Barbarians

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking

Racing around to come up behind you again.

The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,

Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death.

Pink Floyd - “Time”

Taichist and Chechla looked up as Tango rapped on the doorframe. “Ok, you two...time to face the music.” She jerked her head towards the corridor.

The twins rose to their feet, trembling. “...how angry is he?” Chechla asked as they moved to join the human.

“He’s not happy,” Tango admitted. “What did you expect? You disobeyed orders, deserted your post, put yourselves ...and my team...in jeopardy, endangered the mission...honestly, I think you’ve got bigger things to worry about other than your father being upset.”

Taichist owed his head as they walked down the passageway. “We were foolish,” he mumbled.

“Damn right you were,” the human growled. “If he throws the book at you...well...let’s just say I wouldn’t plan any long vacations.”

“What should we do?” Chechla asked in desperation. “Beg for mercy?”

Tango paused for a moment, considering the question as they reached the hatch. “My advice? Be honest. Tell him the truth...the whole truth. Even the things you don’t think he’d understand.” She flashed them a wry smile. “He might just surprise you.” The pair looked at each other as she tapped on the door.

“...Enter,” came from the other side.

Pressing the activation switch the hatch slid open as she led the two young Saurotaurs into the room, coming to a modified Parade Rest. The twins snapped to attention, quivering as they prepared themselves for the worst.

“Sir, Privates Taichist and Chechla, as ordered,” she said in clipped tones.

Nassat stood with his back to the door, staring at a bank of monitors, each one summarizing some bit of the nightmare they were now all facing. “You are dismissed, Tango,” he told her, who inclined her head and departed without another word.

The pair waited for what was coming in a state of anxiety, and still, their father chose not to face them. Each passing second was an eternity as he jotted down some notes, before turning around at last.

The aging Saurotaur’s features could have been chiseled from stone. “So,” he said at last, eyeing them both, “give me a single reason I should not sign your arrest warrant, and have you taken away in chains.”

As protracted as the previous silence had been, the one following that question seemed even longer. “Sir...we have none,” Taichist answered, bowing to the inevitable.

“No...you do not,” Nassat agreed, as he approached them. “At every turn, you have flouted my wishes. My orders.” He began to circle the pair, stalking them, playing on their fears. “Again and again, you have attempted to place yourselves in the line of fire, but at least you stayed within the boundaries of regulations. Until now.”

He came to a halt, just out of view, leaning in behind them and hissing, “I wish to know why. Why do you defy me in this way? Why do you insist on putting yourselves in harm's way?” In a sudden burst he stormed around to confront them, his face mere centimeters from theirs, and snapped “...why do you want to die?”

It was Chechla who turned to meet his gaze. “We do not, Father,” she whispered, “...but neither can we cower in fear.”

“Is that what you believe I am doing?” he shot back. “Cowering in fear?”

“Of course not, Father,” Taichist answered. “You have proven your courage, many times. But…” He froze, hesitating, afraid to say what he felt.

“But what?” Nassat demanded. “This may well be the last chance you will have to explain your actions, so I suggest you take advantage of it.”

His son took a deep breath and said, “Father...your choices should not have to be ours.”

“What?” he said in annoyance. “What does that even mean?”

“What he is trying to say is that the future you wish for us is not the future we would choose for ourselves,” Chechla explained.

Nassat shook his head. “What foolishness is this?” he exclaimed. “You could have any future you wished!”

“...could we, Father?” Taichist asked. “What if I were to tell you that Chechla and I had both considered enlisting, prior to the current emergency?”

The Saurotaur general froze in his tracks. “In the Creator’s name…why?” he whispered.

“To make a difference, Father,” Chechla answered, “just as you did.”

“There are many ways to make a difference,” he said in growing anger. “Throwing your lives away serves none of them!” He glared at them both. “When you were inducted, you said this life was something you had never wished for. Was that a lie?”

“It was an...evasion,” Taichist said. “We did not know how to tell you the truth.”

“By speaking to me, just as you always have,” he shot back. “Have I not been a good father? Have I not done my best by you? Why in the Creator’s name would you choose...this?” he shouted, spreading his arms wide to encompass all the screens and displays filled with data from the war. “What you see is a plague, an aberration,” he harangued them, “a statistical anomaly. For ten millennia the Triumvirate knew peace, and when this is over, we shall have peace once again.”

