The Soul of Our Homeland, 8: Heartbeat
12 Dec 2024Meowers
( 12.12.3310 / 15:10 GMT )
( EV Lacertae )
If you could dismiss the noise, loading equipment screeching, engines humming on standby, footsteps echoing across the decks, you may hear a heartbeat. Steady, stout, resonating. Hearts of thousands of people beating together.
Back then when the panic started, I tried to tell everyone around me that we're here to do our job, nothing more, nothing less. Be it the cradle of humanity or some unnamed system a few hundred lightyears away, we knew what to do. We've been doing it for a long time already, we've gotten used to it. Rather heavy but familiar. And proven effective. Maybe beneath all those rosters, assignments and protocols really lies that twisted comfort zone which you may not want to have when there's no war around. That mind place where you can stay at your best, keep your balance, keep your direction. Stay determined and focused.
And once I, tired and battle-worn, questioned the nature of hope, of what lingers in people's minds in the face of hardships, what keeps people going. Something was telling me, and still tells me now, I was not the only one silently asking, but that wasn't the right time to contemplate. Nobody knew for sure how long it could take, or if it was possible at all, but we did our job, did what we're here for.
We, the combined forces of humanity, repelled the attacks. Stopped the Thargoids on their tracks once more, and got the Titan surrounded. Battle of Alpha Centauri ceased over this standard nighttime and it was the last pocket of Thargoid invasion outside Sol. At the moment I record this, we're re-equipping our ships, regrouping, getting ready to take the fight to the Titan itself. Something we did seven times before and eager to do once again. Never asking how long it could take, never asking how hard it can be. Never negotiating the price.
And it's so easy now to let your thoughts off the leash and wander deeper into the fields of our possible future, our tomorrow. Of what may happen after the war, of what lessons we, humanity, took from it, of the troubles of our own, still remaining and now multiplied. Of what humanity would look like after the war. Of how to prevent such a disaster from happening again. But I won't. Today, there's still a fight to win, and I hope it will be the last one, whatever the word 'hope' means.
Those who will follow me into that fight, they think of tomorrow too, yet those thoughts are different in nature. Thoughts of people perfectly aware that they may not see that tomorrow. Thoughts that you keep to yourself and maybe never share, but also never let go. Thoughts and dreams that bring you happiness. So that if you fall, you could sense that happiness in your last moment here. So that if you fall, you won't disappear in the nothingness.
If you could dismiss the noise, you may hear a heartbeat. Heartbeat of people who took arms, sworn to defend humanity from the alien menace, left everything behind knowing they may never return. People ready to forfeit their own heartbeat, their own tomorrow, if that could help thousands hold onto theirs.
And as long as you hear the hearts of warriors beating, you may be sure: we will not be defeated.