The Fall of Kastor ‘Never like this,’ he said quietly to the empty barracks. The room was bare, utilitarian, grey steel bed-frames, now devoid of even their basic rolls and accompanying shelves are empty of clothes and permitted personal affects. He had prepared himself for death by depressurisation and had viewed hundreds of clips. The final breath, the frosting and cracking of bare skin in the final moments before death and then utter stillness. Years in service had even made him numb to the probability that his end may be slower. Puncture wounds to the intestinal region and hours of poisoning and agony while the battle raged all around and medics dealt first with those that had a chance. The one fate he never anticipated was being sacked. This was a death of purpose, a death of ambition and a death of vengeance. This was a death colder than the wastes of space. His eyes turned to the window, looking through the yellowing blast-glass to the crumbling parade yard beyond and he thought back nearly two decades ago. Following induction and initial training he and just over half the conscripts had qualified for further training. Some of those that failed, only achieving militia status had tried hiding their disappointment and failure by claiming that all he had qualified for was premature death. He remembered that early doubt and how the pride in his father’s eyes had banished it.

His father, one of the last from the cryo-vats, vats that had taken his arm and lower leg and blackened the side of his face. His mother, riddled with cancers kept at bay through cryo-stasis was rendered clinically dead before he was born. On bad days his father was prone to violence and reliving the end days nearly half a millennium ago. On those days, the war still raged, on those days his father screamed as the bombardments levelled the city, forcing him to crawl through endless darkness, subsisting on the flesh of dead friends and radioactive water dribbling through the rubble. On bad days his servo-limbs were remotely deactivated and he was heavily sedated. The bad days were not discussed.

On good days his father would describe Kastor as it was. Bright cities, almost no smog, transport systems not only running, but on time. Food like you would not believe. They had huge halls where they reared creatures and plants purely for the purpose of being eaten. Back then, yeast was for creating fermented alcohol. That was before industrial processing of yeast as food. The way he described it, it was an age of wonder.

He looked down at his primary blaster hanging at his waist and moved his hand to rest on it, both protectively and for reassurance. It was his father’s. All that went into stasis with him and now, his father gone these past few years, it was all that remained. In some ways he is glad that his father died. To have come through the war, to have awoken in the ruins of Kastor and to have laboured searching for those still locked in endless sleep, dying as their vats failed and never waking up. To have done all that, driven with a single purpose and come so far only to fail utterly and for reasons that nobody ever suspected.

He spat the word commerce, sneering at the stain that only weeks ago would have found him stripped, flogged and forced to clean the barracks for a month. Even to himself he could admit that he had no idea how it happened. The news told of destabilisation in stability and how long-term demands unfulfilled by external investment following the collapse of the intermediary Alexander Enterprises led to spiralling costs. At some point the government couldn’t afford either its army or navy. Mercenary factions quit, businesses went bust and there was neither food nor power for civilians. Then the looting started.

He had followed orders that day and weeks after though the fighting only got worse. Hardest hit were the food processing plants. That was when starvation became widespread and even the military started to suffer. He had fired into the shadowed alleys along with the rest of his squad and advanced around the burning debris and stepping over bodies. These weren’t rebels, most were not even armed. They were people, starving and desperate. These were his people, the offspring of those that survived the attempted genocide of the Yanks.

It was only hours after this last confrontation that the government gave the order, echoed from the few still functional public address systems, that all but a token force within the vicinity of the capital and in each military base was to stand down, turn over their arms and return to civilian status. There was short period of bewildered silence then the tide turned as word spread that the military had effectively surrendered. Those squads that had welcomed the ceasefire and removed armour suddenly found themselves besieged by angry mobs. This was no longer fighting for food; this was callous and brutal with neither quarter nor mercy given. With the rest of his squad he had fought his way out of the urban zone and back to barracks. The demobbing was quick, with many going their separate ways to join family in different districts and blend in with civilians while others formed themselves into bands. Both tactics designed to avoid likely reprisals against the military from angry civilians. He had remained at the base despite not being counted amongst the remaining active force. His marginally elevated rank put him at odds with the rest of the squad and without family there was nowhere for him to go. For the first time in his life he wondered if they could be wrong. While rumour of the hand of friendship from the Yanks had been doing the circuit for years he had always dismissed it as propaganda. But then, if purely propaganda, why had they not returned to finish the job their ancestors started centuries ago? Without chain of command telling him what to believe he was lost. They were all lost.