Chapter 7: The Dukhym district-part 1
The Dukhym district.
10:56 Local Planetary time.
His feet felt heavy like two great boulders, his lungs burned, his clothes heavy from sweat, his body half-shambled forward, barely able to move from exhaustion.
But he continued forward, there was no way but forward, so he marched on.
That was how Ahmaianos reached the headquarters of his resistance cell, which was an old warehouse, in the centre of the district.
It hadn't been used in years, ever since the Empire imposed their will and outlawed the Great Harvest.
He knocked on the door, after a moment an eye level slit opened and after the pair on the other side saw him the slit was closed and the door was opened.
From it came Tubarin, he looked at Akanthos and at his sorry state, he then looked behind him for the rest of his squad, but only saw his friend and commander.
"You too?"
To Tubarin's question Ahmaianos did not answer, nor could Ahmaianos bear to ask him to elaborate.
He knew the answer to his potential enquiry, and as he walked past Tubarin and made his way towards the inside of the warehouse Ahmaianos knew that he would not hear an answer, but see with his own eyes just how badly they had been mauled by the Empire today.
But until he arrived there he would have a few precious moments in which he could lie to himself and think that maybe, just maybe, things weren't as bad as they had been with his squad.
That brought him a small measure of joy.
It was petty and false, but how can he now fight for the sake of his own happiness?
Wasn't that the reason they opposed the invaders?
Was their purpose not to restore the joy in their lives, and pride in their country?
To bring joy to themselves once more?
That thought restored Ahmaianos spirits a bit.
But it did not last, for he reached the centre of the warehouse and saw who was there.
And who wasn't.
"Too few. Far, far too few."
His spirit plummeted after that and he started feeling the need for the bottle inside his coat.
Ahmaianos saw that like himself, his surviving comrades were all red in the face from exhaustion; this was evident even though the marans had red skin as the defining trait of their species.
From that, and the grim look in their eyes, you could tell just how much of a struggle it was to just reach their hideout in one piece.
They all stood there, silently staring at one another and at nothing, none of them dared to speak, none of them knew what to do next.
Nobody knew exactly what was about to happen next.
"How did things go on your ambush?" Ahmaianos said to what was left of their forces, which was not much when compared to what they started out with.
The rebel leader looked at his resistance cell, or rather what was left of it, now being composed of Tubarin, who was distinguished from the others by his thick and short trimmed chin beard, while the rest of his face was clean shaven.
The rest all had unique features, Karamus was the only person in the group to wear glasses and had a rather nasty burn mark on his right cheek, which he liked to tell was from the war, but was actually from being clumsy with a very hot cup of kava.
Besides Tubarin, the other survivors were as followed:
There was Duburius and Usanthus, who were twins, and the two were distinguished by the fact that they both had their short hair combed in a different direction, Duburius had his hair combed towards the right side, while Usanthus had it combed to the left.
After that there was Barathamas, who had a bushy mustache on his lips, while Daiamar, who was standing next to him, had an eye patch and a full rugged beard on his face.
Then came Maiamar, a man with a slim mustache that was connected to a pair of sideburns, which went all the way to his ears.
Paiamara, the only girl of the group besides Kalynka, who was currently not amongst them, obviously had no beard, but she did have long flowing hair that was braided into a tail and tied in a bun at the back of her neck.
"Bad, we barely escaped, also the north side is blocked." Tubarin said, coming up to stand next to Ahmaianos; his beard and spiky red hair along his unique voice, which would fit on some street punk, was the one that broke that answered the question.
"So is the south side." Karamus added.
"The east path is guarded, along with the west path." Duburius said to Ahmaianos.
Usanthus, Paiamara, Barathamas, Daiamar and Maiamar also gave their reports, which they all mainly consisted of such elegant words like: 'we're taffed', 'we're kriffed' and of course '*$%^ was a very popular choice for such an occasion.
"Do we have enough strength to break through and escape?" Ahmaianos asked them.
Nobody had an answer for that, and so Ahmaianos had his reply.
"Any good news at all?"
Just then the doors slammed opened and the red battle armor that had earlier killed a whole squad of Imperials entered the warehouse.
The armor was immediately upon them, moving with so much speed and grace that it appeared to have traversed half of the warehouse in the blink on an eye and was now standing right before them.
It raised its hand upwards and then made it come down with great speed and force.
And slammed a heavy metal box right in front on them, the impact opened the box , for it to reveal that it was full of energy crystals and enchanted weapons.
"I managed to take this from a few scouting parties I killed." the voice of Kalynka was heard from inside the armor.
"Good job Kalynka!" Ahmaianos said with a soft smile on his face and this managed to lift some of the grim atmosphere that was present in the room.
They were so happy for this small modicum of good news that none of them commented on how slamming into the ground a box full of weapons and charged magical crystal was a bad idea.
They all got up from their seats, walked towards the box and started pilfering its contents, as they did so Kalynka raised the forward visor of her armor, taking a break from combat and getting some fresh air.
She took a deep breath as Ahmaianos noticed, seemingly for the very first time, just how many battle dents her armor had, and just how it was covered in blood from head to toe almost.
But the one thing that he now noticed most of all, was the fact that the wielder of the armor was young, oh so very, very young.
"Too young to be on the battlefield! How did we let it come to this, How did I let it come to this? How could we all turn our youth, our future, into killers? Just what are we becoming as a people, as a nation?"
Ahmaianos thought as he knew that Kalynka was not a unique case within the resistance cells within their country, and he continued to stare at the young one that he let accompany them to battle, at the one that he could have stopped from becoming a killer, a monster.
From becoming what he had become.
Just then a small beep was heard from one of their crystals interrupting both the rebel's jubilation over the stolen weapons, and their leader's personal misery.
It was an alarm that indicated that the enemy had entered the outer perimeter of their street.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone