BALADA: The Sight Of You Recalls The Grief's That Locked Within man’s Bosom Bide;

by Solea Razvan

  The Occupied Territories, undisclosed location, Nobodies’ base of operations.

  Ealiupus 17th 8: 53 local time.

  “Could someone please tell me what just happened?” Kalynka asked as she paced back and forth in front of the assembled lines of her new command.

  She was currently training to fight in a BEGS unit, since wars where decided with space fleets and after trying all of the air force units, she found that she felt the most comfortable in BEGS.

  “I’d say that was a simulation.” corporal Pervan said to her.

  “And in that simulation corporal your flight team was told to act as bait while the others flanked our opponents, most of the squad complied, but yours did not, instead you all charged the target, can you please tell me why did you do that?”

  “Because I didn’t think it would work, hit’em hard and fast is the best way in my book!” he said with a smile obviously bating her.

  “We hardly know that since we didn’t try it, courtesy of your lack of cooperation; care to explain why you thought so?”

  “Experience, I know what I’m doing and I’ve been doing this for more than a decade, long before anyone who wasn’t bigger than a breadbox when the war began came along and started giving orders.” Pervan said, to which the other chuckled at his obvious jab at Kalynka, who was still in her twenties.

  At this she turned away from them and closed her eyes and thought of the past few months and what lessons she could discern from them.

  “They work, these awful methods work………..” she muttered under her breath as a personal mantra as she contemplated what to do, after discreetly looking around her environment an idea formed in her head.

  Thus she rapidly turned around and grabbed Pervan by his head, or rather throat and started choking him.

  “W-WHA-“ he tried to say, but her grip was to tight for him to form cohesive sentences, that in itself was a incentive to squeeze even harder, but Kalynka fought back her more darker urges.

  “What’s that? I’m sorry, I couldn’t quite hear you. Are you having trouble talking? It can’t be so! For surely an experienced soldier like yourself which was been fighting for more than a decade can’t be humbled by some slip of a girl who wasn’t bigger than a breadbox when the war started, can he?” she asked as she lifted him of his feat and threw him at least two meters backwards.

  Much to her surprise, most of the other squad mates laughed at his misfortune, with the exception of a few who where his ‘flight team’ who moved to help him get up.

  “I don’t need help!” he said angrily as he glared at Kalynka.

  “If you weren’t an officer I’d-“

  “But I am an officer and I’m your superior in rank and in everything else.” At that there was a general OOOOO! From the other pilots in response to her challenge as she moved several steps to the right, while the rest of the hangar’s occupants looked at the scene which unfolded before them with great interest.

  “And since this is the only way to get things trough that rotten cabbage you call a brain, I hereby declare that rank is not an issue, so come on! Show me you’re ‘experience’.” she said with disdain, to which Pervan charged her, followed by his teammates/ lackeys.

  Kalynka acted quickly and at the last moment before they crashed into her she dodged their charge, making them miss her and crash into the wall behind her, she then ran to the foot of a metal staircase that was right behind her, once she was there she waited for her opponents.

  They all ran up the stairs at her, but their superior numbers counted for nothing from the narrowness of the staircase, with their advantage in numbers now nullified, Kalynka now had the chance to fight them one on one.

  As Pervan was the column leader, he was the first to reach her, but before he could grab her, she grasped the two rails with both of her hands and as she lifted herself on them she gave a powerful double kick that sent the whole group tumbling backwards towards the foot of the stairs.

  Pervan tried to get up, but a strong kick to the face by Kalynka quickly put him down, after a few more to the others, the entire flight had been deprived of the illusion that they had any chance of getting up, much to their pain and the spectators amusement.

  “You fight like a pack of rabid dogs, so you get put down, I on the other hand fight like a soldier and therefore am victorious and stand tall!” she emphasized by placing her boot on his chest and pressing just enough to cause him pain, but not enough to give him lasting damage.

  “This upcoming mission will not be a raid against some isolated column or supply fleet, manned by second rate soldiers. No! It will be against trained and hardened front line troops, placed in our country to act as a deterrent against the other Galactic powers! If you don’t follow my orders then we all die, and if by some miracle we survive a disaster brought about by your insubordination, I will personally squash any of you wise guys like the bugs you are! Do you get me maggot?” she emphasized her words by pressing her booth on his chest to cause him great pain.

