Brigands [3.6]

“So this is it, huh? At long last I get to meet the UNX-001 Brigand.”

Captain Ulyana Korabiskaya walked down a long chute with displays projecting camera feeds and diagrams of the ship she was about to enter. There were directions keyed off her own rank that showed her the path to the bridge, inside the command pod of the Brigand. She had seen pictures of the ship — Nagavanshi would not let anyone in the crew live in peace without handing them a picture of it for some reason.

Yana’s opinion of it was simple: it looked like a piece of shit.

It was oversized and angular, clunky, reminiscent of an old converted hauler design.

The Union progressed well past those kinds of ships after the revolution.

So from the exterior alone, it felt like an anachronism.

She supposed that was part of the camouflage.

One of the directives had been that the crew of the Brigand needed to dress like a private company, rather than a military operation. As such, on the eve of their departure, everyone had been issued a uniform for a front company: Treasure Box Transports, with a gaudy TBT logo. The uniform for the bridge crew, like Yana, was a teal-blue half jacket with a sleeveless zip-down white shirt and a teal-blue skirt or pants, worn over their bodysuits, wetsuits or swimsuits of choice.

“I suppose I’m a big-shot company woman now.” Yana said.

Nothing had ever felt more ridiculous than pretending to be a capitalist.

Thankfully, she had some luggage. She brought a uniform and normal clothes.

As she crossed the docking chute into the ship itself, she found herself in a cramped hallway with bulkhead doors on every side. This was the edge of the “primary hull” and beyond it was the inhabited “secondary hull” of the ship, where everything vital was, and where most of their time would be spent. Beyond the docking room was the lobby of the secondary hull arrival area, where a gaggle of sailors congregated and seemed to be making acquaintances. Yana saw many fresh faces in there. Many sailors saluted her, which she turned down with a casual wave of the hand.

“Don’t be too formal right now. Save it for when we enter combat.”

The suggestion that there might be combat seemed to sober the excitable sailors.

“Captain, over here.”

There was no missing Chief of Security Akulantova, who towered over the sailors when she appeared from a bulkhead situated around the corner. She was wearing the ‘company uniform’ like the rest. However, she had a full coat, rather than the half jacket. One could appreciate how muscular she was even under concealing clothes. One curious detail about her biology took Yana by surprise. When she first entered the room her eyes turned grey for a moment: she must have brought up her secondary eyelids while getting used to the brighter lights in the lobby. Then her much more human-like blue eyes reappeared. Not once did her expression change during this.

“I would like to guide you up to the bridge. I’ve explored quite far already.” She said.

“Lead the way.” Yana said, smiling and gesturing toward the bulkheads.

Akulantova was an interesting person.

A gentle face, a charming voice, and that big body all together.

None of the parts were ill fitting. She wasn’t too big, and her voice wasn’t too chirpy and so on– Yana certainly had no criticism of her. She looked natural, the product of her labors.

Just interesting, as far as Yana was concerned.

“Captain, since we’re about to embark on a long voyage, I want to ask a question.”

“Go ahead.”

“Would you ever order me to shoot a crew member?”

They were walking down a hall in the engineering deck, to the elevator.

Yana stopped in her tracks. Maybe Akulantova was too interesting!

The Captain answered quickly and emotionally.

“Absolutely not!”

In the next instant she realized how flustered she had gotten and felt vulnerable.

Akulantova smiled at her without any apparent malice.

“Nice answer. Maybe a little naïve. Don’t worry, if I ever have to, I’ll just use this.”

The Security Chief revealed her sidearm. It was a launcher for ‘baton round’ rubber bullets.

On a ship, live ammunition was rare. It might over-penetrate, hitting crew and equipment.

Her launcher was a two-handed grenade weapon for most folks. For her, it was like a pistol.

“It might break some bones, but it won’t kill anyone.”

Yana sighed. It was hard to stay on edge when Akulantova was so oddly cheerful.

“There will certainly be difficulties ahead for us as a crew. This is a unique situation. But let’s take things calmly, as they come.” Yana said, giving Akulantova a friendly pat on the arm.

She sounded a bit stilted, but she tried to be her most Captain-ly self in that moment.

Akulantova put her rubber bullet launcher away.

“I’m glad. I will always follow the Captain’s orders, but I like when I have a nice Captain. When the Captain has a good heart, it means I can be a good-hearted Security Chief myself.”

She turned around, and whistling a quick tune, resumed leading Yana to the bridge.

As they traversed several tight hallways, Yana got the impression that while the exterior of the Brigand left a lot to be desired aesthetically, the interior was almost cozy. Many of the walls in the secondary hull had light blue coats of paint that evoked a nursery or a school. Most of the floors were a soft shade of red, maybe salmon pink. The air was treated well, it was not too dry or too humid; it recalled to her memories of living in the Academy dorm. Cramped, but homely.

That was one of the things that a technical diagram didn’t really convey.

The Brigand’s interior layout was not entirely unique. All of the day to day operations happened in compartments contained in an internal “secondary hull” surrounded by a second layer of much less traveled surfaces called the “primary hull.” Aside from the docking chutes the crew were not expected to ever be outside the secondary hull. From what Yana understood an innovation with the Brigand was that the Primary Hull had two sections along with the exterior armor. There were recovery systems in place to seal off breaches to the armor and first section of the primary hull, and route emergency ballast to the second section of the primary hull.

