Fantasy & Fairytales #5

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Scrivenings of the King-Beyond-The-Wall

#1068305 added April 9, 2024 at 11:26pm
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It’s really discouraging how quickly people forget about you when they don’t need you anymore. Ten years ago, I couldn’t walk down a single street on any planet in the sector without someone recognizing me and treating me like a celebrity. Soldiers who fought against the Galactic Confederation were heroes and regaled as such. The injuries I sustained in all the battles over the years were sources of great war stories, which more often than not netted me a free meal or at least a drink.

At least that was all the case until the GC made a pact with those alien devils and came back stronger than ever, sporting new and alien technology that was far superior to anything we had at our disposal. At that point, being outgunned and looking down the barrel of our own extinction, people like me had three choices: we went into exile, we continued to fight, or the GC captured or killed us attempting one of the other two things.

So now I live on some backwater planet, hiding from the authorities as the GC institute themselves as the sole power in the galaxy and look to suppress anyone who feels otherwise. Almost nobody recognizes me, and those that do tend to steer clear for fear of being accused of fraternizing with a war criminal. My injuries were just that; injuries that ached whenever I moved and reminded me of what I sacrificed for the losing side of a good cause.

I was beginning to wonder if this is all there would ever be to my life from this point on, until I received the message that used my old callsign. There were only three people left alive who knew me by that callsign, or knew where to reach me, and rumor had it that two of them were working off life sentences in one of the GC’s penal colonies.

That left Taryn. She was twice as tough as me and four times as mad at the GC. She’s the only person I’ve ever known who has refused to bend the knee to the GC and actively resists them at every single opportunity. It’s also what keeps her constantly moving and unable to settle down. Not that settling down is all that great when you consider what it actually looks like.

“Are we getting the band back together?” I typed in response to the cryptic note.

“You know it,” came the reply. “How would you feel about a farewell tour?”

A virtual suidice mission against the GC sounded a lot better to me than this half-life of exile. People like Taryn and me just weren’t built for dying of old age in relative comfort. We were meant to go out in a blaze of glory, and if taking down the GC or causing them some kind of critical damage could be achieved at the same time, then so much the better.

“I’ll get my guitar,” I typed back. “Where should I meet the tour bus?”

______________________________

(502 words)

Prompt: Once a hero amongst your people, you are now relegated to live the rest of your days as an exile.

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