The 1st Day Of Training (38.1)

46th of the Aster’s Gloom 2030 D.C.E

Tambwe Dominance — Rangda City, 8th Division Garrison, Training Field

“Welcome, noble and brave soldiers of the Bada Aso Regiment! I am Inspector General Chinedu Kimani, and henceforth I will personally oversee your training!”

Underneath the searing eye of Rangda’s noon sky there was a mass movement of people in the 8th Division Garrison, the likes of which the empty plots of land on the base’s northern side had not seen since before the Demilitarization act. Assembled between foundation outlines hidden in sparsely grassy land, standing unknowingly over floor plans that had been smashed, and now reclaimed by the soft brown dirt, several hundreds of soldiers stood in rapt attention as a tall woman in a flashy red and black uniform hailed them.

“The Battle of Bada Aso is over! We were victorious; my precious comrades, you have accomplished many feats! However, we must wipe that slate clean! There are new, greater victories to reap, and to do so, we must all take hard steps beyond Adjar’s border.”

Many a fighter had glanced at or heard of Kimani in the past, but for most this was their first time coming face to face with one of the major commanding voices in their unit. She was an impressive sight — taller than any of them, black skinned, with dark, curly hair to mid-neck level and sleek, striking features. A hint of crow’s feet around her eyes was rendered visible only by the glistening of sweat crawling down her forehead, cheek and jaw under the hot Rangdan sun. She had an air of strength and exuded professionalism; a real soldier.

“Doubtless many of you have received basic training in your firearms and grenades, in first aid, in rudimentary battle tactics. Doubtless, all of you survived Bada Aso, and have seen and fought our enemy first-hand. Yet, regardless of your ranks, and your merits, for the next week, every man and woman in front of me is once more a green Private!” She said.

Behind her a fleet of nurses, construction workers, and computers labored to set up examination tents, establish medical stations and assemble tables behind which documents of all kinds would be handed out and filled for the records staff to archive. Preliminary tests would be conducted, and information collated to help Colonel Nakar and Inspector General Kimani understand just who it was that they would lead to battle.

“Nobody can diminish your struggles, nor the sacrifices you and your comrades have made. Your past has honed you into a blade. That you stand before me, means you have been drawn from your sheathe to do battle. But right now, though you desire to cut the enemy, your edge must labor to draw their blood. It is my duty to start sharpening you, so the same cuts you dealt in Bada Aso will do more than draw blood. They will slice Nocht to pieces!”

She spoke in a strong and serious voice, and even when she raised her pitch, her affect was subtle. The Inspector General always seemed to speak in a tone both calm and intense.

Her declarations moved through the hundreds of men and women in the crowd like a wave. Everyone stood straighter and tighter when they felt her eyes over them and quivered when they heard her her voice. In their green uniforms, stripped of whatever rank markings they earned in Bada Aso, the troops of the 1st Battalion of the Askari Motor Rifle Regiment “Bada Aso” watched her every move with tense attention, and a brimming of unused energy.

In the same field where the 8th Division would perform marching drills before the war, the troops of the Bada Aso Regiment prepared for a week of short training courses.

Though the Regimental command couldn’t offer them extensive training quite yet, they would not allow them to sit around. Everyone had already lounged too much at sea. Bada Aso felt distant; but the war wasn’t over. Command wanted to keep them on their feet.

Kimani explained. “From now to the month’s end, with a break for the festival on the 48th, you will clock in 100 hours of training in infantry combat, tank-infantry cooperation, signals discipline, and much more. My staff will give you a crash course on modern combat to give you an idea of the multifaceted duties, skills and responsibilities of a soldier in maneuver warfare! I hope that you enjoyed the peaceful voyage here — because I will make you sweat here in Rangda, comrades! And it will be an inkling of what awaits you in Solstice!”

For an instant, the Inspector General flashed a little smile at the crowd of soldiers.

There was a collective gulp in response. That was a lot of hours worth of training. It appeared command counted their days at sea as a vacation, but they had not had much of an opportunity to de-stress while crammed into a troopship or a cruiser. In whispers, the crowd started to lament being driven so hard after the chaos in Bada Aso. At least some of them, however, were excited for an opportunity to learn some new fighting skills.

One such person was Gulab Kajari, standing off to the side and back of the crowd with stars in her eyes. She looked around the field and through the fence to the base, catching glimpses of tanks and guns and other equipment being brought in or serviced, perhaps to participate in the exercises. She fantasized about this training both as an opportunity to show off her energetic strengths, and to be able to brag about her elite skills later on.

Already she was a military hero! Now she could rise to the level of a battlefield legend!

“Charvi, do you know anything about this? Do you know what we’ll be doing?”

Gulab nudged her constant companion, Charvi Chadgura, but the Sergeant was nearly inanimate. On a good day, Charvi was still emotionless, but at least a little sprightly. Yesterday the two of them had helped out at the headquarters, walked around the whole base, and been yelled at by a variety of guards about where they should and shouldn’t be. Through all of that, Charvi had the same face, but her demeanor at least felt lively.

Today she slumped forward, mumbling to herself in that dry, affect-less voice of hers.

She barely seemed to pay Kimani any attention. She was mostly staring at her feet.

Acknowledging Gulab, she clapped her hands twice, softly, in quick succession, but she said nothing. Her eyes seemed fixed on her own feet, and her shoulders drooped low.

“Are you ok? Do you have heatstroke?” Gulab asked. Charvi clapped to relieve stress.

“I want to go to the post office.” Charvi replied in a barely audible voice.

Gulab crooked an eyebrow. She had not seen a post office anywhere, but she had also not seen much of the city in general — she and Charvi were bused in on the 44th along with fifty other soldiers from the port, and dropped off at the base. All they had time for (and all they were allowed to do) was registration, two meals, equipment check-in, and bunking. The day after that, on the 45th, they still weren’t allowed off-base, and took a tour of the facilities.

That must have been it; after yesterday’s tour, Charvi must have realized that the base had no available post office, and it must have made her a little depressed. Her precious hobby was stamp collecting, and being in Rangda there was an opportunity to collect new pieces. Putting all of this together, Gulab thought she had an idea of how to cheer Charvi on.

“Hey, look, we have the festival day off! You can go to the post office then.” She said.

Charvi bolted upright suddenly. She stood at attention, staring forward inexpressively.

Her head turned stiffly toward Gulab. “Are you sure? Will we really be allowed out?”

“Positive!” Gulab replied. “She said we had a break on the festival day, right? Obviously that break is for the soldiers to go out and join the festivities, otherwise what’s the point?”

