(Planet Juxta, Leo's POV)
After leaving Amanda in Argo's care at the forge on Tithia, Leo turned his course toward Juxta, answering Commander Charles's request for a visit once he had the time.
"Oh man... I can't believe how badly Juxta's been scarred after the last incursion," Leo muttered, his eyes narrowing as the world below came into view.
From above, the military base resembled little more than a broken carcass, its once-proud walls fractured and charred, the sprawling compounds pockmarked with craters, as though the very earth had been chewed and spat out by war.
As Leo descended onto the cracked landing platform, the acrid scent of ash and steel hit him first, momentarily making him feel as if he were back on Nemo, since this was the exact environment he had left behind.
All around him, soldiers moved about with tired discipline, as they helped the engineers rebuild what they could, their faces marked by fatigue yet hardened by resolve.
And there, seated calmly on a splintered bench just outside the ruined command post, was Charles.
A thin ribbon of smoke rising from the cigarette clasped between his fingers, as he indifferently gazed at the destruction surrounding him.
"Boy.... It's good to see you here." He said as soon as their eyes met, as his lips tugged into a faint smile.
"You look well.... Has your realm stabilized since I last saw you?"
He asked, as he extended his hand for a shake, which Leo took in an instant.
The two gripped each other hard, Leo's strength still a far cry from that of Charles's, as it was him who winced and backed away first.
"Yeah, my realm's stable now. I'm ready to kick your ass in sparring," Leo replied, his words carrying a spark of defiance, as Charles burst out into a hearty laugh, smoke spilling from his lips.
"You're in over your head if you think you can take me, boy. Like I said, it'll be a couple more centuries before you can stand toe to toe with me."
Charles mocked, as Leo only stared back, his eyes firm, as if daring Charles to remember everything he had already done to defy expectations, as his spunky response made Charles smile in satisfaction.
"Take a walk with me, boy, I feel like you're finally mature enough for me to share some realities of war with you—" Charles said at last, as he rose from the bench and brushed off ash from his sleeve before gesturing toward the quiet end of the military base.
"Alright,"
Leo replied, giving him a faint nod, as he fell into step beside the Commander, the two of them moving away from the noise of the repair crews.
"The situation on Juxta is not as good as I had hoped, even though we won this war," Charles began, his tone carrying a quiet gravity, as Leo raised an eyebrow in surprise at those words, waiting for him to continue.
"The planetary barrier on Juxta had remained unbroken for more than four centuries," Charles explained, his hands clasped behind his back as he gazed across the ruined compounds.
"The last time it was breached, I was still a Legion Commander serving under Commander Jerome, who lost his life in that very battle while defending this world.
Since that day, we have never faced such a coordinated assault, and as a result, the men are shaken.
If before, they may have thought of this posting as merely dangerous, I think they now believe it to be suicidal, as the notion that the barrier would hold no matter what has been shattered.
I think they finally understand now, as to what it means to be soldiers when the technological defenses collapse and when the enemy surges through the breach."
His voice deepened as he went on, "And it shows in their demeanor, for even though courage remains, it has been mixed with a fear that does not fade, and courage mixed with fear is brittle.
If before they slept peacefully at night, they now whisper more..... as sleep eludes them.
They think about their wives and children, they worry for the lives they swore to protect, and the weight of that worry bends them even if they try not to show it."
Leo nodded quietly, as he understood it was only natural for such scars to form, since no man could face such horrors of war and emerge untouched.
"The enemy Monarchs personally slaughtered the men at two forward bases," Charles continued, his jaw hardening as his eyes dimmed into shadow, "and the corpses there were left in such vile conditions that the sight alone is unbearable, even for someone like me, who has seen the battlefield for more than half a millennia.
Of-course I avenged them....
I hunted those Monarchs down, and I claimed their lives in return."
He paused, drawing in a slow breath as the smoke from his cigarette curled upward into the bruised sky, before adding with a weight that seemed to drag the words down into the earth itself, "Although that, unfortunately, was all I could do."
Leo remained silent at first, his brows furrowing at Charles’s confession, for on the surface it sounded final, almost righteous, yet the more he turned it over in his mind the less it felt like closure. Avenging the dead was a soldier’s duty, yes, but was one life ever equal to another?
‘If some nameless hand murdered Amanda tomorrow, would the death of that murderer feel like enough for me?’
The thought struck him cold, and as he lingered on it, he realized that the answer could only be no. Revenge would never be balance; it would never fill the empty chair, or warm the bed gone cold.
At best it was the bare minimum— the instinctive lash of pain striking back at pain.
True healing, Leo thought, was not carved in blood but in the long, merciless road that followed, as scars had to be endured, memories had to be borne, and the living had to learn how to move forward without forgetting.
And perhaps that was the hardest truth of all— that the blade could end a life, but it could never restore what was taken.
(More chapters in Buyers club for TMT)