The fireflies hover over the murky depths, softly illuminating the sodden green ground, which has carved and snaked it's way across the hidden lake, allowing for the weary Traveller to gingerly make their crossing.

Cautiously, briskly, and carefreely she makes her way across the fire-lit abyss. Glancing only occasionally towards the grounds she relies upon to make her journey safe. As should she slip, or should the snake give way, surely she will perish.

Changing colour as the fireflies cast their blaze over her ragged caparison, the reds of the check pattern, now washed in green and brown, the blues now rinsed red from he who saved her; the once beautiful golden locks that swayed from her head, now the shade of copper and clinging to her paled neck.

Entrusting fate to the glistening, silver haired and horned beast, following into the shadow filled light, mesmerised by that which resembles freedom and faith; willingly one limb follows the other, not entirely certain of it's path, but certain of it's landing.

The light of the fireflies dims, to which the lizard rears it's head.

He never really considered what it looked like, 3 thousand years of war. 3 thousand years of death by unnatural causes, a life expectancy of 37 for men and 39 for women. Flicking through history books he could see the trends of life expectancy and how they correlated to wars, from the early ages of humanity where it was predicted to be around 40, all the way to a slightly varying peak of 120 to 130, which was supposedly but never proved to be down to experimental drugs prolonging or shortening life. From that grand age, to stagnate for 1 thousand years, but then to drop to below 50 in 100 years, 2 thousand years of progression destroyed in 1/20th of that time.

He was 74 today, twice what the expected was for a male human now, but half of the expected from 3 thousand years ago. A commissar to the imperial cause, a soldier to the King and Queen, a servant of an empire, the order of importance of these mattered not to him, for he wanted it all to end, and if it was to be done by force then that was how he would do it. "Crush the rebel men underfoot, tear down their emplacements, and exterminate the populace of ECXIV" That was his mission assigned to him by the King personally, in those exact words.

It was a wondrous thing to him, how he thought of these things every time he went into the warzone that was once ECXIV, perhaps it showed some past humanity left in him, his compassion for his ancestors, but perhaps his vile disgust towards his own generation and those that will follow. However, it is a trait of humans to fear death in their most primitive instincts, drilled out of him and his fellow soldiers by their millions.

A technological difference was apparent and very clearly shown by the gear worn by either sides of the conflict, the imperial soldiers would wear heavy body armour or mechanised suits of nigh on impenetrable poly-armours, whereas the rebel fighters would wear what they could scrape together or old outdated armour, the occasional elite unit would be well armed, but their quantity was small comparatively. Perhaps this would signal the war coming to an end, and the inevitable destruction of the populace of ECXIV.

As the lightweight poly-armour fastened to his chest, arms, and legs he glanced over towards the troops he was dropping with today, clearly hardened veterans, though maybe not even out of their 20's yet, and nor would they make it out of them in the most part, as he rolled his eyes round the room he felt the familiar slight pain of the chest piece running its electrical checks through the ports in his body and then it sharply fastening into place ensuring no air gaps that could depressurise the suit. Slowly doing a limb check with basic movements the commissar was satisfied with the fit and reached for his personalised helmet, often considered a relic with its gold leaf pattern covering across the cheeks, but also recognised among both imperial and rebel soldiers for its crest upon the forehead signalling his position, it resulted in some fools who would challenge him, and other fools who would run from him.

The system check was quick as it only checked for basic functions upfront and passive functions in the background, the visor dropped and sealed in place bringing up the yellow tinted display, happy with his suit he moved to the armoury for weaponry. A knife, a handgun, and his own personal rifle, battle-scarred and chipped from countless combats, but equipped with an old style X717 scope which he was more than comfortable to look through unlike many others who relied upon the automatic aim of their suits and focus systems, offering a small prayer to the royalty he boarded the SCZ dropship and fastened himself to the transport area in preparation for the heavy cannon fire they would encounter on the way down.

The SCZ hurtled towards ECXIV from the "Lords Prayer" King class battleship, and much to the commissar and his fellow troops surprise there was seemingly no anti-spacecraft fire, however in this singular moment explosions erupted around them, quickly assessing that the rebels had waited for that lapse in guard the commissar grimaced as the SCZ shunted sideways and collided with another ship, the hull was torn and 3 suits were torn from their harnesses, they would live if they weren't hit and soon be picked up by a retrieval ship after astro-combat subsided once the raid party landed, as the SCZ approached the DZ it was hit directly and the front end was blown clear of the rest of the hull, killing both pilots instantly, the rest of the ship hull spiralled and plummeted towards the ground. "RELEASE!" Screamed the commissar as he ripped his harness off commanding his fellow troops to do the same, he then leapt from the hole previously made in the hull moments before the wreck plunged into the ground and exploded in a rebel minefield not cleared for landing, as he landed his suit protected him from most of the impact but the left arm which he had used to soften the landing was malfunctioning and there was an air leak in a crack made in the breastplate, he staggered to his feet reeling from the impact and quickly assessed his surroundings, briefly doing a radar check for his unit, only 6 of the 18 original suits responded and they quickly headed to a central location. Upon reuniting the unit quickly recorded minor damage and lacking in combat ability from usual standards, their ability from a full size unit was already dropped by 66%, and the damage sustained incurred a further 15% reduction from the remaining suits damage status reports. Despite this the commissar decided to push on with their mission to engage frontline enemy troops and break through the defensive line, so the foot-troops can march through their broken lines.The 6 suits moved quickly up towards the peak of a nearby hill to overlook and scan for weak points in the defence, upon reaching the top the rapid realisation of the continued competence of the rebel commanders showed through with few if any weak points that would require immeasurable accuracy and precision to penetrate and cause any serious damage without heavy casualties, which they already couldn't afford with their few and damaged suits. The commissar ordered the troops to load full explosive ammo and radioed for an artillery strike from the "Lords Prayer" He was denied the strike due to his proximity to the co-ordinates, "Enter code R:C:6029" he spoke into the radio, after a pause the reply came through and the strike was confirmed. Upon this he ordered 3 of the suits to wait on the hill and dig small holes to shield from the shockwave, while he and the other 2 would head towards a nearby bunker towards the lower part of the hill on the rebel side, sprinting down they quickly broke the weak and damaged walls to use as a small shield from the debris that would come from the strike. Moments later the first blast hit the rebel location sending debris flying, the second disintegrated a tank and the men beside it, continuous shelling resulted in a much weaker target with fewer walls and no armoured targets that the suits would struggle to deal with.