Charvi pressed her hands against her cheeks. “You’re correct. You must be.”

“Trust me! We’ll have a party at the post office on that day. Just cheer up a bit, ok?”

“Yes. I admit that I felt and still feel restless, but I will be fine now. Thank you.”

When it came to Charvi, emotion was never written on her face, but it could be evident in the air around her. Her words hinted at a renewed intensity of feeling. Charvi turned her head again, and stood straighter, her legs set, her back erect, her chest out.

“I must live until that precious day.” She said.

“I don’t see why you wouldn’t live until then, but ok.”

“You never know. I must try extra hard to live until then.”

Her deadpan expression made Gulab smile. She raised a thumbs-up.

“As long as you’re feeling chipper! I’ll help out.”

Gulab petted Charvi on the shoulders and turned back around with a grin on her face.

At the conclusion of the Inspector General’s motivational speech, the soldiers were divided into several groups and pointed toward the newly-raised tents far behind them. They were big green field tents. Many of them had the telephone symbol, a handset in a black circle. A soldier who saw it was supposed to interpret that as a communications, liaison or headquarters tent, but there were a dozen strung up. So then, what did it mean?

“What the heck are those?” Gulab asked in whispers.

Charvi shrugged. “I think they’re conducting some sort of test there.”

Gulab soon found herself in a line stretching out from one of these impromptu offices.

She felt her heart thumping as everyone started to move forward into it. She could not see anyone inside, but she could see a light shining briefly through the canvas as someone exited out the back of the tent and let in sunlight. There was a little bit of chatter inside. Gulab could make out words like “official” and “documentation” and felt anxious.

“I think they’re checking papers in there.” Gulab said, looking behind herself at Charvi, who had been a step behind Gulab in the press of bodies that formed their waiting line.

“Well, they’re out of luck, because I don’t have mine.” Charvi said.

It was easy to see how those could have been lost given the events of the month.

As someone from the Kucha, where Solstice’s reach was weak, Gulab had no official papers to begin with. Her only documentation was her army sign-up forms from years ago, which she was told would be, cryptically, “good enough for anything.” She had no birth documents. This was a blessing, because it meant nobody could contradict her on anything about her identity but her family, who were far away; but might become a curse. She didn’t know.

Her mind filled with nightmares in miniature, playing and replaying before her eyes as the line pushed her toward the tent flaps under the muggy heat of a Rangdan morning.

Soon Gulab stood in front of the tent flaps and heard a female clerk calling out, “Next!”

Looking over her shoulder at Charvi, Gulab wiggled her fingers in the air as a little wave. Swallowing with a gulp, she closed her eyes briefly and stepped through the tent flaps.

When she opened her eyes, the place was a little gloomy, but uncrowded and neat.

Gulab took seat at a little table, one of six. Across from her sat a dark-skinned clerk in a pristine uniform. Her frizzy hair was styled big and round, and her friendly blue eyes were heavily magnified by the lenses on her thick glasses. With a big smile on her lips, the clerk pulled a form letter from a box and set it in front of Gulab along with a loaded ink pen.

“Good morning, comrade! I’m Warrant Officer Keisha Tamsi, and I just need a little moment of your time to insure we get a good form we can file for the Regiment.” She said.

Her tone of voice was pleasantly deep. Gulab’s anxiety at being seated in such an official-looking tent, with such official-looking person, very slightly diminished. She felt less scared and more sheepish at being in front of a nice stranger on this strange errand.

“Now, before we begin, I’d just like to know your home region. Can you tell me?”

“I come from the Kucha mountains.” Gulab said.

“I see! So that means you have no official papers. Am I right?”

Gulab felt an icy stiffness going through her chest. “Yes, sorry. I have none.”

“No birth certificate or anything like that, right?”

“My birth was handled fairly sloppily. I don’t even know my exact age.”

Gulab’s voice trembled. She expected to be told to pack her bags and leave the army.

Comrade Tamsi nodded her head in response and smiled.

“I understand. It’s perfectly fine, comrade. Your army sign-up forms, and any forms we fill today, can be used as your official papers henceforth. So don’t worry about it!”

“Oh, good.” Gulab sighed with relief. That had been easy; she had worried over nothing.

“There are many villages and unincorporated territories that have less than stellar documentation. So over time, we’ve learned not to be sticklers for stamped papers.”

From the box, Tamsi withdrew a few additional forms, stacked them neatly together, and pushed the stack forward. Gulab picked up the top form. It had basic things like name, date of birth, gender. That last one gave her a fresh shot of little anxieties, but she figured she could put anything on it and that nobody would check it or care. She was right.

“Answer with anything you want for any of the fields and we will consider it wholly official with the state’s blessing — if you want to change your name even, go for it! As far as The Socialist Dominances of Solstice is concerned, everything you write there today is your official paper information as valid as anything a doctor writes at the side of a birth table.”

Comrade Tamsi sounded almost excited for Gulab to invent herself in this little tent.

Gulab, however, was not feeling terribly creative. Though she could have chosen a more feminine name, perhaps, she was rather fond of Gulab. And while she hated her father and brother, her beloved grandfather had been a Kajari, and her fun and helpful cousins were all Kajaris too, so she had nothing against her maiden name either. Thus she made her decision.

Atop the form, she proudly wrote “Gulab Kajari” and beside it, “24”, her best guess for her age, and “M” for “Mwanamke” or woman. Her hand shook a little after that. She set her birthday as the 23rd of the Lilac’s Bloom, the date she came down from the mountain.

There were other fields, such as any conditions she had, or any levels of schooling earned.

“I don’t remember exactly what I wrote on my army sign-up forms. Is that ok?”

She knew back then she had signed up as a woman too. She had made the decision to live that way a long time before she came down from the mountain. However, she still felt a little scared that the two forms would be cross-referenced in other ways. Again she overestimated the importance of the forms and the bureaucracy’s level of efforts here.

“Not at all! As a matter of fact we don’t even have access to those! They were probably burnt in Adjar to keep them from Nocht. Write anything with confidence.” Tamsi replied.

Gulab realized how perfunctory all of this was, and her heart and stomach finally settled.

No one was trying to kick her out of the army. In fact they seemed to be making every effort to keep her, and everyone in the regiment, in the army. That was reassuring. She had nowhere else to go — though she could have settled down anywhere, that meant she would not have been able to fight alongside her comrades. Alongside Charvi; she was glad to stay.

Smiling, she started scribbling down whatever came to mind for the rest of the papers.

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The 1st Regimental Headquarters (37.1)

This story segment contains violence and some frightening imagery.

