Reality

Over his shoulder, Eversor carried the captured Colonel heading towards the closet pillbox planning to turn it into a makeshift cell until they were able to get prisoner transports. Inside the pillbox was an assortment of ammunition, a few chairs, and a desk with disassembled weapons. Scattered around the damaged pillbox a few rebar cylinders lay on the ground.

“The rebar should work as cuffs,” Eversor said, reaching for the steel cylinders. Ajax put their prisoner down on the floor so that she was kneeling, effectively putting her legs to sleep.

“Her legs won’t work well enough to run by the time she wakes up let alone be able to escape,” Ajax said as Eversor kneeled down behind the enemy colonel. Holding the steel rebar in his hands he bent the metal around the colonel’s wrists binding them together with the rebar.

The two looked down at their captured foe, for the first time since they exited their transport ship everything was completely silent, even after the battle, yelling, talking, and distant gunshots could be heard but inside the pillbox, it had an almost peaceful silence.

“Regardless of what comes of her at least, it stopped those two arguing for a time.” Eversor said as Ajax began turning away to walk towards the exit before glancing back watching as Everosr looked down at the colonel.

“You know…they say the suit matches the person wearing it.” Ajax teased his friend as he caught him staring at the colonel. In reality, he was looking over the markings on her armor that she had painted her tribe’s mark on.

“Wait then why ain't your suit ugly like its wearer?” Eversor quickly retorted, pulling his eyes away from her.

“Well, why isn’t your suit all lanky?” Ajax said back with a laugh. The two went silent before Eversor punched him in the arm, a metal clank sounding through the room. Ajax laughed as they exited the bunker finding some solace. Perhaps the joking was an escape from what they were about to see when leaving that pillbox.

“You know you seem like the kinda guy to name his son a pompous king's name.”

“Why do you bring that up?”

“Just trying to get my mind off things.”

“That's a distraction. Distraction gets you killed.”

“C'mon for old time's sake.” Ajax pleaded as they began walking for the sake of walking. Staying near the edges of the cliffs off on the horizon, four ships came falling through the stormy clouds. The supply ships that carried what would be needed for a base camp. Each had a long blocky hull that at the end split off into four distinct protruding canons at the front. The top of the ship had a small cannon that barely protruded from its top. Near the back the command center of the ship was visible.

The two stopped in their tracks to look out at the horizon before continuing on. Once when they were cadets they may have stopped and gawked but those days were gone. Eversor stayed silent for a minute before continuing on.

Behind them, men prayed at the edge of the cliff, religions and tongues from all over the galaxy side by side. The only common word between them all is the name of the emperor. All except one that remained in a silent prayer, his weeping being the only sound that he provided to them. Some held necklaces, symbols, small carvings or idles to their gods. Walking past them Ajax scoffed at the carvings, marble idols, and symbols that the men held up not daring to let them touch the sand.

Looking down at the beach the two saw the countless Thorakai and the symbols upon them. Too many to count and too many to remember the names of. Both had seen enough to not see them as unique. Ajax had seen enough dead men, and enough blood splattered symbols to bother taking a second glance at any of them. "What's the point? The operation isn't even over and we have things to be done."

“They think it will protect them,” Eversor said softly, sympathizing with the men. A long silence passed as the two gazed out at the beach and the horizon, “I plan on having a life after this is over...there’s your answer. You know how I feel about the unit but my father made the mistake of not knowing when to quit… I know that when the opportunity is right I'm out. I know when to, unlike him. When I'm out of here maybe just maybe…i’ll let you live on my couch.”

“Maybe if I didn't love the bar as much as I do my pay wouldn't be docked as much and I'd get my own place.” Ajax scoffed.

“You mean my pay, how many times have I taken the fall for you?”

“Shut it.” Maybe I can quit the bar. If this war ever ends at least, he thought. Eversor was right in some sense. Ajax couldn't fight for the rest of his life but he could try. “Not like I have any obligation… don't have any name to carry on…but Ajax jr has a ring to it.”

“I feel bad for any kid named Ajax and any mother who has to call her son that…Carolus would make a good name.” Eversor teased before Ajax chuckled and punched him in the back

“Your brothers…do they have any kids?” Ajax asked.

