managed to croak a final insult.

“Suck it.”

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Blinded by the amazingly bright light and load noise that assaulted his senses, the giant released the Pathfinder with a howl of pain. Ironically, the Brutor’s cocktail of stims and drugs, which had been designed to boost his senses, now worked against him. The already bright light and loud noise, generated by the flashbang, were now magnified a hundred times more, as his mind reeled from the barrage of sensory information. Pain and noise now dominated his mind, as he staggered back from the Pathfinder

Swining his Khuumak his circles, the Brutor sought to kill that slippery Caldari, whose head was only inches underneath the giants arcs. As he slowly regained his senses, he noticed in the corner of his eye, a soldier clad in camo gear, slowly take aim and fire. Times seemed to slow to crawl as the magnetically charged slug tore across the space between the soldier and the Brutor giant. The slug slowly twirled through the air and with the force of a ten-ton hammer, penetrated his skull. All the giant was able to was let loose a final roar of defiance, as his vision turned to red, black and then nothing.

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Prashesh and the Pathfinder sergeant regarded the Brutor giant, who was now missing his skull, thanks to the fact that both soldiers had fired at the giant at the same moment. With a silent nod, Prashesh took the lead, as the sergeant quickly pulled Jaret to his feet. The woozy captain, managed to sputter out a sentence, in a somewhat shocked tone.

“What?” he gasped, as the sergeant quickly gave him a shot of adrenaline “I’m not dead?!”

Prashesh, who had slung his sniper rifle behind his back, now wielded a shotgun. As he led the troops through the facility, he grimly assessed what his HUD was telling him. Their strength had been now reduced to three quarters, the act of fighting a numerically superior force and one with overwhelming firepower had started to take its toll on the Pathfinders. Yet they had to press on, failure was not an option.

Yes, Prashesh thought, as he blasted an unlucky Gallente into oblivion, Failure is not an option.

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The control centre was an example of organized chaos, with officers barking orders over comms. Forshan snapped concise commands over the comm network, ordering his attack drones to enter the facility, an operation for which the machines were not designed.

Over the network, a Gallente admiral contacted Forshan and confirmed that a regiment of the Gallente army was on its way. Soldiers armed with assault rifles and machine guns, backed up with MTACs and tanks were on their way. Still, Forshan knew that it would take them fifteen minutes to reach his position, and he knew a lot could happen in that time.

As he furiously tried to realign his forces, he noted that his sensors, which had registered the deadly progress at which the invading forces had made, indicated that they had come to a complete stop. Perhaps fortune had smiled on him finally.

However these would Forshan’s final thoughts as a hole was punched underneath him and he noticed in the corner of his vision, a rocket soar through the gap, pause in midflight and then detonate. A wave of heat and pain crawled up his legs, his arms, his head and finally there was nothing.

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With the help of rappelling lines, the assault team ascended into the main control room. As they surveyed the control room, they took in the carnage that had been unleashed by the lone rocket. Pieces of armor had been tossed around the room, shrapnel laced bodies hung at every possible angle. Officers, many of whom had died where they were, lay all over the place, their hands clutching their sidearm at a desperate final attempt to fight death.

Prashesh, quickly redeployed his snipers, along the rooftops of the facility and the surrounding vegetation. As he rushed to his new position, he noted Jaret slowly approach the central console

Jaret woozily approached the central console, pushing aside a corpse that had definitely seen better days. He carefully extracted a disk from his combat vest, inserted it into the central console and began to pray.
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As the program slowly inched its way out from the disk, it quickly began its purpose. It primary purpose was to “update” the central computer’s security network with the “latest” definition of computer threats. After the central computer ascertained the nature of the program and deemed it ‘friendly’, the program quietly went to work updating the threat database. After it finished its task, the program than shut itself down, having deemed its task done.

While the program itself did no damage, however what it had unleashed would be the digital equivalent of telling a city’s police forces that the mayor was the head of galactic terrorist, serial killer, megalomaniac conspiracy. Almost immediately, the drone brain registered these new threats, as they suddenly numbered in the thousands, and quickly sent out hunter killer programs to destroy these new threats to its existence.

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As the Pathfinders watched, the drone brain slowly tore itself apart, as its own hunter killer programs began to destroy key components of its own infrastructure. Finally the drone brain shut down, as it own support was destroyed

This of course would have been the moment when the Pathfinders would have celebrated, when they heard the buzzing of attack drones.

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Flying through the corridors at speeds unimaginable, the drone’s sensors began feeding their brains information. Thermal scanners noted the warm trail of blood and gore that marked the progress of the Pathfinders. Imaging sensors fed them pictures of expended rounds and broken bodies. Combat control system began to spin their razor sharp chainsaws, as they approached their destination. With jet black insectoid bodies, glowing red eyes, spinning chainsaws and measuring almost the size of human, they were death incarnate.