45th of the Aster’s Gloom 2030 D.C.E

Tambwe Dominance — Rangda City, Red Banner Apartments

Madiha woke in the middle of the night in a bleary, dream-like haze where every angle became soft and everything except the edges of her vision was a rolling blur. Her shirt clung to her back and breast, cold and wet with a midnight sweat, and she felt a terrible headache and stomachache, borne of stress and lack of restful sleep. When she moved her fingers, hands, feet, they felt too heavy and too limp, alternating at a moment’s notice.

She heard something heavy hit the windowsill and it reverberated in her skull.

Alarmed, Madiha stumbled upright, and nearly hit her set of drawers as she made toward the open window. Her vision warped, tilted, came in and out, until it settled.

Framed in the moonlight, Kali stood guard at the windowsill, growling softly.

Half-closing her eyes, squinting to see, Madiha approached. Holding herself up by the curtains, she leaned half out of the window and scanned the street and the road.

Her eyes were aimless at first, but were then drawn in by the mask.

Across the street, the standing thing was shorter than an adult human.

It wore a fully white mask, featureless save for an inset gold face the size of a nose.

This small face on the mask had its own dull impression of a nose and tiny slitted eyes that moved haphazardly around like spinning billiard balls when stricken by the cue.

When they stopped moving they focused on her briefly. She felt their weight even from this far. Then they would roll again like a slot machine, moving inside and out of their sockets.

Everything of the creature’s face was obscured by the mask saved for a red chin and mouth, lips broken, a faint impression of white teeth. Around the edges of the mask was the black line formed by a thick hood that covered the being’s entire body save for its five long, dangling limbs that would occasionally thrash and dance like flailing noodles.

Nothing of the creature was congruous — every limb a different size, one shoulder lower than the other, one leg taller, and its visible mouth slanted to one side.

“Majini.” Madiha whispered to herself.

Her drawing of breath alerted the creature. Under its hood its thick legs stirred. It turned from the street to the window, and the little gold face on its white mask sniffed the air.

Jagged teeth burst through from between the creature’s lips in every direction.

Madiha’s recently recovered life flashed in her mind.

She felt those arms closing around her neck, a little neck, a child’s neck.

She felt the kicking and screaming, and the crunching of the mask as a brick struck the face in the middle and drew copious, filthy-smelling blood and shrieking screams.

“I killed you all.” Madiha’s jaw quivered. “I thought–”

A click-clacking, gurgling scream interrupted her.

Red spittle flew from the creature’s gnashing jaws. Hands flailing as if pulling on the air, the monsters twitched from one place to the next, hurtling toward the window. It moved like a cheetah on a full sprint, but it accelerated to a charge from a standing position in a second flat, and in an instant it tumbled from the street over the flower beds flanking the steps to the apartment building’s stairs, and slammed a pair of fists into the brick.

Its neck cracked as it craned its head to stare at the window.

Around the edges of its lips the teeth turned as if spinning on a wheel.

Madiha reached into her undershirt instinctively, but it was not her tunic, it did not have her holster. All of that was back at the foot of her bed, discarded. She drew back.

Raising a hand to her temple, she drew on the fire, the primordial fire.

Her eyes burnt, and the edges of her sight went red.

Every second the red was expanding, and smoke covered her vision.

All other Majini had perished in the heat of this ancient flame.

This one would join them.

“Kali, run!” Madiha cried out, her legs buckling as she struggled to kindle the flame.

Kali did not retreat as instructed.

It reared back on the window and drew air into its mouth.

In front of the window the creature appeared for a split second in mid-leap.

Kali breathed out the window, launching a blurring cone of barely-visible force.

Madiha could not hear the sound, but she felt it inside her head and in her gut.

Outside the window the Majini fell to the ground with a thud and let out its own cry.

At once Madiha’s concentration broke, and the flame she nursed was snuffed out.

Night’s colors returned to her surroundings, and all of the red was gone.

In its place there was only a sting and a nosebleed.

Madiha hurried to the window and found the creature’s mask shattered into bloody pieces. Its limbs were snapped and twisted by the strength of Kali’s breath, and its hood caved in at the center. Soon it began to die the Majini’s death — it disappeared slowly. As the body and cloak melted away like wax and sank through the earth itself, Madiha saw the impression of a sewn-up face flash briefly from behind the shards of white porcelain.

It was gone as if it had never existed.

Madiha gingerly reached a finger to her blood-soaked upper lip.

The pain of her own brains burning felt very real, but nothing else did.

A thin shaft of light expanded across Madiha’s window to encompass much of her room as the apartment bore the full brunt of Rangda’s dawn. At pace with the light a small, dragon-shape shadow extended across the room, the bed, and over Madiha’s face.

Madiha opened her eyes, facing the ceiling. She turned her head to face the window.

Last night felt like a dream. Some parts she could confirm, but others were ephemeral.

She touched her thin nose, and removed a pair of bloody tissue papers from it.

No more blood drew from her nostrils. And the psychic sting in her brain had passed.

She sighed. As a child she could throw several flares before feeling anything.

It seemed she would not have to start over from scratch.

As she sat up by the side of her bed, eyeing her uniform and hazily piecing back together her plans for the day, someone knocked on the door twice quickly.

The door then opened a crack, and Parinita peeked her head in cheerfully.

“I come bearing gifts!” She shouted, holding a paper bag in her hand.

Seeing Madiha sweaty and in her underwear, a little gasp escaped her glossy pink lips.

“Sorry! I shouldn’t have barged in. Should I go?”

Madiha shook her head, gently waving about her black hair, nearer to shoulder length after almost a month of new growth, and messy from her tumultuous sleep. She stood up off the bed, leaned back, raised her arms, pushed her chest forward and let out a yawn. Glistening sweat delineated the lines of lean muscle on her bare limbs, and trickled down the brown skin of her slim, toned body. She felt no hint of awkwardness.

“It’s perfectly fine.” She said, through a long exhalation. “So long as it’s just you.”

Parinita laughed, delicately covering her mouth with her hand while ogling.

“I suppose it’s alright anyway since we’re both girls–”

At the window, Kali groaned audibly and slammed its tail on the wall.

“Eep! It still doesn’t like me.” Parinita moaned, retreating further behind the door.

Madiha shot Kali a frowning look.

“It’ll have to warm up to you eventually.” She said, in the tone of a command.

Kali blew a little air from the nostrils at the edge of its beak.

Madiha shook her head at it. “Come in Parinita, don’t stay by the doorway.”

