The boy rolled over onto his side, staring at his own reflection in his bedroom window. In the distance he saw the train rolling out of station, and remembered it was where he would meet his own fate. Murdered by a man whose name he didn't remember.
He swallowed nervously, rolling back over to look up at his roof.
...
His dream was to retire into peace and comfort, but instead he would be condemned to an eternity of war and toil. Whether it was this first life, clawing for each and every promotion, taking credit for the work of others and foisting his duties onto the weak willed, or the second where an entire world was committed to a pointless war just to punish him for speaking the truth.
It was even worse in his third life. It wouldn't just be a world, or a nation in battle with another, but a Galaxy of trillions of sentients, all setting themselves against his future family. What was the point of it all? Why keep fighting when it would only be taken away?
Why did it matter if her family was dragged away in chains to become hostages and puppets? Why should she care if the 203rd was slaughtered? Why would he care if his father never came home? It was foolish to hope the man would ever grow a spine. That he would stand proud, stand tall, and demand time off to be with his family. And there was no way that his father would ever quit when he was so pathetically broken.
No, he wouldn't be like that useless man. He wouldn't back down, or surrender, or give up. He had a dream, a vision of peace, of security. A chance to be greater and do more.
The boy would not give up, just because his father had. If only he'd known as a youth what he learned as an adult later in life. If he could just talk with his father, explain to the dead eyed office drone that he was doing nothing, achieving only his own suffering. That maybe the man didn't have what it took to rise through the ranks, but he did have his own potential, talents that he earned with hard work. Maybe the man could be happier with a smaller apartment, running his own business, setting his own hours. Working less, making less, but at least spending time with his son.
Could the boy convince him of that? Was it too late to change?
Swallowing down the nervous lump in his throat, the boy stood and came back out to the living room. Surprised at his own nervousness, he picked up the phone, and dialled. The sound of ringing from outside the door caused the boy to look up. Surprised, he watched as the lock turned, and his father stepped through the door.
"Son?" The man blinked, taking off his glasses, and rubbing the indentations at the top of his nose. Beneath his eyes black bags hung, and he stunk of freshly applied deodorant, trying to hide the smell of cigarettes. "You're still up?"
"Yes. Yes, I'm still up, and we need to talk." The boy replied. "You're killing yourself for nothing, and I'm not going to stand by and watch it happen anymore."
...
Unified Year 1927
Rain pelted Tanya Degeurechaff, thick droplets spattering off her already soaking flight suit to drip down to the waves crashing beneath her. The seas rolled in the storm, dark undulating masses of waves edged with streaks of white foam, like gaping maws with hungry teeth eager to claim her if she fell.
Far below a tiny set of lights were just barely visible as it rolled and bobbed with the waves. Behind her what remained of her Airborne Division flew behind her in a loose formation, only visible to each other at all thanks to the glow of their computation orbs.
Her radio crackled. "Major, we need to land!"
She considered the idea, then decided against it. They shouldn't be too far from shore at this point. With just a few hours of extra flying they could find somewhere to recuperate in the Empire. Conditions were unpleasant, and even dangerous, but they should have enough mana to make it.
Besides, what if that was an enemy ship? All it would take is a single radio transmission to doom them all.
"We don't know if that's one of ours." She answered. "Keep flying."
"I don't think we're gonna make it, Ma'am!"
"We're not far now." Tanya replied, feeling her temper rising, but keeping her voice calm. "If that's an enemy ship, they could call the Albish mages down on us. We have to keep going."
She waited for a reply, but there was none. It seemed like the conversation was over, when all of a sudden one of the lights floating behind her broke formation and swooped down towards the ship.
"Get back in formation!" Tanya barked through the radio. "Soldier! That's an order!"
The man didn't reply.
There was a long silence, as the group waited to find out if the ship represented their salvation or their doom. Tanya felt her own heart thudding against her breast as she realised that this stupid fool of a soldier had probably damned them all.
"It's the Kriegsmarine!" The soldier called over the radio, relief and joy in his voice. "Guys, we can shelter here!"
Tanya snarled some curses to herself, wishing that the man was dead for his foolishness.
Defeat became inevitable when the Allied Kingdom finally announced their entrance to the war. Even before that, the Kaiser's enemies were all being funded by the island kingdom, and there were plenty of Albish mages serving as volunteers among the Francois and the Russy. The Kaiser was slowly ground down by a war on two fronts, and it became clearer and clearer that victory was improbable at best. The already bleak situation was made worse by the Royal Navy's blockade, starving the warmachine of vital resources at a crucial moment.
