“Everyone’s set up, separated into their platoon’s sir! First Royals have canteen duty, latrine duty as always to the last soldier to arrive…” Darren’s second in command, Palemst Huval Jorenton finished his report, as the Epistratichos stood looking out the front window of his small on-base office. Georgia was about as backwater as there was on Avalon, with only minimal accommodations, and primitive outdoor latrine facilities.

Darren wanted backwater, quiet and out of the way, he wanted to be as far from civilization as could be, with as few amenities and creature comforts as could be. Darren wanted them to be out of their element, it was just the shakeup they needed. Playing it safe didn’t work, following protocol (be it protocol he himself wrote up) didn’t work, this was the last snake in the hole, his final ace. If Darren couldn’t muster the troops, if he couldn’t find a way to oil the cogs in their minds, to really get them to think for themselves…well…he really didn’t want to think what would come next.

“Sir?” Jorenton spoke up, pulling the Epistratichos out of his daze.

“Hmmm?”

“Did you want me to gather the trainees? Before they meal?”

Darren shook his head; he had far too much on his mind now to attempt to rally the troops.

When the insurgency crisis was still fresh, it was easy to motivate. Enlistees were plentiful and moral was high. Human beings after all were nearly an idea opponent for other human beings. There was a simple target, with tangible progress being made at every juncture. Every liberated village or captured raider camp brought security and built momentum. When troop morale was low, a good song and a few hearty laughs generally turned the tide back again. But times of peace were an altogether different game. There were no wars on the horizon; the only battles happening were taking place behind desks, the only ones fighting now we’re the politicians. It was much more difficult to motivate the troops, once they realized the biggest threat to their homes, their families, their very freedom, wasn’t each other or barbarian raiders, it was the Titan Empire.

Titans, were a much more threatening and ominous foe. Without the Raiders, the instability, citizens had more time to focus on the Empire and their place there in. It wasn’t just a physical battle, it was a mental one, and they were losing.

“How can I convince them to fight, when there already convinced we’ve lost?” Darren said, turning to Huval. This was about more than just new recruits failing special training, this was about building a nation, a world, a civilization.

The Palemst was not used to this side of Epistratichos Xanthopolous, he was used to the over confident side, the angry side, the fierce and combative side, but not this. Epistratichos Xanthopolous was always sure of himself; his faith never seemed to falter. It inspired confidence, it had raised Darren to near hero status among the population, and it built him a strong reputation. So when Darren began to show signs of doubt, both in himself, and in Avalon itself, Huval had no idea how to respond.

Which as luck would have it, he wouldn’t have to. A knock at the door interrupted him before he had a chance to think of a reply. Though the knock was the least of his concerns, the rumbling ground and rattling knick knacks on the Epistratichos desk is what really drew his attention.

“Come in.” Darren said loudly, still looking to his underling, his eyes with faint hope, searching Huval for some sort of reply.

“What?” Came the muffled reply from outside the door.

“I said come in!” Darren replied, his frustration causing his voice to rise.

“Are you sure?”

“Are you deaf gat’dangit?! I said come in, so you get yer ass in here!” Darren shouted to the insubordinate stranger on the other end of the door. When the Epistratichos yelled, his old Texan accent would come on particularly strong.

“Well… Okay…” The voice said again.

The next second the door exploded off its hinges and a finger the size of a fallen log shoved its way through the frame. Darren and his startled aid had time to note the sparkly purple nail polish before the finger retreated and was replaced with a single Amber colored eye peeking in at them.

“Hi!” A cheerful feminine voice said.

Darren sighed and rubbed his forehead, it was just like Myona Barreda to take him literally.

***
“Well, that’s it…I’m out.” Ourania threw her cards down and stood up, eyeing the remaining players, her eyes lingered on the dark haired engineer and the large pile of chips that sat in front of her. “Beginners luck, hmmm?” The tall soldier said with a hiss.

“Me too, don’t have the coin to keep up with the likes of her.” A short haired, gruff speaking young male soldier reclined, and then tossed his cards down following Ourania’s lead.

Eliud narrowed his eyes and twisted his lips together; he tried to read Shaar’s expression, tried and failed “Goddess, I thought you said you’d never played before!” Frustrated, Eliud eyed his remaining pool, then sighed and pushed it all towards the center. “Whatever, I’m in! No way you’re that lucky!”

Adoni however, was able to keep her emotions in check. The young recruit peeked over her cards, studying Shaar’s face for any hint of change. Dilation of her pupils, a bead of sweat on her brow, an eyelid twitch, but there was nothing. “Well, I’ll give you this Shaar, you have a resting bitch-face that could melt ice!” Adoni laughed, more earth “culture” that had contaminated Avalonean society, colorful language they had no doubt picked up from Epistratichos Xanthopolous, Dr. Archer, or from Rixie’s.