Once the shelling stopped he ordered the suits to charge and the 3 on the hill to provide heavy long range explosive cover fire, which was firmly granted as explosive fire ripped into the rebels who tried to fire upon the advancing suits. They reached close fire combat and as the commissar rounded the first corner through a doorway he was shot in the shoulder by a rebel, his suit compensated the rebound and within less than a second he was aimed and took his shot into the rebel blowing his insides onto the wall behind with his small explosive anti-infantry round. They were rapidly moving from room to room shrugging off the occasional shot and killing all who stood in their way, but as they approached the next guarded building a large calibre shot hit the suit on the commissars left and pierced the face visor killing the occupant, before raising his gun to return fire the commissar was hit in the chest and knocked backwards stumbling to the ground, he was winded from the impact so took a second to realise where the enemy was, fortunately he returned fire and shredded the portion of the building the shot had come from before he got hit again. Offering a quick prayer for the fallen suit he moved on quickly and regrouped with the other 4 remaining suits and systematically cleared through buildings in close proximity.

Unit MS:1048 took the point they targeted and allowed for the general infantry to follow through, the casualties on that one day accounted to 18,572 imperial soldiers, the day after would be the bloodiest of the battle for ECXIV, as it would be the one to crush the backbone of the rebel army and would result in a much shortened war on the rebels.

Did you know? The scientific word for picking your nose is... Rhinotillexomania.

Did you know?

In the 19th century (1800s) Arsenic was used in green food colouring, in cake icing for example.

Did you know?

After reactor 4 exploded in Chernobyl 1986, over 4 million sheep in Wales, North Ireland, Scotland and Northern England had their movement restricted due to Ceasium-137, these restrictions remained in some areas until 2012.

Did you know?

In WW1 British horse casualties amounted to over 480,000 by the end of the war.

Did you know?

Minutiae is defined as - The small, precise, or trivial details of something:Eg - The minutiae of every day office work.

1- "You fucking nonce, now what have you done?"

2- Vince scrubbed back and forth muttering curse after curse at his friend, who had, as usual. ruined it.

3- Terry clasped his ear as the painful ringing echoed throughout the night, it was soon that he would realise his error.

4- "You should probably put that down before so..." The man starts, but is cut short as he whips back at the sound of a shot that rattles around London.

5- "a few things happened, but in the end, we escaped the gangs, and the police. Even our wives, while making a killing doing it"

6- "I'm just a car salesman, why am I involved in this?" Vince thought as multiple armed men burst onto the forecourt.

7- "Terry where did you get this?"

"Well I nicked it didn't I"

"You fucking idiot Terry" Vincent wheezed at the car sat in front of him.

8- "Hey?"

"Yeah?"

"You ever think that this might go wrong?"

"All the time, you thought it up after all"

The blond haired man replied as he zipped his flies and walked out.

9- the van rattled and shook as it trundled down the cobble lane, in the back sat 4 men, all looking like they had just run a marathon.

10- the camera snapped and the cell door shut, but the man smirked, in 2 years he would be rich.

I. Love. Di...

No no I can't start a story like that... Yes I can.

I. Love. Dipping. Wafers. In. Ice-cream.

All kinds of ice cream, I dip my wafer into vanilla ice-cream, so pure and untouched, untainted, I'll smother it in raspberry sauce too for extra reason to take pictures. 

I'll shunt my wafer inside chocolate ice-cream, succulent and a completely different experience from vanilla ice-cream, best served with bits of chocolate on the side to shovel onto the wafer.

Banana ice-cream I always find to be the one that people who like it, really like it, but once it gets hold of you, it'll tie you up to suffer in an excessive overflowing salivating juicy explosion. I never really know what to put with banana, it's always pretty good how it is and doesn't need changing.

Mint ice-cream. Now, as great as it tastes, once you're done with it it lingers for ages, almost like toothpaste, it's great in the morning but if you go to drink orange juice afterwards it ruins the experience you know, it just won't leave you alone.

Neapolitan ice-cream, now you're talking, it's a mixture of the best three ice-creams, vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. I've talked of vanilla and chocolate, both are great, but you can get bored and the possibilities are limited. Strawberry however, God, it's heaven in a mouthful. You can do anything with strawberry, it's accepting of anything, willing to do it all, andything you can name, any sauce, and any topping. It. Will. Work. You could have strawberry just once, but you'll want it again, to try something different, mix it with other ice-creams, have 3 types in the same place, it just works. Which is why I would marry strawberry... But the temptation of mixing it with vanilla, chocolate, and banana would still be there. Which it seems fine with, so that's why vanilla is the best ice-cream.