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The lights were bright as they beamed down on her. Two drones hovered, to her left and to her right. Little balls with a singular blue eye that seemed to glow expectantly. Around her was a darkened room, with green walls on which swam a myriad of holographic images, glinting and glimmering. They were of smiling faces. Soldiers posing in trenches and on battleships, their eyes wide with excitement, as if they were on an adventure. How typical. Sophia wrinkled her nose. People didn’t want to know that behind every one of those smiles was a ghost. A specter that came back, screaming, to remind them of that adventure they were so happy to depict. It was all a lie. Their happy moments in that war didn’t exist. There were just moments where everyone agreed they could forget about it for a bit and move on.
Sophia Trotsky, the richest thorium tycoon this side of the Union border, took a deep breath, and stared into her interviewer’s eye. The deep blue gaze was attached to an astoundingly beautiful woman, with a bright face, gleaming red hair, and that disgusting expression. That look of awe when fans of the Great War met her. She hated it with every fiber of her being because it meant they didn’t understand. They would never understand. Sophia was a lucky one, she’d escaped that howling dark storm of fury and rage–and so they considered her a hero. Fucking idiots. The lot of them.
“So, tell me about the Battle of Arcadia.” The woman asked. Emily was her name; or was it Esther?
After Sophia passed her one hundred and fiftieth birthday, she figured she wasn’t required to remember this crap anymore. The Battle of Arcadia? Why? That was hardly the most crucial battle. It was famous for one simple reason. She’d stormed into the system guarding those cargo ships and barged through the black zone. It was where she did what no other commander had done–where Sophia Trotsky had become a household name.
“The Fall of Arcadia,” Sophia corrected. “We lost that battle.”
That system was still in Imperial hands, too. They never took it back.
“Yes, of course,” Emily/Esther, replied.
Sophia remembered. She remembered how her feet hurt as she stood on the CIC of the Evans. Her toes were bloody in her shoes, and her heals were ripped to shreds. She spent sixty hours awake, barking orders, as she battled three enemy destroyers. Her mind flurried back there. The sound of the alarms, the smell of the smoke. The screams of dying men, aflame, burning. Their skin smelling and crackling like cooking meat. Then the pang of a metal slug traveling at relative velocities, smashing against the Evans’ shield belt and exploding. The whole vessel shook then, throwing people to the walls. The unlucky ones with heads split open on the side of the ship like melons dropped on concrete.
“Ma’am.” Emily/Esther’s voice barked across her bridge. “Admiral, are you okay?”
Suddenly the bridge was gone, and the smell of burning flesh had subsided, and Sophia was looking into those deep blue orbs again. The woman was nervous and leaning forward. Sophia shivered and looked down. Thinking about these things wasn’t like recalling last year’s stroll in the park.
“Fine,” Sophia snapped back, harsher than intended. “What was the question?”
“The Fall of Arcadia,” Emily/Esther replied. “The battle where you crossed the black zone with those cargo ships.”
“Most dangerous job in the fleet, sailing supply ships. Damn Imps liked to burn them.” She sneered. “Kept pressure on our supply lines.”
“That was when you actually took the Imperial destroyers out. No coalition ship had managed to destroy Imperial ships in one-on-one combat until you did.” The woman prodded, “Can you tell me about that?”
“I took on three,” Sophia replied. Before the Coalition had released the multi-baryonic shield belts, she had stopped the Imperial red space weapons.
It was ten years she’d never forget, no matter how hard she tried. Standing on her CIC, she brought the Imperial destroyers to their knees in that old ship, and she’d paid for it. Her mind wandered again back to that smoke filled room full of screaming men. Right after the first blast, a red space beam weapon had hit the Evans. It citadeled her command. The electrical fire had spread so fast. So many brave kids, and they were little more than kids, ran into the flames to stop it. Very few of them came back out. How many had she’d buried that day?
Fifteen?
No seventeen, because of the two in engineering.
Something wet ran down her cheek.
They were kids. Just kids. So young, with a whole life ahead of them. The flames warped and twisted their bodies. When they lined them up in the airlock after the battle, and said the prayers on their personal record, Sophia had watched their corpses go. Float out of her ship in metal boxes. Each one a letter she wrote home. The little spoiled girl who thought she owned the universe had been that commander.