This meant that the Brigand could potentially take twice as much punishment as a normal vessel in combat. Given that a single torpedo at just the wrong spot could split even the most powerful vessel right in half, this was not as incredible as it sounded. Yana would still run the normal playbook: avoid combat if possible and avoid any kind of damage if possible.

Within the secondary hull, the ship was divided into several “pods.” Pods were not circular as their name would suggest — the nomenclature grew out of bathysphere designs, and once the ships of their ancestors grew into the fleets of today, it was retained. Most of them were rectangles.

The Brigand’s secondary hull was divided into two tiers. There were habitats on the top and bottom floors. Each habitat had living spaces, a bathroom with closed stall toilets and open showers, and a gathering area. Officers lived two to a room or by themselves in the top habitat; Sailors lived 4 to a room, with each person having a pod bunk with a privacy door, and a chest for personal items.

All rooms were small. The only privilege was having one to yourself, or, like the lucky lady Murati Nakara, who was on the crew roster as cohabitating with a certain Karuniya Maharapratham, being able to have a room to yourself and your wife. As the Captain, Yana had a room all to herself, but there was a second bed built-in that could be pulled out if necessary.

Apart from the habitats, the top floor housed the Command Pod, along with the Common Pod which housed the mess, infirmary, and a social area. There was also a Science & Observation Pod or “S&O” which housed the main computer racks, the labs and the all-important hydroponics section, with wall-gardens, root beds, mushroom pens, as well as the ship’s tree.

On the bottom floor, there was the Cargo & Reserves Pod or C&R, where all the goods they would need, along with spare parts and any other sort of thing were kept. Everything was stored in compacted containers and every single possible centimeter of space was used. So the part of it that was visible to the ordinary sailor was basically a cargo door with a slit in it to talk to the supply crew, who were packed inside in probably the worst conditions on the ship. C&R was particularly tight for the Brigand as they had at least several disassembled Divers and even more Diver spare parts packed into the back of it.

Between C&R and the ominous Reactor Pod, which was sealed off to everyone but a tiny handful of properly accredited personnel, there was Engineering, which took up much of the lower tier. Here they kept Divers and Watercraft that would actually see combat. Engineering was composed of the Hangar and various workshops. There was space here, allegedly, to deploy 18 Divers. From the schematics, it seemed like there were only 8 deployment tubes, so the other Divers simply waited their turn — or they used the hatch for the Shuttle, and just jumped out of a moonpool into the sea.

The Hangar could be turned into a football field with some ingenuity.

They had a single Diver squadron assigned to the Brigand with 5 active-duty Divers, 1 Reserve Diver, a few suits going unused, one Shuttle, and extra space. Most of their Diver suits were actually stuck in C&R, disassembled and packed tight in “zero-space” packaging, awaiting distribution to all the wonderful friends they hoped to make along the way. Having only 5 professional Divers available essentially put the Brigand on par with any other modern capital ship, which was not very impressive.

Hopefully, they would remain stealthy and avoid confrontations.

“You seem to be in your own little world, Captain!”

Akulantova smiled. They got off an elevator into the upper floor.

“Welcome to the command pod. I’ll leave you to inspect your bridge. I would like to get started configuring the security room. I like to set up the cameras just so. Good luck, Captain!”

With a big cheerful wave of her hands, Akulantova left her side.

On a nearby wall was a double-wide sliding door.

Breathing in, steadying herself, Captain Korabiskya entered her Bridge.

There were few people at their posts.

Yana was an early arrival, along with the mechanics.

The Bridge was divided into three sections, each one a step down from the last. At the top, accessible through the door, was the Captain’s area and her seat. It was a rotating chair on a solid base, with a built-in computer terminal, and it was tilt-proof for when the ship rocked. There were additional seats that could be pulled out of the wall for the Commissar and (if present) the First Officer.

Yana took her seat.

She adjusted the armrests and the computer monitor’s angle.

Down from the Captain’s location, enough that she could see over the shoulders of her subordinates, were six stations set against the walls, three on each side. “Communications,” “Sonar and Sensor arrays,” and “Diagnostics & Electronic Warfare” stations on the left; “Torpedoes,” “Main Gunnery” and the Helmsman’s “Navigation” station on the right. Further down from them were six stations that were all for “Auxiliary Gunnery,” essentially just the gas guns that were used for close-in defense against ordnance. Those six gunners could control up to twelve guns at a time with the help of software and optics. In this way, all of the vital combat functions of the ship could be directed from the Bridge itself.

Aside from the stations there were two monitors that could be pulled down from the roof. One of them was closer to the Captain, while the second on the far wall was much larger and would allow everyone in the room to see the same picture if it were used, such as for important messages.

“Helmsman, how is she? Do you think she looks fierce?”

The Captain looked down at the navigation station. Abdul Kamarik had arrived early and was on the navigation computer, hammering away at the keys and calibrating the wheel he would use to control the ship. Like Chief Akulantova, maybe he liked to set things up for himself as soon as possible. From what she could see of his screen, he was deep inside the diagnostics.

“She’s a mysterious dame, Captain.” Abdul said. “Did y’know this ship has two additional hydros on the back? That’s why we have this weird diamond rectangle looking hull, I bet, to accommodate the extra back end we’re dragging.”

“Two additional jets? Are they full size?”

“Not like the others, these are smaller. I think the water system doesn’t connect to them all that great either, they don’t have any additional intakes for these ones, it would need water rerouted to them, which could stress the system out. I think these might have been meant for short term bursts of speed. Even if they’re not all full size, any additional thrust would push it faster.”

“That’s strange. Thank you for looking into it. I’ll make a note to follow up on this.”

He saluted her casually and started turning his wheel and documenting the results in the calibrator software. Yana saw how absorbed he was in his work and decided not to bother him.

When he first introduced himself at the Officer’s meeting, Yana had not really known what she should make of Abdul Kamarik. She was starting to think of him as someone who was very precise and knew his ships. Looking at him fiddling with the wheel, she felt assured of his ability.

Her gaze fell on the left-hand side of the room.

At first, her eyes glanced over a pair of dark, cat-like ears atop a woman’s head and it sent a shiver down her spine. That notion was dispelled quickly. When she noticed the gaze upon her, the woman at the Sonar & Sensor Array station responded with a charming, friendly smile, unlike the waifish woman who troubled Yana’s mind. Her dark hair was tied up in a bun in the back of her head with a white, lacy cloth. Her uniform was tidy, and well fitted; she had a full figure which, along with her impeccable makeup, lent her a mature, refined air, like a model in an ad campaign.

“Pleasure to meet you Captain. I love your lipstick. Coral, am I correct?”

Yana was surprised.

She had done herself up a little bit but did not think it was special at all.

“That’s right, it’s coral color, from the Rurik collection.”

“It’s the perfect color for your skin– Oh, I’m sorry, I hope that wasn’t awkward to say,”

“Ah, no it’s fine– well, thank you.”

“It’ll be fun to have a Captain who seems like a mature woman with a sense of fashion.”

She was beaming so widely, Yana almost wanted to turn away the praise.

“I try to give my crews a good time, as much as I can.” She awkwardly replied.

At that moment, the woman’s bushy tail stood on end suddenly.

“I almost forgot to introduce myself. Chief Petty Officer Fatima al-Suhar.”

Yana smiled at her. “Pleasure to meet you. Captain Ulyana Korabiskaya.”

“Oh, of course I know your name Captain! How could I not?”

“At any rate,” Yana tried to steer the conversation away. She had a hunch that Fatima was prone to chiding herself for silly things. “You’re setting up your station, I see. Do you need a pair of specialized headphones? For your ears, I mean– maybe the ship wasn’t designed for–”

Fatima quickly rescued Yana from her awkward attempt at being inclusive by lifting the headphones up from the navigation computer’s controls. Each speaker was separated and included a clip that was adjustable for human ears and Shimii ears. This way, Fatima could easily listen to the hydrophone and perform all of her duties with the same degree of comfort as anyone.

“Thank you for your concern Captain. I should’ve brought it up sooner–”

“It’s fine, you’ve done nothing wrong. At ease.”

Yana smiled. She was a good soul, that Fatima. That was the Captain’s instant impression.

While the Captain was conversing with the Helmsman and the Sonar technician, there was one additional person in the command room who was making slightly irritated noises while fiddling with a console. Situated at the Torpedo computer was a tall, slim woman, with wide shoulders and long legs. Her silky brown hair had been messily braided into a bun in the back of her head, with what looked like a chain around it from which hung a little squid symbol. Her slightly angular face had a honey-brown complexion, and she had odd eyes: one brown, one blue.

“Having trouble there?” Yana asked, in good humor.

For a moment, the woman looked back at her with surprise before returning to her labors.

On the computer screen, there was a simulation of a torpedo.

She was moving around a joystick, which would be used to guide such torpedoes.

“This thing’s gate is just like, crap? I don’t know. It’s weird. I might have to pull it apart.”

“Please do not pull it apart. We can file a maintenance request.” Yana objected.

The Torpedo officer sighed and turned back around to face the Captain.

“Listen, I’m a professional gamer, ma’am. I need my joysticks to be exactly right.”

Yana directed a concerned, frowning face at her subordinate.

“You’re a torpedo tech; this isn’t a game. Name and rank, now.”

Though she could have pulled up the roster, Yana liked to hear it from the soldier’s mouth.

Again, the woman sighed with exasperation. “Chief Petty Officer Alexandra Geninov.”

Hearing that name piqued Yana’s curiosity a bit.

“Not Geninova?” She asked.

“Nope. I didn’t care about changing it.”

“Ah, I think I understand, sorry.”

“S’fine, I said I don’t care. Shit’s all fake to me.”

Yana came from the same ethnicity as the patronymic half of Alexandra’s clearly mixed heritage. Her own surname, Korabiskaya, was easily recognizable as such. She supposed that the officer’s name indicated a softening of certain conventions in her community, which was good. It gave Yana sympathy and respect for Geninov, who had a clear grasp of herself.

“Well, I’m Captain Ulyana Korabiskaya. It is great to be working with–”

Geninov quickly worked at dismantling that bit of respect Yana had found.

“You can just call me Alex, Captain.” She tapped her fist on her chest, smiling. “Three-time winner of the All-Soviets Video Gaming Championship. And may I also add, in each of those events, I won, individually, Climbing Comrades, Constant Attack I and II, Leviathan Fury–”

“That’s great, Petty Officer.” Yana interrupted. “You will not take apart your station.”

