April 15 7 AE (military calendar)April 15 2029 AC (global calendar)Major Tanya RexWe are a week away from Titan having spent the st few months in transit. We used that time to shake down the ships and acclimate to our new equipment. We also had a few more battalion-wide trips to our medics to finish up our procedures.

  At the moment I don’t think the muscle side was needed per se as we were active and worked every muscle though I guess the heart would have atrophied anyway.

  I broke the news the day after I came aboard about the attack on Africa and how apparently we all can’t age anymore. Suffice to say some news was taken better than others.

  I’ve also told everyone about our upcoming reconnaissance mission though we haven’t finalized how we’re going about it. Feet on the ground would be nice but it was eventually decided that we won’t think about the ground until we do a few flybys to determine if it's feasible.

  As I walk through the hallways of the ship, on the ceiling to fuck with everyone of course a fun side effect of null gee, everyone seems in high spirits and as close as ever. I walk past Cole and give him a goofy sailor’s salute. He just smiles and shakes his head probably wondering what he did to get punished like this.

  I ponder what Speros's pn is for those of us who are biologically immortal at the moment. Will he gene crack us yet again to reverse it? Will he simply leave it be? Whatever happens, it won’t be for a while.

  I find myself in the weight room a short while ter. There are technically no weights as everything uses adjustable springs for the resistance as again there is no gravity. Griffin is in here and it looks like he’s nearly maxing out the bench press.

  I wait for him to rack the bar before I say anything so I don’t startle him “Hey Griffin” I loom over him “Want to talk about Brick…” he sighs and sits up.

  He sits for a few minutes in silence before he finally starts talking “Fine… you know this is partly your fault” he quickly eborates before I can hit him “Losing him was one thing but then you dumped all that other shit on top of it. Though I guess it helped a little”

  He pauses for a few moments “You said there was supposedly an afterlife What is it like” I shrug “I’ve been told it’s nice but I’m not allowed in” I tap my gss eye “I’ll ask about him and what’s it’s like in more detail so you can get some closure”

  He nods thankfully “you know what’s funny” he asks me. I shake my head and he continues “I don’t know what’s worse losing him and knowing wraith and rabbit might be next or the eventuality that we’re all gone leaving you alone”

  I hadn’t thought about that before. I sigh and sit next to him “Listen man recent events haven’t changed anything when we signed up we knew that it was basically a guarantee that we’d lose a friend and brother but it doesn’t make it any easier”

  He smiles a little “Actually some of the recent events might be a nice change. If the afterlife is real then it’s not as painful to lose them knowing they are going somepce nice”

  I sp his back “Cheer up man I’ll get you some more closure but you have the rest of your team to lookout for not to mention I hate seeing you so miserable”

  He chuckles a little “Is that an order” I grin “It fucking is” I leave and let him resume his workout visibly in an improved mood. I know it’ll still take time but nothing worthwhile is easy.

  I spend the rest of the day checking on various things or killing time then when the lights begin to dim slightly I head to my room.

  To my slight surprise, it’s just Nyx with no sign of Casper. I make myself comfortable as this time around I imagine I’ll be here a while. “I know you said I can’t actually enter the afterlife but can you tell me about it in detail”

  Nyx nods “Of course helping one’s friends is one of the most noble endeavors. How about we try something I’ll see if your friend ‘Brick’ would be willing to take some time out of his day to tell you himself”

  My eyes widen in surprise and Nyx simply shimmers a moment. When he’s fully opaque again Brick is sitting with us. It takes him a second to orient himself but he tches onto me. “General what are you doing here”

  I smile and drink some coffee wishing I could get a supply on the ship “Just checking on you, Griffin is a bit of a mess” he looks around and takes everything in again.

  “So how is the afterlife don’t skip any details” he gnces at Nyx and then finally gets comfortable “it’s crazy there is a main city but every job is done by weird monsters or creatures and there are other settlements that abide by different rules so you can be an actual knight” my interest is piqued, being a knight would be neat.

