Without further adieu, the conclusion of “The Return”. (+5 Internets if you recognize the cinematic reference herein).

“I wish to visit the Oasis,” Havohej said. His voice was firm, as if a challenge to any who would deny his right to visit the very heart of the Thukker Tribe.

“Why?” Surprisingly, there was no antagonism in Harun’s tone. It came forth as an honest question.

“I wish to visit my grandfather,” Havo answered.

“No, pilot,” the elderly man replied, “I mean why now? What makes you want to touch base with your Thukker roots after so many years away?”

The capsuleer’s eyes narrowed somewhat as he regarded the wealthy Thukker. He glanced over at the Brutor who had brought him to see this man, not sure if he trusted either of them enough to speak openly about his intentions. Picking up on the pod pilot’s hesitation, Harun gestured for Jama’al to wait outside in the hall. When the door clicked shut again, Harun said, “You can speak freely with me, capsuleer. There isn’t much about you that I don’t already know – it’s not often the Thukker Tribe has an offspring grow up to be a pod pilot and we tend to follow the careers of those who do with keen interest.”

The old man’s words seemed reasonable enough. Havohej decided that since this man appeared to be the conduit through which he must pass if he wanted to reach the Thukker Oasis, he was better off being honest. “I’ve lost my way,” he said. “I’ve had a taste of conquest, and it wasn’t what I desired. And now that I’ve been to the top of the mountain I sought so long to climb, and now that I’ve found that there’s really nothing up there, I don’t know what to go. For all of my money, all of my power, I feel… impotent.” As he confessed his crisis to the old man, anger slowly welled up through the words as if from a dark chasm in the capsuleer’s heart until the last word was spat more than spoken.

“I see,” Harun said thoughtfully. “And what do you think your grandfather can do to help you?”

“I don’t know,” Havo said honestly. “I haven’t anywhere else to turn. I’ve been from Omist to Deklein looking for my answers, and I’ve come up empty. The only place I haven’t looked is home, and he’s the only family I’ve got left.” Havohej’s father had been a midlevel officer in the Republic Fleet and his mother had been a half-Thukker, half-Sebiestor. His father was killed in action while he was still too young to remember the man. Shortly after Havohej graduated at the top of his Republic Military School class and just before he entered into the Republic’s Capsuleer Training Program, his mother had been on a transport ship carrying passengers from a Thukker Mix outpost in Heimatar into the Great Wildlands when it was discovered by a roaming pirate gang and destroyed. Rather than break his will, the anger and grief propelled him to excellence in the CT Program and he went on to kill more than enough Angel Cartel pirates to satisfy his lust for revenge.

His grandfather had come to his mother’s funeral service in Muttokon. He told Havohej that he was proud of him for not letting tragedy stop him from pursuing his destiny and that should Havo ever need, all he need do is seek out his family. His grandfather had then given him a Compass and explained its use. The Compass is a hard-coded, heavily encrypted chip containing the navigational data needed to locate the Oasis that activates when slotted into the vessel’s navigation systems and can only be used once. Once it gets back to the Oasis, it self-destructs and the Caravan must be issued a new one. Unfortunately, Havohej’s Compass had been destroyed when a jump through a stargate landed his cruiser in the middle of a Tech 2 Large Mobile Warp Disruptor’s field of influence. At the time, though, he thought nothing of it — he had no intention of ever taking his grandfather up on the offer anyway… until now.

“Hmm,” Harun nodded his understanding of the pod pilot’s predicament. “We Thukker are a nomadic tribe, as you know,” he said. “Many of us spend our entire lives searching for something that we never find; I understand searching.” He sat up and drew his legs in beneath himself as he considered the man standing before him. “What would you do, Havohej, if you found your grandfather but he didn’t have the answer for you either?”

“I don’t know,” Havo said. After a moment’s thought, he added, “I’d probably return to piracy.”

“Because it’s what you do, yes?” the old man prodded. “It’s what you’re good at?”

“Yes, I guess so.”

“Or is it because you enjoy it?”