“Will we, Father?” Chechla asked. “You now know they built your peaceful utopia on a lie when the Triumvirate attempted to murder the Khonhim race.”

“What happened then was wrong,” he mumbled, “no one disputes this. But we are not the Khonhim or the humans. Our race has practiced pacifism as a natural outgrowth of our evolution as herbivores since time immemorial. This,” he snarled, pointing once again to the screens, “is not who we are.”

“It is now Father,” Taichist whispered. “It must be...if we are to survive.”

“The world you once knew is gone, Father,” Chechla continued, picking up the thread, “and you must know it will never return. This is who we are now…reluctant warriors, perhaps, compared to the humans or Khonhim...but warriors nonetheless.”

“No,” he shuddered, backing away, “a thousand times no. I cannot, I will not accept this. For ten millennia, we survived without war. To claim that because a mere handful of decades have been otherwise somehow negates all of that?” He shook his head once again. “Do you not understand? Everything I have done, all that I have gone through...all that I have lost, was to give you both a better future.” He seemed to deflate and turned away. “A future where you could live in peace.”

“I know, Father,” Chechla answered, her eyes wet, “but you do not control the Universe. No one does, save the Creator...and only he knows what lies in our future.”

Nassat pointed a stern finger at his daughter. “Do not dangle religious platitudes before me, young lady,” he said with scorn, “for I know far better than you what lies behind our faith...or have you forgotten my vocation before the first war?”

“No, we have not forgotten,” Taichist snapped. “How could we, with you throwing your teacher’s hypocrisy in our faces? He was but one individual. Must he, therefore, be the only example of our beliefs?”

The General whirled to confront his son. “Do not speak to me of belief. How can you choose a life of violence, of war, of death...and yet claim to still cling to our faith? The two are incompatible.”

“I disagree, Father...for the core tenet of our faith is the Path, our journey through life...and that no two journeys are the same.” He stepped forward, pleading with him. “Can you not understand that my Path…our Path...takes us in a direction different from yours?”

Nassat stared at his children as if he were viewing them for the very first time. “You say this now, even after what you have just experienced?” He looked away, his eyes distant, and forlorn. “I have not forgotten my first taste of war,” he whispered. “I watched my company die, torn to pieces by unseen guns. In the space of a few short weeks, I went from recruit to Sergeant, because so many had died.” He turned back to face them. “I was not ready. I was poorly trained, had nowhere near the experience...and yet, I was still better prepared than most. You have had but a single taste of combat. You have not watched your comrades die screaming in agony. You have not smelled the pure unadulterated stink of war. You think you are now veterans?” He stepped forward, his eyes blazing with fire. “You know nothing.”

The twins turned to one another, as a silent conversation passed between them. “Perhaps you are correct,” Chechla said at last. “Perhaps we know nothing, as you say. But if you think what we experienced on the surface did not affect us…” Her voice trailed off into silence, as she closed her eyes.

“Were it not for the actions of Graybird...we would both be dead,” Taichist informed him. “We were mere seconds away from the end when he saved us...and I do not know how we can repay this.” He shuddered, reliving that moment. “What we witnessed...what we did...will haunt us. I know this.” He shrugged. “And yet...I also know this is our path. This is where our future takes us. What our fates will be, I do not know. None of us do.” He looked into his father’s eyes. “We do not seek this to embrace the madness...but hoping we may help to ease it.”

The three of them gazed at one another, as if from across a vast chasm, until Nassat pressed an icon on his desk. Moments later, Tango reentered the compartment.

“...what say you?” he asked her.

She turned to give the twins an appraising look. “They’re green as hell. They’ve got no idea what they’re signing on for, they’re woefully in need of seasoning, and their training has been a joke.” Taichist and Chechla wilted under her dismissive estimate, as she cocked her head, a hint of a smile playing around her lips. “But yeah...they’ll do.” A chuckle threatened to escape her chest as she looked back at Nassat. “They kind of remind me of this rookie I knew once.”

Something seemed to break inside the aging Saurotaur, as he nodded in defeat. “Then I suggest you remedy their deficiencies,” he told the human, “before you take them into their next battle.”