The end was nigh for this world, and the commander silenced every feeble cry for help he could. Trudging without his men amidst ruination, he was drunk on euphoria, yet struggling to breathe. The commander’s throat tightened; a challenge spurred from the Insecton blood lodging itself within. Spewing out the foreign ooze in tense sputters and catching an air pocket, the cathartic pleasure of battle ran its smooth course through body and mind. The pain of a thousand cuts eased into nothingness, and the tenseness vanished like tears in rain.

The commander’s earth-caked eyes cracked open to the fog-drenched abandon. His sight only travelled so far, the surroundings bleak and unintelligible save for the distant flashing of lascannons reminding him of meaning. Suddenly, the commander halted in the aftermath of euphoria, feeling the cold touch of reality pinned against his spine.

“Don’t move.” Something grunted. Metallic chills travelled upward to the neck, a pressing digging into his behind. The commander’s eyes drifted, and through peripheral sight crimson skin layered with black ash held an ion pistol in-hand. A similar-looking woman stood at his side-a battered thing, her eye an empty crater, hair matted in knots. Her body tremored, but the commander knew it had nothing to do with pleasure.

“Turn around.” The man demanded. The commander’s hand palmed the scabbard dangling at the waist as his boots shuffled forward. With a slow spin, an enormous body faced the tiny aggressors. The pistol-pointing man widened his gaze, a wizened face puzzled.

“T-the war is that way.” He said. Cat-like eyes darted to the flashing expanse of heat-rays and lascannons on the horizon. He glared at the Commander, scanning his strange features while his companion heaved shaking breaths.

“You’re not like the others.” He said trembling. “The mandibles, the unbreakable skin, you don’t have them. A hired sword, are you?” The Commander spoke no words until the lulled woman broke from her trance. Her bone-thin arm sank into her mate’s shoulder, nails gripping like talons. She shifted; her weak body aimed towards a dilapidated structure meters away. Her mate’s finger drifted further from the trigger, his head shaking in some realization before backing away in soft steps.

“That building. I need supplies.” The commander declared. As the hulking commander marched forward, the crimson-skinned man fell back against a mighty shove, inches away from a crater bursting with the dead. The satchel hanging by the commander's waist felt light. Time to fill it. 

“No, stop!” The Man said. His mate collapsed to the ground, her eye gushing. As tired fingers weakened, the ion pistol slipped from her palm and onto the battered earth with a thud. Upon contact, the trigger inched before a speeding blast zipped out the barrel and through the commander’s robe. He stopped like a hovertrain in full brake, his hulking figure spinning forwards with eyes like fiery death. The man rose on aching feet, dashing toward the sulking shape of his mate with arms wide open. Outcomes infected the man’s mind, having remembered to plant the ion pistol on the ground.

“W-we’re not part of your war, just farmers. Leave us, I implore you!” He begged. No words came from the Commander as he removed the silver chromoblade from its scabbard. The sword was an unclean instrument of destruction; flecks of dried blood whipping into the air to reveal an unquenchable thirst for life.

“Your manner of speech.” The commander grunted in a basso voice.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“It’s the Imperial dialect. I hear it in your quaking voice. Another pair of vermin, who ran from old Empires, lurking all the way out here among the dreg.”

“T-those days… t-they’re over. We had nothing to do with that war…or this one. Please.” The woman cried. Her claw-like fingers strengthened, the odds balancing back and forth.

“I hear your kind battle the Grays on the other side of the universe. Four galaxies at war! Uprisings and rebellions; a constant with your ilk.” The Commander hissed. His blood-red eyes locked in a glare of doom. 

"But you came here like cowards, hoping you’d avoid it all. And yet… war has found you. Kioto here will punish your cowardice." The Commander said smiling." The pair’s grip tightened like an auto-vice while heads sank. An enormous hand caressed the unsheathed instrument of destruction,

“It must see the living bodies of those it takes. That was the oath of all my kin before your kind came along with your false promises.” The Commander's body readied to welcome the pleasure of death once again. He exhaled; The chromoblade straightened towards his gaunt features, adjacent to himself and his prey. His fiery eyes darted to the wizened farmers the last time. The blade perfectly aligned.

“This is for my kinsmen… Justice for the Rebellion.” The Commander heaved a deep grunt before the blade made it transitioned smoothly through their bodies and out of their bones. Rising again, the blade unskewered; the chromium tip drenched in viscous blood. The couple fell into obscurity, bodies slumping into the earth. Forever silenced like all the others who went to sleep.

The commander scoffed, sheathed his chromoblade, and approached the ruins ahead. Within was a small, musty dwelling; complete with crushed tables and burnt machinery scattered about. The commander sifted powerful hands through the ruins, shaking under his weight. Empty containers littered the ground, but he plundered without care, grabbing hold of any half-eaten morsel on sight. He continued until his long, bat-like ears twitched at a sudden disturbance. The commander froze, his movements like a blown candle, his eyes dilated, footsteps silent. A squeak echoed.

“Eee!”

The commander’s gaze permeated the darkness in a deep and sudden search. He rested his hand atop Kioto’s blanket, the screeching unending. His eyes peered over as he approached the toppled furniture. There was darkness. Moving darkness. With raging fire clouding his mind, the commander’s powerful arm thrust into the inky shadows lacking nothing but hesitation. Bulky hands gripped some neck as the creature writhed before lifting it to the light.

There, crushed within his iron palm, was a small, thin child. The commander froze, the child falling from his hands like an iron ball. This time, it was not from the indulgence in carnal pleasure, but something indescribable. Something beyond words. A feeling never felt. The child’s small face tilted upward, revealing hollow cheeks and panther eyes before retreating to the shadows. The commander’s knees drooped, wincing at the sharp pain enveloping, his mind set ablaze. His hand did not drift towards Kioto whilst ravaging the satchel, his brain acting without thought. He revealed a small vial- a Sarchon sedative. His hand, once an instrument of power, felt an unconventional tremble when the vial dropped next to a tiny, fearful foot.

“T-take it. Go.” Frozen lips quaked. A sharp, constricting pain surged through his throat and down the chest. It was unrelenting. Unprecedented. Unbearable. The commander sputtered, his mouth thawing from the gape. The vial remained untouched for a moment until a lithe hand pulled it into the shade with hesitant jerks. The commander’s eyes scanned him, fixated on a boy whose nimble fingers tore the lid, and poured the vial all at once in his little mouth. There was an insatiable hunger visible on his innocent face, one barely quenched judging by the sound of jerking lips growing louder with each siphon. After minutes of endless focus, relief washed over them; the child’s hunger transformed into exhaustion.

The old commander, dipping his arm through the shadow and caressing brittle bones and thin skin, felt a calmness. The child was drifting away-but not like the others. The commander did not burden himself with charred remains but a boy, marching from the dark and into the universe.

It was the first time a Kasobake barbarian felt something other than death, and he was not alone.