“I don’t even know what that means, but this is just how my face always is!” Shaar rose to the defense.

“Easy…she didn’t mean anything by it.” Ourania said aloud, amused at the imperial borns quick, volatile temper.

“Fine.” Replied Shaar, a bit calmer.

“Alright, this has to end sometime, I call.” Adoni shoved her chips into the center and dropped her cards face up. “Four of a kind…”

“Not bad Addy, but it won’t beat a straight!” Eliud grinned, and then turned to Shaar with delight. “Well, beginners luck couldn’t last the whole night you know.”

Shaar quietly laid her cards down, one at a time, revealing what had locally been referred to as an Imperial Flush. “All I have is a 10, Jack, Queen, King and the A card…is that good?”

Ourania clapped her hands loudly and threw her head back, with a sour cackle she stood and took a few steps around the circle of players. “That settles it folks, we’ve been taken…taken like a fresh nest of dodo eggs!”

“Goddess take me, again!?” Eliud Groaned and threw his hat down on the ground.

“You’re sure you’ve never played?” Adoni narrowed her eyes as she collected the cards up and began to shuffle.

“Who would I play with? I ain’t lie’en!” Shaar answered back, and crossed her arms tightly over her chest in a huff.

“Pffft.” The gruff speaking young man who had been playing with them stood and walked towards a tent. “That’s it for me, I’m broke.” He made a strange local hand gesture and disappeared into the tent.

“Yea…I’m done too…gonna go lick my wounds and see what’s happening. Don’t imagine there gonna let us sit around much longer. Sarge’ was in a foul mood, I don’t imagine he lead us out here to play cards with imperialists anyhow.” Ourania ran her arm under her nose and let out a stiff sniff, he tone was anything but welcoming.

Shaar followed the woman with her eyes and said nothing, even as the soldier’s cold eyes scanned her over, lingering far longer than what would have been appropriate.

Adoni waited until Ourania was out of earshot before leaning in and whispering. “Don’t mind her, she can be a bit of a Bulge, if you know what I mean?”

Shaar’s expression implied she in fact did not know.

“When an Ewe is just about to go into labor, their mammary glands will swell, the farmers call this their Bulge. ” Eluid said to Shaar, filling in the cultural gap.

Shaar nodded, albeit a bit awkwardly, but was glad to know.

Adoni rolled her eyes and slipped the deck into her pocket, then turned to Shaar, who was diligently counting the colorful poker chips in her possession, without prior knowledge of their value. “Red ones are twenty five, blues ten, greens one.” She said with ease, and peeked over Shaar’s shoulder.

Shaar narrowed her eyes and watched the young soldier, protecting her winnings with a hunched shoulder.

“You got about two hundred….maybe three…” Adoni shrugged. “We’re recruits, not officers. You’re looking at a month’s pay right there.” Adoni dug around in her pocket, pulling out a small handful of paper currency, and coins. “Only place in the universe you can spend Avalonean money is Avalon mind you…so it won’t do you any good elsewhere.” Adoni counted a few more coins out and dropped them near the pile of crumpled up bills.

“You do know what currency is…right?” Ourania said, lingering still, even though she had appeared to have left earlier.

Shaar eyed the smug soldier with disdain. “Of course I know!”

“Does your owner give you an allowance?” Ourania smirked.

“I’m paid for my work!” Shaar snapped back. “I’m good at what I do too!”

Adoni shot Ourania a pointed stare and widened her eyes. “Enough Ourania, there’s no need for that.”

Ourania shrugged innocently and looked back to Shaar. “And what, exactly is it you’re paid to do?”

“I ain’t telling you…” Shaar eyed the pile of money before her and picked up a coin, eyeing it carefully.

“They don’t have those where you’re from?” Adoni asked, with a much more warming tone than her fellow recruits.

“We call them Chits…but there not as fancy…’n not a lot of people use ‘em anymore.” Was Shaar’s reply. “Plus, there too big for me to hold.”

“What do they use instead?” Asked Adoni next.

“Creds…it’s all on computers…we hardly see none of it.” Shaar held up a smaller coin and compared it to the larger one.

“How do you know it’s really there then?” Adoni began to collect the poker chips and place them back in the box.

“Myona tells me it’s there…gets me what I ask for…I know how to use a data pad…I can check whenever I want…I have the access code.” Shaar shrugged.