As Jaret Kosh’t spun around, it seemed that once again the Grim Reaper had marked him for death. As the swarm of drones entered the control room, time seem to freeze. His eyes registered the spinning blades that these drones wielded, their blood red eyes and the terrifying visage. His hands, borne out years of training, yanked his pistol out of his holster. In a smooth motion, he drew the pistol and began to fire.

All around him the roar of shotguns and rifles erupted, as man fought machine. Sensors exploded, limbs were lost as the deadly Pathfinders and the cold attack drones fought each other. One attack drone grabbed an unlucky soldier and began to rip into him. His partner, desperately fired an anti armor grenade, the resulting explosion engulfing all three of them. Jaret kept firing his pistol, as he desperately tried to avoid the deadly blades of the drones.

One Pathfinder sergeant, having been, tackled by a drone, desperately raised his shotgun to deliver the blow. It was for naught as the drone, smacked it out of his hands and began to move in on him. The sergeant, a grizzle veteran, pulled a specially marked grenade from his vest and detonated it. Waves of heat and electromagnetic interference pulsed out from it destroying both the sergeant and his robotic attacker.

The official policy on usage of EM grenades was to never use them in close proximity to human beings. This was due to the fact that the EM pulse, while designed to render electronic and mechanical equipment inoperable, could cause damage the human nervous system. Many soldiers who had been exposed to EM radiation suffered nervous twitches, damaged brains and scar tissue.

This point was rendered moot to the Pathfinders, as they desperately began to throw EM grenades at their attackers. Waves of EM radiation spread through the room overloading circuits, destroying computer systems and breaking down the attack drones. One by one, the attack drones began to fall to the ground, their circuits overwhelmed by the barrage of Electromagnetic interference.

For the first time in hours, the control room was finally silent. The Pathfinders quietly regarded their dead robotic foes and then went to work. Wounded were attended to and the dead were pushed aside as Jaret struggled to reorganize his team. As he quietly regarded the corpse of his sergeant, Jaret ordered a young lieutenant to dispose of the drones. Jaret ordered another lieutenant to contact the snipers and organize runners. The EM grenades had knocked out the assault team’s electronic equipment, which included scopes and comms. While some of the equipment could be reset, Jaret knew that for now they would depend on the sniper’s equipment.

“Captain” the lietentant he had sent to contact the snipers breathlessly reported “Prashesh reports enemy advances towards our position”

“What is the nature of this advance?” Jaret queried the shaking lieutenant. The EM pulses are already starting to take their toll on her, as Jaret noticed her hands were shaking.

“Infantry divisions, tanks and MTACs” The lieutenant responded “And a shitload of them too!!”

This article is brought to you by EVE-Mag.com - an independent EVE Magazine, ©2009 EVE-Mag.com. Read more of New Eden's finest writers here!

Vengeance of the State – Part 2

Picture credit: Wotlankor

The magnetically charged slug burst out from LDR sniper rifle and charged across the vast gap from hunter to the hunted. Despite all this energy expended, there is only muffled crack that could be heard.

The slug, propelled with immense energy, pierces its target. The ballistic impact of the slug alone kills the target. However the slug is not finished. As it penetrates the skull, tiny explosives implanted in the slug, detonate. The result, needless to say, is immensely effective. The buffalo immediately keeled over, sans head, its corpse smashing the ground with the force of a miniature earthquake.

Jaret’s eyes focused; as he watched the buffalo herd begin the move. Without their leader, the herd wouldn’t know what to do. Any creature that had just watched their leader have its head removed would start to have doubts about the safety of it current position.

Prashesh, Jaret’s right hand man and close friend, fired another round. Another buffalo collapsed, this time missing a leg. As the sounds of the animal’s excruciating pain rang out through the forest, the herd collectively decided that enough was enough.

With what started with a few individuals, soon spread to the thousands. Soon, the thousand strong herd of buffalo began to stampede through the forest. Trees, bushes and even predatory animals were crushed in their path, as the herd sought to escape the hand of death that had so clearly killed their leader.
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Within the recesses of the control centre, within the banks of computers a program stirred. In a matter of seconds it registered information from sensors that something very large was moving towards the facility. With blinding speed, it quickly compared the mass of the object to data gleaned from the immense rows of databanks it had at its disposal. Confused, by what it found, it immediately sent out an alert to the operator.

One tired Gallente technician, who was looking forward to his warm bed, was annoyed at the insistent beeping his console gave out. With a snarl of annoyance he glanced at the readouts. What he saw puzzled and confused him. The readouts indicated that huge, swarming mass was approaching the facility. Activating one of the cameras, he was stunned by what he saw. A large, teeming mass of Striped Buffalos was fast approaching the facility.

