Eugen sat as his old table, bottle in one hand, cigar in the other. Across from him sat Major Marcel Bigeard. Where Eugen flaunted his heroism, Marcel hid his. Bigeard wore the black undress uniform of a Sirius Coalition Marine Private, with his unit flashes sewn on the sleeves, and the silver sickle of a Major pinned on one collar, with the dagger of the Sirius Coalition Marine Commando on the other. From his heavy issued belt hung a stiletto knife, and a tachyon pistol with two spare power packs.
Eugen, on the other hand, was decked out in the height of the current fashion for the Sirius Coalition's Fighter Corps. Midnight black uniform, with the edges in silver, including the three bars of a Commander on both sleeves, and the chainmail hanging off his right shoulder. On his left breast hung his medals, including the 'Hero of the Revolution' three times over, as well as a host of other medals and campaign medals. From his tooled leather belt hung a massive .65 caliber pistol, slung low on his right hip.
"So, Eugen. I hear you know something about this next op?"
"Who told you that then?" replied Eugen cautiously, swigging from his bottle."
"Oh, you know. Just hear it through the grapevine. Anyways, I know it involves me and the boys. The Maidstone is almost done refit, so we should all right, but I want details!"
"Well Comrade, as you know, if I told you this, I'd have to kill you... But we've been living off borrowed time for a while now, so I suppose I'll just pretend someone else told you. So, here's the skinny..."
As the two leant together, Eugen's stabbing finger drawing diagrams and making points in the spilt booze on the table, another man was drowning his sorrows nearby. Captain Emmanuel Goldstein had poured nearly a litre of Vodka down his throat in the last half an hour, and showed no signs of slowing down. As he refilled his glass, and lit a cigarette with shaking fingers, his gaze slipped to the medal hanging askew on his chest. Hero of the Revolution it read. Hero. A flash of light from an overhead light caught the surface of the decoration, and sent his mind spiraling back.
Dozens of Defense Wing snubfighters exploding around them, they raced towards the heart of the corsair atack group. The Marx was too far away, the fleets were all taking the war to the enemy, the Coalition People's Warship Vladimir Lenin was the only thing between the innocents of the Coalition and the Corsair fleet. A pair of cruisers, half a dozen gunboats, and a wing of bombers and fighters had accompanied the Osiris into Omega 52, shredding the Defence Wing into tatters. Those brave pilots lived long enough to kill the gunboats, the Revolution patrols took out both cruisers, and the par of Storm gunboats remaining on station shredded the pack of titans.
As they closed in for the kill, swooping towards the Osiris as a large, disciplined mass, it's guns opened up. Flack turrets shredded fighters and bombers, missiles swept in and punched holes in the sides of already battered gunboats, and suddenly, Emmanuel Goldstein and the crew of the CPW Vladimir Lenin were the only ones left. Emmanuel had known a kind of madness then, a euphoria he'd not had in a long time. Locking the controls in, leaving no way for the ship to be diverted, he'd ordered the automated gun systems to fire until the bitter end, and gave the order to abandon ship.
From his escape pod, he'd watched as his baby, the Typhoon he'd nurtured from the ground up, slam into the Corsair Flagship at flank speed. Watched as the reactor blew, as he'd instructed it, turning the already battered Osiris into a graveyard of floating scrap. Watched the rescue tugs come out, and pick up his crew. Watched a man in an orange flightsuit haul him, weighlessly, into the tug. Watched as the blackness cornered his mind, and sent it fleeing away.
He'd never expected to live after scuttling his own ship to take out a larger one. Never expected to not only retain his rank, but be called a Hero! They were giving him the latest ship out of the yards, the CPW Lithuania. A strange name, he thought, but then again, what isn't strange around here?
Jack Handey Wrote:I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.