Parinita nodded. She entered, her hair pulled into a ponytail, wearing a fresh skirt and dress uniform. A light dusting of cosmetics gave her lightly bronzed skin a bit of a blush, and the reading spectacles perched on her nose made her look more a secretary than ever. She wore a skirt uniform and a pair of classy flat shoes in green to match. Though fairly fit, Parinita was slightly rounder and softer than Madiha in form, and at least ten centimeters shorter.

Examining her, Madiha felt a little thrill in her chest. She was always a lovely sight.

Closing the door behind herself, Parinita tottered up to Madiha, and put her hands on the woman’s head. Madiha felt a cooling touch seep in through her cheeks and smiled as a wonderful, relaxing feeling spread through her, touching her strained body and her too-hot heart and head. She locked eyes with her secretary as the eldritch fires invisibly dispersed.

“You are far too hot this morning, Colonel.” Parinita said, smiling faintly.

Her hands were still on Madiha’s face. Madiha reached her own hand up to touch hers.

“I’m still unsure exactly how it happened.” Madiha said. It played into the little entendre Parinita might have been setting up, but it was also true. Her memory of the past night was a fading blur. She recognized something happened, but it felt too unreal to be true.

“Just be careful with it.” Parinita said. “I might not always be around catch sight of it.”

“Someday I’m going to have to interrogate you about that.” Madiha said, smiling.

“I owe you the conversation.” Parinita replied. “But we’d need more time than we have.”

Madiha nodded. Like her, Parinita had her own illogical secrets, and she probably yearned to share them. Madiha was perhaps the only soul who could relate to the alien things Parinita must have known. But life always pulled them harshly in certain directions, and they hadn’t yet found enough peace to fully confess to one another. Each of them held pieces of the other’s puzzle; everything was strewn on the floor without interlocking.

And yet it felt like both of them could still see a lot of the picture nevertheless.

Their day would come sooner or later, but Madiha felt that they had an unspoken understanding on this matter regardless. Each was drawn to the other, sharing a kinship in and out of battle since the day they were thrust, violently, into each other’s orbit.

It was rushed, and strange, and perhaps dysfunctional. And yet it felt natural.

Had not Aer and its Moon been bound together by a cosmic disaster? That was the last science Madiha read on the subject. The two were inseparable now. It felt quite right.

Contented, Madiha replied, “I’m not worried. We’ll discuss everything when it’s right.”

Parinita nodded her head, tufts of strawberry hair bouncing just over her forehead.

In a way, Madiha felt like she already knew everything. Such was their bond now.

After lingering for several moments, their eyes, so tightly locked before, finally parted, and they set about preparing for the day. Madiha entered the adjacent bathroom to wash her face and teeth, and Parinita returned to the door, and took from a hanger outside the apartment a fresh uniform and a bundle of needed sundries that had been left for the Colonel, and set it down on the bed for her. When Madiha returned, she sat at the edge of the bed and set apart all the layers of her uniform to begin dressing up.

“What’s on the agenda today?” Madiha asked while picking out her socks. She quickly found that she had been given were women’s long stockings, which she never wore.

Sighing, she pulled them up along her long legs.

Parinita giggled at the sight. “Hopefully we can get the headquarters ready by today, I’m thinking that will take the bulk of the afternoon to do. We also need to go over our table of organization and draft some simple training programs our troops can start on soon.”

As she listened, Madiha mechanically donned a white shirt, hastily buttoned the collar, and started doing her long red tie in a simple knot; seeing this, Parinita reached suddenly down, pushed her hands aside, and finished tying it herself. Madiha was surprised.

“I know how to tie it.” She said, as her secretary’s skillful hands completed the knot.

“Think so? Give it a quick look.” Parinita cheekily said.

Madiha pulled her tie up and stared at the knot. Somehow the red and gold lines of the tie formed a complicated pattern. Parinita had managed to divide the knot into neat little quadrants. It was a much more eyecatching knot than anything Madiha knew how to do.

“Oh ho ho! You see? It’s called a lover’s knot, because it’s hard to tie it for yourself.”

Parinita stuck out her chest, satisfied with herself, while Madiha turned a little red.

Once the Colonel was fully in uniform once more, Parinita combed her hair as best as she could, and the two of them left the building side by side to get a start on the day. Parinita handed her some candied fruit and a bread roll from the bag she had brought into the room, and they ate as they went. A fuller breakfast could wait. Madiha expected to relocate to the base quickly. She started thinking about hailing a cab to take them.

Directly outside, a sleek black soft-top car with its canopy pulled back awaited them.

Behind the wheel of the car, reading a newspaper, Logia Minardo leaned back on the chair. Her uniform looked as crisp as ever, and her cheeks and lips were delicately touched with pigments, but her hair wasn’t collected into a bun. It hung down to her shoulders, a little messy, looking recently wet. Perched on her nose were a pair of shaded glasses.

The Staff Sergeant had a pen and paper in hand and was plotting out the daily crossword puzzle on the driver’s seat. When the door to the apartments opened and shut, Minardo turned her head, spotted her superiors, and waved her pen to greet them.

She pointed at the newspaper.

“Do either of you know an eight-letter word for ‘used to make instrument strings?'”

Madiha blinked hard at her, still bewildered by the vehicle, while Parinita smiled.

“Drakegut!” Parinita cheerfully replied, after less than a second’s hesitation.

At the open window to Madiha’s room, Kali shuddered violently and bowed its head.

Minardo looked down at the paper, counted the spaces, and wrote it down.

“Perfect! As a token of my gratitude, you get a free ride.” She said, winking.

Madiha tipped her head with confusion. She still could not place the car. Her companion was much more energized by the prospect. Cheering, Parinita took Madiha by the hand and led her to the vehicle, pushing her into the back seat and making a big show of sitting near her.

“We have our own chauffeur Madiha!” She chirped. “Now we’re VIPs!”

Instead of metal seats like the scout cars, this civilian model car had plush wool-stuffed seats. The back seat was especially bouncy and comfortable, with a tall, rounded backrest. A roomy interior accommodated the two passengers well, with sizable legroom. Even the floor was snazzy, softly carpeted in a gray color that complimented the shiny black exterior.

All of this was posh, but the most stunning piece on the car was the dashboard radio.

It was set into the middle of the car’s front, extending the instruments panel.

Separating the driver’s and the front passengers’ legroom was the radio’s thick box, with a printed meter and needle in a white plate on the front. A piece of paper taped to the dashboard contained a list of civilian frequencies, scribbled in Minardo’s compact and neat writing. Aware of everyone’s attention on this item, Minardo turned it up. Immediately a steady drum beat, energetic shakers and quick strings played from the large speakers.

