Just an idea I had written as it came to me and posted fresh to steemit.
"You've never been in a large battle, I tell you it's terrifying as you're on that ship with no control over anything. It doesn't matter how well trained you are it all comes down to luck." The old man said taking a drink from his glass.
"But the recruitment films, they say our superior ships and training make all the difference." The young man answered and looked to his two friends who nodded in agreement.
"Those things are bullshit boy. Once the battle starts tactics and everything else go out of the window and it's just a free for all. You're at your post with the bulkheads all locked in case something gets through the shields and blows a hole in the hull. If you're in the place where the hull gets punctured then you're dead and floating in space in seconds and it doesn't need to be a big hole. Just a crack in the metal will only give you seconds more before it blows and you're dragged out into nothingness." The old man said in a slightly drunken voice.
"But our ships are far better than theirs and we're winning." Another of the young men said.
"I was told that when I signed up at your age yet the war is still going. I've survived having to abandon ship five times and had another four ships decommissioned as they were beyond repair. I've served on fifteen different starships and been in too many battles to remember them all but we lost as many as we won in the forty years I served."
"I don't believe you." Said the first young man to speak.
"I said that to an old veteran just before I signed up and after I was in my first battle and saw the truth of this endless war I knew too late he was right. Don't get me wrong lads, I served and fought with pride that we were right but out of my group of three hundred that graduated from Core that month I'm the last one standing but we're no closer to winning this war." The old man said finishing his drink and indicating to the nearest robot waiter he wanted a refill.
"We must be close to a victory, we've been at war for over a hundred years." The third of the young men said in desperation. "All those lives lost must mean we're wining."
"I signed up for thirty years but had to serve an extra ten years because we didn't have the replacements for me to retire, I'd still be space side if I hadn't lost an arm and both legs. The robotic ones they gave me arn't military speck so I was sent home. That isn't how I feel the winning side would be acting."
"So you think we're losing then?" The third of the young men asked.
"I don't think there is any winning or losing, just war and profit for those who supply both sides."
"You're getting a bit close to treason in your words." The first of the young men hissed, looking around the bar nervously.
"Strange thing that, we started this war with freedom of speech, now anyone who speaks out against it are traitors, spreading lies. Billions of us have died and the wealth of our planet is gone so our people suffer and starve, but still we can find the money for new ships and to keep fighting. When the way of life we had is gone then what are we still fighting for?"
"Freedom?" Asked the first of the young men.