DOCUMENT REF: LFA-101-M
ARCHIVE STATUS: PERSONAL LOG [RECOVERED]
ORIGIN: Pvt. Silas Lombardhy
LOCATION: Waypoint Station, Earth Orbit
DATE: April 19, 2101
[TRANSCRIPT]
They call it the “National Security Act.” Fancy words for a simple truth: Humanity is kickin’ the hornet’s nest, and they need folks like me to take the stings.
I’m sittin’ here on my duffel bag in the transit hub, surrounded by fresh-faced kids from the colonies. They’re buzzing like flies, talkin’ about adventure and glory. They think the void is empty. They think we’re just goin’ out there to plant flags.
Bless their hearts. They don’t know jack shit.
I got Great-Granddaddy Nicholas’s notebook tucked inside my tunic. The paper’s yellow and smells like old tobacco and fear. Daddy Thomas told me to burn it. Said it was the ramblings of a man whose brain got cooked in the Vietnam jungle.
But I’m lookin’ at the gear the Quartermaster just tossed me.
This chest piece? It ain’t canvas. It’s ceramic plating. Rigid. Heavy. And the shape of it… hell, it’s the exact same curve Nicholas drew in charcoal back in '68. He drew the hunch of the shoulders. He drew the greaves.
“Men in plates of green and grey,” he wrote.
And that dropship hangin’ in the bay? That ugly iron catfish? It’s line-for-line what he sketched.
The old man wasn’t crazy. He was just early.
I reckon that means the rest of it is true, too. The “Lioness.” The “Hounds.” The things with heads like bananas and acid for blood.
I feel a chill deep in my bones that the station heaters can’t touch. I thought I was signin’ up to fix air-scrubbers and send money home to Ma. Instead, I’m walkin’ into a prophecy written by a dead man.
But I’m a Lombardhy. We don’t run from the work. If the storm is comin’—the storm Nicholas promised—then someone’s gotta be there to hold the roof up when the wind hits. Someone’s gotta make sure the airlocks hold when the things in the dark start scratchin’ at the paint.
I’m finna be that wall.
I’m signin’ the papers. I’m goin’ to the [REDACTED] sector. I reckon I’m walkin’ into the mouth of hell, but hey… somebody’s gotta keep the devil waitin’.
[Entry Ends]