“Wonderful, isn’t it? Very dancey!” Minardo shouted over the radio.

Parinita’s face lit up, and she clapped her hands and nodded along to the music.

“Minardo, where did you get this? How did you get this?” Madiha snapped.

Unconcerned, Minardo turned down the volume on the radio, until the drums became background noise, “It’s a M.A.W. Bijali 2030! It’s brand new, fresh out of the depots.”

She sounded quite excited, but this information only made everything more puzzling.

“That does not answer my question at all!” Madiha replied.

On the rear-view mirror, Minardo winked again. “To some people, I’m a VIP, Colonel.”

“Neither does that! What do you even mean?” Madiha demanded.

In lieu of an answer, Minardo hit the clutch, pulled the stick back, and started to gently slide out from the side of the street and onto the road. She crept little by little onto the asphalt and then corrected the nose of the car, and with the gentlest little step on the acceleration pedal, she started them forward at about fifteen kilometers per hour.

There were no other vehicles in the immediate vicinity, and few people on the streets.

Structures and pedestrians scrolled leisurely by as the car inched forward.

“Just relax, Colonel! You’re looking too high strung this morning!” Minardo said.

Madiha let go of a deep breath and dropped against the seat, defeated.

There was a bump behind them. Kali dropped onto the back of the car and laid on the rolled back canvas frame of the vehicle’s soft canopy. It yawned and purred at them.

“It better not scratch the paint!” Minardo cried out.

Kali growled lightly and made a show of retracting its claws.

Madiha said nothing.

After several minutes, Minardo finally shifted to second gear, and accelerated to a relaxing thirty kilometers per hour. They did not go the direct route to the base. Instead, Minardo seemed to delight in taking them for a very leisurely little stroll around the corner from the apartment and farther north into the urban heart of Rangda.

It felt more like riding a horse-drawn carriage than a brand new car.

“Don’t just stare ahead!” She instructed. “Give your necks some exercise! Rangda has a lot of scenery. Our ratty old base won’t go anywhere. Try to enjoy the town for a bit!”

Madiha grumbled inaudibly, annoyed at the distraction. She turned her head away.

On the adjacent street, a teenage girl, perhaps training for a dash, bolted past their car.

“Minardo, you could stand to go a little faster.” Parinita said, her enthusiasm deflated.

Up front, their driver adjusted her rearview mirror so she could see them and scowl.

“Why, I never! I’m with child! If I have an accident, what would become of my baby?”

Parinita looked puzzled, but she kept quiet, perhaps seeing as how she had already stepped on her own tongue around Minardo once before on this very subject. She sighed.

“Well, there are better services for orphans now than ever in Ayvarta’s history.”

Madiha spoke up nonchalantly, holding her head up with a fist against her cheek and an elbow on the car door, staring at the street. She thought she sounded perfectly logical, but from the startled way that Parinita turned to stare at her, she surmised she had done wrong.

Minardo practically growled. “There wouldn’t be an orphan born at all if I was hurt badly!”

“Oh.” Madiha said. Somehow those dots had not connected fully for her before.

From her tunic, Parinita withdrew an army code booklet and tapped Madiha in the head with the book’s spine. Madiha took her scolding with as much dignity as she could muster.

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Gloom On The Shining Port (36.1)

This story segment contains brief violence.

42nd of the Aster’s Gloom, 2030 D.C.E

Core Ocean — West Ayvartan Waters

At noon, amid the deep blue of the ocean, the Heavy Cruiser Revenant launched a floatplane patrol. Near the bow of the ship, the Revenant’s two catapults were turned northward and Remora float planes hurled to begin their journey. Each would cover hundreds of kilometers of sea and return within hours, reporting via radio any contacts with enemy ships.

From the operations deck, at the fore of the massive, armored citadel of the ship’s forward superstructure, Captain-At-Sea Monashir stood with her hands behind her back, staring seriously at their operational map of the West Ayvartan Naval Sector, as they knew it in their strategic planning. Her chief concern now was the Bundesmarine of Nocht.

At her flanks, the Selkie class frigates and the Aircraft Carrier Admiral Qote were getting ready to depart and rejoin the East Ayvartan Fleet as a potential defense against Hanwa, whose role in the conflict everyone suspected, but no one knew for certain. In any conflict with Hanwa, their first strike would definitely be an assault on the nation’s Navy, and likely a first-strike against their naval command. Chayat was sure to become a target.

Admiral Qote would certainly be needed in such a situation. Not so much the Revenant.

As such it would be up to the Revenant to escort the Charybdis back to Rangda in Tambwe, while the Admiral Qote was relocated, and the Selkies covered it in transit.

Captain Monashir was used to acting alone or on limited resources. Nevertheless it paid to be cautious and use everything at her disposal. Before her support ships departed, Captain Monashir had requested enough time for a full reconnaissance patrol. The Admiral Qote had gracefully acquiesced to her request and delayed its departure a few hours.

She waited with her breath held in her chest, surrounded by radio and navigation equipment, viewing the ocean through slit windows at the front of the compartment.

Though she loved the view of the sea, it was no longer important to the crew.

In this new age of warfare, what she saw with her senses hardly mattered to the fight. A battle might be decided far before she even knew a battle was imminent. Seaplane recon was the best Monashir could hope for at the moment. The Revenant had an underwater sound detection system, and while the navy was intrigued by the ARG-2’s capabilities in Bada Aso, there was no time currently to install such a thing on the Revenant.

She watched her float monoplanes launched, and could not quite see them fly away.

Radio reports came in every fifteen minutes from both planes.

No contacts; clear seas; etc, for the first few hours.

Then a report came in: “Remora-3 has sighted a heavy cruiser. Looks like a Lubon Gloucester judging by all the big guns strapped to it ma’am. I don’t see any supporting ships, and it seems westbound. It’s far from home. I can’t imagine what it’s up to.”

That’s what it took; in this age of aircraft and signals, those words were worth more than the sharpest eyes on the deck of any ship. She had her contacts, hundreds of kilometers away.

Quickly the crew began to work on triangulation, while their aircraft shadowed the enemy. Soon they worked out a possible course for the Gloucester, as well as a potential combat area. Such an action begged the question: would they engage the Gloucester?

They couldn’t reach it on the surface. But passing this information to the Admiral Qote would allow them to deploy some of the 62 aircraft on-board. Though the Qote would have flushed at the request — 14 of its aircraft had been lost in Bada Aso, 10 to landing accidents, rendering the crew gun-shy — they might have ultimately agreed to do it.

