Serenity: Chapter 1
The prologue is here
AN: Thank you to lovelylytton for her support, and for kicking my butt into writing this. Happy very belated birthday again. Also, satine86 I hope you enjoy this and that you are feeling happier. You deserve to be happy.
Star Date: 5039.26.54 - Present Day
Location : Onboard Firefly class ship Serenity
Jethro strolled into the small kitchen mid-yawn, perking up almost immediately with the atmosphere. The whole crew were sitting down for dinner, a rare occasion for them since the food was fresh and real: vegetables, spices and even meat - dried, but it was meat nonetheless. Jethro didn’t care, so long as it wasn’t another stale package of Lembas Cram, Algae Food Cubes, or his personal favourite, Soylent Green, whatever the heck that was made out of.
He took a moment to observe his pseudo-family. At the head of the table with his back to him was the captain: Endymion Shields, owner of Serenity. He was a war veteran who’d fought for the losing side, although in Jethro's opinion at least, it was the right one. Endy was a melancholic bastard but he had a heart of gold, something he did a lousy job of hiding. To his right was Keanu, his second in command, a Lieutenant back in the war but first officer on board their little ‘family’ operation. If people thought Endymion was miserable, Keanu was permanently situated under a cloud which rained down misery.
Jethro’s wife Valereii was laughing along with everyone else, bar her sister Amidala, who was wrapping up some kind of story.
“What’s the funny tale?” He asked as he planted a kiss on Rei’s head and sat himself down in the space next to her.
She was too busy laughing to able to speak and Jethro couldn’t help smiling at the fact that she was happy about something. It also made him even more curious than before so he turned to the rest of the table for help. “Guys?”
Neapolitan pointed to Amidala. “Your sister-in-law was just telling us a story from their childhood.”
“Oh yeah?” Jethro, a wide smile still plastered to his face, shifted his gaze back to his wife who confirmed it with a nod of her head. It wasn’t often that the sisters opened up about their past.
“Who’d have thought our little Ami here could be so devious?” Maryland Zipper, who liked to be known as Zip but was actually nicknamed Mary, hugged Amidala around the shoulders, causing her face to change to a much redder colour. He let her go soon enough, enjoying the fact that he made her blush with the contact.
“I could.” Endymion said, grudgingly. Jethro noticed for the first time that the Captain wasn’t laughing quite as hard as the others had been.
“Oh come on, Cappy! It was funny.” Ma-Ko said, waving her chopsticks at him before using them to pick up the last pieces of vegetables on her plate and pop them in her mouth, smiling as she chewed.
“I’d like to see how funny you’d think it was being ten years old and ending up naked on a beach at night, surrounded by thousands of crabs.” It seemed to Jethro that Endy still harboured some resentment over the issue.
At the mental image Valereii began to laugh even harder. “Your father-” She stopped mid-sentence, unable to continue without sucking in air and attempting to control herself, “Your father was furious.” Once the sentence was out she began to laugh again.
"If it were me, I'd be ashamed at the fact that I was outsmarted by a five year old." Keanu said.
Endymion practically sneered. "Ami was four."
"And I’m sure you deserved it." Minara stated as she stood, taking the water jug with her to refill it. Her Pandoran silk dress jingled slightly as she moved.
“He did!” Amidala was unusually animated as she spoke, glaring accusingly at Endymion, “He’d stolen my dolly.”
“I did not!”
“I found her in your pool house!”
“You left it there!” Endymion turned to his first mate to plead his case, “She left it there, I swear!”
Keanu raised his hands in defence. “I’m not getting involved.” He said with mock seriousness.
“Her head was missing, you horrible toad-in-a-hole! I would never have left my poor dolly in your pool house, let alone headless!” She practically yelled.
At her outburst and colourful insult everyone began to laugh again.
Jethro had never seen Amidala so annoyed, she seemed torn between being halfway amused and halfway angry. “Toad-in-a-hole?” He asked.
“She’s called me stranger things.” Endymion’s face was downright sour.
"So you were rich enough to have a poolhouse, Captain?" Ma-Ko asked.
“Urgh, trust you to latch on to that piece of information.”
Ma-Ko poked him with one of her chopsticks. “Hey! What are you implying?”
Minara came to the rescue with a distraction as she went to gently place the water jug onto the table, offering Ma-Ko a smile. Keanu took it from her out of politeness and brushed his fingers against hers. They looked at each other briefly before Minara shifted her gaze away from his, doing her best to ignore the effect he had on her ability to breathe.
“Oh hey Mina, while you’re standing, can you pass me a napkin from behind you?” Zip asked. “They’re in the lower cupboard.”
Minara’s ruby lips curled slightly at his blatant attempt to stare at her hind parts. “Sure,” she said dryly, turning around and making her way to the kitchen counter. Zip's bright green eyes never left her figure.
Valereii stopped laughing abruptly, the colour draining from her face and her violet eyes glazing over. “Fire.” She stated simply. Her delicate pale hand rose and pointed to the kitchen doorway, which lead out to the hallway and directly into the engine room.
Everyone suddenly stopped what they were doing and turned to the direction Valereii had shown them. Less than an few seconds later an ear-shattering explosion shook them all, sending Minara tumbling to the floor and knocking Zip clean out of his chair.
“What the frak was that?!” As the words left Endymion’s mouth a giant column of fire erupted from the engine room and sped through the hall towards the kitchen.
Minara scrambled to her feet, her position directly in line with the fire’s path but she wasn’t quick enough, her only option was to brace herself for the impact of the blaze, closing her eyes and lifting her arms to her face. Someone shoved her aside roughly.
“Keanu!”
The force of the fire's blast threw him into the air, landing him hard on the dining table where he hit his head, his body slumping, unconscious, to the foor.
“The doors!” Endymion yelled out.
Ma-Ko and Neapolitan closed off the kitchen back entrance, sealing the doors while Jethro and Zipper ran in the opposite direction, making their way as fast as they could to the bridge.
Endymion followed them, barking out orders. “Seal the goram engine room off!”
Zip’s sarcasm came as quickly as his reactions. “Seriously, Captain?! Is that what we should do?!” He yelled out as he slammed himself into the co-pilot’s chair and began clicking switches and operating the main controls. “It’s a really good thing you’re here to point out the obvious!”
Jethro was frantically scanning his screen from the pilot’s chair, comparing their situation in Mandarin to that of being raped by a Jovian Manticore with no lube amidst his reading out of the ship’s schematics. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the fuel temperature is seven points to critical!...Six points!”