“Myona? Is she your titan?” Adoni asked next.

“My titan?” Shaar sniffed defensively.

“Sorry…it’s hard for me to comprehend your life, what it must be like. Myona, is she a friend, does she own you? Are you lovers? How does it work?”

Shaar avoided eye contact. “She’s Myona…I don’t know…she don’t own me!”

Adoni made a peacekeeping gesture with her palms and smiled. “I believe you.” Adoni chuckled. “She’s quite popular with the men eh…and a few of the ladies too…quite the socialite.”

Shaar rolled her eyes and scoffed. “She talks too much…it’s impossible to get any work done sometimes.” Shaar grumbled, and began to straighten out the crumpled bills. “She forgets I can’t just pick up buildings and flip trucks and ATV’s over like toys…not like she can. I need more time; it ain’t easy working to scale.”

“Heh, yea…they do tend to make things look easy.” Adoni nodded.

“Like, ok…she was able to retrofit ten of the new holographic weapons simulation devices onto your vehicles, to my one, but how am I supposed to get anything done with her chattering in my ear?” Shaar went on, as Adoni nodded. “But I do a more thorough job! Like I told her ya can’t halfass this, her big fat fingers are clumsy; she doesn’t pay attention detail cuz she can’t see all the little things like I can. She’s so damn big, that she skips right over the small details…it’s why her work is sloppy.” Shaar sighed and shook her head.

“I was always told that Titans were slow and deliberate?” Adoni retorted.

“That just means they take forever to do what should only take a few minutes, not that they don’t miss stuff. Besides, if I was as big as her, I could of done twenty to her ten, and without all the talking!”

Adoni nodded. “That all sounds complicated. It must have taken you a while to learn.”

Shaar however, was on a tangent. “When I see a computer, circuitry, it all just makes sense. I can’t explain it…it just does. They always wanna know where I learned it, or who taught me…and yea Myona did teach me a lot…but I really just picked it a lot of it as I went.”

Adoni shook her head. “I didn’t mean anything by it…”

“Am I supposed to feel bad? Myona spent two of my lifetimes learning what I just know…it’s not my fault…it’s just how I am.”

“It’s how we are.” Ourania spoke up, resting a hand on Shaar’s shoulder and leaning in.

Shaar looked up with a sour expression and shrugged the hand off.

“Human beings I mean, we are the smarter species you know. It’s just the truth, we’re smarter, we learn faster…we heal faster…we’re unique, in all the galaxy there is not another species quite like us.”

Adoni rolled her eyes. “Ourania, is this really the place for your humanist bullshit?”

“It’s not bullshit, its fact. It will continue to be fact, whether or not you want to acknowledge it, or not Addy.” Ourania said, smugly. “That is the thing about facts, they tend to be true regardless of whether or not you find them offensive.”

Before Shaar had a chance to weigh in, Eliud spoke up from across the camp. “Yea, well their building-sized boots and fast ships with exploding bombs says you’re “superior race” theory is a load of dodo shit.” Eliud shook his head. “I agree with Adoni, we wouldn’t last long on our own.”

“I didn’t say that…” Adoni began, but was cut off.

“Oh, so because they had the guns first, that makes them the superior species? Tell me Eliud, what if we had not been denied the chance to develop on our own? What if we had a few thousand years on them on the evolutionary totem pole? What good is size, when you have technology?” The tone of Ourania’s voice grew more intense, her words fell out, one after another, with vigor and passion.

“But that’s not how it happened, besides we would need the resources of a million Avalon’s to compete. That’s assuming we have what it takes as a species to make it as far as they have. You read the history books on earth; we don’t exactly have a good track record as a species.” Eliud argued.

“That is because titan culture has been infecting humanity from as far back as they’ve had contact with us! Hundreds of thousands of lives taken, kidnapped, abducted, that is hundreds of thousands of lives removed from the gene pool, hundreds of thousands of futures stolen, how many Rembrandt’s were denied their glory? How many Einstein’s stolen? What would our ancestors of contributed? Can you even imagine it Eliud? Can you imagine if Avalon had been allowed to contribute to Earth’s history?” Ourania’s nostrils flared. “What if we had been allowed to be more than just some rich brat’s private toy collection!? You want to know why they are in charge? They are in charge because they are big, because they crush every other species under their unrelenting girth!”

“Ourania….” Adoni sighed.

Ourania continued.”No, it’s true. They are consumers like the mammoths, big dumb animals with gigantic gaping maws, consuming everything in their path, with no regard for the wreckage they leave in their wake. When they are finished with one species, they lumber on over to the next world, enslave whatever population they find there, consume everything on that planet, then move on!”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Shaar said sharply.