  “AAAAHHHHH!!!!” he screamed while trying in vain to defy her authority, the rest of the flight team members where still on the ground and keeping their mouth shut, their leader may be an idiot, but they weren’t.

  “I said do you get me maggot?” she asked once more and pressed harder.

  “I GET YOU!” he shouted out of desperation and pain, he looked at her with the eyes of beaten wild animal and he regretfully added one last word to the sentence “….boss…….”

  The word seemed to be causing him pain from uttering it and barely contained rage from himself and barely restrained laughter at the sight of him getting beat up.

  “And don’t you forget it!” she said and finally removed her boot from his chest.

  “So what’s next boss?” Lieutenant Cavic, her second in command asked.

  “Take five and get ready for another round, I want to get at least five simulations under our belt before we leave tonight for the operation.”

  “You got it boss!” he said and they all saluted.

  Kalynka walked away from them to get to the simulators before the rest of her squad arrived.

  She sprinted trough one of the doors as she tried to ignore the sailors and soldiers who gave her a smile and nod of acknowledgement. Barely a moment had passed and already she was trying to forget what she had done, but those who witnessed it would not.

  All who saw would remember and spread the word, the soldiers marching to their drill squares, the sailors walking towards their ships and the spider hanging from it’s thread would all remember, even if she was now trying to deny and forget.

  “Nothing! Nothing is like what I thought it would be, how the bigger rebel cells told us it would be like, what we are telling the potential recruits it would be like! No true companions, no honor and duty for the country, at least not in the right amounts. No fanfare, mo marching band, not even war……just barbarism.”

  Volun 4, Battleship Fearweaver-Shadowstrike.

  9: 53 Imperial Standard time.

  Drums and whistles accompanied by trumpets and bagpipes played as the welcoming party for the arriving commodore and his command staff waited for their arrival, at least that’s what the usual protocol was.

  Since this was the Empire and sometimes exceptions needed to be made, thus other ‘non-mainstream’ military protocols where accepted and used from time to time.

  On this occasion however the proper protocol was for the receiving commanders to form a marching band and go to a planet where the unit that was joining them acted as the greeting party.

  This act of open-mindedness and flexibility was one of many traits that where the glue that held the Empire together.

  And if was a very strong glue of which Metternich though very highly off, he would have regarded it even highly if it didn’t force him to endure the noise of a full marching band barely a few meters away from his ears, but then again nothing was perfect.

  “Company halt!” Butz ordered
as they reached the ship’s boarding door.

  “All right everyone, bear in mind that since this is a Homeguard Corps, so be prepared to encounter even more bizarre customs.” Adrian said to the other commodores and their command staff who were flanking Metternich.

  The term ‘Homeguard Corps’ or any unit bearing the word ‘Homeguard’ in it, has as its main duty that of guarding a single planet and rarely leave it. Many times it only contained members of a single race, by contrast, most other units had a diverse personal made up of beings from all over the Empire who were dispatched not only to fill the gaps that where needed from the myriad of occasions that made troop transfers necessary, but it was also done in the idea that if you met some other denizens of the Empire you would be more open-minded and receptive about those who’re different than you, thus avoiding the creation of extremist speciest and racist groups and ideologies.

  Or at least this method would, for the most part, prevent the extremist groups that already existed within the Empire from gaining new adepts.

  The Homeguard units where usually raised from the citizens of the planet that they protected and usually where left there to act as a garrison/local militia, only to be deployed in times of war, so it’s lack of diversity was no surprise.

  They where even nicknamed ‘town armies’ since some of them where composed entirely out of the population of a town or small city, some even had the recruit’s spouses acting as auxiliary and support personal while others even allowed the bringing of the soldier’s and sailor’s children with them.