The officer stared at her with narrowed, annoyed eyes before returning to her joystick.

Yana had never played a video game herself. She had never grown up with such things.

As such she neither knew, understood nor cared about all of this nonsense.

Judging by her fetching looks, which seemed wasted in this whole gaming scene, Alex may have been young enough to have played a lot of games in her teens. While there were definitely traits about her which seemed quite admirable, this gaming thing was a black mark far as Yana was concerned. She hoped to hear no more of it, but she knew that was wishful thinking.

She supposed this crew was going to be a handful.

Yana was already noticing a pattern. Some exceptional people here, by certain definitions.

“Communications officer isn’t here yet, so I’ll just do this myself.”

There was a minicomputer attached to the side of her chair that could be brought around to the front of the chair and locked in. Yana brought the computer forward and pushed the screen until she could lock it at a good angle for visibility and comfort. The interface was pretty standard. There was a list of programs, routines, scripts and other potential clickables, largely unadorned, which appeared before her after she authorized herself. She touched to select an item.

Bringing up the ship’s stock activities, she started to issue a ship-wide “roll call.”

It was that precise moment that a new face came tumbling into the room.

“I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry for being late! It will never happen again!”

At the door, breathing so heavily she almost seemed like she would choke, was a woman in a disheveled state, her TBT half-jacket falling off her shoulders, and her beret on the floor next to her, and her long, yellow hair thrown about. Her soft, round face was quite rosy with effort, a glossy coat of red just barely applied on her lips — and shadow applied on only one eye.

Yana thought she would have looked like a very bright, bubbly girl on a good day, but this was clearly a disastrous time for her. She looked as if she had buttoned only enough of her shirt to declare herself modest, as if she had run out of time to cover her round belly; some of the bold, erotically lacy design of her swimsuit brassiere was still partially visible even despite her efforts. One wetsuit stocking was piled up around her knee, while the other had gone up as far as her thigh.

Rather than the official uniform pants or skirt, she appeared to have thrown on what seemed like tight black exercise shorts that did not really go with the cheerful colors of the company jacket. Yana wondered if the shorts were part of her wetsuit and she had run out in her unders.

Yana smiled at her.

She tried to appear gentle and understanding, but the awkwardness of the moment crooked her lips into what seemed more like a grin than the motherly face she wanted. She could not keep her eyes from wandering afield as she looked over the situation. When the young woman at the door noticed this her face blanched and she looked quite mortified. She looked down at herself, squealed, and started buttoning down her shirt.

“I’m so sorry ma’am. I ran all the way over here. I overslept. It’s my fault. I’m a dumbass. I couldn’t sleep and then I took sleeping medicine and then I slept too much– AAAAAAH!”

With the girl clearly in distress, and unable to get a word in, Yana stood up from her chair to physically console her. At first she hovered over her, but this clearly failed to have an effect, the Captain had no choice but to go for the hug. She threw her arms around the woman.

“It’s really not a big deal. Take a deep breath.” Yana said.

She patted her in the back, trying to reassure her, as well as give her a handkerchief.

As she said this however everyone else in the room was staring at the door.

“All of you have things to do!”

Upon being admonished, Fatima, Abdul and Alex turned right back around.

At these simple acts of kindness, the young woman was so deeply moved she kept crying.

“Thank you so much Captain! You’re such a professional and I don’t deserve this at all–”

The young woman wiped off the running makeup on her face with the kerchief. She then blew her nose into it and coughed into it so hard it almost appeared like she would vomit. When she handed it back, Yana threw it over her own shoulder for a cleaning drone to worry about later.

In the next instant, the young woman, her face cleaned, was suddenly all smiles.

She saluted. “I’m Signals Specialist Natalia Semyonova! May I ask one final favor for this pathetic girl standing before you? Um, can we just all put this embarrassing episode behind us, and start over? Don’t you agree Captain? And uh everyone else in the room too, right? Friends?”

Yana cast a deathly glare at the three stooges in the nearby stations.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better dear.” Fatima replied. She sounded genuinely happy.

“I didn’t see nothin’.” Abdul said. Pretty genuine, acceptable disinterest.

“Sure.” Alex replied, grinning.

Yana put her on a mental list for lying so brazenly.

At that moment, Yana still had her arms on Natalia’s shoulders. This was unfortunate; because also at that moment, a pair of cat-like ears crossed into the room and captured Yana’s attention.

Those familiar ears were attached to a hauntingly beautiful Commissar.

A Commissar who had a low opinion of Yana and perhaps reason to suspect that she might not have good intentions in touching another crew member. The Captain’s eyes drew wide with guilt when the Commissar appeared; and the Commissar’s eyes drew wide with fury in turn.

“Captain Korabiskaya, what kind of situation have I walked into?”

Commissar Aaliyah Bashara crossed her arms and bared her fangs.

Yana raised her arms off Natalia as if she were being held up with a gun.

In such an uncomfortable scenario, she might as well have been.

“The Specialist was troubled, and I was trying to cheer her up.” Yana said.

“Cheer her up? Specialist, is this true?”

Natalia, in her continuing, near-total dishevelment, turned to the Commissar with all the blood rushing to her face, and seemed unable to respond to anything that was happening then.

“I’ll– I’ll go fix my clothes. Sorry for causing trouble!”