Garuda and Roc aircraft could have attacked the Gloucester within the hour.

This would be an easy fight for them, and would eliminate a royal navy heavy-hitter. No resources would have to be diverted other than the planes and a few travel delays.

However, they were only two days out from Rangda, and the stray ship did not seem to be headed for their land. Though it had no business in these waters in war-time, and though Lubon was certainly Nocht’s crony in this war, Ayvarta and Lubon had not yet engaged in shooting. This attack would mean the Ayvartans shed first blood on the Elves.

It was all well to destroy this one ship. Captain Monashir, however, saw further risks.

“Let the Gloucester go. All Seaplanes return to base. We speed to Rangda.”

Captain Monashir knew she had lost her nerve. She had been confronted with a situation and turned her head from it. Bitterly she recalled her first impression of Madiha Nakar before her own battle — a battle the Captain had seen as reckless and unnecessary. Nakar had achieved an incredible result. But the thought of going out of her way now to destroy this Elven ship, while tempting, still felt reckless and unnecessary.

Monashir was not Nakar, and the sea was not Bada Aso.

Operations in the western Ayvartan waters were thus concluded. Admiral Qote broke off, and met new escorts. Captain Monashir sailed for Rangda. She was sure of her choice.

44th of the Aster’s Gloom, 2030 D.C.E

Core Ocean, Ayvartan Waters — Heavy Cruiser Revenant, around Tambwe.

Easterly winds carried cold from the Kucha over the little dominance of Tambwe across the lower northwest coast. Under the hot noon sun blaring over the ocean, the cold turned into a fresh breeze. But much of the deck was vacant, and there were few around to savor the air. On their final approach to the city of Rangda, only several hundred kilometers from harbor, the cruiser Revenant and its crew took a deserved break for lunch belowdecks.

Floating on the opportune breeze, a certain creature found the empty deck suitable.

And weary of the ship’s confines, a certain Warrant Officer found the creature in turn.

Hidden behind one of the lifeboats on the ship starboard, Parinita Maharani peered out onto the raised prow, near the forward gun turret housing the massive 300mm double cannons, where she found this beast bathing in the sun. Her eyes drew wide open and she pushed a hand against her own lips to stifle all the little noises her mouth spontaneously generated.

This was a Drake, one of the many large, reptilian animals in Ayvarta. In the continent’s vast wilds, the Drake in its various forms was a fairly common form of solitary predator.

However, this was a most uncommon form of drake.

Slender and the size of a big cat, it was much smaller than its siblings. Instead of a snout, like other drakes, it possessed a hard, beak-like mouth with a jagged interior. Instead of scales, the creature was covered in fuzzy down, like a baby bird. Though it lacked true wings, and had quite developed front and back limbs with stubby claws and strong muscles, there were fleshy, earth-tone membranes extending between its front legs and flanks, that amassed into folds while it lay in repose. What drew Parinita’s gaze the most was the gaudy purple-and-teal coloration of the creature’s fuzz, that shifted with one’s eyes and the position of the sun’s light as though the creature were encrusted with a gradient of gems.

“A Kite Dragon!” She squealed to herself, staring at the creature from afar.

Though still a Drake, its ability to “fly” on the wind lent this creature its name.

And a legendary reputation. Parinita’s head filled with little girlish fantasies.

The Kite Dragon raised its head and stared lazily around itself, awoken. Parinita feared that it might take off, but it did not. It raised one of its front legs over its head, and with this motion it stretched taut the flap of beautifully colored skin that made up its “wing.” Bending its head it nibbled on its own skin, likely to relieve an itch, and then laid again under the sun, unconcerned with the surrounding machinery of this giant modern warship.

Such a shocking sight; the futuristic grey meeting the regal purple of the past.

Watching this living treasure, Parinita could hardly contain her excitement. She hesitated to approach it. She was awed, seeing the history of the world that she had been taught, the mythical history, a part of it at least, confirmed before her eyes. Though on the one hand she had hated her grandmother, those stories she told had become quite a part of her the past month. Those ideas that she kept alive, those things only she knew.

To see them in flesh, to interact with them, made her proud. It made her special.

In her mind, she did not even question where this being came from. It was fated to come.

But what pure maiden did it seek? Perhaps; could it be? Herself? Parinita was giddy.

“Chief Warrant Officer, I have safely removed the rat from your bed quarters–”

Parinita turned around and sharply shushed the person coming in behind her, snapping instantly out of her pleasurable reverie. It was Sergeant Agni, whom she had tasked with removing a pest from her room. It had been a hasty compact. Parinita had run screaming out of her room and found Agni outside the door by sheer coincidence. Seeing a familiar face, she hid behind Agni for several minutes and then shoved her into the room, shut the door and ran way. Informal, unspoken; as one does with these sorts of things.

Standing out in the open, Agni turned her head from Parinita and toward the deck and finally seemed to notice the Drake. There was no change in her disinterested expression upon spotting the majestic being laying on their ship. She blinked, and stared, dead-eyed. Agni never emoted, and the sight of the Kite Dragon had no visible effect on her.

“What is that?” She asked simply.

“It’s a Kite Dragon.” Parinita triumphantly said.

“What is it?” Agni reiterated with no change in tone.

“Haven’t you heard the stories?”

“No.” Agni dryly replied.

Of course she hadn’t. Barely anybody did anymore.

As a child, whenever her grandmother deigned to pay her attention, Parinita received a thorough instruction on Ayvartan mythology. Her family, she had been told, where once faith healers and spirit priests, highly valued by their people in supernatural matters. They were also keepers of the histories of tribes and ancestral, nascent nations. She knew all about Kite Dragons, and as she spoke, she carried herself quite proudly for this.

“Kite Dragons are the highest order among dragonkind that is left in the world. Drakes cannot fly, but Kite Dragons have achieved such a status, that they needn’t fly. They merely trick the wind into ferrying them, like a kite. It is said that the regal Kite Dragon moves under its own power only in the presence of pure maidens, such as princesses and saints and songstresses, whom it takes very kindly to. It is said that an ancient King once followed a Kite Dragon for days to find a beautiful bride in Dbagbo, suited for queenship.”

Parinita finished with a flourish of her hands, awaiting a response from her audience.

“What a lazy little Drake; it sounds quite ridiculous.” Agni said, touched not by the tale.

“What? Ridiculous? It’s amazing. This is an extremely rare, majestic being!”

“Can it breathe fire?”

Parinita threw her hands up. “No!”

