Tuesday 26 June 2012

I love T'amber...






Saturday 16 June 2012

Quiting EVE...




Catchy title huh?

With a few exceptions I have seen my EVE Heroes rise and fall over the last 4 years. Looking at the list of CDM participants most don't play or blog anymore. Also some of the great names outside the blogging community have faded or completely disappeared.

So with that in mind when do I quit? When do I stop blogging? How will it end? A big dramatic bang? A fizzle? Will there be rage? Who will I blame? What will I do with my stuff?

I may have to wait for an excuse, something epic maybe, good or bad to trigger the 'right' time to not re-new my accounts. There has never been anything that CCP has done that has warranted me to rebel so I doubt it will ever be CCP that drives me out. Maybe a betrayal or drama caused by my online friends would upset me enough. Maybe completing the goals I have set for myself? Like participating in the alliance tournament? Well it is possible I finally get to do just that this year so now what? I have no more goals? Should I set some new ones? I don't know maybe RL will just slowly drive me away and I'll disappear unnoticed...

My gear? I am likely selling all my gear and characters and doing something big when I leave. Maybe derp a Titan at a gate in Amamake. Or maybe I will give my isk and goods to my Corp and place it in good care of the CEO that is willing to take over. Maybe CCP will take my isk and donate an RL value to a good cause.

Oh damnit, I just don't know and clearly am not ready to quit just yet. Ask me again after the AT...

When and how will you stop? What will happen to your gear?

Friday 8 June 2012

Fiction; Jade Lafesque




That one second between Jacob Lafisque pulling out the blaster and shouting ‘for Jade!’ seemed to last an age.  Nashh could have slid off his seat, thrown up his hands or maybe even had time to draw his own weapon. He didn’t. The reason, the story behind Jade flashed before him as he simply managed; ‘thank you’ before Jacob pulled the trigger twice.

-=o0o=-

Three weeks earlier…

Another long day keeping up with his long working hours and Jade made ready to finally leave her post. ‘Will there be anything else Sir?’ she enquired over the intercom, hoping he would call it a day as well. ‘Yes, get yourself in here’ Nashh commanded. ‘Yes Sir’ Jade responded before sighing deeply and making her way over to the Directors office.

Commander Nashh’s office in Goinard was a replica of a former friend’s office back in Evati. It had a large oak desk, floor-to-ceiling book cupboards and brown leather features, polished to a shimmer. One the far side was a large full-pane window overlooking his personal hangars, in it hovered the enormous hull of a Vindicator Class Battleship. The door shut behind Jade as she entered, ‘Yes Sir?’.

Nashh Kadavr was bent over various electronic pads all displaying different graphs related to sleeper loot. ‘Jade…’ he started without looking up. ‘Yes?’ she sighed putting her bag on the chair in front of the desk. The sigh was not discreet enough to escape his attention and he looked up from his work.
He looked tired and darkened skin covered his eye-sockets. ‘Sorry’ he mumbled ‘I lost track of time again, have I kept you too long?’. ‘Sixteen hours Sir’ she smiled a sweet smile. Jade had been a dedicated secretary for over 3 months but he had not paid much attention to anything other than the quality of her work, she looked sweet. ‘Fifteen minutes?’ he smiled and raised his eyebrows to attempt a friendly manner of convincing her. He didn’t really have to; there was not a chance the mere mortal Jade would deny any of his wishes. She returned a friendly smile and meant it, ‘ok then…’.

Nashh offered up his chair to give Jade a better view of the spread-sheets on the desk. Leaning over her left shoulder he pointed out the figures that didn’t seem to correspond with some of the results on other pages. ‘You see what I mean?’ Nashh asked. Her hair smelled lovely. ‘Yes, odd’ Jade responded slowly but immediately started cross-referencing some formulas and numbers. The office was uncomfortably warm and small beads of sweat started to form around her neckline and collar bone. ‘Well, this is part of the problem’ Jade Lafesque highlighted some of formulas that had clearly been added in at a different time than the original document was made. ‘Yes’ Nashh mumbled, distracted by two small beads of sweat that adjoined then slowly ran down her cleavage. ‘

He didn’t pay attention anymore to the problem that had been bothering him for the past two hours. Pupils dilated and lust coursed through his veins like a hungry wild animal. He must have her. With his left arm he swept clean the desk as his right hand tightly gripped around her neck, pulling her out of the office-chair. Jade managed a high pitched yelp as Nashh forcefully removed her pristine white shirt and pulled up her black waxed skirt.

Jade desperately tried to remove Nashh’s hand from around her neck as she gasped for air. Both her hands scratched and writhed their way behind his fingers and with all her remaining strength she removed his firm grip allowing her to breathe. Nashh would not be stopped however and she knew it, she didn’t have the power to protect herself any longer. She wept quietly as he had his way.

-=o0o=-

Jade had left after the event that played out in her boss’s office but never returned home to her husband Jacob on the 38th floor, section B. Instead she got out of the elevator on the viewing platform on the 9th floor and after standing there for 3 minutes and 42 seconds climbed over the ledge and jumped. Security cameras captured the incident from several angles. Although she didn’t die instantly she was later pronounced dead at the scene, her injuries to severe.

Remorse was not one of his strong points; it simply wasn’t an emotion he could afford. Outside the hundreds of deaths he had caused in space-combat he had raped, tortured and killed more men, woman and children than he cared to remember.  Why did this death bother him then? Her face appeared in his dreams, sometimes smiling, sometimes bloodied and deformed. 

He had been shown the security camera’s footage and it replayed in his head over and over. He imagined the sound her fall and crash would have made. 

There was a police investigation and a court precession but nobody was charged as it had not been murder or a criminal case. It was just an investigation into her death and to confirm her death was self-inflicted or incidental. Nashh had been called upon to give evidence as he had been the last person to speak to her. The presiding Judge reeled of a set of standard questions to satisfy the grieving friends and family that all had been done to prevent her death and that extra security measures where to be considered for all viewing platforms in the station. 

‘Are you guilty?’ a man stood up in the first row in the public section of the court room. He was tall and had curly hair down to his shoulders. A tear ran down his right cheek as he repeated the question louder.  Judge Quareem silenced the room, explaining this was in no way a criminal investigation and called an end to the proceedings by closing the case.

The case was closed, suicide the verdict. He asked himself; I didn’t kill her but why can’t I fucking sleep, why am I hurting for her loss? Lack of sleep makes one tired; lack of sleep that lasts for days causes anxiety, paranoia and illusions. None of those things where strange to him as he suffered from them on a regular basis, but now they were worse than ever. He imagined her dead body to be under the table as he tried to eat, under his bed as he tried to rest his fatigued body.

-=o0o=-

Nashh sat in one of the many restaurants of the station, his dinner companion was Anabaric. As always Anabaric had a plate of food in front of him and was eating loudly or spoke with his mouth full. Nashh didn’t respond much or stared vacantly into nothingness. 

A tall curly haired man he vaguely recognised made his way into the restaurant and stopped just shy of their table.

That one second between Jacob Lafisque pulling out the blaster and shouting ‘for Jade!’ seemed to last an age.  Nashh could have slid off his seat, thrown up his hands or maybe even had time to draw his own weapon. He didn’t. The reason, the story behind Jade flashed before him as he simply managed; ‘thank you’ before Jacob pulled the trigger twice.