Maramanakama Imperial field command center.

12:23 Local Planetary time

“d.a.m.n this summer heat, its hot enough to fry meat on the side walk, this whole city could use a river, no, a lake running through its streets!” Gelios who was comfortably sitting in his chair thought to himself as he wiped the sweat from his forehead, watching as the first wave of his attack entered the enemy’s territory; he was confident in the notion that success was guaranteed, when suddenly one of his staff members said the following:

“Sir, third squadron was ambushed and destroyed!”

“What?” Gelios said as he quickly got up from his chair and walked to the battle map, as he looked at it he saw the small images of his units disappear one by one.

“Eight squad is under a.s.sault.”

“Second squad is retreating.”

“Forth squad has just been ambushed from behind and we’ve just lost contact.” The orderlies said to their lord.

“We are getting reports of raids on the field hospital’s defenses!”

“What the h.e.l.l is going on out there?” Gelios shouted in a mixture of anger and surprise.

378th command headquarters, Metternich’s private room.

“Kriffing b.u.m, judging me like that without even knowing me!”The young commodore thought to himself as angrily slammed his fists on his desk, several hours had pa.s.sed since the meeting and he was going over the files of the 88th and the intelligence reports from CORSEC, at least that was what he was doing up until now, when for some unknown reason the meeting flashed through his mind, making him angry at a lot of things, at the war, at Werner, but especially at himself for not being able to avoid all this madness.

He continued to frown at nothing and n.o.body for a few minutes, until his anger disappeared and silent tears threatened to trickle down his face.

“I might have made an enemy of the most dangerous Imperial on the planet, tomorrow I will prepare for not just a battle but a decisive one, the day after I might die! I should run, run away from this war, from this madness, from people killing others by thousands each day.” He thought to himself as he lay on his bed and activated the rune spells on his ceiling, which made the night sky appear on it.

“Maybe if I did others would follow, the officers, the enlisted men, maybe just maybe the enemy would do the same, we could all go far away, like the Great Founder Tomiris did, let the Field Marshalls and Admirals and politicians have their war, let them fight and starve and die!” Metternich thought to himself and a flicker of hope spread across his face, before cruel reality removed it from him.

“No, that will not happen, I could hardly desert when I was starting as a captain, and now with my face well known and my reputation, it’s impossible for me to go undetected, I have thousands of men from my new command watching me , also even if I tried to desert they would never follow, for I know we fight wars because of pride, greed, shame, and the greatest reason off all stupidity, and from my time as a potions maker I know that those are the few ailments that we do not have a cure for.” he thought to himself as he exhaled a disappointed breath of air as he got up from his bed and went to make a few rounds across his new command.

He had a meal in the enlisted personal’s mess hall, he chatted with soldiers and sailors all who were very happy to have the ‘Fox of Marengo’ as their new commander, after that was finished he went back to his quarters to try and get some sleep.

He barely got any sleep at all, so he just got up and went for a second round, and a third and fourth and twelfth, his stomach was aching from nervousness for the battle ahead, preventing him from resting.

 He knew that he had already checked everything and gave the necessary orders at the meeting, but he was a very agitated person and because of his stomach and from past experiences he knew that for the next few hours he would not be able to sleep.

So he continued his rounds, not just to help calm his nerves and diminish his anxiety, but also because stuff like having the commander be seen and interacting with the troops would improve moral, and it helped if the enlisted men appreciate their commander, since you would want several thousand men and women with deadly weapons to like you, wouldn’t you?