Agni shrugged. “I’m not interested then. I’m not a pure maiden anyway.”

“You’re damn right you aren’t! Not with this attitude!” Parinita said.

Agni opened her pouch, and pulled up a black, furry thing from it.

“Here’s your rat, by the way.”

Parinita drew back.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA–”

Agni shuddered. The Kite Dragon crooked an eyebrow at the sudden screech.

Parinita bolted up the nearby lifeboat hoist, finding a strength hitherto unknown to her. In two lightning-fast hand-holds she made it onto the life raft and threw herself under its covering tarp, crying aloud. Agni must have lost her mind! That rat was at least 100 cm!

“Agni, kill it! Shoot it! Throw it in the ocean! It’s a rat! A rat!” Parinita cried.

She peered out from under the tarp and found Agni staring at her with those same blank eyes, mindlessly petting the rat’s head as its plump body dangled from her fingers. She felt a skin-tingling disgust with the little beast, it’s pink fleshy little limbs, its stringy tail. She could see it in her mind creeping around, teeny-tiny, festering in people’s garbage!

“It’s harmless.” Agni said, holding up the little fiend and shaking him dismissively.

“Rats bite you and scratch you and carry diseases!”

From under the tarp Parinita flailed her arms helplessly.

On the deck, the engineer seemed to finally realize her officer’s disgust, and nodded her head solemnly. She averted her gaze, looking almost remorseful of her current conduct.

“I’m sorry; I did not understand just how much they affected you. I shall rectify this.”

Agni withdrew her pistol from her hip and put it to the rat’s pathetic round head.

She locked eyes with the rat as Agni prepared to finish it.

Parinita groaned sharply as if deflating. “No! No! Ok! Don’t do that!”

“Should I just let it go then? There’s really nowhere else for it–”

“Fine! Fine! Let it go! You barbarian! Let it go!”

Instead of shooting, Agni nodded, put down the rat and released her hands.

Parinita watched in horror as the furry devil scurried away.

Freed, the beast flounced up the deck, crawled over a fire extinguisher box, leaped to the prow, and was then snatched in mid-air by a sudden lunge from the Kite Dragon.

Clacking its beak, the creature tossed the rat into the air and swallowed it whole. A gross bulge formed on the creature’s throat as its meal went down. Uncharismatic noises issued from its beak and nostrils; once its meal had fallen far enough, the dragon relaxed, laid back and stretched out on the deck, its belly glinting royal purple in the sunlight.

“It ate the rat.” Agni said, sounding very lightly puzzled.

“It ate the rat.” Parinita mimed in a much more anguished tone.

She climbed back down from the life rafts and set foot on the deck once more.

Seizing Agni by the shoulders, she shook up the engineer, gritting her teeth in frustration.

“I blame you! I blame you!” Parinita shouted as Agni’s head bobbed.

“Did something happen up here?”

One of the side doors from the conning tower opened, and Colonel Madiha Nakar emerged.

Tall and fit, and quite well-dressed in her black, red and gold KVW uniform, the Colonel managed quite a presence. There was a look of consternation on the normally soft features of the Colonel’s brown face, her dark eyes locked onto Parinita’s hands as the guilty secretary manhandled Sergeant Agni. Parinita withdrew her hands and fidgeted, looping some of her strawberry hair around her finger and laughing perhaps a little too girlishly.

For her part, Agni seemed unaffected by the gentle thrashing.

“That happened,” She said, pointing out onto the prow.

Madiha turned her head to look and stared at the creature, narrowing her eyes.

She raised a hand atop the gentle bridge of her nose to shield her eyes from the sun.

Her lips curled into a serious expression.

“That thing is in the way and needs to get off the deck promptly.” Madiha said.

She started toward the prow before Parinita could relate to her the myths she told Agni.

Parinita watched as the Colonel approached the Kite Dragon and started shooing it.

She was in distress, waiting for the creature to lunge angrily at the impure Colonel.

The Drake opened its double-lidded green eyes, and raised its head in consternation.

Madiha tapped her feet hard near it, and nudged it brusquely with her shoes.

Spotting her, the creature narrowed its eyes and sniffed. Parinita was ready to cry out.

Suddenly it sprang up onto Madiha’s chest and curled its tail around her in embrace.

“Parinita!” Madiha cried. “Why is this strange bird attacking me!”

Parinita’s jaw dropped in response. She wasn’t being attacked; the Kite Dragon had just acknowledged her as a pure maiden. Perhaps the purest it had ever seen judging by how it nudged its head lovingly over Madiha’s breast, and curled its tail around her waist. It seemed almost positively in love with her, hooting and clacking its beak, its down standing on end.

“I think it likes you.” Agni said dully.

“It does!” Parinita said. She made a little squeeing noise. This was a once-in-a-lifetime sight! She almost wanted to rush belowdecks and get the cameras. “It really likes you!”

Madiha stood still and stared in dismay at the gently stirring creature.

“Gross.” Madiha moaned.

Nonchalantly Madiha pushed on the Kite Dragon. It unfurled and fell back on the deck.

Like a strange cat, it bounced back against Madiha’s legs, rubbing its flank on her.

Madiha sighed. “I don’t want this.”

Parinita gasped. She was in disbelief at everyone’s sheer lack of curiosity. Even if they knew nothing, this made no sense! “Madiha, look at it! It’s beautiful! It’s such a rare, majestic–”

“It eats rats.” Agni interjected.

At once Madiha looked down again at the creature and seemed to have new eyes for it. She knelt, picked it up by its front legs, and raised it to her face. She gently spread its gliding flaps, and blinked at the colorful display of its bejeweled fuzz once exposed to sunlight. Eyes closed, contented, the creature lifted its long gradient colored tail and slipped it beneath Madiha’s neck-length hair, lifting several tufts of her messy bob.

Nonchalantly, she deposited the creature back onto the deck and walked away.

“I will reassess its utility, I suppose.” She said without affect.

Parinita raised her hands to her face, shaking her head and muttering to herself.

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The One Who Will Die (35.1)

53rd of the Aster’s Gloom, 2030 D.C.E

Dbagbo Dominance — Shebelle Outskirts, 8th Panzer Division FOB

Schicksal grit her teeth and held her tongue long enough to watch the tanks leave the camp. She kept her eyes on one tank in particular, staring with a deathly glare. Once the unit had gone, she turned sharply around, brimming with adrenaline, and stomped from the edge of the camp into Dreschner’s tent. Staff ducked away like she was an incoming shell.

“General, how could you let him treat you like that in front of everyone!”

