Titanium

031|| drums of war

—| drums of war |—

"How did all of that happen last night?" 

"How did the bomb get there?"

"Cauis, you okay?"

The Renegades were a complete mess as they lacked up things before they'd be transported into a ship for war. While Cauis stood by a counter, his broken leg in a cast as he made stirred creamer into his dark coffee. Elsa kept a keen eye on everybody's questions.

Everyone was dressed in their black Renegade outfits, looking spiffy, but rushed. Piling weapons, tools, and books into suitcases. Like they had forgotten to pack up for their vacation.

Alejandro was helping Adeline toss in tools and books into a separate suitcase for her experiments and inventions. Issac moved suitcases into tall pikes that were being created. Mason scavenged through a cupboard for snacks for the road.

"One at a time! Geez!"Elsa exclaimed, "You guys make it sound like the world is ending!"

"Well! It sure as hell feels like that!" Issac exclaimed, "This is all too rushed! This had to have been planned out at some point in time!"

"He's got a point," Mason added as he tossed a few bags of 50% less fat chips into his bag, looking over at Cauis, "Think you'll be okay on the field."

"I'll be okay," Cauis assured him, "It takes about 6 to 8 weeks for it to fully heal as Una told me." 

"You'll be sitting around our labs on the ship, lazily!" Adeline spoke up.

"Look!" Elsa exclaimed, "I don't know what happened that night! We get a message at the meeting  and the Academy blows up. Now we need a new one after 240 people died! Good people! And all I could think  about was if Cauis was even alive...........this war is just the beginning."

She felt like she could burst into tears from her stress and frustration. Everything was falling apart around her before her very eyes. She'd seen the building blow up at the meeting and felt guilty for not being able to stop it.

But she couldn't change the past or even change her mind to say what had happened. She learned all of that a long time ago. For a very good reason, to give into that feeling of what happens had to happen.

"Shit," Issac muttered, "This probably means.......we aren't going to get our so called, 'little vacations' anymore. Meaning we are going to be out there longer in space...........not a lot of time to spend with Lyris."

The group fell silent realizing their daily lives and routines were going to be quite different. They wouldn't be able to lazily hang around their apartment anymore. Or even to hangout with family whenever they can.

Mason probably wouldn't get to spend time with his wife and family as much as he could anymore. Alejandro wouldn't be able to check in on his mother, who would spend her days in New Mexico cooking meals for the nursing homes. Elsa would probably have to cancel her therapy with Aera.