by PM Barnes
It took everything we had, to tear ourselves away from our little hideout and meet up with Christolis and Delphine, when they sent word that they wanted to speak with us. The assumption was that we were going to be chided for not helping them settle into their new home.
When we arrived, we were told that Delphine was now pregnant. Congratulations were said, but I couldn't ignore the tension in the air. With Delphine pregnant, she would not be joining us for the next tour. This would be the first time our little foursome would be separated. I sensed Shadra's sadness, around the edges of her happiness at the news.
Later that night, while we were in bed, she had said only one thing about it out loud, "I do not ever want to be separated from you. If there is a war and you are fighting, I will always be at your side."
Two weeks later, we all left Delphine behind.
Christolis, would not speak on any of it directly, so I made it a point to not bring it up. Every now and again, I would find him sitting alone and assumed that he was dealing in his own way.
Shadra and I did what we could to keep his mind occupied in the small downtime we had, but as the due date got closer, he became more reserved.
Messaging was spotty at best out there, so he had only been able to send and receive a few messages about Delphine's progress. Even though it appeared that everything was going alright back home, it was clear that Christolis wanted, needed, to be with Delphine during this time.
When word reached us that we would be part of a small fire-team, checking on a possible issue in one of the outlying planets, I had been excited to finally see some action. We had been sitting around for the last little bit, doing patrols and assisting in the restoration efforts of the local village.
Many of the small villages did not have their own armies and were open and prone for attacks that often left their homes in ruin.
It was good work, but I was itching to be out on the battlefield. I also thought that a change in pace would help to give Christolis something else to do with his mind. By this point, it was hard for Shadra and I, to get more than a word or two out of him.
The flight over to the planet had been a bumpy one. I was not a fan of the tiny transport units myself, but they always made Shadra uncomfortable. I wanted to get her attention, so that I could give her a look of encouragement, but she was sitting there with her eyes squinted shut.
Even though everyone knew that we were an item, we generally kept things professional when we were out in the field. Seeing how nervous she looked as we bounced around, I was compelled to do something.
We were strapped in on benches across from each other, three on each side. I had leaned over as far as I could, straining against the belts holding me in and placed my hand on her knee. She had immediately opened her eyes and locked onto mine. I'd mouthed the words "look at me", to her and she had nodded and produced a shaky smile.
No one else appeared to have paid us any attention, probably doing their best to keep themselves calm, but out of the corner of my eye, I had seen Christolis, who was sitting next to me, grimace and turn his head away.
To this day, I wish there had been something else that I could have done. I had no way to know how that gesture would affect him and that I would never get a chance to say I was sorry.
Once we landed, things had moved swiftly. We never reached the designated point of interest. Less than a quarter of a mile away from our disembarking site, we were ambushed by the Qual-Shek and forced to fall back amongst the trees.
While fighting, Shadra and I always moved like we were attached by an invisible string. This used to be something that all four of us shared and took for granted. But, when we found cover, we realized that Christolis was not with us.
An order came to fall back, we protested, but were not heard. We were taking fire and there was another man missing in addition to Christolis.
Shadra was having none of it. As the other two members of the team broke out and starting heading back to the pick-up site, she looked at me and nodded once. We both checked our weapons and prepared to head back towards the fighting.
Many years have now passed since that day and as anyone who is a soldier will tell you, battles begin to blur together. I know that upon seeing that we were not with them and hearing our firepower, the other two members of the team headed back our way to help us out.
When the dust settled, we had taken many of the Qual-Shek out of commission.
As we had walked amongst the twisted metal, we found what was left of Christolis. He was barely recognizable and I remember clearly, how my stomach had lurched at the sight of him and how Shadra, who had been unable to hold hers in, had lost the contents of her stomach at the base of a twisted tree.
My heart had broken for the first time that day and I had never imagined that it could be any worse than that.
Oh, how time is a teacher.
Neither of us intended it to be that way, but Shadra and I, turned into ourselves after the death of Christolis. We just went through the motions, like two ghosts. We barely said a word about what had happened, but I assumed we were both feeling the same things. The loss of one of our friends and pain for the other and the child who would never know its father.
I know that it broke Shadra up that we could not be there with Delphine. We were barely midway through the tour and there were no leave options available to us.
While we seemed like empty shells and kept our conversations on the day to day tasks, our lovemaking had taken on a fervor that had not been present before. It had a new intensity and would often end with us covered in sweat, clutching each other like we were scared the other one would slip away. On a few occasions, I had found her crying afterward, silently, trying not to let me know.
She was so very strong.
All talks of the future and of our wedding were stopped. It had seemed like an insult to our fallen friend and Delphine, to think of our own happiness. So we moved on, day in and day out. Assisting with repairs to the villages and trying very hard not to think of what would be, when we finally returned home. Things had gone like that for the majority of our tour.