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You are completely insane a part of Jaret’s mind drily noted.

To anyone else, would have considered Jaret was truly insane. Instead of staying clear of the mighty striped buffalo, as any sane individual would, he was leading his team after the herd.

As part of the assault element of his company, he had loaded his Medium Assault Rifle (MAR) with explosive rounds. Light enough to be carried into battle and close combat; it had enough firepower to blow through 5 layers of durasteel. While usually Jaret avoided using explosive rounds, for they had a nasty tendency spew out shrapnel at the shooter, he knew that the first moments of the assault would be key in order to overwhelm the guards. The respective squad leaders of the assault element had armed themselves also with explosive rounds.

It was in complete silence, that the assault element of the Pathfinders charged towards their objective, under the watchful cover of their brother snipers. There was no roar of aggression, no furious flag waving, as the holo-reels loved the depict it. Instead there was silent mass of half ghost, half human creatures that charged towards the perimeter. At approximately ten metres from the facility, they dropped to their knees and placed round black objects to the ground, in a circular pattern.

Jaret sought cover behind an old tree. After quick glance and having deemed the assault elements of the company secure, he detonated the explosives.
________________________________________
Prashesh, watched all of this through his scope. He watched as the assault element charged through the forest. He watched as Jaret detonated the explosives. He watched as the assault team dove into the immense hole that had been created. Then it was time to stop watching and to start shooting.

As members of the Gallente Security Forces Kommandoes charged to their posts, Prashesh selected one unlucky soldier. With a move borne out of years of training and experience, he adjusted his aim and in a smooth motion pulled the trigger.

CRACK!!! One Kommando had his head removed.

CRACK!! One unlucky officer, who had been screaming instructions into her headpiece, also lost her head.

CRACK!!! One of the mini-sentries burst into pieces as the slug tore it apart, through sheer force alone.

CRACK! CRACK! Two more GSF soldiers fell to his deadly aim.

In distance, Prashesh, saw platoons of soldiers rally for a counter attack and MTAC operators rush to their machines

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! A flurry of shots from the snipers, ensured that four MTAC operators never reached their mounts.

The foliage around his position began to snap and break, as a GSF soldier had undoable zeroed in on his position and had begun to open fire.

With a snarl Prashesh, swung his rifle around and in one smooth motion fired a deadly shot.

________________________________________

Jaret’s heart pounded as the assault team charged through the corridors. Splotches of blood and corpses marked their path, a testament to the ferocity of their assault. As they surged through the corridors, the Pathfinders, never paused for a second, blasted anyone unlucky to be in their path. Gallente soldiers, officers and even unarmed technicians fell to their wrath, as the State finally exacted its vengeance for the occupation its homeworld.

Rounding the corner, the Pathfinders slammed into a stunned assembly of GSF troops, whom were undoubtedly rallying for a counter attack, against the Caldari Snipers outside. Responding within seconds, a fact that would have made their instructors proud, the Pathfinders opened fire with a barrage of fire.

WHAP! WHAP! Without thought or remorse, Jaret selected an unfortunate GSF soldier and fire two rounds in their head.

WHAP! WHAP! Another enemy soldier received two rounds in the neck

WHAP! WHAP! WHAP! One GSF officer, received three rounds in the stomach, collapsing to the ground as his entrails bled out.

WHAP! WHAP! WHAP! Jaret continued to fire, lost in the heat of battle, firing rounds and taking cover every couple of seconds. Leading his comrades, they slowly advanced down the corridor, pouring death and destruction into the unfortunate Gallente soldiers. The defenders bravely held their ground and soon both sides met each in hand to hand combat.

Grenades flew through the air, releasing bursts of searing heat and deadly shrapnel. Rounds slammed into their targets, as both sides began fire into each other. Slugs ripped through armor and flesh, maiming or killing their targets. Armor systems pushed to their max, pumping biofoam into open wounds, as even more rounds smashed into them. Knives were wielded and plunged into the necks, armpits or groins of unlucky soldiers. Wounded warriors, continued to fire and fight where they lay, determined to drag their enemy with them into the abyss of death.

Blood splattered onto the nearby walls as soldiers all around him, shot and grappled with each other. Within seconds Jaret’s HUD indicated that he was down to his last round. As if fate had conspired against him, Jaret came face to face with a very large and very angry Brutor.

No doubt a mercenary, the Brutor giant smashed an unlucky Pathfinder with an immense Khuumak. The giant’s blood red amour had ragged holes that had been punched into it. In his enormous hands, he held the Khuumak, which was caked with blood. With a snarl the Brutor, a mere half metre away from Jaret, surged towards him like ravenous predator eager to devour its prey.