Ma-Ko had come on to the bridge, her sweet features and green eyes radiating fear and guilt, she must have missed something when she last checked the engine, or perhaps she'd done something wrong. She chewed on her lips, her hands wringing the engine-oil stained towel which was practically surgically attached to her overalls.
"Five points until critical! Mary now would be a fine time to turn on the sprinklers!"
Despite the chaos, Zip couldn't help correcting Jethro's comment. "They're not sprinklers!" he yelled back as he stood from the chair, pushing Ma-Ko out of the way and leaning under one of the multitude of whirring machines, his hands shaking as he frantically pushed and pulled on wires. "If we used water we'd probably end up being electrocuted, it's a carbon d-"
"Four!" Jethro interrupted, not caring in the least about Zip's clarification.
Ma-Ko's eyes were as wide as saucers. “If that fire’s not put out Serenity’s gonna blow!”
Zip glared at Ma-Ko as he he stood up and ran over to the console, “What is this?! Point out the obvious day?!” He kicked at the co-pilot chair, partly in frustration and partly to get it out of the way “Frak it! I can’t stop it! The extinguishers are malfunctioning, the circuitry must be fried!”
"Is there anything I can do?" Ma-Ko asked, desperate to be useful somehow.
"You might have wanted to ask yourself that question before our engine went critical, sweetheart."
Zip's comment stung her like a needle to the heart.
Endymion made a spilt-second decision. “Jet! Seal off the key rooms downstairs and the upper deck and open up everything else!”
“But the carg-”
“Just do it!”
Jethro gave a mock salute and began to do what he was told. “Aye aye, Captain!”
--+--
Star Date: 5017.29.12 - First day of the Faction War. Twenty years earlier.
Location: Shields estate, Elysium - primary agricultural moon for the Inner Core planets.
“Hey Amidala!” Endymion put on the widest smile he could as he waved enthusiastically at the young girl reading under a tree. “Decided to come along and see me this visit?”
She looked up at him, her overly large blue eyes squinting in an intense scowl as he approached from the manor. “I don’t communicate with sub-human species,” she said, “especially ones which don’t have any consideration for the wellbeing of others.” She huffed deliberately and went back to reading her ebook.
Endymion’s eyebrows shot up and his eyes focused instead at the girl’s older version. She sat poised on the swing dangling nearby, watching her young sister read with a delicately amused smile on her pretty lips. When he got to the tree he tugged one of the ropes, pulling it gently towards himself and leaned into the dark haired girl. “Hey Rei,” he whispered into her ear, “you been waiting long?”
She leaned her head back into his chest, and shook it lightly. “No,” she said, craning her slender neck up slightly to look at him. “We had a nice chat with you mother, but it didn’t last long. She had to take a wave. It sounded important so we came outside to wait for you. Where have you been?”
“A ranch handler’s son fell off his horse, father thought it’d be good for me to tag along, seeing as I should be starting at the Med-Academy in a few months, get some work experience before I start.”
“Is the boy alright?” She asked, concerned.
“Dislocated collar bone. The doc fixed it, so the boy should be as right as rain in a few days.” Endymion wasn’t worried. “Father was a little squeamish, though,” he smiled, “he tried to hide it, but I saw he went a funny colour.”
“Why did he go with you, then?” Everyone knew that the head of the Shields family never had a strong stomach for such things, which unfortunately occurred quite often on an agricultural moon like Elysium.
“Felt like he had to, I suppose. Kid was on his land when he got hurt. To be honest he looked underage. He shouldn’t have been roping cattle.”
“I’m glad it wasn’t more serious,” she gave him a gentle smile and he returned it with a light kiss to her temple.
“Did you check for any signs of a concussion?” Amidala piped up suddenly, her voice high and harsh.
Endymion looked up at her and blinked, he’d known her since she was born, but her bluntness always surprised him. “The doc did. He’s been doing this for a number of years, you know. He knows what he’s doing.”
Amidala glared at him for a little longer and then went back to reading again.
Rei’s fourteen year old sister was frank and high-spirited, but she didn’t usually treat him with such venom. Fortunately Endymion had a good idea where the hostility originated from, unfortunately, it was his own fault. “She’s still mad over the spider?” he asked.
Rei lifted a dark eyebrow, that amused smile returning to her delicately thin lips. “Can’t you tell?”
Having his suspicion confirmed Endymion rolled his blue eyes. “That was near a month ago.”
“She has a long memory for these kinds of things.”
“I thought she’d find it interesting, like an adventure,” he said trying to justify his actions. “She collects frogs and newts, she likes those sorts of things.”
Rei blinked once. “She woke up in the middle of the night screaming because it landed on her head.”
“Yeah well, I obviously didn’t intend for her to find it that way.” Endymion almost sounded embarrassed. “I thought she’d see it in her cupboard or in the corner of her room or something. I figured she’d pin it and then stare at it under her microscope. How did she even know it was me who put it there?”
Rei smiled as she watched her younger sister, he had tried to please Amidala, which was as sweet as a gesture could get. She pulled his hand into hers, relishing in the warmth of it. “It wasn’t hard. She did some research and found out it was a common spider here, on Elysium.”
Of course she would. Endymion frowned. “Your sister is too clever for her own good.”
Rei looked up at him with careful light eyes. “She’ll be your sister too in a few weeks.”
Endymion pushed the swing away just enough for it to move, still holding her hand, and watched as the light breeze fluttered the delicate strands of Rei’s obsidian hair while she swung. He hugged her around the waist when the swing came back towards him, sighing into the crook of her neck. “You smell like Heaven,” he said as he closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath of her scent. He couldn’t help himself as his hands travelled up her waist to just under her breasts, his fingers caressing the underneath of the gentle curves through the soft cotton of her white dress.
“Stop it.” Rei’s whisper was not breathless, but it wasn’t as serious as she wanted it to sound either. “Ami is sitting right there, and my future in-laws are in the house right in front of us.”
“Let them look.” Endmyion kissed the warmth of her neck, tracing his mouth down the exposed skin of her shoulder.
She pulled away, sitting up from the swing and turning to face him. “Endy,” she stated in an effort to berate him and to get his attention, “what’s wrong?”
Endymion frowned slightly and gave her a smile as if to brush away her question, “Nothing.”
It was her turn to roll her eyes. She lifted her knee and rested her shin on the swing, bringing herself closer to him. “Is it the wedding?” she asked.
“What? No-” He tried to argue but she interrupted him.
“Every time I mention anything vaguely related to it, you veer off track.”