Aaliyah’s expression softened. Natalia walked away with a gait heavy with shame.

Leaving a void between the Commissar and the Captain.

“She’s trying very hard.” Yana said. Her voice sounded a little too desperate.

Aaliyah sighed and rubbed her own forehead with exasperation.

She accepted things, in the end.

“I’m watching you, Captain. Please behave.”

She turned and walked right back out of the bridge. Yana instantly felt as bad as Natalia seemed to. She wanted to collapse on the floor.

Previous ~ Next

E.S.P. (72.1)

This scene contains violence.

48th of the Lilac’s Bloom, 2031 D.C.E

Ayvarta, Solstice — Conqueror’s Way

Wordlessly, the battle began.

Madiha’s wrist had barely recovered from the previous clash when Aatto jerked her arm toward the side of the bridge as if grasping for something that had fallen from her hand. Madiha saw the foam washing up along the sides of the bridge before the wave came flying over the barriers. It was not as a wave should be, it was not a long sheet of water; it was water sliced from the source, contorted, shaped into a weapon. Madiha pushed on herself and leaped out of the way as river smashed into the bridge where she stood.

Behind her she left a hole, bored clean through the bridge as if by a drill.

Around the rim of this orifice was a sheet of ice.

Everything had happened so quickly and yet the action and reaction both seemed so eerily natural and understandable to Madiha, as if it had all been rehearsed for her.

E.S.P. was like touch, like smell, like sight; active and passive all at once, innate.

It took seeing Aatto’s E.S.P. to really understand.

Madiha was being pushed to use it, where before she loathed to.

It was the battle that was pushing her. But it was also something else.

Something frighteningly like an instinct.

“You’re not like any of the spoonbenders at the Institute.” Aatto said.

Madiha taunted her. “Are they all savages like you?”

She needled her.

Aatto grit her teeth, and turned sharply to the other side of the bridge with both arms up.

Water started to rise once more.

She opened herself up. She committed her E.S.P. and Madiha would punish it.

Madiha drew her pistol and in a blink put two shots into Aatto’s forehead and nose.

She staggered back with a cry, seizing hold of her own face in pain.

Along the sides of the bridge the water harmlessly descended.

“God damn it!” Aatto cried. “Right to the face? To the face? And I’m the goddamn savage?”

Blood had drawn from her enemy’s forehead. But when Aatto started to peel her own hand away from its reflexive grip on her wounds, Madiha saw cracks, as if on glass, that were merely dribbled red. She had not been killed, or even seriously wounded.

“Should’ve known there was nothing important there to shoot.” Madiha said.

“Ha ha.” Aatto grinned viciously. “Very funny. You don’t get it, do you?”

“I do.”

She had some kind of armor on her body.

Did she cover herself in ice? Madiha realized that must have been it.

Her mind started to race. How many layers? How deep? What sort of attack would–

As Madiha had done before, Aatto pushed on herself for speed.

“You’re not the only one with tricks!”

Madiha wasn’t the only one learning.

In an instant Aatto had made her way to Madiha, so close that Madiha could feel the cold emanating from her body where warmth should be. Where Madiha was wreathed in fire as she used her abilities, Aatto grew colder, steaming with an inhumanly icy aura.

Growling in anger, Aatto threw a punch.

Pushing away from it, Madiha sidestepped the attack and found Aatto briefly vulnerable.

Madiha drew a knife and tried to engage in close quarters combat, but Aatto was not fighting by the book, not by anyone’s book. Army combat manuals taught effective fighting for disabling and killing enemies with fists or knives, but these counted on human enemies behaving in human ways. When Aatto swung around to meet her, she was not moving nor behaving like a human. Her speed was such that Madiha could do little to retaliate but to drive the knife toward her enemy with all her strength and pray.

Thankfully for her, Madiha was also inhumanly quick when she needed it.

Her knife met Aatto’s flesh before the woman could swing again.

Cracks formed as she struck the base of the neck, where Aatto’s head and torso met.

It was no use. Madiha found her blade caught in the icy armor, drawing little blood.

Aatto shrugged it off, and grabbed hold of Madiha, taking her in a brutal embrace.

“I was afraid if I pushed on myself too hard I’d break my body, but you did it so easily.”

At the moment she improvised those steps, Madiha felt no regard for her own safety. It wasn’t a technique she had honed, it was spur of the moment. Everything in this battle felt like a spur of the moment idea, a figment brought to life by two inhuman minds pitted like dogs inside a cage. Only new brutality and new evil could come of their fight.

She would have to think fast once more, because Aatto was innovating too.

Aatto took a deep breath and suddenly squeezed. Madiha felt the air going out of her lungs, and though she tried to push back, Aatto was using all her power to keep her grappled. But she saw an opportunity. Arms forced to her sides, Madiha turned her wrist and stabbed Aatto in her rib. She could only muster short thrusts but she pushed on each.

Her own wrists screamed in pain, but she could feel the knife digging into Aatto each time as if it had been swung with the full force of the arm. Blood and ice splashed out.

Despite this Aatto stood undaunted. She grinned, and she laughed.

“You ever wrestle before? Up north we love it.”

She enjoyed it; Aatto liked hurting people. Aatto thrived on power.

Or she was an idiot who talked too much.

Madiha pushed again — on herself.

She thrust her head forward and butted foreheads with Aatto.