With a smooth motion Jaret aimed for the giant and fired his last round. But it seemed fate had marked Jaret for death, for in an impossible move, the giant swatted the round aside as if it were a fly, with his Khuumak.

Desperately Jaret reached for his knife, but a part of his mind knew it would be too late.

“Oh fuu…” Jaret managed to mumble, before the giant smashed into him and propelled him through a wall. The impact alone sent stars twirling into Jaret’s field of vision. Were it not for his armor, Jaret’s internal organs would have been liquefied by the impact. The giant, then picked Jaret up from the floor and lifted him up to regard his face

The bastard wants to choke me to death Jaret’s shocked mind managed to piece together, as he looked onto the grinning battle visage of the Brutor. The giant’s tattoos seemed to pulsate, as the giant’s grin became even wider. With a slow but gradually increasing pressure, the giant began to increase pressure on Jaret’s neck, and the Pathfinder’s world began to gradually darken.

________________________________________

Were it not for his HUD, Prashesh would have lost track of the number of kills he had rung up since the start of his operation. For the past hours, he had settled into a pattern of selecting a target and firing at it. All around him his fellow snipers, created chaos, confusion and death for the enemy. In the air, hung the smell of death, as GSF squads struggled to flush out the snipers and paid dearly for it. Gallente MTAC’s crashed to ground or into the nearby trees as railgun rounds smashed through their leg joints or into the operator’s hatch.

Prashesh, had ordered his snipers to change their positions every couple of shots to prevent the enemy from getting a fix on them. The end result was that the Gallente were desperately clutching at straws, in order to catch an invisible but deadly enemy.

However, that was not to say it was easy. Prashesh had seen his sniper’s forces reduced by a quarter, as overwhelming Gallente firepower reduced unlucky comrades to shreds. Then of course there were the battle drones.

Like a creature that had been unleashed from hell, these battle drones were a nightmare on the battlefield. Possessing an array of weapons that included auto-cannons and deadly disturbingly chain saws, these drones were truly the robotic specter of death. Possessing an appearance, that could only be described as both insectoid and disturbing, their optic clusters glowed red, as they floated through the air. Prashesh had seen the drones rip through his comrades with a robotic determination. The chain saws ripped through foliage and flesh, reducing both to slivers in a matter of minutes.

Only a few seconds earlier, could only watch helplessly as one of his comrades, a young lady became the target of a drone. As he watched helplessly, she had done the only thing possible and detonated her grenades, destroying the drone as it grappled with her and mercifully ending her agony.

Prashesh, therefore did the only logical thing at that moment. He ordered his remaining snipers to dive into the hole that had been created by the assault team. He could only hope that the cover afforded by the facility would help to protect them from the overwhelming Gallente firepower.

Without a word, the snipers quickly abandoned their positions and charged towards the hole, leaving mines and claymores in their wake. As Prashesh dived into the darkness, he prayed that he hadn’t made a rash decision.

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Vengeance of the State – Part 1

Picture credit: Wotlankor

He slowly made his way to the bar, brushing past a small group of chatting pod-pilots. With a hand that trembled with experiences that threatened to overwhelm his senses, he motioned to the dour faced bartender for a drink. With a face that’s had seen too many tragic experiences for one so young, he ordered a strong Intaki rum, with brown sugar and hot water.

Jaret Kosh’t scanned the room around him as he waited for his drink, he noticed in the corner of the room a new holo-reel showcasing the grand military parade that circled the planet of Caldari Prime. He listened as the newscaster babbled some nonsense about this being the day being the third anniversary of the liberation of Caldari Prime. He listened for some time as the newscaster continued to list the ‘technical’ malfunctions that shut down the Gallente orbital planetary defense system.

I guess that’s what they call it now, Jaret thought as he accepted he drink from the bartender

As Jaret stared at the golden liquid that was in glass, his mind went back three years back in time and space, back from the dark bar on some dingy station low-sec space to the forests of Caldari Prime.

__________________________________________

Three Years Earlier

Within his camo suit, Captain Jaret Kosh’t, of the Pathfinder Legion of the Caldari State Marines, slowly made himself more comfortable. He had positioned his company of elite Pathfinders throughout this forest on Caldari Prime. In the weeks before they had quietly infiltrated the planet, usually under the guise of being students, business executive or in some cases Scope News reporters. When they arrived on planet, they would usually link up with one of the Caldari Provists that were sprinkled throughout the populace.

Many members of the Caldari Navy had an opinion on the Heth’s provists. To some they were merely undisciplined thugs or maniacs, capable of doing more harm then good to the State. To others they were patriots, who were willing to do anything for the State. Jaret, in line with that of the military leadership, viewed these provists as nuisance, since they were more than likely to screw up a mission for some misplaced act of patriotism.

