Challenge #03079-H171: Ave Ceasar...

A: Those who share my purpose becomes allies, those that do not become casualty.

B: There’s nothing about this war that is that cut and dry.

A: Because you still have hope, that this war will end with your honour intact

B: I do

A: stand in the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honour matter. The silence Is your answer. -- Anon Guest

War. They say it never changes, but it does. It gets increasingly brutal as opposing powers seek to be more intimidating to their foes. It used to be seen as "the fun" in the days of yore, back when it was possible to leave a battlefield with minor injuries. Now? Now there are weapons that are terrors to people not even tangentially related to the conflict.

Brass considered the field of inhuman conflict, and considered the newbie who was their charge. If the kid was lucky, then the Generals in Ivory Tower would let him die. Some, like Brass, were not that lucky. There wasn't a lot left of hir original flesh any more, and they still wouldn't let Brass die. At least, they said, the soldiers in combat would go straight to paradise. They had already served their time in hell.

The kid was still an idealist, thinking there were reasons to fight. All goal and objective and honour. Adorable. "Listen. It's as simple as your gun. Shoot them, not us. Anyone with us is as good as us. Anyone not... gets dead. Or as dead as you can make 'em." War had made things infinitely more brutal than the good old days of clean annihilation by thermal blast.

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