BALADA: When My Eyes Are Weighed With Sleep I Quench The Evening Candle's Glow

by Solea Razvan

  Hannibal was about eight years older than the twenty something Lance, but despite their age difference the two men got along well, almost like brothers.

  As they were nearing the top of the hill Hannibal asked Lance the following:

  “So how are things at home?”

  “Same old, same old, Miranda’s got another suitor pursuing her.”

  “And how many beaus does that make, fifteen?”

  “Thirteen actually.” Lance said and both men shared a chuckle, Miranda was Lance’s twin sister and the object of affection from many of the young men back at the capitol.

  Miranda and Hannibal had talked face to face over the windwaker and warprider a few times when Lance called home and they were at each other throats the moment they started chatting to each other.

  They argued about anything and everything!

  “You two are like oil and fire, put them together and it burns everything in sight.” Lance teased him.

  “We’re not that bad!” Hannibal replied trying to sound insulted, but in fact he was trying hard not to laugh.

  “Not that bad! At one point you argued about which brand of dung would be the most suited for growing jiga fruit.”

  “So?”

  “Neither of you knew what jiga fruit even was at the time!” Lance countered with a smile on his face.

  “We were merely making an intelligent debate based on speculations from general horticultural knowledge.”

  “Jiga is an underwater plant that grows in water so deep that sulfuric volcanoes are its only source of nutriments.” Lance to his friend, a smug smile on his face.

  Hannibal said nothing, merely shook his head in defeat.

  “Why all of the sudden interest in my family?” Lance asked him.

  “No reason, just making conversation and I have no interest in regards to your family whatsoever!” he replied.

  “Or, maybe you have an interest in a particular member of my family.” Lance said continuing to tease his friend as they arrived at the top.

  As soon as Lance finished his sentence Hannibal quickly jumped on Lance and threw the young man to the ground, and so the lieutenant found himself with his back pressed against the dirt and with Hannibal on top of him.

  “You know, when I said you had an interest in one member of my family this isn’t what I had in mind!” Lance said to him in a confused and panicked voice but was cut off by Hannibal’s hand which covered his mouth; he was about to struggle free when he saw that Hannibal was signaling with his free hand to be quiet and that there are enemies near.

  Realization dawned on Lance and he gave a quick nod of his head, Hannibal released him and gestured to the crest of the hill.

  Lance rolled on his stomach and followed Hannibal as they crawled to the top of the hill to look at the other side, the rest of the men that were with them followed suit.

  When they arrived at the top and saw what was on the other side they could barely believe their eyes, all except Hannibal who cursed himself for being right.

  Down in the valley where thousands of imperial soldiers and all of them were moving North West to attack their army’s flank.

  “This is impossible, that forest is too thick to move an army through!” Bob said to his teammates.

  “Nothing is impossible kid, just hard to pull of sometimes; this here proves it and I got a sneaky suspicion that I know just how they did it.” Hannibal said to him as he looked at the vast army before him.

  “They’re just a few miles away from our supply dumps; we have to do something before it’s too late!” Lance said to Hannibal.

  “It’s already too late, look at that column over there.” he replied, handing him a pair of binoculars.

  “What do you see beyond it?”

  “Supply trucks.” Lance said to Hannibal.

  “Exactly and supply trucks are usually placed where you least expect them to be attacked, which means that the enemy’s rear is here and its spearhead is over there where our supplies are.” he pointed towards the direction of their supply dumps.

  As he was gesturing towards their own lines a sudden flash of light was seen in the distance, it was from a bolt of lightning which hit the ground only a few shorts miles from their locations.

  As the sound of thunder echoed throughout the landscape the small group saw some movement below the crest and an enemy soldier walked towards them, they remained glued to the ground hoping the night would camouflage them so as to avoid detection, since there were countless enemies at the bottom of the hill and only a handful of them.

  The soldier stopped just in front of Hannibal and stood there for a few moments, a sound was heard coming from the soldier and initially they thought that he was drawing his sword, but a moment latter Hannibal felt warm liquid pouring over his head and he realized that the soldier in question was relieving himself.

  “I’ve heard of Imperials getting pissed at the Federation, but this is ridiculous!” Hannibal thought to himself as he fought down the urge to strike.

  Lance upon seeing his friends ‘predicament’ moved his hand to his mouth to suppress his laughter.

  After he finished urinating the soldier was preparing to return back to his post when another thunderbolt lit the night sky to reveal the U.F.O.P soldiers and a very angry and a very pissed captain, but before the soldiers had time to scream or call for help, Hannibal leaped up and stabbed the soldier in the gut, killing him and dragging his body over their portion of the crest as the sound of thunder roared across the land once more.

  “That tonur! In combat you’re supposed to use the sword given to you by the army, not the one given by Mother Nature!” Hannibal said is a half hushed voice as he dragged the body.

  “Well, not everyone is as wise as you are!” Lance teased him.

  “Kid save the jokes for latter, for now get the two wise guys behind us to send a warning to headquarters on what the enemy is doing, and let’s get out of here.” Hannibal said to them as the two in question jumped at the realization their commander knew that they had been badmouthing him behind his back.