In the days and weeks since Tibus Heth’s ascension to power, these Provists now became commonplace. They now sprung in positions of leadership or power. They sprung up in the most unlikely of places as well, with the rank and file of office workers, factory workers and the Navy.

Caldari Prime soon became a focus of Heth’s efforts. Lost to the Gallenete Federation during the Freedom Wars, it now was a vassal of the Federation. Positioned behind the Tripwire sensor system, that protected the Federation from any aggressive moves, the Navy had put aside any dreams of liberating the planet. With Heth in power now, that all changed. Soon rumors circulated among the military leadership that there was a way to disable the Tripwire system. However that was not why the Pathfinders were on Caldari Prime.

What concerned the Navy’s leadership even more, was the fact of the orbital canons, which circled Caldari Prine. While, usually, human hands would control these orbital canons, however the Gallente decided on a different approach. The Gallente’s advanced knowledge with regards to drone technology made these canons were more precise, more accurate than anything a human being could hope for. Hence the Gallente had decided to control all the orbital canons via a control centre that was located in an innocuous forest on Caldari Prime.

The Gallente were so confident in their system that they had decided to move a majority of their fleet from the orbit of the planet. They had good reason to. Capable of launching a variety of ordinance, that included bombs, railgun rounds and cruise missiles, the orbital canons in a matter of minutes would shred any hostile fleet to bits. Many a Caldari Admiral had spent sleepless nights worried about the presence of these orbital canons.

These canons were controlled through a drone control system, located in a formidable control centre. Hidden in a remote forest on Caldari Prime, the fortress was defended by crack Gallente Defense Force Kommandoes guarding it whom were backed up with battlefield MTACs. What made it even more difficult was the fact that there was an additional garrison at edge of the forest, no doubt filled with even more Gallente soldiers and armor.

While it was largely intended that the hidden fortress was to remain from prying eyes, the Caldari Navy had found it. By using data collected from capsuleers who had made cargo runs to the planet, they had found that a significant amount of plasma gel was earmarked for a small resort.

What made it even more interesting was the fact that the resort, had been shut down for past three years. Knowing the Gallente, a pleasure resort shut down for more than a week was very odd. What made it even more interesting that the was that thermal scans later sureptiously conducted by contracted capsuleers, revealed that a portion of the resort was far cooler than the other areas, including the forest.

This could only mean, that there was something more to the resort than what meets the eye. Hence why a company of Pathfinders was hidden in the forests surrounding the ‘resort’.
__________________________________________

The Pathfinders, represented the finest fighting force available to the Caldari State. They were trained to operate with a variety of tactics that included jungle warfare, zero g combat and covert operations. They were harbingers of death and destruction to the State’s enemies, be they Gallente spies or Minmatar terrorists. They were the bane of the Guristas, the terror of the Sashas and the nightmare of the Serpentis. They were the wrath of the State, the guardians of the Caldari and the sharp tip of the Caldari State Marines.

However what made the Pathfinders truly elite, was the pool of knowledge they had their disposal. Many Pathfinders had graduated from some of the finest Universities in the State, only to turn their back on a corporate career and join the Caldari State Marines. If they passed the requisites and the grueling training, they were then accepted into the Pathfinder Legion. Hence each Pathfinder not only knew how to effectively create mayhem and destruction, but potentially had knowledge on other matters such as accounting or engineering.

Jaret Kosh’t, as a Pathfinder, wielded some of the finest equipment the State could afford to provide his men. The Pathfinders received training and equipment from all the mega corporations that made up the Caldari State. Some of them wielded the MAR (Medium Assault Rifle), complete with optics, manufactured by the Ishukone Corporation. Others wielded the LDR (Long Distance Railgun), a sniper’s rifle, which shot rounds of dense, magnetically charged permasteel. Every one of them, carried knives that were forged with cold Caldari steel. The Lai Dai Corporation manufactured their armored camo suits, which now reflected the environment surrounding them. They all had received training from the finest instructors within all the mega-corporation’s security forces.

For the past two weeks they had quietly observed their target, a large sprawling resort set close to the forest. They watched as the supposed ‘construction’ crews, which were oddly made up of military age men and women, entered and left the facility. The previous years of peace had made the Gallente forget how to properly hide a military facility.

However tonight would be different. According to his Provist contact, the Navy planned to strike in the early hours of the morning, in order to minimize civilian, primarily Caldari, casualties. Hence they had only that night, to secure the command centre and hold it before reinforcement would arrive. Jaret, suffered no illusions if they should fail.

Over two and half kilometers away from the facility, Jaret and his partner Prashesh, lined up their targets. The plan was that the Pathfinders, would insert into the facility, by moving through the nearby forest. While undoubtedly there would be sensors system hidden in the forest, the Provists had suggested a radical plan to counter the sensors. They would force the nearby herd of Striped Buffalo to stampede.