Blood from the woman’s forehead spilled over Madiha’s nose and mouth.

For a moment they were frozen, a brutal sculpture to this messy, primeval battle.

Forehead-to-forehead, blood to blood.

Madiha could feel the chaos in Aatto’s head, as if a storm brewing from the wound.

She was angry, angrier than she had ever been. She was sad and hurt and furious.

“You think you’re better than me. You think you got me this easy. I hate it. I hate it!”

Aatto started screaming. She was emotionally unstable; she was losing control.

She squeezed tighter, and forced a gasp out of Madiha. She was choking her now.

“You think you’re better than me! I feel it! You think I’m trash! AND I HATE IT!”

Aatto pressed Madiha tighter against her chest, set her legs, and pushed.

Madiha could feel the strength of the psychic thrust as Aatto launched upward.

Mid-air, Aatto swung the other way and made suddenly for the ground.

Her mind started to fog; Madiha desperately pushed on her other wrist and broke it.

She twisted the hand holding the pistol, and twisted the finger on the trigger.

She twisted the pistol toward Aatto’s chest, between them.

“Use your inside voice–!”

Madiha forced the words out before unloading a magazine into Aatto.

She saw shards of ice go flying from Aatto’s back in six different places.

Bullet penetration; that armor had shattered.

Blood splashed from her belly and chest, and her grip slackened dramatically.

Madiha pushed away from her and from the ground.

For an instant Conqueror’s Way shook, just enough to perceivably disturb the skin.

Aatto and Madiha hit ground. The two landed meters apart and on their backs.

Recognizing from the terrible pain what she had done to her hand, Madiha screamed.

She grit her teeth, and with her remaining, functional hand she pushed herself up.

Over her shoulder, she saw Aatto slowly forcing herself up on violently shaking knees.

She turned around to meet her, and watched as the ice around her wounds melted.

Her armor turned to water, and turned to blood. It started to seep into her wounds.

Madiha winced from the pain in her wrist. “How many lives do dogs have?”

She was no good at taunting, but she knew now that Aatto had no self-control.

That was an advantage, even if it didn’t look like it right then.

“Shut your fucking mouth, you stuck-up little princess!”

Princess? Had she read Madiha’s anxiety? Had Madiha left herself that open?

Or was it just low-key misogyny?

Without warning Aatto peeled a chunk of ice as if out from the air itself and launched it.

It was needle-thin and ultra-sharp, a wedge shaped knife spinning through the air.

Madiha ducked under it, and realized the cloud around them was a mortal trap to be in.

There was a reason Aatto made this cloud, and it was not just for cover.

Aatto controlled water. She controlled moisture, she controlled the droplets in the air.

Whatever merciful old gods prevented Aatto from simply peeling all of the blood out of Madiha’s body with her E.S.P. were not as keen to keep her from wielding all the rest of the water around them. And there was a lot. In their every breath, in the air itself, in the river that rushed below and around them. There was a lot of water. It belonged to Aatto.

All this time Madiha was matching E.S.P., but she had to recognize her core competency.

Aatto was water and Madiha was fire. However much she feared the flame that was her legacy from the conquerors and emperors old and maybe new, she had to wield it now. Though she hated that flame that linked her to the Empire she destroyed, if Madiha did not stop Aatto now, there would be nothing keeping her from the walls of Solstice. From her people; from the nation she gave everything up to found; and from Parinita.

There seemed to be no other way. She had to burn Aatto to death.

But fire was not so easily brought to bear. Madiha couldn’t just take fire out of the air.

She realized that she could take something else.

“Even during a tantrum, you like your clouds a consistent, moist 2 degrees or so.”

Madiha, having seen the cloud, knew how to influence it almost on instinct.

Or maybe she knew because Aatto knew.

She raised her hand in front of herself and snapped her fingers together, producing a flame on her thumb as if from the end of a match. She did not push on this flame the way she did to objects and even to herself, but she caressed it, nurtured it, fed it, spread it. An aura of fire grew from the match on her thumb to cover the immediate area.

Aatto stared in stunned disbelief as the cloud around her started to heat up and dry out.

Beads of sweat drew from Aatto’s forehead, and became little wisps of vapor.

“I prefer a nice 50 degrees.” Madiha said. “Are you melting? Should’ve stayed up north.”

Around them the thick, fluffy blue cloud was turning almost to sand, dry, dark, choked.

Even Madiha was straining to breathe in the heat. Aatto, however, was despondent.

She grabbed at her throat, coughing, sweating, covered in vapors. Her knees buckled, her tongue lolled, hanging dry from her mouth. Her eyes started to tear up, but the tears were evaporating even as she wept them. It was a horrifying sight.

“No, no, no, no, no–”

Aatto grit her teeth.

“No! Stop it!”

She stamped her feet into the earth, and her eyes flashed blue, and the vapors chilled.

Madiha felt an lightning-fast instant of cold and reflexively resisted.

Her nose bled; she felt a sharp pain as if a knife had excavated a vein in her brain.

Her hand shook, and the fire spreading from it started to twist and hiss and sputter.

Within moments, the blue spreading from Aatto overtook the dark heat in the cloud.

Madiha’s influence was snuffed out, and she staggered back, holding her head.

Her eyes were bleeding, and her nose was too, and her vision was foggy.

She should have realized it. She was not strong enough. Not like when she was a kid.