  I chuckle “So you can live out any number of fantasies and lifetimes” he nods “Yep I haven’t left the city yet but I think I’m going to try out the barbarism one first” I nod “You know you could probably try and get the others from the 104th together and make a Warband and be unstoppable”

  He looks a little down and deep in thought so I make sure to add “Just remember your fight is over now so if you want to become say a teacher or something do it. You earned this reward”

  Nyx clears his throat “I should add that there are designated areas where you can use magic as well and still others where both the heroes and vilins are real people should you want to take a break from being a hero”

  We both stare at him then Brick breaks into a wide grin “That sounds fucking awesome and no one can die here right” Nyx nods confirming no one can.

  We chat a while longer with me telling him what happened after he suddenly died. For his part, he told me of his time in the city and immediately after his death. I’m gd it was painless.

  One second he was with his squad the next he was in a waiting room where those weird creatures processed people and got them ready for the city and the wider world.

  Part of that is apparently a handbook with the basics of the afterlife. All in all, it truly is a paradise. Me and brick said our goodbyes and on my part, I felt like it was final.

  After a short while of silence I look at Nyx “Thank you I think I needed that about as much as Griffin honestly” he waves dismissively “Don’t worry about it but I also wouldn’t expect to be able to talk with the fallen often as it does kind of severely bend speros rules”

  I nod and find I’m back in my room on the onager. I y in my bed for a while trapped in its embrace. Unfortunately, shit needs done so I get up. After I freshen up I make my way to the officer's lounge.

  Once there I notice Griffin already sitting in a somewhat secluded area so I get some coffee making it strong enough to cssify as a liquid amphetamine. I sit across from him and he looks like he’s been expecting me.

  “So I got good news and uh” he stops mid-bite and looks at me “the fuck is that supposed to mean, also who starts a conversation like that” I know this is kinda an asshole thing to do but I grin regardless “first tell me what do you think of when it comes to heaven”

  He sighs “Probably a golden gate or something then a paradise I mean what’s the point of heaven if it’s just mediocre though that would probably get boring after a while”

  Despite my best attempts not to I begin to cackle drawing Parks to sit with us. “What’s so funny” she asks. I look at Griffin and he reluctantly repeats himself “Alright so why’s that funny”

  I cleared my throat “so I asked nicely and was able to say hi to Brick. He’s doing great and he was able to tell me about the real heaven” All of Griffin's sleep and annoyance immediately left his body and Parks looked intrigued.

  “So you were partially right about the gate it’s called the gate of eternity and one of the main parts of heaven is a city but you don’t need to work or pay for anything it’s just for living basically”

  I take a breath and continue “Now for the fun part… you can do anything you want outside the city. You want to be a knight leading a crusade you can either against things Nyx makes or other people who want to fuck around and be the bad guys”

  I fully have their attention so I expin a few more things like how you obviously can’t actually die again and a few smallish details. In the end, Griffin looks relieved and like himself again and Parks looks like she wants to ask more questions.

  Unfortunately for her, the intercom announces that Cole needs me on the bridge. “Well I guess this is to go gd you're feeling better Griffin” he nods “I’ll bring you more in a bit” Holding my coffee close I make my way to the bridge. I pretend to not hear Parks say “so you believe any of that I mean she is clinically insane… and got shot in the head”

  I just chuckle and carry on. A few minutes ter I’m on the bridge and note that Cole is standing over the battle map. It seems to take a moment for him to notice me. “Good, you’re here I need a second set of eyes. Here watch these asteroids here” he points at a few then time pses the footage.

  At first, I don’t see anything but noting the surrounding asteroids and the time frame I come to an uncomfortable conclusion. “Those rocks are matching us aren’t they” he quietly curses “This changes the pn this has to be an ambush”

  I nod “This is your element but I’d charge the main battery and ready the PDS regardless” he nods “You're right… take a seat” I plop down into a jump seat and buckle in and seal my helmet. “All hands move to yellow alert, dawn vacuum gear, and secure loose objects ready all weapons.

  We don’t change course which surprises me a little but Cole looks back at me “No point telling them we’re onto them might as well use the trap against them” I ponder our options for a moment then get an idea “We know where they are hiding can we drop a nuclear missile and have it quietly move behind the rock to blow them up before we engage”

  He frowns slightly “That might work I’m certain that the asteroid is blocking at least some of their sensors” Having made up his mind he barks orders and the package is dropped.