Weighing in at about a ton and with a height of five meters and a length of four meters, the striped buffalo were not to be trifled with. In fact when the Provists had suggested the plan, Jaret almost laughed it off. But the more he discussed it with his comrades, the more it made sense. If they did manage to force the herd to stampede, it would mean that the sensor operators would be overloaded with a barrage of sensory information, thus giving cover for his Pathfinders to infiltrate the facility.

Hence, this was the reason why Jaret Kosh’t ordered his best sniper Prashesh Kobai to aim the finest piece of military equipment, that there was, at the head of a dumb buffalo. The digital scope fed the sniper information regarding wind, elevation, temperature and angle. Despite all the technology, it still came down to the skill of the operator to aim and pull the trigger.

Thus the opening shots of the Battle of Caldari Prime, were fired from by a Pathfinder at the head of a buffalo.

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Vengeance of the State – Introduction

His Zealot’s shields were completely gone, and lasers were nibbling at the edges of his armour when Alistair’s comms crackled to life.

‘Hey, Al, would you do us a favour?’

‘Good to hear you, Syl. You’re not back in Dal, are you?’

‘Our tower in Ebodold. We’re going to step this up a bit. Open the door for us, would you? We’re too chunky to squeeze through the gates.’ Sylar sounded gleeful. Alistair started to grin.

‘I did warn you about the food there, didn’t I?’ The Amarrian pilot reopened his fleet comms. ‘Commander Hatthro, notify the fleet, I’m lighting a cynogen, could use a bit of defense.’

‘You’re what?!’

‘Captain Starke, you are go in three, two, one…’ Alistair activated the generator, the load of liquid ozone in his cargo hold burned up in an instant as the miniature wormhole appeared beside his ship.

‘Avion! What the hell…?’ Tiia demanded, just as the jump portal flared twice.

Two looming shapes the colour of dried blood appeared in the midst of the battle, massive hulls scattering smaller ships which hadn’t got out of the way in time as they claimed the space. Cherry’s blade-shaped, monolithic Naglfar, towering above the furious battle, turned with a terrible purpose, turrets rising and settling back as she acquired a target-lock on the Amarrian fleet’s dreadnaught. This was going to be a slugfest.

‘Let ‘er rip, sister, I got your back.’ Sylar felt the deadly hum of his new ship’s systems building up around him, awakened by the adrenalin flooding his body. The shriek of Cherry’s gleeful laughter was the sound of immense autocannons unleashing their full force upon the enemy.

Tiia’s voice echoed in his ear, filled with an odd mix of relief, surprise, and anger. ‘Why didn’t you tell us what you had planned, you bastard?’

‘It was a last-minute idea. We didn’t know if we’d need these or not; I was only going to use this girl to lift the colonists out. ‘ With a thought, Sylar commanded fighters to launch into the fight, instructing them to focus on what remained of the Amarrian support as he brought heavy energy neutraliser batteries to bear on the closest ship: the Reclamation fleet’s carrier. ‘Why so surprised? Just because we specialise in wolfpack doesn’t mean we can’t field anything bigger.’ His Hel-class mothership locked onto the Archon, and Sylar asked Hatthro, ‘You got enough left to take out the carrier and dread, or are we gonna have to do it ourselves?’

The Ammatar fleet’s commander swore at him. ‘Next time, I trust you’ll let us know before you pull a stunt like this. I’ve lost half my men; we could have used your caps a lot sooner.’

Instead of retreating, the Amarrian ships seemed to throw themselves at the mixed Minmatar fleet with a frenzy borne of desperation to remove the threat of the Matari capitals before all else. Draining the capacitor energy from the smaller carrier as fast as the Amarrian Guardians could replenish it, Sylar felt his shields begin to prickle from lasers and a peppering of missiles as the remaining Amarrian fleet focussed fire. Two of his fighter pilots went down, felled by Amarrian drones, and he recalled the rest, launching a fresh group as soon as the first had docked.

The Archon’s armour passed its peak, and the enemy fleet had redoubled their efforts to defend it. Someone somewhere was probably cursing as the mistake was realised: the defense fleet was better-prepared than they had expected, and with their fleet already decimated, it was only a matter of time before their own capital ships fell.

A volley of torpedo-fire struck the Archon from the sky like the hand of an angry god; before the blue-white glare had faded, Sylar was already focussing his mothership’s massive energy neutraliser batteries on the Revelation which was pounding down on Cherry’s armour. ‘Let’s see you use those lasers without any cap, mate,’ he muttered, unaware that his words went out over the open comms. The Archon’s fighters, disoriented by the carrier’s destruction, drifted about the field, and Starke ordered his own flight to focus fire at will amongst the remaining fleet.

