Wars leave few survivors.

Least of all soldiers.

But authors and stories, movies and cinemas, never show the insides of those sinking ships.
Of those battleships. As they sail with an untouchable grace, towards whatever planet is below them.

A war is fought between two superpowers.
Two monstrous armies formed.
One battlefield decided.
One battle fought.
Hundreds of thousands of deaths.

For one victor.

A tragedy...

A single man, stood at the front of a vast stretching spaceships' bridge. Eyes plastered to the glass-screen. Daring the world below to come any closer. Hands planted against the glass as gravity urged him forward. Downward.

Dread, trauma. And that horrible feeling, that you get when you know your fate is inevitable.
Your stomach ripped out and tied into innumerable knots by slimy gloved fingers.

He couldn't do anything else except hope upon hopes that his life could go on.

Impossible as that was.

Hopes of going out any other way were swirling in his mind like a soft warm mist. Anything was better than this. Ending up as another number in a casualty list of some general. Sat all the way back home in his snug little war-room. Bossing the assistant around as if her one purpose in life was to make coffee.

She probably wasn't concerned though. At Least she couldn't die like this. The place that had been your home for months, shattering into metal fragments around you as you watch the thing that will kill you slowly lumber towards you.

Muffled screams echoed around him as officers and soldiers alike scrambled to the rear of the room. Mindless panic. Inexplicable terror.
No escape.
Their faces like masks. Caught in perpetual pain. Tears streaming down their faces.

Anything but this...

Viri Var Indi. Was the motto of the army.
Forever We-Are Victorious.
As it stood translated.

Guttural cries from mothers and fathers alike rang out across the bridge. Children would grow up never knowing their parents. Simple. Horrible.

The man mumbled the feeble saying like his last wish. His breath steaming up his view.

"Viri... Var... Indi."

Outside, huge burning lengths of ship began to peel, tearing themselves from the falling craft. As if saving themselves from a fate worse than mere death.

A Simple Fall.

Was the name given to this particular situation. The many commanders and generals that had spoke of the last moments of a those sinking vessels, had called it a simple price.
A brave fact.
That ensured Viri Var Indi.

Forever. We are. Victorious.

Monsters...

THUD.

The man turned right, to see the body of his captain. Her form crumpling against the glass. Face at an unnatural angle to her spine.
Red water dying her hair. A pool of it condensing on the window screen.
In front of her, below her, around her.

A cry of sorts somehow escaped his own mouth as the glass buckled, curving downward.

It was half a meter of diamond glass.
Military grade. On it. Her face was pressed. Eyes clenched shut, teeth visible in a grimace of pure pain.

The glass crackled, shattering in some places, sending ripples of glass shards sprinkling into the air.
Death Dust. Was its pathetic name.
Get that in your eyes.
And... well...
Just bloodied shredded balls would remain.

The shards themselves seemed to hover in the air, as the rest of the ship fell down around them.

The man thought of backing away from the cracking. But his muscles froze in place as his captain's body began to descend into the dieing glass.

He couldn't.

In a moment of blistering pain he forced himself into the Death Dust, reaching with wild hands after the women he knew too well. Sliding across the glass.

She plunged down like a ragdoll, into the open air of the outside. Somehow falling faster than the great hulking wreck that was his old home, soaring down behind her like a dead metal bird, limp, and on fire.

He had reached too far, his momentum taking him off the edge with the force of pure destiny.

The shards of floating glass tore into his face, the warm slow flow of blood slithering across him like millions of tiny snakes. His eyes tearing up under so much pain.
Though by some miracle his vision was clean.

He realised the futility of his plan. And committed himself now fully to a plan made by fate itself, pushing himself off against the glass with tremendous will power. Sending himself hurtling down towards that distant figure.

The planet's crust not far ahead.

He smashed his arms to his sides, making his profile smaller, and immediately feeling the results as wind whipped faster and faster against his face throwing his brown-blond hair back like flattened wheat stalks.

Dark smoke and soot rushed into his face, coursing through his nostrils, as he sped past the length of the ship.

Out of no where, spinning like a ballorena, came a hard jagged chunk of steel. Crashing into him, knocking the wind from his lungs like a jack hammer.

He flailed uncontrollably, arms lashing out, trying to steady himself as he spun, now disorientated, without feeling in his leg.

A trail of red mist following him, like the smoke from a jet engine as he plunged further and further towards the ground.

He turned a dareing eye, and saw the torn fabric of his uniform, blue threads sailing in the wind, the orange  stripe of fabric that ran along the pant-leg also flailing about.

The gash in his leg unmistakable.

He hopelessly flapped his arms, in some vague attempt to get back on coarse. But the length of the ship that fell with him edged closer and closer.

Closer.

THUMP.

He smashed against a length of hull plateing, rikoshetting off, his mind swimming. Darkness eclipsing his vision. His muscles stung, his innumerable cuts and gashes streaming what was left of his precious blood.

But.

In the distance, below him. He saw that reserved figure.

With hopeless determination, tears flowing from his stinging eyes. He pointed his wreck of a body towards the distant memory, and willed the air to carry him.

It did.

He began to plunge towards her.
The lengths of her hair flailing in the sky, her Captains Coat flapping in free fall. The same red stream escaping her.

They colided. Spiralling off in a combined direction. He griped her arm with iron determination. What was left of his knuckles, white with force.

They span.

The dance of death.

He pulled himself toward her, throwing his other arm around her.

As the two plunged through the violent winds, the strong rock like air. The smouldering edifice of war trailing behind them.

He pulled her close, her bosom to his chest. The warmth of embrace. Tears staining her uniform.
He raised his bloodied head to look at her, to gaze into those beautiful eyes. That soft red soaked hair, that had been his comfort many a night.

There was still a spark of life within her. That twinkle of the eye.

He pulled her face closer, he knew every intricate bump of her skin, and pressed his lips against her's. Savoring the sweet.

Minutes passed as the two hurtled, plunging ever closer to the grave below. Finaly wrenching his lips away, he placed the bridge of his nose against hers, closed his eyes, and whispered to her.

"Viri Var Indi... my love."

Silence. The sound of rushing wind and fire.

A gentle hand.
Reached up and touched his face, compassion flowing through its bloody fingers.

His heart stopped.

Like a ghostly whisper she said to him.

"Viri...   Var..."

-

Thud.

---

"Forever We Are."

As it stood translated.

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