The Last Roman (The Praetorian Series - Book I)

by Edward Crichton

  ***

  As I stood before the two unfamiliar men, I couldn’t help but think of my father again. He was about as much of a stranger now as they were. But even so, I found my mind wandering back to Thanksgiving Day five years ago. With massive amounts of turkey, potatoes, stuffing, and gravy consumed, my dad, grandfather, and I were sitting around the TV while my mother and sister finished cleaning up the mess. Grandpa had already passed out in a turkey-induced coma while my dad and I watched yet another Thanksgiving football game.

  Halfway through the third quarter, a breaking news report interrupted the game to reveal that Russia had sent troops into Georgia. The grainy footage revealed civilians massacred as they tried to resist, and we sat there completely stunned for a long while. The scene was an extension of the events that had transpired during the 2008 Beijing Olympics and an escalation of what happened in the Ukraine not all that long ago.

  “I told you,” my dad whispered finally.

  “I know you did,” I replied just as quietly, my attention focused on the report.

  Everyone had known it was only a matter of time, even if my then young and idealistic self didn’t want to admit it. Russia had been getting stronger for years under its overzealous leaders, and that Thanksgiving set into motion a chain of events that would later lead to another world war. And my dad had been right.

  “That’s where you need to be, son,” my father continued in a low voice. “You need to be there to stop them.”

  I remember rolling my eyes, like I always did when he brought up the fact I had chosen to forgo military service. It was all he ever talked about.

  “It’s too late now,” I replied.

  “It’s never too late!” He shouted back, slamming his fists on his cushy chair’s armrests. His sudden outburst caused my sister to come in from the kitchen to see what the problem was, but once she realized we were even just speaking to each other, she quickly fled the scene.

  “It doesn’t even matter,” I muttered. “We’re too weak to go to war. All we can do is sit on our asses and defend ourselves.”

  It was true. The government had been cutting back funding for the military at a precipitous rate for years by that point. By the time I finally joined the military, most of the equipment employed was based off technology from as far back as the early 2000s. The gear was new, but of old design. Funds for America’s air supremacy program were halved, Navy equipment was decommissioned, and America’s Future Force Warrior program – for grunts and Special Forces units – was practically abandoned, which was exactly why the only piece of fancy new gear I currently had was the flight helmet I had worn during my HALO jump. I was forced to leave the rest of my toys that had trickled into my unit over the years with the Navy, and Reynolds would probably take back my helmet as well. Innovation in the realm of warfare had basically come to a standstill. Many were worried that it put America’s military superiority at risk, and if you asked me, it had. But the critics had argued that things had settled down; that we no longer needed such expenses. It hadn’t been until 2020, with war raging around the world, when funds were finally reallocated to the military and we started receiving new gear.

  With the military underfunded, underpopulated, and sitting on their asses stateside, the country hadn’t been prepared for what was about to come. Neither was the rest of the world for that matter, and it wasn’t long before Russia began gobbling up lost territory, some nations coming willingly, others through military force, and it was years before America intervened.

  Just as the news report came to an end, with an uneasy silence lingering in the room after my last statement, my father slowly got to his feet and made for the kitchen. Just before he left, he paused by the door and placed his hand on my shoulder.

  “It’s never too late, Jacob,” my father repeated. “It’s your responsibility to protect those unable to protect themselves. It’s in your blood.”

  And with that, he left to tell my mom and sister what had happened. I remember sinking deep into my favorite chair, my chin resting on my fist as the guilt started to sink in. It was the beginning of the end for my civilian life, just as the European bloodbath of that Thanksgiving was the catalyst for the beginning of the end of everything else.

  Months later, as the guilt had finally destroyed my pride and I applied for Officer Candidate School, Iran came through on a promise it had made decades earlier: to wipe Israel off the map, which they attempted to do with a deadly biological attack on Jerusalem and other neighboring cities. Millions were killed. Willing to sacrifice Muslim lives despite years of funding Palestinian efforts against Israel, Iran decided it was time to establish Islamic independence in the region by destroying the Jewish state. As have many wars over the ages, it started over religion, but soon it escalated into a political debacle the likes of which the world had never seen.

  Because of America’s connection with Israel, the U.S. military intervened on their behalf. At least we did our best. War between the U.S. and Iran had been brewing for years, but with the war in Iraq wrapped up, America wasn’t prepared logistically for another major offensive in the region. Slowly and reluctantly, U.S. forces trickled into Iraq once again in preparation for a ground assault into Iran.

  But everything began to unravel when it was discovered that Iran had been funded and supervised by Russian militants the Kremlin claimed they knew nothing about. They claimed it had been yet another splinter cell that remained from the dregs of what was left of old Soviet patriots. Although the public was still unsure of the truth, the net result was the ignition of yet another Cold War, worse than ever before. With Russia and Iran formally allied against the West, it was only a matter of time before the stakes escalated.

  All of this had happened sometime before the later portion of my SEAL training, when I was stuck in Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape – SERE. Most of my fellow trainees and I had bitched about the fact that the world wasn’t quite crazy enough for us. We hadn’t thought anything of Russia or Iran’s newfound aggression. No one expected the two countries to become the threats they eventually became, and nobody had anticipated what was about to happen next.

  We’d quickly come to regret our flippant words.