Goodnight, Twilight

June 23, 2024

Seoul, Commonwealth of Korea

    Brigadier General Michael Stanfill, was not a happy man. In fact, this assignment only served to irritate him even more. His job was to keep the Korean people from going ape-shit and attacking the Asian Empire, by acting as military governor of the newly acquired, and currently occupied American territory. Basically, it was his job to listen to the people bitch about how living to the south of such a monstrosity as the Asian Empire, known jokingly as China v4, was hurting them in someway. They didn’t know what way, but they knew it was someway. Even worse, was the anti-empire protest currently going on outside the Korean legislature building  where the Commonwealth Assembly, Korea’s sub-national legislature, was gathering.

    The general was nearly jogging his way to the assembly chamber, and when he arrived, he was met by a middle-aged Korean man. “Governor Stanfill, it is good to see you.”

    “You too Representative Maeng, how is the assembly feeling?”

    “Scared, sir. These protests are getting more violent by the day, we don’t know what to do.” Maeng said. He spoke calmly, but Michael had known the man long enough to understand that he was scared out of his mind.

    “Neither do I, other than imposing martial law, and by the way it looks outside it just might come to that.” Michael said, glancing out a nearby window. It was chaos, people getting trampled, property being destroyed, all so they could protest a war that ended six years ago. “Sometimes I wonder if they even notice that the war is over.” He was referring to the third World War. Earth was still recovering from it, the four main belligerents, the United States, the European Union, the Russian Federation, and Asian Empire, fought in alliances of two against the others. America and Europe, fought side by side against Russia, and Asia. The war began when Russia tried to invade Europe, but were held back by a European Army Regiment from Germany, now known as the Berlin Wall Brigade. It was long, and the horrors are still fresh in the minds of those unlucky few who managed to fight, and survive. Asia attempted to use nuclear weapons more than once, but American-European missile shields, and ICBM interception systems took them out every time. Of course, there were those who ended the war, the 7th American Marine Division under the command of Major General James Hammond, known by those who watched them descend from the sky in blazing pods, as the Space Marines. Courageous men and women, who were willing to serve aboard a space station in low earth orbit, and be deployed to earth in drop pods whenever they were needed. They were need only twice, but both those times, they were made heroes. They fought in two battles, that lasted for about three weeks each. The Siege of Moscow, and the Raze of Beijing. Before that, neither nation showed any signs of weakness, in fact they’d have won early on if their plan of blazing American, and European oil fields worked. Well, it did, as in the oil was gone, and pollution containment was a high priority, but it didn’t matter, the U.S. and the E.U. had spent the last ten years developing algae farms from which to produce biofuels. So gas prices were high, for about a week. No matter what, it didn’t matter now, Michael wasn’t one of those marines who ran around bragging about how he won the war, no he was content knowing that it was over, and his home was safe. Michael was snapped out of his reminiscing when he heard a loud, metallic snap from outside, and saw that the protesters had gotten violent, and broke through the gate.