Quoted By:
THRAX (vehement now, rising anger)
- But that's just it! What Empire? Where is the Empire? All I see is a bunch of beggars on a beach nursing their wounds. There is no Empire, we fought for nothing! Left us with nothing. And I am not the only one who thinks like this... The problem with the Legate is he does not question. He does not question anything. It was probably what made him such a loyal, effective instrument for the old Empire. He gets his orders, he obeys, he commands; and that was all there was to it. But there is no need to follow the rules now. There is no honour. We could be the ones raiding here, making a killing for ourselves...! That hill fort, back by the woods - completely undefended. We could have just taken it for ourselves...
GALBA (incredulous)
-What is this? What is this?? One battle, and now you think are a bigger man than the Legate? You know better than him? Strakos, the pit fighter champion who carved a path through a thousand corpses to stand by the side of the Sempiternal Throne...
THRAX (spits in contempt)
- The old Empire is where it started. I blame that moon Church, those Cislunarians and their deviant ways. Nutrient bars and the aggro-dome, virtual circuses and pleasure palaces. All these conveniences... they made men soft. Then when the Isonomy came, they just gave up! There wasn't even a battle, they just accepted vassalage... and then, the most killing the Empire ever did was of their own, the few who stood and fought for the old ways against the Isonomy... all dead now. Except for him (Thrax gestures at the distant shadow of the Legate) - it makes you think, just what did he do to earn all those spies of his...
GALBA (slowly, but with an unwilling sense of acceptance)
- This... it cannot be true. The Legate would never kill his own. He alone has kept us all safe... held us together... he would never... never...
THRAX (with a sense of triumph)
- I am telling you, it is going to happen. He has done it before. He is going to send us all to our deaths. Unless someone does something about it...