“No I-”
“And it’s almost always with sex,” she said, ignoring his denial. She cast her eyes downwards for a moment as if she was searching for the right thing to say before looking up again. “I’m going to be eighteen in a few weeks and you’re just nineteen, we’re young. Soon you’re going to be tied to me and it’s going to be for the rest of our lives,” she hesitated for a moment, feeling like the words had to be ripped from her mouth in order for them to get out. “It’s alright you know, to not want this, to feel like you’re trapped.”
Endymion recognised the insecurity in her voice. “Valereii Tam, look at me.” He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Is that was this is? You’re feeling trapped by our future?” he asked, twisting it on to her.
Her eyebrows raised themselves in defiance. “And you’re not?”
It was Endymion’s turn to hesitate. He wasn’t upset by her answer, it didn’t hurt his feelings because that hadn’t been her intent. He knew she loved him just as much as he loved her, but they both knew what they were getting into. It was an out-dated tradition which would hardly be thinkable on the even the outer-core planets, let alone the inner ones. Their future had been laid out for them since before either of them could talk, their parents arranging their union for the week after Rei turned eighteen.
The moons Hikawa and Elysium were two of the first moons to have been terra-formed successfully once the technology had been developed. Rei’s family, as well as his, belonged to a long line of prestigious land-owners -their moons providing large food reserves for the inner-core planets- but despite their links with the most powerful worlds in their large star system, Hikawa and Elysium had more in common with the way of life found on the boundaries: old ways of living, old ways of thinking. Wholesome family values and spitting tobacco. Where horseback was a viable form of transportation and marriage, especially if you were rich, was rarely, if ever, about love. “There are times,” he said, looking at Rei in the eyes, “Where I imagine stealing away into the night, commandeering a ship and flying as far away as I can.”
Rei smiled with a slight amount of relief knowing that she was not alone in her sentiments, but she tapped him lightly on the shoulder in a mock reprimand.
He smiled, knowing he’d gotten her back to her earlier, happier mood. “The one consolation I have is that of all the girls I could have been condemned with,” he leaned in and kissed her cheek, “I’m lucky enough to share this fate with you.” He pulled away and smiled, “And I’m hoping that you’re feeling the same way.”
She smiled in return and took his hand into hers. “At the very least,” she said, leaning in, “the sex we have is pretty good.”
His eyes looked down to her thighs and travelled up slowly, ideas about what they could be doing that afternoon forming in his head. “We’ll get even better with practice.”
“Hey, worm-gut!”
Endymion had forgotten about the obnoxious fourteen year old.
“I think she’s referring to you,” Rei tilted her head towards her younger sister.
Endymion let out a small sigh, knowing his lust would have to be curtailed in order to deal with something much less fun. “She comes up with such endearing nicknames,” he joked.
“Your ebook is wrong!" Amidala was glaring at the device like it had committed some horrible crime.
Endymion went over to investigate. “What are you reading?”
“While we were waiting for you Mrs Shields let me browse your library catalogue. I downloaded a copy of your ‘Dr Venkman’s Update on the Origin of the Species’, amongst others.”
“What’s the problem?” Endymion asked as he sat himself on the grass next to the child.
“It’s wrong.” Amidala stated with conviction. Her eyes were a deeper blue than her sister’s violet, and they were wider, framed by a heart shaped face and shiny jet black hair. She was a fearsome sight to behold when you took into account that she had barely hit puberty.
She was also ridiculously arrogant and Valereii did nothing but encourage her, which always made things more difficult for him. “Dr Venkman’s book has been the cornerstone of evolutionary science for the past century. It can’t be wrong,” he stated, dismissing her argument immediately. She was classified as a genius, everyone knew that, the girl had technically already graduated from school, but that didn’t mean she was infallible.
“It is.” She tapped on the screen, bringing the projection hologram of a complicated tree-diagram from the ebook, and highlighted certain boxes. “Now compare what I just marked out with what he says here.” She closed the projection, scrolled down and then held up the screen for him. “See?”
Having the screen shoved too close in his face to focus properly on, his reaction was automatic: “No, I don’t see.”
She let out a frustrated grunt, like he was being a huge inconvenience. “You didn’t even read it. His whole conclusion on chapter six is fallacious. Give me enough time and the right equipment and I could probably prove him incorrect in other parts as well.”
Things were getting beyond him, she seemed a little too serious in the matter. “What equipment?” he asked, warily. He did not envy her teachers.
“Test subjects would be nice. I could start with you. You could donate your body to science, it would be a good cause!” She smiled brightly, “And then I’d be able to analyse your brain and compare it to under-developed ones from thousands of years ago, although I don’t think I’d find much of a difference.”
Endymion could never tell when she was kidding around. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find himself waking up one morning in a white lab with her looming over him, clutching a scalpel. While her insults were not unusual, at least this time he knew where they came from. He got straight to the point. “I’m sorry the spider scared you," he said, genuinely expressing the sentiment. "I thought you’d enjoy finding it and figuring out how it lived.”
Amidala's face remained impassive, a sure sign that what he’d said had moved her. When she finally spoke she didn’t sound nearly as haughty as before. “It doesn’t change the fact that your ebook is wrong.”
Endymion sighed and asked the Heavens for help in Mandarin. “You’re fourteen years old, you’re not supposed to be proving fundamental ideas wrong, you’re supposed to be playing with dolls, smiling at boys and practicing for dance recitals.”
Amidala shrugged, ignoring his first two suggestions. “I’ve learnt it all already.”
“Leant what?” he asked, confused.
“My dance sequence.” She looked at Rei, “I thought you said he was coming.”
Rei looked up at Endymion, her eyes widening in an effort to get him to play along. “He is.”
Amidala was not satisfied. “He didn’t know about it.”
“So?” Rei let the toe of her shoe touch the ground, pushing lightly on it to sway the swing.
“The logical conclusion would be to assume that he hadn’t been told. How could he come if he hasn’t been told about it?”
“He’s coming.”
Amidala was still in doubt. “Are you sure? Just because you’ve got a talent for predicting outcomes correctly doesn’t mean that he’ll definitely be there.”
“I haven’t had any dreams about your recital, Ami,” Valereii said. “I just know that Endy wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
“You forgot to tell me about it, didn’t you?” Endymion whispered very low and through a smile so Amidala wouldn’t notice.
Rei looked at Endymion, her gaze apologetic. “Are you coming to Ami’s dance recital?”
Endymion smiled, shaking his head. “Wouldn’t miss it,” he said.
“You’d better not.” Amidala did her best to glare. She huffed and then turned off the ebook. “I’m going for a walk,” she announced as she stood up and made her way to the doors of the house where her blue sandals were placed.