Havohej didn’t want to say yes. He felt he shouldn’t. On some level, there was a part of him that wasn’t so completely poisoned by the millions of deaths he had caused and that part of him understood that a person wasn’t supposed to enjoy killing. That part of him understood that if a person was to kill someone, let alone hundreds of someones aboard a starship, that there should be a valid reason. For example, defense of one’s home, furtherance of one’s nation’s goals, or championship of some grand and noble cause. It shouldn’t be just for the sake of a few million ISK. It shouldn’t be just to alleviate boredom even when you knew there was nothing to gain from it. But Havohej had resolved at the beginning of this conversation that he was going to be honest.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I enjoy it.”

“Then it sounds like you won’t find what you’re looking for at the Oasis, either,” Harun said gently. It was obvious from the capsuleer’s face that he was struggling with something, something that he’d avoided confronting for a long time. “You need the hunt; the kill. You need the thrill of it, the satisfaction of it. You see a man like you, Havohej, has got a great big hole right in the middle of him. And you can never kill enough, or steal enough, or inflict enough pain to ever fill it. And the more you kill, the more grief you mete out, the bigger and deeper that hole gets until suddenly it’s in danger of swallowing you whole.” Harun’s dark eyes seemed to take the measure of the pilot’s very soul. “That’s where you are now,” he guessed.

Havohej turned away from the merchant. He walked over to one of the numerous small bureaus around the edges of the room to take a closer look at a fine ivory statuette. It was of a pair of Achuran White Song Birds. Once symbolic of the Achuran Empire, these rare and beautiful creatures were often given as diplomatic gifts between powers seeking to cement alliances and so had come to be regarded as a symbol of peace. He could afford to buy hundreds of the rare birds, but if what the old man said was true — and he could find no words to argue against it — they’d be as close as he would ever come to peace.

“If what you say is true, then what am I supposed to do about it?” Havo demanded of the merchant-turned-wiseman. “How do I avoid falling in? How do I avoid insanity?”

“You must find a reason to kill,” Harun replied. “You must find a purpose with which to support your destructive acts. You need a cause. Something more than yourself.”

Havohej’s laughter was bitter, nearly venomous. “Like what? The Republic? Republic never gave me anything I didn’t have to kill for, and usually by the thousands! I don’t care any more about the Republic than they care about me or any of the thousands of other capsuleers who handle their dirty work.”

“Then don’t do it for the Republic. Do it for your people,” Harun offered. “There are Minmatar suffering throughout New Eden, Havohej. You saw some of them for yourself right here on the colony. There are hundreds of millions more still trapped within the Empire. You don’t have to tie yourself to an artificial authority to make your actions count for something! Whether you like the Republic or not, whether you agree with Sanmatar Shakor’s actions or not, promoting greater unity between the seven tribes enriches us all.” Harun stood up and moved a little closer to the capsuleer. “And, just maybe, if you can find a way to fit a little bit of good into the destruction you might not feel so trapped by it all.”

---

As Havohej walked along the observation deck overlooking the cavernous hangar, proximity sensors activated the huge lighting arrays on the walls and ceiling one by one. He looked down at the ships assembled there. A Wolf-class assault frigate, a Hurricane-class battlecruiser, a Hound-class stealth bomber, a Cheetah-class covert operations frigate and his most recent acquisition, a Rapier-class force recon cruiser. Everything was just as he’d left it; nobody had set foot in this hangar for months. It was time to breathe life back into these dormant hulls. He never did make it to the Oasis, but now he thought it was probably for the best. His talk with the Thukker merchant Harun had helped him to understand himself a little better. He was a scoundrel, a thief and a murderer. He didn’t want to rule the cluster like he once thought, he merely wanted to destroy things. Well, now that destruction would have a focus, however loose.

He would go on doing what he’d been doing, only now he would be more selective of his targets. He didn’t kid himself, though; he knew he wasn’t going to dive headlong into the factional conflict raging between the four empires. He was never going to be a hero about whom tales were spun and songs were sung in the streets. But he would find his targets of opportunity here and there and he would make a serious effort not to hinder any progress the Thukkers made toward bringing the seven tribes of Matar closer together; maybe if a real trust could be reached between the tribes, the Republic could become something different… something better. Perhaps while he pursued his own interests he could even find ways to be a thorn in the side of those who opposed the Thukkers’ goals. After all, a Thukker had given him more than the Republic (or anyone else) ever had: a sense of purpose.

Havohej’s crisis of self was over.

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