“You know one died before he could take a wife and the other one well…I don’t know.” Eversor thought about his eldest brother and the lingering feelings he had towards him and the rage that never seemed to go away. His heart sped up so much that he could hear the beat of his heart in his ears and it made him sick to his stomach just remembering. “He would want some sort of heir…he knows he won’t live forever.”

“What? Reign? You won't even tell me his name, what are you on about?” Ajax took his words thinking them over. His friend had always been silent about his past. The one thing he never opened up about. Ajax sighed, “Man you're gonna have to tell me some time—”

“What are you boys fantasizing about? Going over to see your girlfriends when this is done?” Roark's loud talk cut into their conversation, the duo turned and saw Roark laughing while he was sitting on the remains of an anti aircraft gun. The same one that had shot down many of their transport ships. Its long barrel let a few of their squad mates sit with their Thorakai next to them on the ground.

“What's he doing out of his suit?” Eversor muttered out.

“Nobody cares, the protocol may still be in effect but until those transport ships touch down and high command reaches…nobody cares. Even the officers don’t care.” Ajax whispered back as the two men approached Roark.

“A nice woman to mend your wounds at the end of the day is all you need and I've got plenty of those already in the medical tent.” Roark out of his exosuit had his arm patched up by what seemed to be a shotgun slug to the arm and in the same arm, there was a bottle of alcohol with a few discarded around in the sand.

Usually, he doesn't drink after battles, hardly ever during operations he mostly does it at the base, Eversor thought. They walked up both worn and tired, the two exited their Thorakai suits. The back of the suit opened up in plates from the top of the back to the calves until the two men could exit. Steam from the armor’s mechanisms shot out through the back of the horakai. The two exited out, their hair flowing and their bodies tired.

Roark's whiskey bottle was half empty as he motioned for the duo to sit and drink. The two men sat down on either side of him on the massive gun. Eversor took a sip to appease his superior but didn't have an interest in drinking. He learned long ago that it didn't help with the dreams, quivering, cold sweats.

Ajax pulled out a bottle of pills, took two out with a shaky hand, and swallowed them with the whiskey. Eversor looked out on the war torn beach filled with the bodies of their comrades. He spotted limbs scattered around the beach and the ocean staining red even with its dark blue hue it was noticeable. He promptly took a large swig to get his mind off of it. Roark belched and finished the rest of the bottle, dropping it along with the others. Not long after he quickly took out a small flask of whiskey from his coat, drinking it all and groaning when it was left emptied.

“God…dammit.” Roark's head turned towards the horrific sight of torn bodies, bloody sand, and destroyed equipment. All so horrific yet almost made beautiful by the setting sun disappearing over the horizon. “Dammit all to hell.” The commander spat out.

Eversor shook as he looked at the same sunset holding in the urge to start screaming in rage and going to forcibly wake up the prisoner. None of that will help, he thought as his mind went to old memories.

“So Roarks setting up a special squad in the unit?” Eversor had asked so long ago.

“Yeah, ‘Golden squad’ is what he’s calling it.” Ajax had answered.

“We both know it's just a roster of all his favorites right?” Eversor guessed.

“Yup.” The two had laughed together while continuing their evening training.

Coming back to reality Eversor stood up reaching into his coat pocket to pull out a box of cigars. Looking them over he began handing them out to each and every man down the line until he was left with four. His hand shook as he looked into the box. So that's how many of the squad we lost, now I have to find the bodies and leave them with their last cigars, he thought, having used it as a way to keep track of their dead and casualties.

Eversor glanced to his side seeing the newest addition to the squad, a younger guy fresh into the war.

“Hey the name’s—”

“Save it.” Earlier that morning he had opened up the file containing the names and designations for his squad mates new and old but only glanced at the pictures and designations before handing the file back to Roark. He did it to not get attached, or at least he told himself that.

The young man had the face all too common amongst the dead, young, stupid, and fearful. When Eversor was finished he had four blunts remaining, he stuffed them in his pockets determined to place them with whatever was left of his squad mates if their bodies could be recovered.

Again he took his seat, lit up the cigar, and breathed in the fumes. His hand stopped shaking, and his heart rate calmed. A few of his squad mates began to cry while another slammed his fist into the metal and screamed in frustration. Many of them couldn't take their eyes off the beach. The sun setting seemed to also amplify the sorrow and anger of the blood red sky.

“You know when we landed I almost drowned in the water…I came so close to but then there was this tug and somebody pulled me out.” Evsersor muttered with a shrug.