“She’s a skinny little thing, that sister of yours, all bony elbows and knees,” Endymion commented, watching his future sister-in-law as she walked over to the manor in a white sun dress that was just a little too big for her. He expected either an insult from Ami or a light rebuff from Rei, but he received neither, both of the girls’ attention being diverted by something which seemed to have caught their eye in the sky. Endymion frowned and tried to follow their gazes, only to find he got nothing but sun in his eyes. He tried to use his hand to shade his vision but it didn’t help. “What are you stari-”
“AMI!” Rei screamed out, her eyes filled with terror as she leaped out of the swing and ran towards her sister.
A moment later a sudden whirling, whistling sound shrieked its way towards them faster that Endymion had time to think, let alone see and in almost the same instant the photon torpedo burst into his home, detonating the building like it had been a ticking bomb. The explosion threw him high into the air and then crashed him down into the branches of one of the old trees which bordered the Shield estate. His vision faded as he struggled to stay conscious but the memory of what he saw would haunt him forever -that much he knew as he finally fell into sleep.
His home, with all that he loved, was burning, and above it, the blue sky, which had been clean and clear only moments before, was now darkened with towers of smoke and flecked with an innumerable number of fearsome Silver Millennium battleships.
--+--
Star Date: 5027.15.32 - End of the Faction War, ten years later.
Dust and mud sprayed Endymion and his small rag-tag team which sat holed together in the small bunker. Shells pounded into the rocky terrain, inching ever closer to their location, each boom being louder than the last as the enemy continued on their onslaught to root out the last of the remaining weeds of the Golden Alliance.
The whizz of another round headed towards them and somebody yelled out to take cover. The ground trembled under their feet and Endymion involuntarily slid further down the low wall which barely hid them from the all-piercing gaze of the Silver Millennium.
Endymion, huddle in his position on the wall, searched his team with dark blue eyes to see if they were alright. He ignored the body which lay crumpled on the right, hidden as best it could be from view. Private Tracey had been dead for over a day now, but it wasn’t as if they’d had much of an opportunity to bury him. “I want you to know something, Keanu,” Endymion gave his second in command a serious look, the darkness of his eyes emphasised by the exhaustion which clung to his face.
“You’d better not get sentimental on me, Sir.” As Keanu said it he dared to lift himself slightly from his squatting position so that he could scan the battlefield with their only remaining pair of working night-visors. They were hopelessly outnumbered, outgunned and with almost no rations of food or water left. The last report to have come in had been about delays of resupply, and that had been over a week ago. “We’re not dead. Yet.” The last word had come out like it was an afterthought and a scream of pain seemed to enhance his point with a heavy dose of bitter ominousness.
Endymion wasn’t a fool, he knew how desperate they were, but they weren’t going to give in and surrender, they were being counted on, they were fighting a war against butchers and tyrants who killed whole families and burned away livelihoods when they didn’t agree with administrative policy. No, he wasn’t going to die, not when he still had so much to avenge, not when they had so much to live for. But he wasn’t going to spend the rest of his life rotting in a prison camp, either. So he had no choice, really. He had to fight. And they were going to win. “We’re not going to die, Lieutenant,” he stated matter-of-factly as he shoved a fresh clip into his automatic weapon. “In fact, once we get out of this mess of a hell hole, I reckon I’m gonna head straight over to your house-”
“Sir,” Keanu interrupted, temporarily ignoring the chaos just less than half a kilometre away to glare accusingly with his colourless grey eyes, “If this is going where I think it’s going-”
Endymion continued talking as if he hadn’t heard his Lieutenant’s warning tone “-I’m gonna walk myself up those rickety stairs to the front porch-”
Keanu shook his head lightly in denial. “Don’t say it, Sir.”
Endymion ignored him, “-I’m gonna knock on that little white door-”
“Sir…” Keanu’s voice held that deep threatening tone which suggested fearful consequences should Endymion dare to continue.
Endymion had always been a reckless son-of-a-bitch, “-and I’m gonna ask that sweet-hearted little sister of yours to marry me.”
A mortar exploded less than a hundred feet behind them but at that moment Endymion’s grin was so wide it reached his ears.
Keanu may or may not have wanted to punch his leader in the face. “Sir, you’re lucky you’re my Captain. It’s the only thing that’s saving you from having my foot shoved so far up your behind you’d be tasting mud and shoelace.” He wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t glaring either. “With all due respect, of course.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything else.”
“Sir!” Private Carmine, comms specialist, scrambled over as fast as his shaking limbs would let him crawl. “The channels! They’re something on the channels!” he yelled out excitedly.
If possible Endymion’s smile became wider and he punched Keanu on the arm. “I told you H and S company were tough!” He ushered Private Carmine closer, elation evident in every movement he made. “What are they saying?! Make it louder, I can’t hear it over these goram blasts!” He turned his head, sitting up, and yelled out into the night. “Keep the fraking inaccurate shelling down, you SM pansies! I’m trying to hear how long I have to wait before I can start kicking your asses again!”
Keanu yanked Endymion down again before he got his head sniped. “If you expect me to let you go anywhere near my sister, you’re going to have to stop being an idiot.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant, I’ll take that under consideration,” he shuffled over to make room for the private. “What have they got to say for themselves? What took them so long?” An explosion rocked the bunker again, spraying more rock and dust and sand, but this time Endymion just raised his hand absentmindedly and made a flippant shushing gesture with it, as if the mortar had been no more than a loud and distracting child.
Private Carmine blasted up the volume, smiling at his captain’s reckless bravado.
All the men in the bunker crouched lower, listening intently to any sounds which could be heard through the crackling telecom.
“Is that General Trescu?” Carmine asked, his head twisted to the side to hear better.
Keanu was the first to notice the shelling had stopped.
The announcement which suddenly boomed out into the night air easily overpowered the fuzzy crackling of the telecom. It instantly wiped all traces of humour and hope away, gripping at the hearts of the men in the bunker like a vice.
“THE TREATY OF SURRENDER HAS BEEN SIGNED. THE SILVER MILLENNIUM IS VICTORIOUS. GENERAL TRESCU OF THE GOLDEN ALLIANCE HAS ISSUED A COMMAND FOR ALL GOLDEN ALLIANCE ALLIES TO STAND DOWN AND SURRENDER TO THE SILVER MILLENNIUM. REPEAT. THE TREATY OF SURRENDER HAS BEEN SIGNED. THE SILVER MILLENNIUM IS VICTORIOUS-”
There was a deafening roar of elation, but it did not come from the bunker.
“No…” Endymion whispered, closing his eyes.
“W- we lost?” Carmine couldn’t believe it.
“Cowards.”
Endymion opened his eyes again to see Keanu’s face twisted in anger.