  The ‘regular’ armed forces had mixed feelings about them, since when Homeguards where attached to them, it either meant that they where a specialized unit, the declaration of Total War, or a prelude to a massive decisive battle, but most of the times it meant that they where a newly raised green troop, or parade ground soldiers, who at best could be counted on to delay the enemy, rather than fight them, so Metternich’s group could only hope it was the former rather than the latter.

  “One question though, does anybody know what their specie’s is like?” Dalius asked.

  “They’re called the Caringas and that’s about as much I know of them.” Antonius replied.

  “They are humanoid so they’ll all be in their first form.” Georgaian added.

  “Anything else?” Valyria raised the question.

  “Not really, and after all, how are suppose to know anything about them?” Dalius asked.

  “Perhaps by reading the files that we were given?” Valyria challenged.

  “Did you read them Valyria?” Tarkan asked.

  “W-well I was very busy with the Galiana plan so-“

  “So I suggest you find another way of coping, besides starting an argument; And would someone finally open the bloody door, we can only put off the operation for so long.” Tarkan said to Valyria and the other present and they slowly but surely opened and marched out the door.

  They weren’t cowards, nor an undisciplined lot, but it was their very survival instinct which was trying to delay what seemed to be the inevitable.

  “Never thought I’d step on this rock again or in such a manner.” Metternich muttered to himself as the doors opened and he stepped out of the ship and once more onto that cursed planet where so many where cut down. Beyond him lay a barren desert field which was littered with what appeared to be the skeletal remains of an army all laying about, dressed in every manner of Imperial uniform.

  “978th Corps assemble!” Adrian bellowed out and immediately the skeletons started moving.

  They rose from the ground; each and every one of them stood up and snapped to attention, this was no field of skeleton, but the 978th themselves!

  A group of Caringans that seemed to be the corp.’s leaders walked until they were a few paces from Metty’s group, their leader walked two steps forward and shouted:

  “978th assembled and ready for war sir!‘We come from the shadows, bringing confusion!’”

  Captofgal system, planet Andhold, Perma city streets.

  A vortex of light and energy flashed into existence in one of the many back alleys of the city.

  Light and sound danced as matter was rearranged by this strange anomaly, the phenomenon lasted barely a moment, but within that moment a being passed through or rather fell through it and onto the city street.

  This was not the first time this happened, so the being in question knew from many painful past experiences how to skillfully curb his body and roll once he hit the ground in order to dampen the force of the impact.

  After getting up, dusting his fedora and straightening the collar of the trench coat he was wearing and dusting himself off, he immediately made his way to the nearest street to hail a taxi.

  “Where to sir?” the chariot taxi driver asked.

  “The starport, I have a flight to catch.”

  “We’re you going sir?”

  “To someplace terribly unpleasant but necessary for work, why I can’t even pronounce it’s name!” the newcomer said as he flipped through a series of newspapers that he purchased from a nearby stand just before getting into the cab, searching for clues to what he had to accomplish in this new world.

  “I hear ya! But that’s life for ya; it always has to be hard and unreasonable.”

  “You have no idea!” the newcomer said as he found what he was looking for and felt a mixture of relief, regret, exhilaration and downright dread.

  “Well Icarius, looks like you’ve arrived just as things are getting interesting.”

  Volun 4, Battleship Fearweaver-Shadowstrike.

  Ealiupus 18th 9: 59 Imperial Standard time.

  A general lack of coherent sentences, words or even syllables where not heard coming from Metternich’s group as the assembled party remained silent while coming to terms with what they had just witness happening.

  ‘My eardrums nearly burst so a bunch of living skeletons could lie in the dirt for a few hours and then suddenly form ranks once we got here for the sole purpose of saying ‘We’re ready’?’

  The rear admiral thought as he took a deep breath to reign in his anger.

  “Do not judge, lest ye be judged.” Metternich said barely a whisper to himself, as a mantra to keep his temper down.

  It was also to prevent his stomach from once more emptying it’s content from the sight of these creatures, though to his surprise the reaction was much tamer than before, whether that was good or bad was to the philosopher and others like him, the Admiral’s mind was on more pressing matters, like staying alive.

  “You’re sailors and soldiers are all dirty commodore.” he said as a matter of fact, as he walked up to the commander and got a good close look at his species.