She was spent; she had been debilitated by the deeds she performed in her youth.

Aatto had never been challenged, not like Madiha had been. She was still at her peak.

Madiha’s legs quivered, and she dropped to one knee, unable to stand.

Gasping for breath, and laughing cruelly between each gasp, Aatto stumbled closer to Madiha, as the cold started to mount and the latter’s body to shake both with the pain she had caused herself and the unbearable environment around her. She had been able to suppress it when her special fire was at its peak, but weakened and vulnerable as she was, Madiha was just a little girl of the southern continent facing down a raging blizzard.

Aatto’s sweat started to freeze up, and she collected it into a jagged chunk.

She put the weapon to Madiha’s temple, staring down at her with malice.

“I came here for the idiot who is too loud and the useless hunk of metal; but you’ve convinced me that while I’m here I might as well take your walls and your life too.”

She raised the icy pick into the air to bring it down on the helpless Madiha’s head.

Madiha did not blink or flinch, she couldn’t have even if she wanted to.

She saw Aatto thrust down and in a blink, saw her thrust away on a sudden gale force.

Aatto stood her ground as much as she could, but she was forced a step back by the gust.

“What the hell–?”

Madiha found her vision blocked by the appearance of a new figure.

Standing guard, with her hands open in front of her in a defensive stance, was a young Yu woman, dressed in an eastern style. She glanced over her shoulder at Madiha, her characteristic eyes soft and almost admiring, and smiled at her. She looked untouched by the carnage around her, even as she had so suddenly moved. Her brown hair was done up with a pair of picks, and from the back, the ends flared up like a bird’s tail. It was immaculate. Her skin bore not one bead of sweat nor the touch of Aatto’s frost.

Her green eyes glowed softly yellow and she gave off an aura like a slight breeze.

“General, I am humbled to stand between you and the enemy.” Yanyu Zhuge said.

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The Battle of Conqueror’s Way (70.1)

48th of the Lilac’s Bloom, 2031 D.C.E

Ayvarta, City of Solstice — North Solstice

Deep in the heart of Solstice, under the shadow of Armaments Hill, the ground began to tremble violently. Several blocks out from the headquarters of the Golden Army the shocks and the stirring of Solstice’s three great biting heads could be felt in the floor and the walls. At the Varnavat Artillery Base, there was nothing but blacktop and three massive structures. Stone turntables each the size of a city block, arranged in a triangle around a central control tower, began to turn three massive 800mm cannons.

All three cannons, each 20 meters long, lay on enormous steel bases. Recoil tubes larger than two adult men standing atop each other and thicker than a sand worm were installed atop the barrel to carefully reset the weapon as it slid across a mount some 15 meters long, criss-crossed by the skeletal components of its wheel-driven elevation mechanism. Each gun had a crew of 250 men and women assigned to it for setup, maintenance and repair, along with an elite 15-troop gunnery crew. These hundreds of people crowded the spinning terrain of each turntable, tightening screws, lubricating parts, working the cranes that raised 4-ton explosive shells up to the massive breeches.

Before the Solstice War, the Prajna had not been fired in anger since the revolution.

Now it felt almost routine. At the Sivira HQ not too far away, at Armaments Hill just a stone’s throw from Varnavat, in the surrounding streets, and even in the control tower a hair’s breadth from the epicenter, there was no stress. Civilians passed by the base on their way to work or shop in the North Solstice City District; at the military installations men and women walked the halls with their feet gently quaking, and with the earth’s palpitations winding their way through their guts and lungs, and they bore it quietly.

Every one of the three 800mm Prajna Super-Heavy Howitzers turned its barrel South.

Lieutenant Adesh Gurunath of the 5th Guards Mechanized Artilery Brigade watched the massive guns moving, settling, and the teeming mass of humanity that crewed them, with a mixture of awe, pride, and a lingering, uncomfortable sense of mortality, fear, despair. He was dressed in the formal uniform, coat, button-down, skirt, leggings; his shoulder-length hair wrapped in a bun, his glasses dripping with sweat from his brow, his entire face, ordinarily pleasant, soft and effete, contorted with anxious disbelief.

At his side, his previous superior, now-Major Rahani, outdid him in military elegance with the addition of a bright rose in his hair and a touch of makeup around his eyes and on his lips. Smiling, with a hand on his hip, he patted Adesh gently in the shoulder. His own skirt was just a little bit shorter than Adesh’s, who wore a more conservative woman’s uniform. Both of them had dressed up their best for the facility tour.

“I knew you’d love to see it. My husband is an engineer here, you know.” He said.

He pointed toward the third gun with a winking eye. Adesh made no expression.

He had wondered so many times before: why me? His life had been spared in battle so many times; he had felled so many foes with so little understanding of how or why; he had been promoted away from his friends for so long. Now Rahani had chosen him to bear witness to this. Rahani was going to become one of these powerful, elite gunners.

“Please don’t be nervous. I know on some level that these weapons scare you and you hate using them. I just wanted you to get the full picture of what they can do, before you decide anything.” Rahani said. “I know you’ve been through so much, Adesh. You’re on the cusp of major turning points in your life. You can’t just go with the flow anymore.”

Major Rahani wrapped an arm around Adesh, and drew him close in a motherly way.

“You like guns, right? I think seeing this might help you understand some things.”

