As he stepped into the waiting room, he was reminded how much he hated hospitals. Civilian hospitals weren’t quite so bad, but the military ones, the ones he found himself in the most, were terrible. They always seemed two degrees too cold, for one thing. Their lights were dim, their walls bare. The colors of the floor and wall never seemed to quite match, and were too drab or too bright. The musty scent of death, no matter how powerful the ventilation system and it’s filters were, always seemed to hang in the air, and when you left it remained embedded in your clothes so you smelled like it for hours.

He was a man who had encountered and braved death in many forms at many times in his life, who had watched comrades fall beside him on the battlefield, and learned to shrug it off. Death was a part of life, the end to the beginning, and he had grown comfortable with it everywhere but here. Hospitals were different for some reason. He didn’t really know why.

As he stepped in out of the rain, he folded his umbrella and removed his trench coat, placing them both in a walk-in coat closet near the door. That task finished, he approached the receptionist at the far end of the empty waiting room. After clearing his throat, an act that caused her to look up at him without much interest—it was probably nearly time for her break or to get off—he addressed her. “Good Afternoon. I’m here to see Marshal Rieger.”

She looked at him indifferently. He was probably the dozenth who had come today to visit the legendary army commander. He was a special case, though, even if nobody knew it.

“I’ll need to see some ID,” she said.

“Of course,” he replied, slipping his rank cylinder out of his left breast pocket and handing it to her.

She slipped it into a scanner, and then reviewed his information. After the computer had recorded his presence and his intentions, she passed it back to him. “Of course, Colonel.” She pointed to a door to the left. “Marshal Rieger is in the third room on the left.”

He thanked her, then turned to the door he had being directed to and passed through it. He automatically counted the doors as he entered, and selected the one he needed in the efficient Imperial Military Style that he had been forced to adopt in training. As it turned out, there was little need for his efforts, for every one was labeled with it’s occupant’s names.

He opened the door labeled “Field Marshal Hans Rieger,” and then stopped. He breathed in the newly released stale air the room contained, and then stepped in.

Like a wave on an ocean, the scent and feeling of death swept over him as he stepped in. It would not be much longer now. He was lucky he came when he did. Moving further into the room, he could see the marshal lying in his bed, eyes closed. The instruments by his bed showed his pulse and respiration rate still going, even if weaker than normal. He was only sleeping.

“I have come, Grandpa.” He said softly, almost a whisper and more to himself than the man before him. In the dim light coming from the direction of the sink on the left side of the room he could see every wrinkle and blemish on the old mans face clearly, as if magnified a thousand times. He seemed much older than he normally did, even though he was a full seventy-nine years old.

He stepped up to the older man’s bedside and lifted his hand up. He placed it on the Marshal’s forehead. The skin was cold and clammy. There wasn’t much time left.

As the man relapsed into consciousness at the touch, a reflex embedded in his mind in boot camp but never shed as he climbed in rank, his breathing changed. It became much more labored and hard, as if he had just ran a marathon. Every breath had to be an effort driven by nothing but sheer force of will, he reflected. The only race he was in now, though, was against death itself. “So,” the Marshal said in a slow, deep voice. “So, you came, my boy.”

“There was a lull in the fighting where we were stationed, so I managed to get a pass to visit you using your reputation.”

The old man smiled. “That’s good, it’s nice to see you again, after all these years. So much has changed, you’re a Colonel now. You’ve really moved up in the ranks.”

“Grand Admiral Thorton has developed a liking to me,” he said. “He’s directing the campaign to the West, and we’re slaughtering our foes. He sends his regards and wishes you to return to health as soon as you can.”

His grandfather was silent as he thought. “That Thorton,” he finally spoke. “He wants me to get better so he can send me off to do more fighting. But I’m afraid that’s all finished. My time has come. I just wanted to see you one last time before I left.”

How can you comfort a man who has resigned himself to his fate?

“Don’t speak like that,” he said, his voice less solemn than it had been moments before. “You have served your time. There is not a man in our Empire who would argue that. And you have served well. Now it is time for your retirement. You can return to Bandomeer, if you wish, or spend your remaining many days on one of the resort worlds in the east we have just conquered.

“Julian, Julian,” his grandfather said like a fallen giant, proud, but accepting his fate. “We have both been around death our whole lives. Both of us have looked it in the face, and come out alive. But do you think I am such a fool that I cannot recognize it now, when it stairs back? Every beginning must have it’s end, and I have accepted mine. I have lived a full life, a proud life. Now, however, it is your turn to carry the family heritage on. You and your son must carry the torch now.”

How can you comfort a man who has resigned himself to his fate?

“You are a good man, Julian. You are a good soldier, and have served our Empire well. I have served the ideals of the Empire from my first years to my last. You must continue to serve as well. It takes strong men to form a strong empire, and you are a strong man. It is men like you who will never let our Empire fall while you live that have made it great, and will keep it great in the future.

“For years it has been like me, Grand Admiral Thorton, Grand Marshal Vos, and many others who have kept our Empire strong. Now, however, it is your generation’s turn. In both it’s ideals and it’s men, the Empire is stronger than the enemies, and it is up to you to keep them that way. As long as they are maintained, the Empire will stand dominant over the galaxy, but as soon as they are relaxed even a bit, the Empire will crumble. It has happened before, and if you are not careful it will happen again.