“Call it a miracle,” Roark muttered, taking a puff of the cigar.

“Eversor you got anything stronger?” Ajax tossed the finished cigar onto the sand

“I told you I’m not fueling your—”

“Shut up if you're just going to complain. I don’t need your constant whining about what I do.” Ajax cut him off before he could even say what drug he was speaking of.

“Ajax I'm trying to get you and keep you off that stuff.”

“Well, I didn't ask you so stop it! I make it through combat just fine.”

“Cause you take just enough to not overdose before! One of these days I'm gonna find you dead in our bunks!”

“Says the addict who’s always smoking on watch!” Ajax spat back as the two yelled at each other.

“Boys shut up.” Roark's gruff and slightly drunk voice cut in, silencing them both and even causing a few other squad mates to shut up their chatter. He frequently cut in during their bouts and this time was no different.

“How many times do I have to tell you to get off that I've seen too many addicts screw up during combat or just…better men than us aren’t here because of those things.” Roark said before taking another puff of the cigar, “You need to make sure he stays straight Eversor, you hear me. I don't just care that you make it out of here, I need to make sure you can live with yourself after and without all the garbage I've adopted while being here. I know I won't be able to… but maybe you will. If all goes well you'll grow old with children of your own,” Roark wrapped his arms around their necks pulling them close. Eversor was forced to look down at the emptied bottles concluding that the wine was doing this to him or whatever made his breath smell so horrible.

“My dream is to die knowing you boys will be alright…in peace, sons bury their fathers and in war, fathers bury their sons. I'm living proof of that.” A few of the more notable men he served with faces flashed in Roark's head. Their faces were etched into his mind permanently. Going through his memories he noticed how he morphed from the young recruit following his superiors to becoming the old man who sent boys to their graves.

“All of you in this squad are my boys… I don't know how many… if I can take any more losses but…I think I can…God, we need some more liquor or I'll keep reminiscing.” Tears welled up in his eyes but he didn't shed them as he let the boys go. “Don't make me waste my breath.”
His words set in as Eversor and Ajax put the argument away for Roark's sake worrying for their commander.

Everything set in, the sun disappeared over the horizon and the transport ships landed setting up their base camp. They got up to help the stumbling Roark into his Thorakai suit. “Tonight there’s a debriefing for the high ranking officers and you two are coming with me.”

The three of them left the barracks later that night. Patrols drove around the perimeter on high alert as men moved from station to station anticipating retaliation from the heavily defended facility. Above them through the clouds lights could be seen flashing again and again. The beach landing may have been successful but the navy still had its job to do, and every few minutes a destroyed fighter would barrel out of the clouds and smash into the ground some of the men would even point at them as if they were shooting stars.

Trucks moved through the camp on patrol carrying the three to the north end of the massive camp. It was normal, almost comforting to hear those ambient sounds of camp, the three had gotten so used to them that the absence of them told them something was wrong.

“All these sounds are like a lullaby…they tire me out,” Roark said with a tired yawn the clanking of their metal boots hitting the ground as the three men walked on in their Thorakai. Once again his mind flashed to thoughts of a night a few weeks ago.

Eversor had been resting on his bunk as the ship carrier they were in headed towards Trostolos for the invasion. Hearing a quiet rattle to his left, he turned to see Roark sitting like a child. With his knees up he shivered as if he was cold in the warm room. The older man's eyes bolted between the door and every little sound he heard as if he were a child waiting for his mother to come to kiss him goodnight. Eversor could see crystal clear that Roark was out of his element. The man never had a choice in his future from the day of his birth his fate was decided, to die on a battlefield for his emperor. Eversor hadn’t been able to see it any other way, the man in front of him had been born and lived in a time of war.

"To die in war is his fate. He won’t retire. He just keeps fighting. He wants to die.  Roark has the option of retirement, he's old enough, and even if the army is running low on commanders they would prefer not having a PTSD riddled liability leading their troops. The old man had his choice of freedom and safety on some planet deep in Roman space but he chooses to keep fighting on. Not for a noble cause but because there was nothing else for him out there, Eversor thought to himself.

Eversor snapped out of the memory, coming back to following behind Roark as officers, sergeants, and higher ranks reached the meeting point. The image of the Roman eagle was being projected across a large screen that was hastily set up while bleachers faced the projection. Roark sat between Ajax and Eversor who were looking around watching as the perimeter was heavily guarded by troops and vehicles.