If she had been smarter or listened in class, or wasn’t so damn full of herself, maybe she could have commanded better then.
Maybe they’d be alive.
“Ma’am.” It was Emily/Esther again.
“Sorry.” Sophia stood up, the microphone peeling from her shirt. “I thought I could do this, but I can’t.”
“We can try again tomorrow,” Emily/Esther offered.
“That won’t be necessary.” Sophia turned and walked toward the door, her body full of aches she’d rather not have now.
She wanted to leave faster than her ancient legs would carry her.
Once she thought she could do anything. Once, Sophia Trotsky, the genetically engineered super genius, was capable of everything that got thrown her way. Her mind worked like a computer, and her thoughts could run through every fact. Patterns were like play, simple things that danced before her, obvious and clear when they were mysteries to others. For all that, she never could stop the war. She never could save everyone. No matter how hard she tried, her history with the Great War was one of constant failure, marred by the occasional success.
And they called her a hero.
A fucking hero.
Because what? She was superb at killing Imps? That’s what it seemed like. All the historians said they were honored to meet Sophia. It was an honor to be in the presence of a killing machine? A woman who traded her soldiers’ lives for the enemies but did so with enough effectiveness, the enemy would pay tenfold what she did.
Five minutes later, her tired feet had carried her straight to the lounge, where she took a seat at the bar. Her eyes traced the beautiful youth of several people around her, all of whom noticed her. Not because she was beautiful anymore. That ship had sailed a century ago. No, they noticed her uniform. She wore a white coat with blue highlights on her shoulders. The white and blue star of the Coalition gleamed on her chest, and her admiral’s pins sat proudly upon her collar. The thank you for your service would come soon. She could feel it, like a bad bit of stew in her stomach.
How many Great War vets were there these days? She ordered a scotch on the rocks, and swirled the glass, not really caring that it was nine in the morning. As Sophia’s wife would say, sometimes you're all out of shits to fucking give. The woman she loved was back on Presidia, yelling at the neighbors’ kids and the neighbor’s dog, probably. Sophia sighed, and took a sip of the fiery liquid, letting its warmth still her frustrations.
The air changed around her as the seat next to her filled. An old man. An ancient man. His wrinkles were deep, his skin was a mulatto, covered in the discolorations of time, but thin. Not sickly thin, but like her, as healthy thin as you could be up near two hundred, with half your organs replaced by synthetics. His white hair capped his head nicely.
“A pilsner, if you please.” His accent was thick.
Imperial, from the Aurelian sector of Imperial space, if her guess was accurate. His hands were calloused and hard worked, a farm or ranch, something to do with the earth. However, what caught her eye, and shook her soul, was the brown uniform he wore. Just like her own uniform, it was out of date for the modern military. But it had the unmistakable silver imperial trim, and on his shoulders the fist clenching the planet, with the Imperial sick slogan Semper Invictus in cold gold letters against mat black fabric.
“Coming right up,” the bartender said, unphased.
Because he was the enemy. Sophia stared into her scotch, rage boiling in her soul. All she wanted was to end the fucker next to her, take out all her fears and pain on him. Make him suffer for that war. Imperial dog that he was. Sophia took another swig and prepared to leave.
“May I shake your hand?” the man asked.
“What?” Sophia looked at him.
He smiled and held out a hand. “It is a rare honor to shake the hand of the Spider.”
The Spider? That was a name she hadn’t heard in a long time. It was the Imperial slang term for her. They feared her, though that name was bestowed later in the war, after she became an admiral. Was this a ruse to kill her? Maybe he was as enraged as she was. Blood lust went both ways. Once you saw the battlefield, you never forgot it, and he’d been there. She could see it in his eyes. There was something about a soldier’s stare, something about how they looked past you, just a little. As if life meant a little less. She’d looked into a mirror and seen that same look. Once it frightened her. Now it exhausted her.
She took his hand anyway. “You are?”
“General Aaron Strand,” he replied, and gripped her hand. “Well, retired General.”