So a plan was hatched, a desperate one. If the Kriegsmarine could encircle a small part of the Royal Navy and sink it, then return to port safely, the threat of future attacks would force the Albish to abandon their blockade. The obvious problem was that the Albish Navy was more than twice the size of the Imperial one, and Albish spies were spread all through the Empire. It seemed just as likely that instead of a portion of the Albish Navy being destroyed, it would be the Kriegsmarine getting sent to the bottom of the ocean.
It was the kind of operation that, if successful, would at best buy the Empire more time, and at worst, would see it defeated completely. When presented with the plan, Tanya had advised against the operation.
The Albish Navy had always been that nation's military priority, and their Marine Mage Division had been untouched by the entirety of the war. Though the Marine Mages were inexperienced, they would be fighting in numbers that the Kaiser couldn't hope to match without sacrificing his other fronts. It would take a miracle for her to win.
Well, that ended up being what high command had demanded of her, and now here she was miracle-less. The first part of the plan, encircling and destroying a portion of the Royal Navy, had gone smoothly, but it wasn't long at all until it became clear that the Royal Navy was now encircling the entire Kriegsmarine!
What followed was chaos, and panic. Ship batteries lit up the night as swarms of mages exchanged fire above the fleet. Tanya and her men hadn't been able to support the battling ships much, because they were desperately trying to survive an enemy force that was better equipped for naval operations and outnumbered them by a significant margin. Finally the Admiral had given the order to make a breakout attempt, aiming to rally once they got closer to the Empire, and Tanya had ordered her mages to follow her as she punched her way through swarms of Royal Mage Marines to freedom.
Now, as her exhausted and weary men began to set down on what seemed like a small Imperial destroyer, Tanya finally had a chance to count what remained of her men. It didn't take long.
Of every ten mages who had followed her out that night, only three were still alive. Tanya grit her teeth, cursing the Kaiser in her mind, cursing the Admiral who oversaw this disaster, cursing herself for not refusing the order, even if it meant getting shot.
Her cursing came to a sudden halt, when she finally found Viktoria, her left leg missing beneath the knee. Somehow she'd managed to wrap a tourniquet on the injury and keep fighting, the bleeding slowed by the freezing air high above the Atlantic Ocean.
Tanya hurried over to her. "Lieutenant." She said, and tried to shake her shoulder. Viktoria was pale, and shivering. Cold from a mixture of blood loss and a wet flight suit. "Get her below deck!" Tanya yelled! "Find her somewhere warm!"
Some of the burlier mages hurried to follow her orders, as a voice said, "It's a good thing I dropped down to check the ship."
Tanya spun on the spot, her eyes locking on a fresh faced young teen, barely fifteen. He was new to the airborne, so much so that Tanya didn't even remember his name at that moment.
Seeing the expression on Tanya's face, the teen added, "The Lieutenant wouldn't have been able to fly much longer, if I didn't check. Sir."
Without even thinking, her hand undied the clip on her pistol holster, and the soldier gaped as she drew on him.
"How many times do you fools have to ruin everything!" She snarled. "You won't listen! You never listen! No matter how blindingly obvious the truth is, no matter what reason or logic would dictate, you just do as you please and drag me down to hell with you!"
"Major, I-"
"Shut up!" She snarled at him. "I should shoot you! It would be pointless, it would achieve nothing, but for a moment at least I would draw the satisfaction of making a fool suffer the consequences of his impulsive actions!"
She pointed the pistol at him, feeling the weight of it in her hands, but after a moment she lowered the gun. "This is it, Gentlemen. Tonight we've lost the war. The naval blockade will slowly choke our industries down to nothing, as our people starve and the enemy armies slowly draw closer and closer to Baerun. Russy soldiers will rape the women and plunder all of value, while the Francois will impose all blame for the war on us. Some of you here will even be made to stand trial for the same crimes that our enemies committed against us."
"None of this is your fault, or mine. Like me, you've all done your utmost on every occasion. Delivering victory after impossible victory, time and time again, only for the incompetence of other men to condemn us all to this miserable fate. I had a perfect, unbroken streak of victories under my belt, and for the first time I have what is a clear, indisputable loss to be tallied against me at the last moment. How can I pretend that it doesn't annoy me?"
She looked around her, at the strange, unmoving faces of all her men. They weren't real. They were merely projections conjured up by the Temple. With a snarl Tanya pitched the pistol overboard.
...
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