“Until the ships are able to give us air support we are sitting ducks. From the scouting of the surface, it didn't appear that they had any long range weaponry but who knows.” Roark lamented his eyes fixated on the logo as if he was lost in thought.

“Who planned this operation? No air support or navy bombardment. We just barely have enough firepower to assault the facility.” Eversor complained, his fist tightening. How many more of my squad will die because of negligence from the other parts of our legions?, he thought.

“So what do you guys think the factory could be?” Ajax asked wondering what could be,

“Don’t care. Doesn't matter.” Roark said rather bluntly.

“To be fair Roark, like we talked earlier, it's all weird. A factory on an abandoned Greek colony planet being so well defended with an entire Germanic fleet…from what I looked into it was abandoned during the last Greek collapse. The Germanics must have snatched it up.

Simultaneously each of the men thought back to the battle that morning as the ships jumped out of their most recent jump through space. The space above Trostolos remained quiet as always until in a fraction of a second seven Roman Trireme battleships appeared slowing down to a speed that could be seen. From the dark side of the planet, the ships flew towards the nearby moon as fast as possible. Letting gravity carry them the Roman ships hugged the side of Trostolos' moon. Coming around the side of the moon the Germanic fleet caught sight of them. 

The Roman ships began to speed up, the titanic engines on the back and hulls of the ships pushing them out of the gravitational pull of the moon. The mighty Trireme ships flew towards the Germanic ships in an arrow-like formation planning to destroy the fleet by bashing through the line of ten Germanic warships.

The Germanic ships with their starboard sides towards the incoming Roman vessels prepared themselves. The colossal plasma cannons that had been on standby began to move pointing towards the Romans. Crews of a hundred men manned each of the three canons on each individual German ship. Once in position, the canons began to fire. A glowing red light came from the inside of the barrel as the cannon itself turned a reddish hue near the end of the barrel from the heat being generated.

Only a few moments after getting into position they began to fire. Spurts of plasma shot from the canons slightly rotating side to side in a whipping motion hoping to just hit any Roman ship they could. The balls of plasma twirled like meteors before whizzing past the ships while others collided. The trireme’s that were impacted had the armor of their ships burned and melted off from just a graze.

One ship led the arrow formation, the Caligula. As it raced forward half a dozen separate balls of plasma exploded on the stern. The men in the stern operating the ship's controls were annihilated by the implosions and burning heat until the figurative and literal head of the ship had been destroyed. The momentum continued to carry on the ship towards the Germanic line drifting towards them.

Inside of the Roman ships soldiers rushed towards their transport ships, the same that would soon be entering the atmosphere of Trostolos were being fueled and boarded. Rushing onto their vessel, Special Forces Unit 28 prepared for their bumpy ride. Manned attack fighters flew from the ports of the ships scrambling to join the charge.

Getting closer and closer the Germans laid all the firepower they could muster into damaging the enemy vessels. The two ships closest to the destroyed trireme barreled forward past the ship that bore the inscription of “Icarus” on its hull moving past the crippled ship. The Roman ships barreling towards them angled the front of their ship and the battering ram-like rostrum crashed into the Germanics. By the time they had fully passed the ship that was dead in space, they were upon the Germanics. The remaining six Roman ships crashed into the Germanic forces battering their hulls against each other like bulls colliding.

The collisions turned a once simple approach into a frenzy of ships correcting their steering, using their propulsion systems to prevent themselves from being pulled down into Trostolos’s atmosphere. All of the ships twirled, spun, and redirected themselves all trying to get back in formation but it was too late.

The Germanic fleet fired all of the plasma they could into the Roman ships that desperately rammed into their enemies and shot their plasma canons that glowed yellow hue into each other's sides. The battle had just begun. Fighters from both ships flew from their ports scrambling to engage each other in dogfights.

The small skiffs swarmed each other, firing their small plasma canons at short range. Squads of the ships twirled around the larger cruises hugging close to the sides of the massive cruises firing at their armor and larger canons. If it wasn’t for the cloudy skies and flashing lightning a soldier looking up at the fleet from above could see the colors flashing across the sky. The battle’s destruction contrasted with the vibrant red and yellow plasma shooting through space like fireworks glowing as they fly before exploding.