“Oh? Don’t I? Well, why don’t you tell me?” Ourania barked. “Tell me how the world works Shaar.” Ourania’s think lips stretched into a thin mocking grin.

“Leave he alone Ourania. ” Adoni said quietly.

“No, let the little imperial talk…let’s hear how wonderful her life is, stuck under the redhead titan bimbo’s thumb!” Ourania hissed.

Shaar’s cheeks flushed and a warm, hot feeling overwhelmed her. She wasn’t one to let other people get to her, not like this. But hearing her talk about her friend like that, a friend she owed her very freedom, it was too much.

“You don’t know anything.” Shaar hissed.

“Oh, but I think I do. See, I know exactly what it’s like. She coddles you, she protects you, and she gives you fancy things to wear, so you feel free. But really, you belong to her. She owns you, and she will always own you. Because you, and every other filthy little imperial are content to just let them! You don’t want freedom, goddess…you wouldn’t even know what to do with it if you had it!” Ourania’s grey eyes narrowed, her voice seethed out, dripping with venom.

“You…you don’t even know what you’re talking about!” Shaar yelled, grabbing a handful of the coins and throwing them at the snobby recruit.

Ourania shielded her face, and then scowled. “Vicious little savage eh?”

“Enough Ourania!” Adoni shouted.

“Or what? Gonna sick your owner on me?”

Adoni balled her fist and locked eyes with the taller woman. “Ourania Lethoir I swear I’m going to knock that smug grin right of your face.”

But Adoni wouldn’t get the chance. While the two were starring one another down, the small, dark haired engineer dove across the table, and tackled Ourania to the ground.

That was the first blow, which of course nobody would remember, as it didn’t take long for the whole camp, of tense, tired soldiers to erupt in chaos.

***

Darren stepped through the shattered door frame to greet the eager young titan who had just made short work of the facilities entrance. Darren couldn’t find the effort to be upset with Myona however; after all she did only do what he twice demanded her to do.

And she had even double checked.

Huval, for his part stayed near the buildings door frame, as if the meek structure would offer him any potential shelter should the bubbly Titaness suddenly find herself overcome with an irresistible urge to go feral and wreck more purposeful carnage on the camp.

“I assume you have a progress report Giggles?” Darren stood, digging through his shirt pocket until he found a tightly rolled Cigar.

“Yup! Everything’s finished!” Myona awkwardly fumbled to find a comfortable crouching position, before just settling down and sitting cross legged.

Darren bit off the end of his cigar and patted down his pockets for his matches. His eyes drifted up to meet Myona’s, quietly studying her for a moment. “Run into any problems?”

“Nope, easy-peasy!” Myona nodded, doing very little to hold back he excitement. “It’s all set up just like you wanted…almost like a Tol Bot Arena…Hey, you’re not starting a league here on Avalon are you? That would be so cool!”

Darren lit his cigar, after taking a long drag, he let the thick smoke out as he spoke. “Naw.”

“Awww, because next I was gonna ask if Shaar and I could be Puppet Master and Marionette!” Myona shrugged off her disappointment and tilted he head to the side. “So, then why all the Bellona brand equipment?”

Darren shuttered at the prospect of replacing Eyrn with Myona Barreda, suddenly even Eyrn’s worst days back on Groom Lake didn’t quite seem so terrible after all! “First, there’s only one Puppet Master, and you ain’t it…second if you could convince Shaar to put on that ridiculous gettup, I just may let’cha and third…stick around and watch the show if your s’dang curious.”

Myona lit up and clapped her hands together, nearly deafening Darren with her squeal. “Can I? That sounds fun!”

Darren grimaced, almost regretting his invitation, though before he had a chance to rescind, he was distracted by the unmistakable sound of commotion. His eyes narrowed for a moment, before a tired and angry look overcame him. Quickly he put out his cigar and shoved the rest in his pocket.

“Palemst, get yer ass in gear! Looks like we got a situation!” Darren shouted back at his cowering underling, who timidly shimmied past Myona, then jogged after Darren, who was already starting up his jeep.

“Oh…do you need any help?” Myona asked and straightened up to get a better look at what was happening in the distance.

Darren shook his head, and was just about to command Myona stay put, when a change of heart forced him to motion for her to follow. “Might be a good idea if you came. I’ve a feeling I may need the muscle…”

Myona wasted no time and leapt to her feet. “Muscle? Hehe, you go it Esperdachieos!” Myona saluted stiffly, an giggled a she tailed the speeding vehicle towards the scene of the crime!