************************************

In the caves on the planet below, Nareen huddled under her father’s worn old jacket. It was cold in here, and damp seeped through the rough stone walls and floor, leaving a chilly slick on her skin. The girl glanced around at the gathered mass of her people, all crouching or sitting on blankets on the floor to avoid the low ceiling. The adults had said they couldn’t make fires because the heat would be seen by the slavers, and Nareen was starting to wonder how her great-grandparents had lived this way.

A scuffle toward the entrance brought several people upright, ready to stand. Someone cracked the shield on a lantern, revealing Scall staggering in, the woman somewhat blinded from the change from light to darkness, her hand on the ceiling to prevent her banging her head.

‘They’re here! On the radio, I heard it. They’ve destroyed most of the Amarr ships, and the slave carrier. Come on!’

Stepping blinking into the sunlight filtering through the trees, Nareen felt someone take her hand; she turned to see Komar looking excited and terrified.

‘It’s Space Capt’n Starke, ‘Ree. I tol’ you he- he could do anythin’.’ He tugged her forward and up the hill towards the treeline, following Scall into the open.

The middle-aged woman pointed up into the sky, away from the low morning sun, ‘Look, you can just see them!’ Against the sooty blue, flecks and glimmers of light could be seen. It was impossible to tell what was happening at this distance, but as they watched, a flash brighter than the others appeared, then again, then–

Everyone gasped as something lit up, a small second sun flaring in the sky. Scall began to yell with triumph. ‘They did it! They did it! Do you see?!’

Nikitta appeared at Nareen’s other elbow. ‘What do you think’s happening?’

Komar released the taller girl’s hand and ran forward, waving his toy Rifter about in the air. ‘Capt’n Starke blew ‘em up! Boom! Like that!’

The colonists hung back cautiously among the trees, uncertain what would happen next as Scall returned to the wrecked Apocalypse. After a while, five dark shapes appeared in the air, descending carefully to the fields just beyond the limits of the houses. A few minutes later, Scall returned with a wiry Sebiestor man dressed like a soldier following closely.

‘I’m Corporal Vahann, I’m in charge of the drop you see over there. Those ships will take you and your possessions up to our mothership for transport off-world.’ He looked around the gathered crowd among the trees, taking in homespun clothing, rough animal leathers and hard-worn yet determined faces. ‘This is a hazardous system for an undefended colony like this, but whether you choose to leave or remain is up to you.’

************************************

SPACE CAPTAIN STARKE strides through the halls of his mothership, running a hand over his new short-cropped hair. Guarded by the Ammatar and renegade TLF fleets, he feels safe enough to park the ship in empty space and leave his capsule.

There is business to discuss.

He is followed by TIIA EDGRIET and MIRITHAK HATTHRO, along with the Nefantar commander’s small honour-guard. The trust between the Matari forces and the Ammatar is still thin and laced with suspicion, but HATTHRO has the authority of his tribe’s leaders and EDGRIET has been contacted by THE GENERAL to endorse the opening of diplomatic relations in this backwater system.

The group enters the assembly bay, a cavernous room usually used for mustering ground-forces near the dropship hangar. Something buzzes through the air and strikes STARKE’s leg before tumbling to the floor with a whirr; he stops with a puzzled frown to pick it up. A smile forms on his face as he turns the clockwork wooden Rifter over in his hands, recognising the hand-painted sunburst design. The captain looks up to see three terrified children staring up at him from behind a pile of bales and boxes, all the Ubtes colonists’ worldly possessions.

STARKE: (still smiling)
Is this yours?

EDGRIET peers curiously at the toy, then grins and looks out across the room at the ten thousand worried people gathered there. HATTHRO looks calculating, then looks to EDGRIET and nods. The TLF commander, her rank restored and gleaming at her collar, returns the nod, then steps forward.

EDGRIET: (in a clear voice which carries well through the room)
My people… my family. (she smiles) It’s been far too long, and I truly wish the circumstances were better. (she sobers) We have lost our home. The land we have worked all our lives, the houses we have built with our bare hands. We are orphans of the cluster, as our grandparents and great-grandparents once were.

As she speaks, the people begin to cluster around, hushing children so that the woman can be heard by all.

EDGRIET:
We cannot go back. I wish we could, but the Amarr know about the settlement now, and will return. This leaves you with a choice. The Republic will welcome each and every one of you: rehome you, offer you jobs, education, medical care. It’s an easier life than what you’re accustomed you. There are better opportunities.

She glances to the side, then waves her hand to indicate HATTHRO.

EDGRIET:
This man has a different offer for you; he represents the Nefantar tribe. The Ammatar have an interest in becoming a part of the Republic once again, and in good faith, they are willing to offer you places on another planet they are already colonising. What they offer is much like what we had on Ubtes VIII, working alongside Nefantar volunteers. You will be offered equal standing with their people, with respect given to our own customs; and the world is closer to the centre of their domain, and much better protected.

