RNS Concord, Deep Space
Blood stained the decks, bodies were strewn throughout the ship most torn apart in a particularly brutal fashion. Interspaced between the un-armoured naval personnel were the imposing forms of Legionary Power Armour, but even this had been unable to protect those charged with defending the ship. The crew of a Neptune Class Heavy Cruiser consisted of 864 officers and enlisted personnel with an additional eighty-four legionaries and sixteen auxiliaries, now a scant remnant remained. There had been no warning, the attackers had descended upon them before the Roman warship had known what was happening and the cruisers defences were brought down within seconds, caught with her shielding down the cruiser had never really stood a chance. The ship had been boarded within minutes and the attackers had been like nothing the Romans had ever seen before; the creatures were monstrous in their appearance and were physically strong and tough; capable of combating and overwhelming power armour as well as taking horrendous amount of damage before going down, few enemies outside of a power armour could take more than one or two shots from a Legionary’s pulse rifle without going down, it took substantially more than two shots to take one of these...beasts, down.
Legionary Lucia Ivanos was unusual within the legions. She had excelled in education and had even studied at a higher level, with her intelligence and educational grades she could have gone into any field she wished, instead she had chosen the military and instead of going in as an Officer in the Naval Service she had instead elected to enlist in the Legions, where each and every person started their careers as a legionary before either specialising is an Immune or going for the junior Officer ranks and gaining a commission that way. It was an unusual choice to say the least, and whilst Lucia would almost certainly shoot up the ranks once she made Optio (the lowest officer rank), but there was still every danger that she would die in combat and never make it that far, as was proving all too possible at this particular moment. Never the less Lucia would not change her decision for the world, although the Fleet was vitally important to Rome, the Legions remained her pride and it was something that Lucia had wanted to be part of for as long as she could remember the magnificent Triumph of Gaius Dextris Meridia following the end of the Archien War. In the distant past Women had not been permitted to serve in the military, or in any substantive occupation, but over the previous three thousand years this had changed and women were now more or less equal with their male counterparts, as noted by female Senators and the historical occurrences of female consuls.
Lucia was tired, and it showed. Normally an attractive woman, she possessed some of the physical traits considered so such as high and wide cheekbones and soft skin as well as more pronounced muscles than one would normally expect on a woman, but came from her chosen career. Her physical attractiveness was overshadowed by the weary expression and the number of cuts and minor injuries she had sustained; she had been caught out of her Power Armour when the attack came, like so many of the ships Century-strong detachment. Literally a matter of months out of Legionary training she had thought that she was ready for anything, she only now realised how wrong she had been, but she was one of few protectors the remaining crew had left. The Century had been literally obliterated, of eighty-four personnel to begin with they were now down to less than a dozern, with neither the Centurion, his Optio or any of the Decanus’ surviving the assault. Working together the remaining Legionaries had managed to secure the bridge and set up a defensive line that the enemy had so far been unable to penetrate, sheltering behind them were the scant remnants of the ships crew.
It had been quiet for some time now, Lucia hoped beyond home that they had killed all of the enemy boarding party and their vessel had moved on, but as brave as Roman Legionaries were, none of them wanted to go out and check until they were sure that the enemy was not just taking a break. With the internal sensors non-functional there was very little that they could do, and given that none of the Legionaries present had power armour they could not even use their suits sensors to get any kind of indicator of an enemy presence. The blast door on the bridge had been blasted in, and only a hastily erected pile of debris provided any kind of defence, but it had been enough and between the fallen soldiers and the surviving Legionaries they had hopefully managed to escape death.
Or so she hoped.
Everyone remaining alive was terrified, plain and simple, it was not dishonourable to be scared of something that was genuinely frightening, it only became dishonourable when one allowed that fear to overwhelm them and impair their abilities, after all fear was something that kept you alive. Almost all of those who had survived were young, junior personnel who had been caught unprepared for the attack and thus directed to the secure zones such as the bridge whilst the rest of the crew took on the invaders, there were a few junior naval officers who technically outranked the enlisted Legionaries but in this situation they had no intention of overruling the Legionaries, even if they had the legal authority to do so.
At twenty-four years old Lucia was the oldest survivor, a testament to how junior all the surviving personnel were, being unprepared they had been directly ordered by their superiors and elders to create fallback positions so that if the ship was lost they would still be able to scuttle the ship. Other fallback positions included the engine room, but they had not heard anything from anywhere else on the ship so everyone was fearing the worst.
There was some contention as to who was actually in charge of the remaining Legionaries, they were all relatively new as Century-sized detachments were popular first assignments for Roman Legionaries. Right now however simply holding the line was the primary concern, at some point they would have to leave the bridge and sweep the ship to find out if there was any enemies left aboard, but until then the priority was keeping those who had survived alive.
“Legionary, I have managed to jury-rig the Communication Array, we’ll get one, maybe two, transmissions out but even they won’t go very far” One of the surviving naval personnel reported “Should we send a general distress call”
Lucia, who had issued the order for him to do so, grimaced at the thought but she knew that she had no choice. Sending out a distress call was not something that a Roman particularly liked to do, but if was something that this situation demanded and she would not sacrifice those under her protection for vanity or pride.
“Do it”
To any ships in the vicinity, this is the Roman Naval Ship Concord, we have been attacked and boarded by unknown aliens, have sustained heavy damage and casualties. Remaining enemy presence is unknown. To any vessels in the vicinity, this is the Roman Naval Ship Concord requesting immediate assistance
The message went out only twice and only went out a handful of lightyears rather than the several dozern it would have required to reach the nearest Roman vessel. They had done all they could and now they simply had to wait and hope that someone picked up their message and decided to help, it was entirely possible that they might simply ignore it, or decide to take advantage of the ships weakened near defenceless state in order to pillage the ship; if that was the case then Lucia would have no choice but to activate the ships self-destruct sequence; she had no intent of allowing a modern roman warship fall into the hands of an enemy or malevolent power. As much as she wanted to live, and to ensure that those she protected lived as well, her primary concern was her duty to Rome and that meant sacrificing her life if the need required her to do so.
Such was the life of a Legionary of Rome.