  Time crawls by as seemingly nothing changes as we continue through the rings of Saturn. About an hour ter the missile reaches its destination and detonates. The asteroids they were using crack and the side that took the bst is half molten and glowing.

  The next sight makes Cole sp the red alert button and has us change course. Thirty ships were behind the asteroids and while a few are glowing and drifting the rest are now heading for us at a full burn.

  Many of their hulls are slightly glowing. Rockets stream from the frigates while our coil guns fire the first volley. While the same size as their terrestrial counterparts they are significantly more effective as they use superconductors taking advantage of the temperature of space.

  This results in a fifteen-inch diameter shell about five feet long traveling ten miles a second. While space is big it’s actually hard to detect something that small and fast let alone dodge it.

  Cole meanwhile is having the fleet change course at random for that exact reason. The first rod makes contact and having pulled up a camera onto my hud to watch, I get to see the ship get hit in the middle and crack in half.

  One of the gunnery stations calls out that he hit. Then a few more stations. Three of the NATO ships light up on fmes and then seem perfectly fine. Cole picked up on it before me “fucking pod naughts, spin up all-point defense”

  I hold tight to my harness as we pull a fleet-wide high gee turn. I swear I hear metal groaning. Missiles explode all around our fleet and a few impact on our armor but don’t do anything other than dent it.

  With a little nervous ugh, I ask Cole “Are they using kinetic kill rockets” another impacts near the bridge sounding like we’re inside a bell. Cole takes a second to reply instead prioritizing actually doing his job.

  “Looks like kinetic and explosive though a few have weird radar returns when shot down” I nod “guess we have our answer about Titan then”

  Another rod connects and crumples the front of the ship. At this rate, it’ll be down to if we can outst their missile supply without losing any ships or shoot down enough to make a difference before damage mounts.

  Cole seems to be of the same mind “We’re going to make for the outer edge of the rings then go full burn for Eropa in the meantime we’ll continue to bleed them”

  I get a feeling that something isn’t quite right “Cole can we zoom in on those ships only the pod naughts are firing” After a moment he replies “you're right, turret alpha load a drone and fire it into the center of their formation I want eyes on those ships”

  Me and Cole waited the tense few minutes and unfortunately, my feeling was right “Those smaller ships all look like they have turrets a few have spinal mounted weapons” Cole stated.

  A slow realization comes “Cole what would your estimate effective range be of psma and sers” his eyes widen and he pales a little “fuck… sers within a light second maybe two but the psma would be well within knife fighting range… given the ck of sers I believe it’s psma weapons”

  I sigh “That’s worse isn’t it” he nods “There is a distinct possibility it’ll burn through and ignite the ship” I grin “If we were pressurized that is” he nods “It’ll still sg whole sections”

  The fight drags on a few more hours as we escape the ring and then really put some distance between us. After another hour of burning, we cut all external systems and drift. Using other ship’s external cameras we examine each ship and the damage is both better and worse than we imagined.

  We didn’t lose any ships but we came close with the boaty mcboat face as a kinetic just barely missed its engines. Beyond that several point defense turrets were hit and dents littered every ship’s armor.

  Cole sighs as he finishes getting detailed reports from his captains “We got lucky it’s all external damage I don’t want to think how bad it would be if they actually pulled off their ambush”

  I nod “We would deal out as good as we take but being that outnumbered I don’t think we’d do much better plus there’s the fact that they even have those numbers”

  Cole stops his grumbling about the ship’s damage and looks at me coming to the same realization “shit you're right… well like you said Titan is probably some kind of manufacturing”

  I nod again “We’ll try to fly past Eropa and see if anything is there but the first signs of danger we have to bail” he grunts “Yeah better to hedge on the worst than assume we have the same battlefield dominance as we do on the ground”

  I blow a raspberry and sp the back of his head “We excelled on the ground because we assume the worst and are constantly pleasantly surprised”

  He holds up his hands in surrender “Fair enough. Anyway it’ll be a few weeks maybe a month so prepare to be bored”