The First Days

[Meatslopper]

Chapter Three: Taste

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Esme had tasted beer once. She’d never liked it, it was sharp and stung the back of her gullet and she’d wondered why the adults seemed so fascinated with it. In her deployment on Vykos, she’d stopped asking that question. In fact, she wished she could be just a little less sober just about now, her teeth sunk into a pillow as a needle etched into her back, a lance, the mark of the 7802nd Cavalry Division. The dull throb of where the neddle passed only matched by the anticipation of the spike of pain to come. The ability to bear punishment came with time. It came easier when she wasn’t heckled by a gathering crowd, she numbly ignored.

“Smile Esme,” Corvos bellowed loudly with a cocksure grin from the bed next to her, “we’re Lancers now.”

It had seemed a good idea at first to join the same unit as Corvos at first. She wasn’t so sure now, she thought sardonically, and he wasn’t the worst. Private Illia might be the worst to follow on from basic, she found glee in her every yelp, no matter how he tried to hide it. Illia hid it behind the banter but she didn’t like her and Esme couldn’t figure out why.

“Well, some, more than others,” Illia who’d been berated for her phoney accent hadn’t given up and by now, it had lulled into a more natural Imperial cadence.

“So you, you infantile pillock,” Sergeant Yam remarked, completely straight faced adjusting his rotund glasses.

“I think we should introduce a policy for whining while you get your tattoo, separate the weak from the chaff,” Illia smiled.

“She hasn’t complained once!” Corvos called over..

“Uh, no, I don’t think I have at least,” Esme managed to get out while crying in agony.

“She probably just can’t like, get it out between the chorus.”

The Tattooist was halfway through what she presumed was the 0 on her back when there was a thunder of footsteps and a voice that echoed through the chamber, as a Private she didn’t recognise sprang into the chamber.

“We’re heading to Agamar! We’re heading to Agamar! It’ll be just a week, they have a plan.”

She wouldn’t get that beer.

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Just a week he’d said. She hoped so, She’d wrapped up her back with kolto bandages and hopefully, that would settle the dull pain, as she wrestled with her pack. Settling into a comfortable spot among the ranks of the leaving Speeders. There were rows upon rows of them, all doing their final checks, as Officers wandered in between. They awaited at a landing pad, soon to be bundled up within the hangar bay of the VT-22, Light Troop Transport. The Dark Resolve was a brick of a vessel at its core. The underslung hangars formed the main body of the vessel was a trapezoid, with its armoured bow joined beneath an overhanging angular frame, that jutted all the way backwards to the engines, where it hooked around, forming jagged pyramids striking outwards from the superstructure. Its cockpit is a different blocky segment, looking down on them from above. It drew closer and closer until its shadow engulfed them. She felt the wind beat at her through the armour and she tightened her hands upon the controls and listened to the thump of her heart. On Vykos, she faced desidents and traitors. On Agamar she’d face the Republic for the first time since Orsus, she wasn’t eager to face them again but she would because that’s what she was told to do.

“You ready, Roi, Illia?” Corvos roared over the winds.

“I guess?” She answered meekly, likely not to be heard.

“Well of course!” Illia cried.

Sergeant Yam Semaj hushed them, “Will you be quiet!”

Then the order came. Passing down a chain larger than she could imagine she watched as, row upon row, of black Speeders, kicked their engines into gear, their whine and thrum, a chorus to drown out even the great thrusters of the Dark Resolve above. It stung her ears, as their fumes stung her throat. She followed her orders.

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Flak shook the transport. Cacophonous explosions followed them all the way towards the surface and she could practically taste the tang of energy in the air and her own sweat that wet her lips. Only Corvos seemed at ease and just barely. The silence was killing him. It was out of their hands and that was comforting but only to an extent, their entire unit, everyone here, could be wiped out before their bikes struck the earth. The first line of cavalry and the shuttles behind. Gone. In an instance, it was all down to luck.She was just waiting to see where that coin fell. She itched the back of her helmet absentmindedly and tapped the hilt of her lance against the steel. It had been her hope that the war would be over before she ever blunted it on the Republic but even she had realised the unlikeliness of her goal.

“Company!” A voice yelled, “Company! Attention!”

There was a clatter of lances as they drew straight, the point of the weapons rising to the heavens above.

“Company! You will perform readiness checks!”

Shield Generator check. Speeder check. Powered Lance check. Comms check.

“Company! On my command you will start your engines… Begin!”

She felt her Speeder rumble beneath her. Imperial engineering at its finest working to pass, a roar that quaked through her entire body. It’s thum as natural a way of sound as the scream of hundreds of engines in a cacophonous concert, that called for the battle ahead.

“On my mark, company will advance and engage the enemy!” he called, “you know the plan, clear us an LZ, take out those artillery so our shuttles can land! You are the best this Empire has to offer. You can do it, this world will give us inroads into the Republic. Let’s burn it down! For the Empire!”

“For the Empire!” The Company echoed. As one of them, Esme spoke.

They opened. The hangar doors opened. They revealed blue of the sky and only one word became audible in her ears.

“Charge!”

They did. The sky was blanketed with smoke and fire as a friendly VT-22 beside them burnt, a flaming metal meteor tumbling to earth. She thinned her lips as they rocketed downwards, another blast of artillery wiped a nearby speeder from the sky, its remains flung backwards barely even shrapnel, buffeting against another. There was little to control. She ducked barely beneath another that had been lit aflame, its fire resisted by her armour, its smoke filtered by her helmet. It swung away as its rider tried to cling aboard only to be shed, meeting his end, skewered upon a Binka Tree. They came down hard. She pulled back on the controls the muzzle of the craft lifting back, as the repulsors pushed out beneath her, cushioning her as best it could. She slammed into the dirt beneath, her engines kicking out rightwards, jarring her craft. They carried forward and the lines reformed.

“Form up on me!” Yam shouted to the Squad that remained.

Together they lanced across the field.

The Republic had quickly set themselves up at the edge of a village, surrounded by trees and farmland that shook beneath the repulsers of their speeders, whirring by, barely a blur. They were greeted by the shrieks of blasterbolts. They had a hard time hitting anyone at such a pace, those that did hit, refracted from steel or were absorbed by shield generators. The Empire returned fire, each bolt streaming from an underslung assembly. Esme watched with a tinge of sadness, as a Republic trooper was thrown in a lucky blast of sparks as one of her shots connected. Then she sees the artillery, their lines shield, nestled within their defences and the village, each blast, sending flak or plasma into one of their ships. She feels fine because it was necessary. The flaming meteor of the VT-22 caught up and its wreckage ploughing into distant trees and setting the forest ablaze. Their spear points are bloodied, some by oil, as artillery pieces are torn into and hers by the blood of a Soldier, as she impales him instinctively without a thought. All this death. She would make it count, as she swerved her speeder, she threw charges upon a flak cannon and at the slightest touch, she pushed off again, further in, chasing stragglers as they fled and she listened, tasting smoke and iron, as behind her the artillery goes up in flames.

Illia hurried to her side, Blaster in hand, armoured charred. She hadn’t even realised the point of her lance had saved her until instinct fell away. She’d heard the words, did the actions, but she felt so distant, she was free.

They surrounded those that surrendered, as shuttles started to pour in and regulars rushed out. The day was theirs, but Agamar wasn’t won yet.

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