AN: Thank you to lovelylytton for her support, and for kicking my butt into writing this. Happy very belated birthday again. Also, satine86 I hope you enjoy this and that you are feeling happier. You deserve to be happy.
Star Date: 5039.26.54 - Present Day
Location : Onboard Firefly class ship Serenity
Jethro strolled into the small kitchen mid-yawn, perking up almost immediately with the atmosphere. The whole crew were sitting down for dinner, a rare occasion for them since the food was fresh and real: vegetables, spices and even meat - dried, but it was meat nonetheless. Jethro didn’t care, so long as it wasn’t another stale package of Lembas Cram, Algae Food Cubes, or his personal favourite, Soylent Green, whatever the heck that was made out of.
He took a moment to observe his pseudo-family. At the head of the table with his back to him was the captain: Endymion Shields, owner of Serenity. He was a war veteran who’d fought for the losing side, although in Jethro's opinion at least, it was the right one. Endy was a melancholic bastard but he had a heart of gold, something he did a lousy job of hiding. To his right was Keanu, his second in command, a Lieutenant back in the war but first officer on board their little ‘family’ operation. If people thought Endymion was miserable, Keanu was permanently situated under a cloud which rained down misery.
Jethro’s wife Valereii was laughing along with everyone else, bar her sister Amidala, who was wrapping up some kind of story.
“What’s the funny tale?” He asked as he planted a kiss on Rei’s head and sat himself down in the space next to her.
She was too busy laughing to able to speak and Jethro couldn’t help smiling at the fact that she was happy about something. It also made him even more curious than before so he turned to the rest of the table for help. “Guys?”
Neapolitan pointed to Amidala. “Your sister-in-law was just telling us a story from their childhood.”
“Oh yeah?” Jethro, a wide smile still plastered to his face, shifted his gaze back to his wife who confirmed it with a nod of her head. It wasn’t often that the sisters opened up about their past.
“Who’d have thought our little Ami here could be so devious?” Maryland Zipper, who liked to be known as Zip but was actually nicknamed Mary, hugged Amidala around the shoulders, causing her face to change to a much redder colour. He let her go soon enough, enjoying the fact that he made her blush with the contact.
“I could.” Endymion said, grudgingly. Jethro noticed for the first time that the Captain wasn’t laughing quite as hard as the others had been.
“Oh come on, Cappy! It was funny.” Ma-Ko said, waving her chopsticks at him before using them to pick up the last pieces of vegetables on her plate and pop them in her mouth, smiling as she chewed.
“I’d like to see how funny you’d think it was being ten years old and ending up naked on a beach at night, surrounded by thousands of crabs.” It seemed to Jethro that Endy still harboured some resentment over the issue.
At the mental image Valereii began to laugh even harder. “Your father-” She stopped mid-sentence, unable to continue without sucking in air and attempting to control herself, “Your father was furious.” Once the sentence was out she began to laugh again.
"If it were me, I'd be ashamed at the fact that I was outsmarted by a five year old." Keanu said.
Endymion practically sneered. "Ami was four."
"And I’m sure you deserved it." Minara stated as she stood, taking the water jug with her to refill it. Her Pandoran silk dress jingled slightly as she moved.
“He did!” Amidala was unusually animated as she spoke, glaring accusingly at Endymion, “He’d stolen my dolly.”
“I did not!”
“I found her in your pool house!”
“You left it there!” Endymion turned to his first mate to plead his case, “She left it there, I swear!”
Keanu raised his hands in defence. “I’m not getting involved.” He said with mock seriousness.
“Her head was missing, you horrible toad-in-a-hole! I would never have left my poor dolly in your pool house, let alone headless!” She practically yelled.
At her outburst and colourful insult everyone began to laugh again.
Jethro had never seen Amidala so annoyed, she seemed torn between being halfway amused and halfway angry. “Toad-in-a-hole?” He asked.
“She’s called me stranger things.” Endymion’s face was downright sour.
"So you were rich enough to have a poolhouse, Captain?" Ma-Ko asked.
“Urgh, trust you to latch on to that piece of information.”
Ma-Ko poked him with one of her chopsticks. “Hey! What are you implying?”
Minara came to the rescue with a distraction as she went to gently place the water jug onto the table, offering Ma-Ko a smile. Keanu took it from her out of politeness and brushed his fingers against hers. They looked at each other briefly before Minara shifted her gaze away from his, doing her best to ignore the effect he had on her ability to breathe.
“Oh hey Mina, while you’re standing, can you pass me a napkin from behind you?” Zip asked. “They’re in the lower cupboard.”
Minara’s ruby lips curled slightly at his blatant attempt to stare at her hind parts. “Sure,” she said dryly, turning around and making her way to the kitchen counter. Zip's bright green eyes never left her figure.
Valereii stopped laughing abruptly, the colour draining from her face and her violet eyes glazing over. “Fire.” She stated simply. Her delicate pale hand rose and pointed to the kitchen doorway, which lead out to the hallway and directly into the engine room.
Everyone suddenly stopped what they were doing and turned to the direction Valereii had shown them. Less than an few seconds later an ear-shattering explosion shook them all, sending Minara tumbling to the floor and knocking Zip clean out of his chair.
“What the frak was that?!” As the words left Endymion’s mouth a giant column of fire erupted from the engine room and sped through the hall towards the kitchen.
Minara scrambled to her feet, her position directly in line with the fire’s path but she wasn’t quick enough, her only option was to brace herself for the impact of the blaze, closing her eyes and lifting her arms to her face. Someone shoved her aside roughly.
“Keanu!”
The force of the fire's blast threw him into the air, landing him hard on the dining table where he hit his head, his body slumping, unconscious, to the foor.
“The doors!” Endymion yelled out.
Ma-Ko and Neapolitan closed off the kitchen back entrance, sealing the doors while Jethro and Zipper ran in the opposite direction, making their way as fast as they could to the bridge.
Endymion followed them, barking out orders. “Seal the goram engine room off!”
Zip’s sarcasm came as quickly as his reactions. “Seriously, Captain?! Is that what we should do?!” He yelled out as he slammed himself into the co-pilot’s chair and began clicking switches and operating the main controls. “It’s a really good thing you’re here to point out the obvious!”
Jethro was frantically scanning his screen from the pilot’s chair, comparing their situation in Mandarin to that of being raped by a Jovian Manticore with no lube amidst his reading out of the ship’s schematics. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the fuel temperature is seven points to critical!...Six points!”