  But before they could say anything in their defense the communication crystal on the enemy soldier that had just been killed was heard broadcasting a message.

  “Troop 17 report in, what’s the situation?” The voice from the other end of the communication crystal said in Imperial Basic, and upon hearing they all froze in fear realizing that they may share the fate of this member of troop 17.

  “Is everything alright?”

  The occupied Territories, Maramanakama.

  5:59 Local Planetary time

  Kalynka and the others that had barely managed to escape the enemy’s encirclement were now deep in another part of the city and away from harm. They were in one of their safe houses and were having a little celebration/wake for the battle and their fallen comrades, hugging and giving each other a pat on the back. Kalynka who was just as cheerful and at the same time as sad as the rest of them walked towards Ahmaianos who was in a corner away from the main festivities and as she approached him she noticed he was crying.

  “Hey is everything alright?” she said with concern in her voice.

  “Don’t worry about me, I’m okay, I thought that today we would all die…..because of me……if we hadn’t raided that column a week ago, this wouldn’t have happened………..the others would still be alive.” he replied half elated and half in sorrow.

  “We all decided to do that raid and we all decided to stay and fight here, what happened today wasn’t your fault!” she said and gave him a hug to reassure him that everything was alright.

  “Looks like we had ‘Nobody’ to thank for that, whoever he is I thank the Great Catcher for him!” Ahmaianos said and returned the hug from Kalynka, he then got up and went to join the other in celebration, regardless of who this mysterious figure was, or how he managed all that had transpired today, one thing was certain namely that although the immediate future had up until this point always seeme
d to be bleak for them, now for the very first time there appeared to be a silver lining, a way of salvation for them and their people.

  Volunian Federation Southern flank.

  6:00

  “Yes everything’s alright.” Hannibal said in near perfect Imperial, he then gave a small report to the man on the other side of the communication crystal and ended the conversation.

  “Where did you learn Imperial common?” Lance asked him, with a surprised expression on his face.

  “There were a couple of Imperial girls in some of the ports I was stationed at, I’ll tell you about it some other time, now we need to send a message to our headquarters and sneak back to our own lines.” Hannibal said as he surveyed the landscape, trying to find a way out of this.

  Excerpt from the diary of Lieutenant Alexander Mackintosh.

  It was early morning, and I was trying to eat a kava nut (one of those dome looking spherical piece of fruit that tastes like crap and rotten meat and I was going through a lot of trouble trying to carefully open it, since it had a hard shell with no weak points, and if you’re not careful your own strength and tools can hurt or eve cripple yourself) when we received the transmission from Captain Hannibal’s extended patrol group about an imminent enemy attack from our Southern Flank.

  And since I was the staff officer on duty, it was my job to deliver the message to the commanders of both the Volunian Army and the Republican task force, General Al Hambra and General Pompei.

  “I have an urgent message for the commanders, open the doors!” I said to the guards who were stationed outside the high officer’s quarters.

  “I’m afraid I cannot do that, Lieutenant.” one of the guards said to me.

  “What! Why not?”

  “The generals are having a poker game and have given strict orders to not let anyone disturb them until 12 o clock which is many hours from now.” the second guard answered.

  “This is more important than a bloody poker game, the enemy is attacking our most vulnerable positions and our army needs orders!” I almost shouted back to the guards, outside you could hear the roar of thunder coming from the sky, echoing across the plains as I waved the message in their faces.

  “Let me see that message.” the second guard said, and Alexander complied.

  Both guards read it and they started debating on whether to disturb them or not, I grew impatient with them, so I took a few steps towards a metal trash can and asked.

  “You’re orders are that nobody is to intentionally disturb them right?”

  “Yes.” one of them replied.

  And as soon as he said that I started hitting the metal trash can repeatedly and as hard as I could.

  “W-What are you doing!?” one of the guards shouted in a panicked voice.

  “Why, I am ‘unintentionally’ creating noise to ‘unintentionally’ disturb the generals of course!” I said and continued to hit the trash can, which made the occupants of the room open the door to see what was going on.

  “Soldier, I better hope you like digging latrines, cause if you don’t have a good reason for what you’ve done, that’s what you will be you’re duty for the next six months.” General Al Hambra the commander of the Volunian infantry said to me.

  I immediately snatched the message from the guards and gave it to General Pompeii.

  As soon as he finished reading it he ripped the note to pieces.

  “You disturbed the highest ranking officers of two armies for this nonsense!” General Pompeii our commander said to me with a huff of indignation.

  “Nonsense! Sir, the enemy is attacking our rear, they have crossed the forest and our formation is in danger of collapsing!” I said to him, astounded at his reaction.

  “Calm yourself Lieutenant, even if they crossed the forest it is just a small diversionary attack at the best, that region is impossible to cross with a real army, it is too rocky and too wooded, the only army that could cross it is fake one meant to fool us, a deception nothing more.” the General Pompeii said in a soothing voice as outside the sound of thunder roared.

