[img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/210326/65c08e968210fc0f8f4e362933a4d4e5.png[/img] He had noticed the other Alex's gaze fall to the heirloom he still carried, the weight evidently too much for his friend to bear. [i][color=thistle]"What else could they do? They weren't going to let a Vinlander lead one of Gallia's proudest regiments, not that there was much of it left to lead after that."[/color][/i] Alex was mildly impressed by the ease at which he was slipping back into the rhythms of the old Imperial tongue. Many of his journal entries were written in that language but it had been some time since he had actually spoken it. Perhaps the shock was to blame, his brain so rattled by the resurrection he was witnessing that it didn't have time to stumble about. It found the words it needed instead of wasting time. The "explanation" explained nothing. Alex kept his face devoid of emotion, responding to the non-answer with clinical impassivity. [i][color=thistle]"I see."[/color][/i] He of course saw nothing but he would simply have to deal with the blindness for the time. Alexandre's assertion, while charming in its poetic notions of camaraderie blessed by the heavens, seemed inaccurate. Alex played along, breaking his mask so that a genuine snicker could shine through.[i][color=thistle]"The Valkyrur haven't ever looked on a Darcsen with anything less than disgust, it's the reason we're in this mess to begin with. Let's hope they like you enough to keep from smiting me for another day."[/color][/i] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And then the time came. The Captain kept it simple, relaying the orders without explanation or expectation of questions. It was best that way. Alex's wartime service had taught him a very important lesson that training had neglected to instill: to find the intelligence of the average soldier one simply had to take the average civilian and cut whatever intellect they had in half. In the case of fractions you always rounded down. There were plenty of cunning soldiers to be sure, every branch absolutely infested with card sharks, smugglers and men who could could concoct all manner of schemes to shirk their assigned duties but the fact of the matter was that the Federation didn't sent its most educated to die in the trenches. At least not without an officer's cap and a pistol at their side. Captain Middleton spoke to the sensibilities possessed by every trooper, the ones instilled by boot camp if nothing else: kill them quickly and get back in one piece. His orders were dumbed down for the lowest common denominator and thus there was no excuse for failure. Everyone knew what they had to do, the only question was how many of them would come out of it alive. As much as Alex would have liked to say 'all of them' that killjoy common sense kept him from jumping to conclusions. The brass had proven his theory about military intelligence by assigning snipers and machine gunners to a close-quarters raid where there would be no time to compensate for mistakes born from a lack of experience fighting up close. Things would be interesting, he was damn sure about that. He felt naked without his rifle but had decided against trying to the maneuver the thing in the confines of the trenches. At those ranges the showpiece pistol his father had given him would do well enough. A knife tucked in his waistband and a couple of grenades were the only other weaponry he brought. He could manage with them just fine. Unless of course the fool gunner ruined things by bolting in without support, there was little he could do about that. The sergeant watched as she dropped into the trench with no plan and no backup, all sorts of violent words swarming around his head before being distilled into an urgent command. [color=thistle]"White! Make sure she doesn't get killed."[/color] It was punctuated with a gunshot, Alex drawing a bead on the poor Imperial nearest to him and blowing his brains out of his skull. [url=https://fontmeme.com/handwriting-fonts/][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/210318/fd874d0b1b03251af6b502d1ae84f409.png[/img][/url] [color=4F97A3]"On it."[/color] Oh sure, send the Occie ahead to babysit the psycho dirt-hair, of course. Victoria hadn't been involved with the whole Breached Gates shitstorm but it still found ways to ruin her life. After that mess her nationality just put a target on her back, a big fucking sign that read 'Forlorn Hope here! Will take part in suicidal charges for shit wages!' What gave it away? It was probably the hat. Well, that and the fact that she was huge and had a background in street brawling. And her specific training based around fixed bayonet, whites-of-the-eyes type close-in killing. Ah the life of a shocktrooper. She lived for that stuff. Boots slid across muck-coated wood and bits of brain matter, Victoria scrambling forward like a rat who had sighted a defenseless chick. There had been no chance of their whole team slipping into the trenches unnoticed, thus why the boss-man had wasted one of the enemy already with his giant .45. The game now revolved around a simple question of speed. Could the Feds get what they needed before the Imps swarmed in and shot them all to death? Could the Imp that had just watched his friend die recover his wits and get a shot off before Vicky flattened him? As it turned out the answer to that second one was no. Victoria had simply surged ahead too quickly and planted her bayonet inside the unfortunate boy's belly. A couple hundred pounds of madwoman putting all her weight into the stab forced the air from his lungs, the scream his body wanted to release nothing more than a choked gurgle. Two down and more to go.