Ma-Ko had come on to the bridge, her sweet features and green eyes radiating fear and guilt, she must have missed something when she last checked the engine, or perhaps she'd done something wrong. She chewed on her lips, her hands wringing the engine-oil stained towel which was practically surgically attached to her overalls.
"Five points until critical! Mary now would be a fine time to turn on the sprinklers!"
Despite the chaos, Zip couldn't help correcting Jethro's comment. "They're not sprinklers!" he yelled back as he stood from the chair, pushing Ma-Ko out of the way and leaning under one of the multitude of whirring machines, his hands shaking as he frantically pushed and pulled on wires. "If we used water we'd probably end up being electrocuted, it's a carbon d-"
"Four!" Jethro interrupted, not caring in the least about Zip's clarification.
Ma-Ko's eyes were as wide as saucers. “If that fire’s not put out Serenity’s gonna blow!”
Zip glared at Ma-Ko as he he stood up and ran over to the console, “What is this?! Point out the obvious day?!” He kicked at the co-pilot chair, partly in frustration and partly to get it out of the way “Frak it! I can’t stop it! The extinguishers are malfunctioning, the circuitry must be fried!”
"Is there anything I can do?" Ma-Ko asked, desperate to be useful somehow.
"You might have wanted to ask yourself that question before our engine went critical, sweetheart."
Zip's comment stung her like a needle to the heart.
Endymion made a spilt-second decision. “Jet! Seal off the key rooms downstairs and the upper deck and open up everything else!”
“But the carg-”
“Just do it!”
Jethro gave a mock salute and began to do what he was told. “Aye aye, Captain!”
--+--
Star Date: 5017.29.12 - First day of the Faction War. Twenty years earlier.
Location: Shields estate, Elysium - primary agricultural moon for the Inner Core planets.
“Hey Amidala!” Endymion put on the widest smile he could as he waved enthusiastically at the young girl reading under a tree. “Decided to come along and see me this visit?”
She looked up at him, her overly large blue eyes squinting in an intense scowl as he approached from the manor. “I don’t communicate with sub-human species,” she said, “especially ones which don’t have any consideration for the wellbeing of others.” She huffed deliberately and went back to reading her ebook.
Endymion’s eyebrows shot up and his eyes focused instead at the girl’s older version. She sat poised on the swing dangling nearby, watching her young sister read with a delicately amused smile on her pretty lips. When he got to the tree he tugged one of the ropes, pulling it gently towards himself and leaned into the dark haired girl. “Hey Rei,” he whispered into her ear, “you been waiting long?”
She leaned her head back into his chest, and shook it lightly. “No,” she said, craning her slender neck up slightly to look at him. “We had a nice chat with you mother, but it didn’t last long. She had to take a wave. It sounded important so we came outside to wait for you. Where have you been?”
“A ranch handler’s son fell off his horse, father thought it’d be good for me to tag along, seeing as I should be starting at the Med-Academy in a few months, get some work experience before I start.”
“Is the boy alright?” She asked, concerned.
“Dislocated collar bone. The doc fixed it, so the boy should be as right as rain in a few days.” Endymion wasn’t worried. “Father was a little squeamish, though,” he smiled, “he tried to hide it, but I saw he went a funny colour.”
“Why did he go with you, then?” Everyone knew that the head of the Shields family never had a strong stomach for such things, which unfortunately occurred quite often on an agricultural moon like Elysium.
“Felt like he had to, I suppose. Kid was on his land when he got hurt. To be honest he looked underage. He shouldn’t have been roping cattle.”
“I’m glad it wasn’t more serious,” she gave him a gentle smile and he returned it with a light kiss to her temple.
“Did you check for any signs of a concussion?” Amidala piped up suddenly, her voice high and harsh.
Endymion looked up at her and blinked, he’d known her since she was born, but her bluntness always surprised him. “The doc did. He’s been doing this for a number of years, you know. He knows what he’s doing.”
Amidala glared at him for a little longer and then went back to reading again.
Rei’s fourteen year old sister was frank and high-spirited, but she didn’t usually treat him with such venom. Fortunately Endymion had a good idea where the hostility originated from, unfortunately, it was his own fault. “She’s still mad over the spider?” he asked.
Rei lifted a dark eyebrow, that amused smile returning to her delicately thin lips. “Can’t you tell?”
Having his suspicion confirmed Endymion rolled his blue eyes. “That was near a month ago.”
“She has a long memory for these kinds of things.”
“I thought she’d find it interesting, like an adventure,” he said trying to justify his actions. “She collects frogs and newts, she likes those sorts of things.”
Rei blinked once. “She woke up in the middle of the night screaming because it landed on her head.”
“Yeah well, I obviously didn’t intend for her to find it that way.” Endymion almost sounded embarrassed. “I thought she’d see it in her cupboard or in the corner of her room or something. I figured she’d pin it and then stare at it under her microscope. How did she even know it was me who put it there?”
Rei smiled as she watched her younger sister, he had tried to please Amidala, which was as sweet as a gesture could get. She pulled his hand into hers, relishing in the warmth of it. “It wasn’t hard. She did some research and found out it was a common spider here, on Elysium.”
Of course she would. Endymion frowned. “Your sister is too clever for her own good.”
Rei looked up at him with careful light eyes. “She’ll be your sister too in a few weeks.”
Endymion pushed the swing away just enough for it to move, still holding her hand, and watched as the light breeze fluttered the delicate strands of Rei’s obsidian hair while she swung. He hugged her around the waist when the swing came back towards him, sighing into the crook of her neck. “You smell like Heaven,” he said as he closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath of her scent. He couldn’t help himself as his hands travelled up her waist to just under her breasts, his fingers caressing the underneath of the gentle curves through the soft cotton of her white dress.
“Stop it.” Rei’s whisper was not breathless, but it wasn’t as serious as she wanted it to sound either. “Ami is sitting right there, and my future in-laws are in the house right in front of us.”
“Let them look.” Endmyion kissed the warmth of her neck, tracing his mouth down the exposed skin of her shoulder.
She pulled away, sitting up from the swing and turning to face him. “Endy,” she stated in an effort to berate him and to get his attention, “what’s wrong?”
Endymion frowned slightly and gave her a smile as if to brush away her question, “Nothing.”
It was her turn to roll her eyes. She lifted her knee and rested her shin on the swing, bringing herself closer to him. “Is it the wedding?” she asked.
“What? No-” He tried to argue but she interrupted him.
“Every time I mention anything vaguely related to it, you veer off track.”
