The stories of an old soldier

"What is your name, cadet?"

The old admiral looked at Aeneas with curiosity. There were always cadets who wanted to know his story to end up making fun of him, but few of those who approached with those bad intentions treated him with as much respect as that boy had done.

"Aeneas, Aeneas Dardanus my admiral."

"Hahaha, I appreciate your manners, boy, but I have the same thing left for me as an admiral as for my life, little or very little."

The old admiral drained his glass and poured another, looking sadly around him.

"It is also an honor"

"Would you share a drink with an old man?"

"It will be a pleasure..."

Aeneas sat next to the old man in the barrom, he didn't worry about being called a nut for listening to the tirade of a fallen admiral. He felt a strange sympathy for the old man from the very moment he knew who he was.

The cadet had grown up among military history books, and being able to meet face-to-face with one of the greatest pilots and admirals in the history of the Hellenic navy was a rare opportunity.

At first Jahve did not behave like the crazy person he was portrayed as; he asked him about classes, about his aspirations, he even received a couple of pieces of advice, however at one point in the conversation Jahve became tense.

"As you see, I'm not a crazy person, at least not the type of crazy person who drools or hits the wall. The only problem is that those useless people don't believe me, they didn't want to believe me, and there's less and less time left. ..."

"Less time for that admiral?"

"For the end of everything... for salvation... but don't ask me; you wouldn't believe me. Let me enjoy these minutes of respect after so much time. I don't want you to look at me with pity too..."

"I assure you, Admiral, that none of his words can surprise me... Let's say that I have also experienced things that no one would believe... Let's do something. I'll tell you my crazy story, and you'll tell yours, okay? If mine doesn't sound really crazy, feel free to end the conversation, Admiral Jahve."

Aeneas had not told anyone that this was his second life. How could he? Who would believe him? However, he did not think there was any danger in telling the old admiral his story.

He began by narrating the events of the war that he had experienced in his past life; he told of the extinction of humanity and how that last failed battle was, he told how his consciousness wandered through the cosmos and how he heard voices before being returned to the day of the admission Test.

The admiral was interested in the specific facts of the war, when it would begin and how, against whom, he did not know the race that seemed, according to the story that the cadet was telling him, would be responsible for the complete annihilation of life on the three planets. .

He also told him how as soon as he arrived the first thing he did was save his mother, how he located the bird and ran over it in mid-flight, preventing it from colliding with the drone.

Told this way, the story would seem like the childish dream of a madman, but to reinforce his story, Aeneas did not hesitate to show him his bulging bank account with the prize he had won and how sports betting was increasing it day by day. How could anyone be so lucky? After all, the old admiral had a strange story, even more so than that of the cadet.

"So you say that someone sent you back to save us... Hahaha, well, l, at least it seems that I'm not the only one who can be called crazy if you listen to him... If you allow me some advice, Cadet Aeneas, don't tell this story "No one but wants to end up like me..."

"Tell me, Admiral, what is his story?"

"As a cadet, you will already know everything there is to know about the Battle of Orion's Belt, so I won't entertain you with nonsense; I will just tell you that the damn Asgardians were wrong; the rest of the Kashmir army was not where it needed to be. … It was one of the first joint operations. Asgard would take care of the vanguard, the great battleships of the Pharaohs would be behind as the bulk of the force, and we would be behind, covering the rear... By the time our enemies appeared right behind our backs, they would not "We had support, and those sons of bitches wanted to die killing…"

The old admiral looked at the cup in his hand as he remembered everything that happened in that battle. He did not hesitate to jump into combat, leading the fighter squadrons, while he redefined the positions of the ships of the Hellenic Navy. The combat would be tough, but they could hold out until reinforcements arrived.

He managed the hunt for him, further reinforcing his reputation as "almighty" There was no place he did not attack, no companion he did not defend, and all this while he managed the entire fleet through space, and coordinated the attacks of the main ships. Of the navy.

The Jahve of that time was the paradigm of the military hero, brave, tough and capable.

"A group of enemy ships was harassing and subjecting our flagship the "Oracle" to intense fire. I directed the squadron of fighters that followed me to that position. It was then that several vectral pulse torpedoes were fired at the same time to destroy our ship... we managed to shoot down seventeen of those damn torpedoes, but with the barrier under a lot of stress the three torpedoes that hit transformed it into a beam of light. When five other torpedoes hit the "Oracle" it exploded into pieces…"

The old man drank from his cup, so far he had not told anything strange or crazy, just the memories of an old soldier, vivid, detailed, exciting.

"My fighter was thrown into empty space, the engines had been damaged, and I had no control over the ship, none of the communication systems worked either, I was adrift in the middle of space, the battle was increasingly distant, while my ship continued pushed by the inertia of the explosion, going deeper and deeper into the asteroid belt..."

The old admiral's glass had finished, and he had already refilled his own glass; it seemed that alcohol was one of his few means of consolation.

"After days of wandering through space, my ship was getting dangerously close to a comet... At that rate, it would crash and everything would end for me... however when the comet entered the zone of influence of the nearest star, space became deformed... it was like a green light... some strange waves were driving the few control panels that were still working on the fighter crazy... my ship entered cleanly through that portal... at that moment my life changed for always..."