It was firm. He was still a soldier. Just like her, that life never truly left him. She could feel it in the grip, in the gaze. The pain, the suffering. It was like looking at herself, sobbing in the mirror, as her wife’s hands clutched her shoulders, and whispered strength into Sophia’s soul. The soldier had been there too. Aaron Strand–why did she know that name? General Strand. Her mind went through her memory like looking through a library or searching on a computer. Strand, General, Aaron. First STAT Regiment, often called “the Lilly”, though she’d never understood why. At the end of the war, he was the supreme commander of all Tier One assets in the Empire–special operatives.
“The Lilly.” She cocked her head to the side as they let go of each other’s hands. “You’re still alive?”
“Fought three cancers, have a fake heart, a neural implant that keeps me from having a stroke, but I’m still here. Sorry to disappoint.”
Guess it wasn’t much of a treasure for him to know the Spider was still alive either. Maybe she could stay here and finish her scotch at least. After all, they weren’t enemies anymore. They weren’t, even though her soul demanded they should be. Sipping on the scotch, she did her best to content herself in the presence of the Special Tactics and Assault Trooper sitting next to her. At least he kept the gawking civvies from fawning over her uniform so they might feel better about their day.
“How’d the interview go?” Aaron asked.
Of course, that’s why he was here. They must be interviewing him, too. “Not great.” Why lie? What the fuck did it matter now?
“That bad, huh?” The pilsner he ordered dropped down in front of him.
“Yeah. Didn’t go well. Tried to talk about it, and it kinda went to hell from there.” She took a deep breath. “I may be a hundred and eighty-seven, but damn, I didn’t forget what you fuckers did to us.”
He took the attack in stride. “Fair. Of course, all we wanted was food. You never saw the starving children and mothers on the streets. There comes a point when you are willing to do anything to put a stop to that.”
She winced, remembering the political crisis in the Empire at the time. She’d almost forgotten about how bad their industry had become–and Ellen Cross, that dipshit Director that put embargos on the Empire for political reasons. The counterattack was solid. She accepted that. The two enemies returned to their drinks for a moment. As the world came to a standstill, her mind went to the poor Emily/Esther interviewer. Sophia should have remembered her name, at least. Her mind wasn’t what it used to be when she’d been a super genius.
Soon, Aaron’s interview would be due. What was his side of the war like, she wondered. The Imperial side. A nation that had stood for three thousand years, but then, because of poor management, had become a land of hunger, disease, squalor, and suffering. Yet they fought to defend pride in a destitute nation. The Empire of today was a powerful statement to its enduring nature, stubbornly refusing to give in. With the war behind them, their newest Emperor, Corvus, had waged peace in his father’s stead, and returned his broken Empire to the shining beacon it once was.
“You took my wife’s eye and arm,” Sophia accused.
“I did, personally?” Aaron asked, cocking a bushy white eyebrow. “I do not remember meeting your wife.”
“No, but the Empire did.” It was a stupid thing to say, but something demanded she say it, as if telling him would help.
The man raised his hand and pulled up the sleeve to reveal a crease where artificial skin met real skin. “You took my hand, then.”
One of the benefits of serving in the navy and not the army was that the danger was typically all or nothing. Either you got vaporized or you didn’t, meaning the navy had some of the lowest injury rates per casualty rates. Of course, that meant more of them died.
“You took my best friend from me.” Her mind swam with the terrible moment she’d lost the most precious companion she had at the time, on that street outside of Buffalo Bill’s.
“You took my sister.” His riposte came fast and harsh.
Ouch, she wasn’t sure she could match that. “My home, you took that too, and my family.”
She’d grown up on Arcadia, a planet she watched burn. Perhaps that was why she struggled so much in the interview, because Emily/Esther was trying to focus on Sophia’s most painful memory. The battle that robbed her of her home, her childhood friends, her father - all gone.
“You took my fiancé,” he replied, taking a swig on his pilsner.
There was no end to the grief they could spill on each other, and no matter how much she wanted to make him feel what she felt, the truth was he already did.
“Truce,” Aaron added. “We could go on with the tragedies all day.”
“Yeah, truce,” Sophia agreed.