  *THUN* THUN* THUN* THUN* THUN*

  “Exactly! This attack is just a distraction, the main thrust will come from the west where we are strongest, still this is unexpected and you were in the right mind to wake us, give the orders to prepare for an attack from the west.” Al Hambra replied.

  *THUN* THUN* THUN* THUN* THUN*

  “Sir, what about the supply base!?”

  *THUN* THUN* THUN* THUN* THUN*

  “The supply base is guarded by 2.500 men, it has trenches and walls that can stop any diversionary force the enemy has, now get this trough you thick skull the enemy cannot move a proper army trough that wood, the only heavy troops our enemy have are imaginary ones, unless you are afraid of things that go bump in the night!”

  *THUN* THUN* THUN* THUN* THUN*

  After Al Hambra’s mocking words, everyone else present laughed at my expense.

  *THUN* THUN* THUN* THUN* THUN*

  The laughter continued for a few moments until.

  *BANG*BOOM* BANG*BOOM* BANG*BOOM*

  *THUN* THUN* THUN* THUN* THUN*

  *BANG*BOOM* BANG*BOOM* BANG*BOOM*

  *THUN* THUN* THUN* THUN* THUN*

  And following that the laughter the laughter became stuck in their throats.

  “W-what was that!?” Pompeii said to those present as they all shocked at what they just heard.

  “I believe that was our enemy’s imaginary artillery, from their fake army, assaulting our supply base General, but I’m not sure if they go ‘bump in the night.’” I replied with a small smile of triumph on my face at the disbelieving looks of the commanders, but that quickly vanished once the grim reality of our current situation sank in and our desperate struggle began.

  Lieutenant First Class Alexander Mackintosh, command staff member, Federal Expeditionary force.

  Extract from the book “Confessions, an Admirals tale volume I”

  There were many things I had done these past few days which are open for debate, I walked about the various installations and positions of the division.

  To the common soldier it looked like I was doing a routine inspection, which was expected of the newly minted Commodore of this corps, which I was, but that was not the real reason for my walks.

  My main motivation for doing them was to fight off insomnia and as an afterthought I was checking all possible escape routes into the forest and the state of the fuel and ships, so if need be I could desert my command.

  The thought of leaving and never coming back, was ever prevalent in my mind, especially since in this age’s warfare even a grand admiral is in the same amount of danger as the most worthless foot soldier.

  I could have easily taken one of the ships since I was an excellent liar, navigate it to some remote planet, and hide there for the rest of my life, I could have and believe me the great fear I had for the upcoming battle was a great motivator, but I didn’t.

  Why, you may ask? Well, I am not so sure of the answer myself; perhaps it was that nagging feeling in my head which told me that fleeing in one ship while still within hostile territory was not exactly the brightest idea.

  Also it would look odd if the commander was suddenly taking a ships for a ‘field test’ right before a battle, so I would probably be arrested and court-martialed for trying such, and then sentenced to the firing squad, so certain death if I ran, almost if I stayed. (I guess that is a good enough reason not to desert as any).

  Dear God! Sometimes life’s very hard for me, though I suspect that it is not true since I have seen other wretches who have it far worse than me and no matter how hard my life gets, one look at them and I feel grateful that even when it gets bad, it could always get worse.

  Thus I found myself at the foremost position of our surprise attack, watching our artillery’s preliminary bombardment.

  Something like this was expected of a sailor of my reputation, the Fox of Marengo, Hero of the Empire or what
ever silly name the press calls me now, would always lead from the front!

  And it’s moments like this I wish I just said kriff you to Commodore Crackerjack, and ran away from him faster than he can say ‘here is your commission’ all those years ago, but the past is the past and the only thing you get if you linger too much is regret so I suppose I should move on, but that’s just my opinion and it’s only works for me.

  Or so I thought, but if I’d know just what I nightmare being stationed in this particular area of the galaxy would have been at the time I would have done so, and also included in the insult his wife, siblings ,mother, father and kitchenware to boot!”

  Metternich per Pelasgiamus, Freelance Potions maker

  378th Flanking force, Metternich’s position

  6:56 Local Planetary time

  Metternich with the help of a pair of binoculars surveyed the battle field before him as he stood upright in the backseat of the spider-wolf -jeep with his aide Butz in the driver’s seat.

  The jeep was a vehicle powered by the very same crystals that fueled the ships. It had instead of wheels circular rings all over the surface of its belly, mimicking the way a snake crawls, which was pretty useful in bad terrain like mud, sand, or even snow.

  It’s front was as its name suggests shaped like the head of a wolf, this was not only because of a psychological reason, since wolves where creatures which were generally feared, but also a practical reason since sloped and angled armor was more efficient than flat surfaced one at deflecting enemy projectiles, but also to use what was called ‘Creed Magic’.

  Creed magic at its most basic definition was the simple notion that if you get enough people to believe something no matter how silly or slightly illogical it is, that something can become reality, or at least as close as you can get to reality.

  A spider-wolf jeep was made so that when it was viewed by others they thought it was as stealthy and deadly as either a wolf or a snake or a combination of the two, something like this was an advantage since the vehicle was designed to be a scout/anti-infantry weapon.