A ripple of voices runs through the room as the refugees look to one another, seeking guidance. HATTHRO steps forward.

HATTHRO:
The offer is genuine. Your skills and experiences will greatly benefit our own colonists, and the Nefantar will not reduce you to the slaves your ancestors once were. No ill will shall be held if you choose to return to the Republic.

A man steps forward from the crowd; it is RISGA, NAREEN’s father, who was elected speaker for the refugees before they boarded the dropships. He stands tall, proud in his rough-woven clothing and hand-made leather boots before the Republic and Ammatar representatives.

RISGA:
I speak for all of us gathered here. We would prefer to remain on our world, if such a thing were possible, though we realise the extent of the danger. A life in the Republic would be comfortable, yes, but we do not want an easy life. Some may choose that for themselves, and the rest of us wish them well. But as a whole, we will accept the offer of the Nefantar, provided that we are permitted contact with the Republic at any time.

The Nefantar commander nods.

HATTHRO:
Of course. The planet we offer you is Abha VII, and not much different from Ubtes VIII. You will be given tools and equipment, as well as a modern communications system…

As he speaks, STARKE murmurs to EDGRIET.

STARKE:
Is this what you expected from your people?

EDGRIET: (nodding)
Charity is not something we accept easily, Captain. Better to be granted only the barest necessities so that we can make our own way.

The Brutor captain nods, then glances over to where the three children still watch him. Crouching, he holds the toy Rifter out towards them. NIKITTA, NAREEN and KOMAR approach shyly, and KOMAR accepts his toy back without removing his eyes from STARKE.

EDGRIET: (smiling)
Unless I’m very much mistaken, you’re my nephew, Niki, yes? You were very small when I last saw you.

NIKITTA nods. Smiling, STARKE holds his hand out.

STARKE:
Nice to meet you. Who are your friends?

NIKITTA: (shaking STARKE’s hand)
Nareen and Komar… sir.

STARKE reaches out to shake the other children’s hands, too.

STARKE:
It’s great to meet you guys. I guess you watch the show, huh?

The children nod. The captain smiles broadly.

STARKE:
Why don’t you go ask your parents if you can meet the rest of the Nova Elite while you’re here? Tell your friends, too.

NAREEN squeals and runs back towards her mother, SAPHA, who is standing to the side as her husband and HATTHRO negotiate. NIKITTA also hurries away, but KOMAR hangs back, staring at STARKE solemnly.

KOMAR:
I told them you could do anything.

STARKE smiles proudly.

STARKE:
The Nova Elite always fly to defend our people.

This article is brought to you by EVE-Mag.com - an independent EVE Magazine, ©2009 EVE-Mag.com. Read more of New Eden's finest writers here!

Space Captain Starke and the Refugees of Ubtes

E-ON Issue #017 – Out Now

Published 16th October 2009 (delayed to incorporate exclusive content from
Fanfest 09)

Content includes:

IN DUST WE TRUST
For console gamers DUST 514 promises to be the most unique shooter ever
devised, but for those of us already fighting between planets what will it
mean to have hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, fighting on the
ground? A crack squad of E-ON special forces capture CCP to find out how the
EVE FPS will fuse with EVE Online, plus we get the views of players to see
if they are as excited about DUST 514 as they should be.

THREE CHRONICLES
Officially, the early days of Amarrian expansion were a time of glory for
New Eden’s largest empire, while today the worlds within the factional
warzones are seen as frontiers that will one day reward the brave pioneers
that have tried to tame them. The problem with official versions of events
past and present is that they are very often wrong, as evidenced by three
new chronicles in this issue of E-ON, which show a very different side to
life on the frontiers of New Eden.

TRUST FUNDS
Players have never been as rich as they are currently, yet the status of
banks in the New Eden economy has never looked bleaker after a string of
high-profile trust issues that have left the industry in tatters. Player
economist and blogger LaVista Vista delves into the history of banking in
EVE to see if it has a future and what it might look like.

PLUS

* News on Cosmos and Dominion from Fanfest 09
* Testflight: Electronic Attack frigates
* Profiles of Pandemic Legion, Dr Caymus and Jeran Tek
* Interviews with CCP Molock and CCP Manifest
* Win signed copies of The Burning Life
* Full round-up of 0.0 activity in Quarterly Report
* Guides to wormholes, modules and EVE: Conquests
* Websites for new players
* … and all the latest news

This article is brought to you by EVE-Mag.com - an independent EVE Magazine, ©2009 EVE-Mag.com. Read more of New Eden's finest writers here!

E-ON Issue #017 – Out Now