“No I-”
“And it’s almost always with sex,” she said, ignoring his denial. She cast her eyes downwards for a moment as if she was searching for the right thing to say before looking up again. “I’m going to be eighteen in a few weeks and you’re just nineteen, we’re young. Soon you’re going to be tied to me and it’s going to be for the rest of our lives,” she hesitated for a moment, feeling like the words had to be ripped from her mouth in order for them to get out. “It’s alright you know, to not want this, to feel like you’re trapped.”
Endymion recognised the insecurity in her voice. “Valereii Tam, look at me.” He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Is that was this is? You’re feeling trapped by our future?” he asked, twisting it on to her.
Her eyebrows raised themselves in defiance. “And you’re not?”
It was Endymion’s turn to hesitate. He wasn’t upset by her answer, it didn’t hurt his feelings because that hadn’t been her intent. He knew she loved him just as much as he loved her, but they both knew what they were getting into. It was an out-dated tradition which would hardly be thinkable on the even the outer-core planets, let alone the inner ones. Their future had been laid out for them since before either of them could talk, their parents arranging their union for the week after Rei turned eighteen.
The moons Hikawa and Elysium were two of the first moons to have been terra-formed successfully once the technology had been developed. Rei’s family, as well as his, belonged to a long line of prestigious land-owners -their moons providing large food reserves for the inner-core planets- but despite their links with the most powerful worlds in their large star system, Hikawa and Elysium had more in common with the way of life found on the boundaries: old ways of living, old ways of thinking. Wholesome family values and spitting tobacco. Where horseback was a viable form of transportation and marriage, especially if you were rich, was rarely, if ever, about love. “There are times,” he said, looking at Rei in the eyes, “Where I imagine stealing away into the night, commandeering a ship and flying as far away as I can.”
Rei smiled with a slight amount of relief knowing that she was not alone in her sentiments, but she tapped him lightly on the shoulder in a mock reprimand.
He smiled, knowing he’d gotten her back to her earlier, happier mood. “The one consolation I have is that of all the girls I could have been condemned with,” he leaned in and kissed her cheek, “I’m lucky enough to share this fate with you.” He pulled away and smiled, “And I’m hoping that you’re feeling the same way.”
She smiled in return and took his hand into hers. “At the very least,” she said, leaning in, “the sex we have is pretty good.”
His eyes looked down to her thighs and travelled up slowly, ideas about what they could be doing that afternoon forming in his head. “We’ll get even better with practice.”
“Hey, worm-gut!”
Endymion had forgotten about the obnoxious fourteen year old.
“I think she’s referring to you,” Rei tilted her head towards her younger sister.
Endymion let out a small sigh, knowing his lust would have to be curtailed in order to deal with something much less fun. “She comes up with such endearing nicknames,” he joked.
“Your ebook is wrong!" Amidala was glaring at the device like it had committed some horrible crime.
Endymion went over to investigate. “What are you reading?”
“While we were waiting for you Mrs Shields let me browse your library catalogue. I downloaded a copy of your ‘Dr Venkman’s Update on the Origin of the Species’, amongst others.”
“What’s the problem?” Endymion asked as he sat himself on the grass next to the child.
“It’s wrong.” Amidala stated with conviction. Her eyes were a deeper blue than her sister’s violet, and they were wider, framed by a heart shaped face and shiny jet black hair. She was a fearsome sight to behold when you took into account that she had barely hit puberty.
She was also ridiculously arrogant and Valereii did nothing but encourage her, which always made things more difficult for him. “Dr Venkman’s book has been the cornerstone of evolutionary science for the past century. It can’t be wrong,” he stated, dismissing her argument immediately. She was classified as a genius, everyone knew that, the girl had technically already graduated from school, but that didn’t mean she was infallible.
“It is.” She tapped on the screen, bringing the projection hologram of a complicated tree-diagram from the ebook, and highlighted certain boxes. “Now compare what I just marked out with what he says here.” She closed the projection, scrolled down and then held up the screen for him. “See?”
Having the screen shoved too close in his face to focus properly on, his reaction was automatic: “No, I don’t see.”
She let out a frustrated grunt, like he was being a huge inconvenience. “You didn’t even read it. His whole conclusion on chapter six is fallacious. Give me enough time and the right equipment and I could probably prove him incorrect in other parts as well.”
Things were getting beyond him, she seemed a little too serious in the matter. “What equipment?” he asked, warily. He did not envy her teachers.
“Test subjects would be nice. I could start with you. You could donate your body to science, it would be a good cause!” She smiled brightly, “And then I’d be able to analyse your brain and compare it to under-developed ones from thousands of years ago, although I don’t think I’d find much of a difference.”
Endymion could never tell when she was kidding around. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find himself waking up one morning in a white lab with her looming over him, clutching a scalpel. While her insults were not unusual, at least this time he knew where they came from. He got straight to the point. “I’m sorry the spider scared you," he said, genuinely expressing the sentiment. "I thought you’d enjoy finding it and figuring out how it lived.”
Amidala's face remained impassive, a sure sign that what he’d said had moved her. When she finally spoke she didn’t sound nearly as haughty as before. “It doesn’t change the fact that your ebook is wrong.”
Endymion sighed and asked the Heavens for help in Mandarin. “You’re fourteen years old, you’re not supposed to be proving fundamental ideas wrong, you’re supposed to be playing with dolls, smiling at boys and practicing for dance recitals.”
Amidala shrugged, ignoring his first two suggestions. “I’ve learnt it all already.”
“Leant what?” he asked, confused.
“My dance sequence.” She looked at Rei, “I thought you said he was coming.”
Rei looked up at Endymion, her eyes widening in an effort to get him to play along. “He is.”
Amidala was not satisfied. “He didn’t know about it.”
“So?” Rei let the toe of her shoe touch the ground, pushing lightly on it to sway the swing.
“The logical conclusion would be to assume that he hadn’t been told. How could he come if he hasn’t been told about it?”
“He’s coming.”
Amidala was still in doubt. “Are you sure? Just because you’ve got a talent for predicting outcomes correctly doesn’t mean that he’ll definitely be there.”
“I haven’t had any dreams about your recital, Ami,” Valereii said. “I just know that Endy wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
“You forgot to tell me about it, didn’t you?” Endymion whispered very low and through a smile so Amidala wouldn’t notice.
Rei looked at Endymion, her gaze apologetic. “Are you coming to Ami’s dance recital?”
Endymion smiled, shaking his head. “Wouldn’t miss it,” he said.
“You’d better not.” Amidala did her best to glare. She huffed and then turned off the ebook. “I’m going for a walk,” she announced as she stood up and made her way to the doors of the house where her blue sandals were placed.
