The Dancer Prince
Prologue

Written by Ambassador Yrishna Wolf
Additional Credits: Poem by Wilfred Owen ~"Dolce et Decorum Est"

in memorium for soldiers both past, present, and future, who fight for the betterment of their nation, and give up their lives in the largest of tragedies, in the largest sacrifice of man that can ever occur.

Private James Salbury watched as the transports flew around his own, they were evacuating, running as fast as they could from their former encampments. The engines of the battle-fatigued transports whined loudly as the vessels flew low, close to the pine trees they caused to sway. The private deposited his rifle to the ground, as he watched his platoon sitting down at various places on the transport, some were standing, others were leaning, and yet others were sitting. The soft smell of nicotine, and defrugalated smoke had spread throughout the transport, it smelled of marines. The Private sighed, they had been fighting a pretty fierce battle on the ground, and now they had been ordered to abandon the ridge. He could still remember the scent of ashes burning as pine trees exploaded around them. The hover tanks had carved some pretty deep holes on the side of the mountain, but they hadn't gotten through. The base had remained defiantly afoot, but now they had moved away and abandoned the ridge. At what cost? Fifty, sixty, seventy men, he sighed again and picked up his combat bag.

Grenade launcher, several rounds of A-16 grenades, anti-tank mines, several rounds of F-19 ammunitation for his rifle, and a book. That was all, a nice, personal bag for Private James Salbury. He looked at his hands, they were shaking, and then some. He slowly reached into his bag and grabbed the book, pulling it out. He had taken the book from his high school library before graduating. Then, the draft came, his was amongst the first classes to be drafted to replace the army, he never had a chance to return the book. They had lost so many in the Styx War, and now there was another, just as bad. Perhaps his having lost the chance to return the book wasn't such a bad thing, he blew air onto the book, clearing the dust away and looked at the title again Selected War Poems From the United Federation of Planets, by one Professor David Vince, of the Segan University at Gerolden. James remembered hearing the news of the utter destruction of Gerolden, he still couldn't believe he existed in a time when the First Planet was gone. Now, they were all still at war, even if everyone else had returned to their own ways. In order to save, one must destroy that which he is saving!

He began reading, and within his mouth came a poem, which he could identify oh so well. He sighed, thinking how true these words were for him and his fellow soldiers, and wished he had not the duty to repeat history.


"Bent double, like old beggards under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we curse through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone was still yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues -
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

It is sweet and meet (fitting) to die for one's country"

The transport's loud engines began to quiet as the transports entered the massive shuttlebays of the battleship in space. As the transport pulled into its parking space 19, it was joined on either side by transports. The echoes of the pilots' instructions, and status reports was unheared by the dazed soldiers. As the transports doors opened, the first to go were the injured. Afflicted with various injuried, they were carried out of the transports by the combat medics, then placed on movable bio-beds to be taken to the battleship's sick bay. Following this action, two straight and fatigued lines of marines poured out of the transport, the private was amongst them. They joined the rest of their battallion, joining the rest of the marines which had been evacuated from the planet, and began walking out of the shuttle bay. From one of the view-ports above, the Captain of the battleship, and the General in charge of this operation watched. Another defeat, another bitter defeat for the Monarchy. In order to save, one must destroy that which he is saving!