“You must remember my words.”

How can you comfort a man who has resigned himself to his fate?

“I will, Grandpa, we will. We will stay strong, and the Empire will live on.”

“You must, Grandson, for the good of the galaxy. For strong ideals make for strong citizens, and it is strong citizens that make for a strong Empire, and a strong Empire makes for strong ideals. If the circle is broken, however, it will crumble. You must never allow this to happen. That is the secret of the Empire.”

“It will not happen as long as I live.”

“Decay is natural, you must fight it. Citizens who turn against the Empire, and those who know what’s best for them may be a dying breed, but they can never truly be wiped out. You must oppose them vigilantly, for if the fire of their ideals spreads—as foolish as they may be, they are addictive and consume those who hear them—the empire will fall. That was Palpatine’s mistake. He believed rule through fear itself was enough to control his citizens, but he was wrong. A scared citizen is a dangerous citizen, and is susceptible to decay of his ideals. You must keep your citizens content, you must keep them happy as Hyfe and his successors have done. Happy citizens are the only resistance to moral decay, and strong ideals are the secret to a strong Empire. Weakness is intolerable to strong ideals and incompatible with them. Rebellions and insurrections must be wiped out, and dissidents must be arrested.”

“It will not happen grandpa, not while I live, but won’t you sleep now? You look tired.”

Not exactly tired, more like deathly sick. His eyes had begun to sunk in, and it would not be long at all before death consumed him. No doubt that the older man knew this as well.

“Not tired, relieved,” he softly spoke. “ I pondered the Empire and it’s ideals for the past forty years before I realized the secret, and did not want it to die with me. Now you are the carrier of this truth, and it is up to you to pass it on.”

“I will.”

“There is another thing, I must tell you, however, before I go.”

“Yes?”

“For years, you have tried to find out what happened on Null, what happened on my first deployment. Not just you, but all I know. For forty years I have held my tongue. But now I must tell someone. I must speak.

“It all began many, many years ago, after I just finished my basic training. I was assigned to join one of the newly forming Panzergrenadier divisions in the Borderland Protectorate. . .”

The huge hanger bay was filled with Imperial army personnel going about their business. Mechanics, especially, as they looked over the thousand and a half tanks, artillery pieces, and infantry fighting vehicles that the troop ship carried in preparation for deployment. They mainly worked along the edges of the half mile long hangar, leaving the center mainly empty. Quick thinking officers took advantage of this before the mechanics could take control of this as well, and were marching their troops back and forth down the length of the ship.

"A lot of good your damned drilling will do you once you're in combat. It don't do you any damned good to be able to march in formation under artillery fire, and it sure as hell doesn't help when you're attacking an enemy position unless you want to be mowed down like grass."

Hans glared at the older, battle hardened trooper speaking to him

"Fuck, private. I don't give a shit how well you or your officers say you're trained. Until you've been under fire, you don't know fucking shit about war. But just stick with me, and you'll get through fine."

From the front of the improvised briefing area there came a shout. "Attention," the commander of their battalion, Major Danby, called. "All eyes on me."

The chatter in the briefing area abruptly stopped as four hundred and fifty heads shot forward.

"Gentlemen," he began. "First I must congratulate you on successfully passing through your training. You Panzergrenadiers are without a doubt some of the finest soldiers in the Empire and the galaxy. The men who trained you are without any doubt proud of you, as am I, and as is the Emperor himself.”

Major Danby beamed at them for a moment, then turned serious.

"The planet Null has, since the beginning of the new Galactic civil war, proclaimed official neutrality, but with both her government and citizens without a doubt supporting the Empire. In fact, her navy and army have both performed exercises with the Empire's own naval forces, and have assisted Imperial units in patrol, tariff, or other minor duties during periods that the Empire's Borderland military forces have been stretched thin, though this has been rare as of late.

"Unfortunitly, however, a group of radical pro-democracy anti-Imperial students and Union workers recently performed a coup d'etat on the Nullian government. The actual percentage of people on the planet supporting the revolution is only a few percent, and only twice that percentile support the Coalition in it's war against us, but through a combination of brute military force, and threats to completely obliterate any resistance without asking any questions at all--as well as a few times they'd carried their threat out--have forced all resistance underground despite their numerical majority. Unfortunitly, the rebels control the majority of the planet's weaponry and military, thanks to sympathetic commanders, including a small stockpile of nuclear arms.

"Imperial Intelligence originally simply wanted to send in agents to arm the rebels, since they would without a doubt eventually take over the planet thanks to superior numbers, but it was later decided that Null would make a superior first battleground for you men to prove yourselves on. Tomorrow, you will be landing on the planet.

"Your opposition will primarily consist of well armed loyalist troops and battalions of well armed militia formed as a desperate measure to help fight us. It is expected for all resistance to collapse once the capital is taken and the government disposed of, so that will be the primary objective. You will have air cover, thanks to the fleet in orbit as well as TIE Fighters and Bombers patrolling above the battlefields.

"Sleep well and hard. It may be your last chance for a while. The same goes for eating. The best of luck to you all. You're damned good men and I hope to see each and every one of you back on this ship once the operation is over."

Major Danby paused for effect.

"Dismissed!"