“She’s a skinny little thing, that sister of yours, all bony elbows and knees,” Endymion commented, watching his future sister-in-law as she walked over to the manor in a white sun dress that was just a little too big for her. He expected either an insult from Ami or a light rebuff from Rei, but he received neither, both of the girls’ attention being diverted by something which seemed to have caught their eye in the sky. Endymion frowned and tried to follow their gazes, only to find he got nothing but sun in his eyes. He tried to use his hand to shade his vision but it didn’t help. “What are you stari-”
“AMI!” Rei screamed out, her eyes filled with terror as she leaped out of the swing and ran towards her sister.
A moment later a sudden whirling, whistling sound shrieked its way towards them faster that Endymion had time to think, let alone see and in almost the same instant the photon torpedo burst into his home, detonating the building like it had been a ticking bomb. The explosion threw him high into the air and then crashed him down into the branches of one of the old trees which bordered the Shield estate. His vision faded as he struggled to stay conscious but the memory of what he saw would haunt him forever -that much he knew as he finally fell into sleep.
His home, with all that he loved, was burning, and above it, the blue sky, which had been clean and clear only moments before, was now darkened with towers of smoke and flecked with an innumerable number of fearsome Silver Millennium battleships.
--+--
Star Date: 5027.15.32 - End of the Faction War, ten years later.
Dust and mud sprayed Endymion and his small rag-tag team which sat holed together in the small bunker. Shells pounded into the rocky terrain, inching ever closer to their location, each boom being louder than the last as the enemy continued on their onslaught to root out the last of the remaining weeds of the Golden Alliance.
The whizz of another round headed towards them and somebody yelled out to take cover. The ground trembled under their feet and Endymion involuntarily slid further down the low wall which barely hid them from the all-piercing gaze of the Silver Millennium.
Endymion, huddle in his position on the wall, searched his team with dark blue eyes to see if they were alright. He ignored the body which lay crumpled on the right, hidden as best it could be from view. Private Tracey had been dead for over a day now, but it wasn’t as if they’d had much of an opportunity to bury him. “I want you to know something, Keanu,” Endymion gave his second in command a serious look, the darkness of his eyes emphasised by the exhaustion which clung to his face.
“You’d better not get sentimental on me, Sir.” As Keanu said it he dared to lift himself slightly from his squatting position so that he could scan the battlefield with their only remaining pair of working night-visors. They were hopelessly outnumbered, outgunned and with almost no rations of food or water left. The last report to have come in had been about delays of resupply, and that had been over a week ago. “We’re not dead. Yet.” The last word had come out like it was an afterthought and a scream of pain seemed to enhance his point with a heavy dose of bitter ominousness.
Endymion wasn’t a fool, he knew how desperate they were, but they weren’t going to give in and surrender, they were being counted on, they were fighting a war against butchers and tyrants who killed whole families and burned away livelihoods when they didn’t agree with administrative policy. No, he wasn’t going to die, not when he still had so much to avenge, not when they had so much to live for. But he wasn’t going to spend the rest of his life rotting in a prison camp, either. So he had no choice, really. He had to fight. And they were going to win. “We’re not going to die, Lieutenant,” he stated matter-of-factly as he shoved a fresh clip into his automatic weapon. “In fact, once we get out of this mess of a hell hole, I reckon I’m gonna head straight over to your house-”
“Sir,” Keanu interrupted, temporarily ignoring the chaos just less than half a kilometre away to glare accusingly with his colourless grey eyes, “If this is going where I think it’s going-”
Endymion continued talking as if he hadn’t heard his Lieutenant’s warning tone “-I’m gonna walk myself up those rickety stairs to the front porch-”
Keanu shook his head lightly in denial. “Don’t say it, Sir.”
Endymion ignored him, “-I’m gonna knock on that little white door-”
“Sir…” Keanu’s voice held that deep threatening tone which suggested fearful consequences should Endymion dare to continue.
Endymion had always been a reckless son-of-a-bitch, “-and I’m gonna ask that sweet-hearted little sister of yours to marry me.”
A mortar exploded less than a hundred feet behind them but at that moment Endymion’s grin was so wide it reached his ears.
Keanu may or may not have wanted to punch his leader in the face. “Sir, you’re lucky you’re my Captain. It’s the only thing that’s saving you from having my foot shoved so far up your behind you’d be tasting mud and shoelace.” He wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t glaring either. “With all due respect, of course.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything else.”
“Sir!” Private Carmine, comms specialist, scrambled over as fast as his shaking limbs would let him crawl. “The channels! They’re something on the channels!” he yelled out excitedly.
If possible Endymion’s smile became wider and he punched Keanu on the arm. “I told you H and S company were tough!” He ushered Private Carmine closer, elation evident in every movement he made. “What are they saying?! Make it louder, I can’t hear it over these goram blasts!” He turned his head, sitting up, and yelled out into the night. “Keep the fraking inaccurate shelling down, you SM pansies! I’m trying to hear how long I have to wait before I can start kicking your asses again!”
Keanu yanked Endymion down again before he got his head sniped. “If you expect me to let you go anywhere near my sister, you’re going to have to stop being an idiot.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant, I’ll take that under consideration,” he shuffled over to make room for the private. “What have they got to say for themselves? What took them so long?” An explosion rocked the bunker again, spraying more rock and dust and sand, but this time Endymion just raised his hand absentmindedly and made a flippant shushing gesture with it, as if the mortar had been no more than a loud and distracting child.
Private Carmine blasted up the volume, smiling at his captain’s reckless bravado.
All the men in the bunker crouched lower, listening intently to any sounds which could be heard through the crackling telecom.
“Is that General Trescu?” Carmine asked, his head twisted to the side to hear better.
Keanu was the first to notice the shelling had stopped.
The announcement which suddenly boomed out into the night air easily overpowered the fuzzy crackling of the telecom. It instantly wiped all traces of humour and hope away, gripping at the hearts of the men in the bunker like a vice.
“THE TREATY OF SURRENDER HAS BEEN SIGNED. THE SILVER MILLENNIUM IS VICTORIOUS. GENERAL TRESCU OF THE GOLDEN ALLIANCE HAS ISSUED A COMMAND FOR ALL GOLDEN ALLIANCE ALLIES TO STAND DOWN AND SURRENDER TO THE SILVER MILLENNIUM. REPEAT. THE TREATY OF SURRENDER HAS BEEN SIGNED. THE SILVER MILLENNIUM IS VICTORIOUS-”
There was a deafening roar of elation, but it did not come from the bunker.
“No…” Endymion whispered, closing his eyes.
“W- we lost?” Carmine couldn’t believe it.
“Cowards.”
Endymion opened his eyes again to see Keanu’s face twisted in anger.