  Their kind the ‘Caringas’ had their bodies made to look like barren skeletons; it was an ancient defense mechanism against their ancestral predators.

  The commander’s eyes where way back in his skull and colored darkly in order to give the illusion that they were not there. The Caringans emitted an aroma of rock and granite from their sweat glands, as an old stealth mechanism for the more persistent predators and the Admiral struggled to not frown his nose.

  As he stopped right in front of the commander of the corps, namely one Commodore Richard Checkings the aforementioned Caringan replied to his earlier statement.

  “Warriors are dirty sir, weapons and ships are clean!”

  He then presented his blade along with the rest of the infantry who did the same with the various weapons with which they were equipped with. Behind them, what appeared to be a barren field, was revealed to be camouflaged ships, that rose up from their concealment pits and as they did so Metternich noticed that around the vital areas such as various joints, doors and weapons slots there various blankets of size and thickness to cover them and prevent those regions from being damaged by dirt.

  Evidently this was a corps that knew their business with commanders who where thankfully cut from the same cloth.

  “Adrian what’
s your opinion on all this?”

  “You can tend to your looks instead of your blades and arrows if you like; you’ll be the toast of the parade ground and the prettiest pile of fertilizer in the county.”

  “Well said my friend! Richard, it’s good to know that if you have to choose between the two you know that weapons area a priority, but when you have spare time I want you to make sure your troops are clean, cause after all ‘cleanliness is next to godliness’ and we wouldn’t want the children who will learn of us to be heathens now would we?” the newly minted rear admiral said with a raised eyebrow, to which those gathered gave out a healthy laugh.

  “Looks like he’s just right, he’s a disciplinarian, but flexible when he has to be.” Commodore Checkings thought happily to himself as he shook Metternich’s hand and welcomed him as their commander and comrade.

  “Good to have you with us Richard!”

  “Glad to be here sir!” he replied as the rest of his command staff and the Admiral’s exchanged greetings.

  “Is it true that our mission now is to capture, well….” he avoided filling in the blank, since all those around him knew what he was talking about.

  “I’ll fill you as soon as we can have our first conference as a full battle wing, till then get your troops in orbit.”

  “Aye sir! You heard the commander! Everyone in orbit and be quick about it, cause the last ten ships will have latrine duty for a week!” Richard shouted and his men and women quickly hoped to it.

  After the order was given and the command staff and high officers of the 978th departed for their ships, the staff and officers of the 378th battle wing all stood there silently for a few moments.

  They knew what they had to do, but as before their past experiences and survival instincts tried to delay the inevitable.

  “Attention!” Tarkan said in a normal tone of voice so those of the 978th wouldn’t hear and potentially lose faith in their battle wing commanders, since that could spell disaster for any unit.

  “About face, and left and right, and left and right, that’s it lads and ladies one foot in front of the other!” he now said in a gentle voice as he lead the group back into the shuttle that would take them to the Vampire’s Vengeance and from there to the fortress.

  They boarded the shuttle and after the doors properly closed behind them, they felt as the ship launched itself from the ground and went on its way towards space.

  “All right, everyone take a fiver and then go to the conference room s we can update Richard and remember keep it together, if you can’t then who can?” he added before saluting them and walking away from the group, whose members did pretty much the same.

  He walked to a nearby corner of a secondary hallway and ducked behind it to shield himself from the others.

  Once there he couldn’t stop himself anymore! He had kept morale up; made sure the others did not falter like any good sergeant even an ex one should.

  But his duty for today was now over and with no prying eyes to force him to keep up appearances he simply couldn’t take it anymore.

  So he did what he forbade the other from doing.

  He cried.

  As the tears streamed down his cheeks and his hands now on his mouth muzzled the crying a single horrifying though echoed throughout his head, it was only one, but it was enough to break this master sergeant.

  “Galiana!..........Galiana!!…….GALIANA!!!!”.

  The galaxy once more turned as another page was being written, both by history and by Deux who was watching the events unfold.

  Imperial where marching fearfully, Federals where defending bitterly, Volunians where dying not to gracefully and a Black Beret Colonel was signing beautifully!