The Beauty of Childhood

Vitus stood on the observation deck of the Praetor and closed his eyes. It had been a long and tedious journey, and he had not had much time to rest or gather his thoughts. His mind immediately returned to his home world, to Lyetheron Prime.

His thoughts returned to a time before he bore the weight of his command. There could not have been a better place for a child to grow up than on Lyetheron Prime. The planet had experienced an unprecedented peace that had lasted for centuries before Vitus was born. During that time, it had grown into the very definition of utopia. The sound of the wind passing through the trees, the light of the planet’s twin suns bathing the emerald waters of the seas with their light, and the sight of golden plains that seemed to stretch into infinity were memories that had shaped his childhood. Those memories, along with countless others, were what drove him to join the Bishopric Fleet as a young man.

The memories that came flooding back to him were so vivid that they seemed real. He was a child again, running through the fields of lavender grass and silver flowers that blanketed the land where his family’s home was located. The smell of the fresh blossoms that mingled with the scent of the nearby ocean on the wind was intoxicating. That scent was always enough to bring a sense of calm to Vitus, and he had often recalled it in some of his darkest hours in service to the fleet. As he reveled in those fields once more, the sound of the birds was interrupted by a familiar voice,

“Vitus, you will catch cold if you stay out there too long without your coat.”

His mother’s voice was as melodic to him as music. Her cadence echoed with an unconditional love that was unlike anything Vitus had ever experienced since. His mother made the stories he was told of angels in school easy to grasp and relate to because in his eyes, he came home to one every day. She was perfection made manifest.

His thoughts then turned to his father. The sight of him standing in the window watching with pride as his son learned to love the same land that he had loved growing up was an inspiration. Vitus’s father was a scientist by trade and had spent years studying the mysteries of the universe. He was a brilliant man with an unbending love for the planet they called home and Vitus admired him greatly. His father lived his life to preserve the planet and its beauties for future generations and played a large part in motivating Vitus to join the fleet when he became a young man. Though he lacked the astute mind for academics that was gifted to his father, Vitus had a keen propensity towards tactics and leadership; talents that would come to serve him well in the fleet.

Lyetheron Prime had given Vitus many of the skills he needed to be a successful soldier. He spent many hours hunting in the wilds and woods near his home and had already become a skilled hunter, marksman and tactician by the time he was accepted to the proving grounds as a cadet in the Bishopric Fleet. He used to envision himself like one of the indigenous warriors of the planet’s ancient days, defending the land and living in harmony with it as he stalked his prey through the forests. It was a good life, one worth serving for.

It was those thoughts of his home that made his current situation even more agonizing. All at once his waking dream ended and he was brought back to reality. The command bridge offered a full view of the graveyard of capital ships that had been destroyed in the weeks prior to the arrival of the Praetor. Lyetheron Prime’s cities, once blanketing the planet with hundreds of star-like lights, were extinguished, replaced with embers where the nameless creatures’ invasion fleets had landed and destroyed everything in their path. There had been reports that the planet’s inhabitants were still mounting a desperate defense, but they were falling more and more by the day and the hordes of creatures overran the planet. Their distress calls had been received on the Praetor’s bridge in the thousands and were growing more numerous with each hour. The planet and its people were proud and clinging to the hope that Vitus and his ship would save them.

“Promise you will come back to me, Vitus. Promise you will always protect what we have built here.”

Those were the last words his mother had spoken to him when she held him in the moments before he boarded the shuttle to travel to the proving grounds so many years ago. Her words carried immense weight for him then, but now, they felt overwhelming.

“Serf, give me the latest data reports on the invasion”

Vitus’s words were stoic, devoid of emotion as the mindless servant presented the data to him in a monotone, nearly binary tone of voice,

“Yes Commander, the horde numbers in the billions and data suggests that less than six percent of the humans on the planet are still capable of combat. The rest consists of civilians that have sealed themselves into bunkers. By my calculations, the planet has less than six weeks left before it is completely overrun.”

The rest of the fleet was thirteen weeks away.

“Lieutenant, engage protocol twelve.” His words remained even and authoritative, hiding the torment he felt inside.

Protocol twelve, the virus bombs. They were instruments of death and destruction so terrible that their very existence is shrouded in secrecy. Each bomb contained a genetically unique, self-replicating nano-virus that could reengineer itself to target every living cell on a planet. The virus directly targeted DNA and was designed to unravel the very genetics of any life form it met, rendering any planet exposed to the virus nothing more than a useless husk to any invading force. It was a last resort weapon, one only used to deny an enemy a strategic asset.

Lyetheron Prime was such an asset.

As the thoughts of the fields, the oceans, the woods and his childhood flooded over him, Vitus was met with one more thought,

Duty.

A single tear fell from his cheek onto the actuation button as Vitus pressed it. The commander had done his duty but the child inside him screamed.