With a final swig, she downed the rest of her scotch in a big gulp. The liquid burned her esophagus, as she remembered the battlefields. It was odd that it was all surfacing now, all this hatred. For so long, she’d lived a happy life after the war. Had everything, really. In Presidia, she bought a small mansion, she and her wife. Sophia’s in-laws ended up there, retiring from the asteroid mining business. Together, she and her wife had adopted two war orphans, Sam and Claire. Those children had grandchildren now. There wasn’t that much to complain about.
But like a huge anchor, those twelve years weighed her down, never letting go. Always seeping back in to remind her how terrible it was, dragging her back to the shadows.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to her companion. “For all the grief.”
“Me. too,” Aaron replied.
“We were just soldiers doing our job.” Sophia took a deep breath. “Just doing what war demanded of us.”
Aaron nodded. “Yeah–and I don’t think it’s really left either of us, huh?”
Sophia shook her head. “Think it might stick with me till I die.”
“At this point, I am forced to agree.” He downed the last of his pilsner. “The doctors say I have another ten years or so left in me before technology can’t stave off the hand of mortality. Typical stuff, just neural decay and junk.”
That probably was true for her, too. Once, the concept of death had terrified her, but now it was just another event ahead of her that would ease her passing into the inevitable. As time dragged on, she realized how little she wanted to undergo the next great war. Even if someone offered her eternal life, she’d turn it down just to avoid seeing that again.
“You scared?” Sophia asked.
He shook his head. “Not as scared as I have been. This is probably the last time I’ll leave my home, one last battle to fight, one last glimpse of the world beyond my farm back on Aurelia.”
“What battle?” Sophia gazed at the old Imperial, now kindlier than he’d seemed at the beginning.
“For my great grandkids.” He smiled. “To make sure that their children can hear my story, remember what I have to say. Get my words engraved in digital memory, so that everyone can know what it was like to go through that war, and maybe they won’t do it again. Why are you here?”
Honorable goal: why hadn’t Sophia thought of that?
“I don’t know.” She should know.
She just kind of figured he’d have to talk about this at some point because posterity demanded it. Sophia never thought that her words may prevent some future conflict: but if it could prevent her great grandchildren from facing the same fires she did, there would be nothing that stood in her way. Sure, politicians were power hungry and stupid, but maybe they’d think twice. If there was even the slightest chance that the next warmonger would think before firing the first shot, was that not worth trying?
Aaron shrugged. “I didn’t know either, until my great grandson-in-law came over to the farm with his two kids, and I watched them laugh and play in the grass. It was then I knew why I was coming here.”
Sophia swallowed–it was so like her to miss on the moral question. Some things never changed. His was as good a reason as any for being here. She thought about Claire and Sam, the two beautiful children she adopted after the war. Sam joined the navy. Like her mother, Claire became a colonial prospector out beyond the Long Bar. Frankly, Sophia wanted to see her daughter again before her time ran out. Though it was hard to get her to come home. She’d set up shop out there in the deep black, and rarely returned to the folds of Coalition space.
“Yeah.” Sophia looked longingly at the amber liquid in her glass, mostly melted ice at this point. “Do you think our words will stop the next war?”
“If the gods are on our side, they will.” Aaron smiled at her, his old face looking briefly youthful. “Even if they don’t, we tried. How many times did you take an action in the war you didn’t know would succeed but knew you had to try?”
Plenty. “Fair.”
She had to go back up there, and look Emily/Esther in the eye and ask to try again, didn’t she? Humility. Not something she’d ever mastered, but boy, was she humbled. After Kadesh, her world changed. Everyone’s did. Taking in a deep breath, Sophia stood, her old legs aching under the sudden weight they were asked to carry–but she would deal with it. There was one last battle to fight, and she would be damned if she didn’t fight it.
“Going somewhere?” Aaron gave her a questioning look.
She nodded. “I have to go back, because you are right.”
There were so many things she’d like to say to Aaron. Some were full of anger, others full of grief. Once there were billions of veterans who’d fought in that Great War, but not anymore. Now there were only a few thousand left in all the Galaxy. It had been the better part of two hundred years since the close of that war, and many of its warriors who survived the storm had succumbed to the claws of time. She felt the claws on her own neck, too. Time’s slow embrace slipping around her. The end was far closer than the beginning.