She went in shouting, but Schicksal quickly found that the General was not alone. At his side on the strategic table she found a man wearing a black bowler hat with his grey infantry uniform. There was a blue and white armband around his arm. He looked up from a document he was filling out briefly, and returned to it almost immediately.

“Settle down, Signals Officer.” Dreschner said, his tone apathetic.

Schicksal blinked. That man at the table was a Schwarzkopf policeman. They were part of the special investigative units in the fatherland. He was a gendarme, judging by his armband and uniform, but the black bowler hat set him quite apart. What was he doing?

“Is everything alright, miss?” He asked, still writing on the page.

“She’s fine. We’re all high-strung here.” Dreschner interceded.

“I understand.” the Schwarzkopf said, delicately writing a ß.

In the Gendarme’s presence, the last thing she wanted to do was cause a furor. Schicksal took a seat by the radios and waited for their business to conclude. Dreschner and the man spoke briefly among themselves, traded photographs and file folders, and once all the papers were filled, the gendarme gathered the materials into a file folder wrapped with a plastic tie. He tipped his hat to Schicksal, and vanished behind the tent flaps.

“General, who was that man after?” Schicksal asked. “Did someone–”

She stopped herself, recalling her own reason for coming here.

Of course; that gendarme must have been here for Reiniger.

Dreschner looked up from the table, over his own steepled fingers.

“You came to ask why I allowed Reiniger to go?” He said. He did not shift from his position, leaning into the table. “Well. Would you rather I beat him into the floor again in front of Captain Skoniec, and in front of Ms. Von Bletzen? Teach him with a fist?”

“No, but.” Schicksal paused and averted her eyes. “I don’t know.”

There was an oppressive, expanding gloom inside the war room tent. A lamp hanging overhead provided the only reliable light source, but its own shields dispersed the color of its flame, such that dire shadows covered half of everyone’s face and half of every surface. Outside the grey sky was darkening and the rhythm of the gently drizzling rain slowed down. Schicksal felt exhausted now that the flame of her anger was snuffed.

She had always felt trepidation around Reiniger. She tolerated him for the value that she thought other people saw in him. She looked at the tables of organization and knew that one less experienced lieutenant meant something to the mathematics that kept all of them alive in this war. So she filtered every thought of him through that. He had to stick around, and he had to get better. But now she was just left with the disgust of him.

Schicksal hated that she was in his presence and felt intimidated by him.

She started to wish that she could have delivered that fist to his nose and drawn blood.

She stood up from her seat and approached the table.

“Honestly,” Schicksal spoke up suddenly, “yes, punch him. Break his teeth. Throw him on the ground and step on him until he vomits his own tongue. I’m sick to death of him.”

“That’s no good.” Dreschner said. “Don’t let that gendarme hear about it.”

“Sorry.” Schicksal said. She felt embarrassed, as suddenly as she had felt angry.

“As long as it doesn’t become a habit. I’d hate to lose your level-headed personality.”

Schicksal felt a mix of shame and frustration, a cocktail that seemed to bubble hot in her chest. This must have been how Dreschner felt on the night of Kunze’s funeral. She wondered, had she been in this mood, in this position, back then, would she have beaten Reiniger? Would that have accomplished anything? What had level-headedness gotten her so far? Finally the cocktail seemed to reach her tongue, and she spoke virulently.

“He was a jackal. He thought he was stronger than all of us and he acted like we only existed because he allowed us to. I don’t want to have to put up with people like that.”

“We’re not putting up with it; that’s what the gentleman was for.” Dreschner said calmly.

Schicksal balled up her hands into fists. “That’s not enough! He needs it seared into his bones! You said it yourself, he doesn’t listen. He’s even come close to hitting me too!”

“It is already seared into his bones. That is the source of the problem.”

“I can’t believe you’re taking this tack now!”

“I agree. But one of us has to.” Dreschner replied.

Schicksal raised her hands to her reddening face.

Dreschner gently continued.

“But I also agreed with you, back then. When you said you thought I had what it takes to fix anything. This is part of that. At the end of the day if I punch Reiniger and accept him among my ranks I am condoning his behavior. That must stop.” Dreschner said.

Red mist started to lift from the world, and Schicksal took a deep breath.

“I got carried away.” She said.

“I can’t judge you for that.” replied the General.

“I feel so powerless.” Schicksal sighed. “Before Knyskna I only barely interacted with these people. You gave me more responsibilities and recognized me, General, and I felt like I had to live up to that, but I failed. And now I feel like I should have done more of, something– I don’t know! I don’t know. I should have done something to stop him.”

It reminded her too much of home.

Both her mother and her father, and her brothers, everything.

She always thought, if she had just taken one bottle away from one hand.

Then everything would have been settled. Everyone would have straightened out.

That was never how it worked out there.

But she thought that was the power Dreschner was giving her.

“I’m sorry sir. This is stupid.” She said.

Dreschner looked at her in the eyes.

“No matter your rank you will never have the power to correct anyone’s history. Neither your words nor your fists, or my fists, can change what a person is dead set on doing. I’m telling you this not because I’m a saint but because I’ve learned this the hard way. You can try, and you will try; you’ll try your damnedest. But you can’t let it consume you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m the only one here to blame, for all of this. And I’m sorry enough.”

Her head was swimming a little. She wondered if it was still the alcohol or just exhaustion. She felt all the more ashamed for having drank the night before. It felt like such a weak thing to do, such a stupid thing to give into. Just like the rest of the Schicksals.

She grunted weakly. “So whether he succeeds or not, it’s a courts martial, huh.”

Dreschner straightened out in his seat. He gazed wearily at the flapping tent entrance.

He grunted too. “Solitary confinement or the lash. That’s what this hero has earned.”

Their words hung in the air for a moment.

“I don’t think he would have made it.” Schicksal said. Her brain was scattershot.

“Made what?” Dreschner asked.

She shook her head, tossing her hair around. She clutched her forehead.

“Kunze’s shot. That 2000 meter shot. When it counted. Reiniger wouldn’t have made it.”

Dreschner shook his head. He sighed deeply. “Kunze made that shot to save another tanker. Reiniger has never acknowledged this because he would never take a shot like that. Kunze had run his unit out into the open. He’d made a mistake. He was afraid he would lose his men and fail his mission. He fell back. Everyone retreated, but one crew stuck it out fighting out in front of the unit. He was bound to get killed until Kunze made that miracle shot.”

Schicksal blinked. That was a side of the story she didn’t know. “Who was in that tank?”

“Corporal Jorg Reiniger.” Dreschner said.

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