As we approached the last month before returning home, I had seriously begun to wonder if we would ever be okay again.
Our love for each other was still there, burning as bright as it ever had, but it was covered with so much pain and guilt.
It was during another dinner filled with sparse conversation that we got word, we were to be sent on one final mission, before the end of the tour.
One of our allies had taken heavy losses in their attempt to hold out against the Ascendency and needed reinforcements and additional supplies. Our job was to tag along on the troop drop and assist with anything they might need in the way of extra hands. It was busy work and slated to be easy.
When we got there, everything had already started to move like a well-oiled machine again. It was hard to see that they had suffered any setback at all. The command structure had been put back in place and the new troops, most of which were `green' Hastati Munis, were being directed to their stations and given tasks.
It looked like we would mostly be there for show and likely spend the week and a half sitting around, watching the new kids make fools of themselves trying to one-up each other.
Then on the third day, one of the perimeter guards had come running back to camp, saying that there was a huge force filled with Templar Knights heading toward us and he had barely escaped with his life.
The commotion started as we mobilized our forces and prepared the troops, many of who had never seen any real fighting. There was the usual speech by the Optio, about honor and fearlessness, which barely had a chance to sink in before the fighting started.
Nothing that had happened to us over the last couple of years had changed how deadly Shadra and I were on the battlefield. Many people in the company had joked that to see us, was to watch the work of one beast with two heads.
We were doing our part, dropping those insane bastard left
and right, but it was becoming plain that we were out-numbered and our group of rookies was not faring well.
The sick part of doing battle against the Ascendency was that they rarely shot to kill. Instead, they sought to wound. In their mind, they thought they were being merciful, but I had heard the stories of entire wounded company's being carted off to who only knew where, never to return again.
The fact that they were not taking kill shots was confusing the Munis. They were all taught about this tactic during training, but out on the field there was no way to know how someone would react. It's a very difficult thing to take a life and even more so, when you are up against an enemy who is not trying to kill you.
It was because of the number of virgin troops we had and their hesitation to put down the Ascendency forces, that they were losing the fight.
The call to fall back came in. We needed to regroup and buttress the morale of the younger troops.
Shadra and I, along with the other veterans, were the last wave to recede, continuing to lay down a line of suppressing fire. As the field began to clear of standing bodies, I could see just how many fallen ones there were.
Troops with various wounds to their limbs and hands and all with at least one leg injury.
Instead of taking the opportunity to hit us with the big stuff, they instead laid down just enough fire to keep us occupied, while they went about collecting our wounded.
Perhaps it was all that we had experienced over the tour and the feelings associated with going back home to the pain that awaited us there or it was the sounds of her fellow comrades screaming as they were dragged and packed away…I'll never know. Maybe all that silence and the carefully crafted distance dance we had been doing for almost two years, had eaten away at her, inside.
I heard her yell "You fucking bastards!" and then saw her step out of our line, face contorted in exquisite anger. She started shooting in the direction of the Pegasus like vehicle, where they were taking the bodies.
Before I could react to what was happening, I saw her lurch once to the left, which dropped the hand she had been using to steady the weapon, but did not prevent her from continuing to shoot. And then she lurched again and I saw that her right hand had been severed and was still gripping the trigger as it fell. The third time she lurched, her body was turned toward me and our eyes met.
I'd saw everything there. The balloon I had popped that made her cry when we were toddlers, how she looked in the pale pink dress she had worn on her 16th birthday, the glaze of passion on her face every time we made love, the vision of her holding the son that I had always pictured and the photo I had kept in my mind of how she would look in our final days after she had gone grey.
Then the left side of her head blew out and her eyes opened wide as if she was surprised to find herself out here amongst the carnage and then they slowly closed as her body slumped and she slipped down to join the crumpled mix of flesh and machines.
I've heard many accounts of what I did after that and they all feel like they could be true.
The similar details that they have, is that I went crazy and began firing on everything that moved, taking out most of the Ascendency's forces and that my actions incited others to join me instead of retreating.
That day we had won a battle that we should have lost and saved tons of our troops from the mind washing clutches of the Ascendency. But, none of it registered with me. I had lost the only thing that mattered in the world.
When the last month of my tour was up, I refused to go back. I told my commanding officer that there was nothing there for me. He understood and was glad to have me stay on. It did not take long for me to work my way up to commanding my own company. I was an effective soldier, so much so that some people said that I was crazy when locked in the heat of battle. Maybe they were right.
All I know is that in the beginning I had fought for honor, to do my part as the ones before me had done and to solidify my place as a citizen of the Imperium. Then, I had fought for love, for the future, I thought I could seed with my wants and hopes of a life with Shadra.
And now…
Now I fight for revenge.