But what she left behind, that was important.
Maybe it was her arrogance speaking, but what she had to say about that war, about the events in it, that was important.
“General Strand, it was an honor.” She held out her hand. “I’m glad we never met in battle.”
“The bar sufficed well enough, I should think.” The old man stood up and gripped her hand.
The two soldiers shook, and then, out of habit or respect, she snapped her hand to her forehead. Even in her old age, her form was impeccable. It had to be. She was Sophia Trotsky after all, the greatest thorium tycoon this side of the Union border, The Spider, Von’Triton’s Blade, and she wore two White Stars of Valor on her chest. In fact, her entire uniform was glistening with awards, commendations, and ribbons. She carried them with pride, and she realized it was not pride for herself. It was with pride for all the incredible men and woman with whom she’d served.
Aaron snapped his fist to his chest and bowed with as much snap as she had.
“The honor was mine,” Aaron said. “One last battle, then.”
She nodded. “If history had played out differently, perhaps we could have been friends.”
“Perhaps,” Aaron agreed. “Let us give that chance to our progeny, yes?”
Indeed. With that, Sophia Trotsky turned from the Imperial General and began making her way back towards the stairs. Her feet grew cold as she ascended, thinking of all the horrible memories behind the wall she was about to break. That silence she’d held for so long. It was a silence bred out of a fear of facing her emotions. An absolute terror. She marched on, forging ahead with all the fight she could manage, because in the end this was not a moment for her. Those had all passed. This was for the future, and if a soldier was not willing to fight for that, then what was the point?
Cresting the floor, she knocked on the door leading to the interview room. Perhaps Esther/Emily had left already. Her mechanical heart thundered away in fear for a moment, but it was unfounded. The door clicked and opened, and there she was. Blue eyes and red hair, with a surprised expression hanging on the edge of her gaze.
“Mrs. Trotsky.” Her voice faltered. “I was just packing up.”
“I wish to try again.” Sophia took a deep breath. “I apologize for my earlier outburst.”
“Of course.” Esther/Emily turned and made wild hand gestures.
Those who had been deconstructing the green tarp stopped and immediately returned it. The holo-tarp glistened a few moments later and brought the pictures to life on its surface once again. The chairs were back in a moment, and Sophia eased herself into one, her legs aching with gratitude as she did so.
“What is your name? I have forgotten.” Sophia asked – wanting to put her dotage aside and try to grab the young lady’s name.
“Of course. It’s Claire Lockwood.”
Claire. Really? How the hell did Sophia forget a woman named Claire? Her daughter’s name. Shaking off her confusion, Sophia took a deep breath and kept her mouth shut. Esther/Emily was way off the mark. Damn. Sophia really was old. Well, at least she remembered what mattered now. She could never forget it. Claire sat down opposite and pulled out her datapad as the work crew disappeared behind the holo-sheet, leaving just the two women to talk.
“I have a lot to say.” Sophia took a deep breath. “But it may not be what’s on your data board.”
Claire looked at the holographic screen that glimmered a deep blue. Clearly, there were a lot of things she wanted to know. Casting her reluctance under the shadow of a smile, she leaned to the side and dropped the data board on the ground, and then clasped her hands together in an empty lap.
“Go on,” Claire prodded.
“Kadesh.” The words trembled on her lips as Sophia remembered the horrors of those two weeks.
“The fall of Kadesh.”
“Yes.” Sophia nodded. “It all begins there.”
She had to. For posterity. For all those who might consider war again, Sophia began her tale. It was a long tale. There was tragedy and tears. Grief and ghosts aplenty haunted the edges of her words, everyone tugging at her soul as she began the story of a young girl on a small moon over an enormous world, where history changed. Every word she spoke came from the heart, and every single one was true, however painful the memory it formed might be.
From her lips, she spun her tale.
Of grief and fear, but also love and joy.
For the first time since Armistice Day, Sophia spoke of the Great War.
It was a bittersweet tune, a ballad of broken glass.