In front of them, the guns began to elevate, and then were set into their final arc.

“For the artillery, we are at a crossroads between movement and power. We’ve never had to think about this before, not the way we do now. This right here, is the power you could have by staying rooted where you are now. By stalwartly defending this place.”

Adesh raised his eyes to the barrels of the three Prajna as their breeches locked down.

Standing beside the control tower, he saw flag-wavers come running out of the building.

“You’re here, in Solstice now. You could stay here, like I have. Isn’t this magnificent?”

There was a great and mighty shock that sucked up all other sound.

From the barrel of the Prajna came a flash like a bolt of lightning, and copious black smoke belched out in the wake of a massive, red-hot shell that rushed to the horizon like a shooting star. Beneath Adesh’s feet the ground quaked, and he felt the onrushing force of the gun’s shot like a tidal wave, washing over him. Into his every bone, to the marrow; within his guts; even his eyes felt like they were shaking with its power. He wept openly.

In succession, the second and third guns fired their own projectiles, and Adesh nearly fell; had it not been for Rahani holding him close, perhaps both of them would have fallen. Gunnery and engineering personnel all around stood in the same shocked silence, picking themselves up from their own exposure to the god-like force of the gun firing.

Somewhere out there, something was going to catch those stars and die.

Adesh stood, speechless.

He wished so much that Eshe and Nnenia could be here with him.

He wished he knew where they were.

He wished things hadn’t resolved the way they did.

Rahani, at his side, smiled and waved off the rapidly disappearing shells.

He sighed deeply, and turned to Adesh again.

“We could defend this city’s walls until the end of the war, safe and sound. No more fighting, no more stress, helplessness, powerlessness. We would have 15,000 of the quickest guns in the world, and the three biggest guns in the world, at our disposal. We can do desk work, start families, make passionate love to our partners every night.”

Something small, insignificant almost, wandered in from the edge of Adesh’s vision.

There was a Chimera moving about, towing one of the Prajna’s massive shells.

Its gun was bound up with cloth. There was no need for it to shoot. It was just a tractor.

“But this is a new age also.” Rahani said. “You could follow this war to another border. You could follow General Nakar, the only person in this army speaking of Attacking.”

“I could leave the army.” Adesh said, sobbing.

“You won’t.” Rahani said. “I know because I said it once too. I see a lot of myself in you.”

Adesh hated how right Rahani was, despite how much he loved him that moment for it.

Rahani, with his gentle smile and pretty features, who had saved him so many times.

He was always there for him. Even now, when he had no responsibility toward him.

“You want to do what is right; but you also have to do what is right for you. All of our people are part of this war now. But you don’t need to sacrifice your life for it.”

Rahani pointed at the Prajna’s once more as if reintroducing them to Adesh.

“Please consider it before you return to Mechanized again, Adesh.”

It was a kind, wonderful gesture.

But Adesh knew what he would do.

It was so kind and so wonderful because it was so unnecessary, so ineffective.

He was the only one in that field, it seemed, who saw that Chimera trundling about.

Adesh knew he would unbundle that gun and leave everyone behind. On those tracks.

Rahani sighed a little bit. “My hubbie will be busy, so, lets grab a bite and catch up!”

He clapped his hands together happily. Adesh nodded his head.

“I would like that. You’re the only one of us I can visit anymore.” Adesh said.

Ayvarta, Solstice Desert — Conqueror’s Way Approach

Major General Von Fennec stood on the back seat of his utility truck and watched in a mixture of horror and exasperation as a shower of rocket fire wiped his and Von Drachen’s troops off the bridge to Conqueror’s Way. He had heard of the Ayvartan rocket troops and their howling ordnance, but seeing it with his own eyes was like watching meteors raining from the sky on his men. It was sudden, infernal, and vexing.

The disdainful hand of a fiery goddess, slapping his men like pieces off a game board.

Truly that Madiha Nakar had a knack for setting her own battlefields aflame.

Setting down his binoculars and turning away from the scene of half his men burning to death and the rest fleeing like cowards, the general tapped his foot against the rib of a girl below him on the back of the truck, crouched in clear discomfort beside a portable radio. She groaned upon being struck this way, and grumpily turned her blond head.

“Casualty estimates, right now.” He demanded.

Promptly but with a trembling in her voice, the young woman responded.

“Major Yavez is saying a hundred and thirty, at least. Battalion combat-ineffective.”

“What about the Vishap?”

“It appears unharmed sir.”

Von Fennec sighed with a deep relief. He dropped his binoculars on top of the girl.

“Acceptable. Tell those idiots to get back on the bridge ASAP. Combat ineffective my ass.”

The General left the girl, speechless and rubbing her head, and dropped off the truck and onto the sand. His all-terrain quarter-ton “Peep” truck was parked in the far edge of the battlespace, with a full view of the bridge but ample distance between himself and any guns. He had been watching the battle with a keen interest in the Vishap’s advance. He was an old warhorse of the days of carriage-drawn artillery, and rose through the ranks with the mortar and howitzer men of the last war. This Vishap was really something else.

He was excited to be entrusted with it. To him, it meant Lehner still believed in the old staff, that he was bringing the respected elder statesmen of the army into his future.

Unlike his compatriots, Von Fennec readily dispensed with tradition if it suited him.

Now even the artillery men could know the glory of the assault! They could finally take whole cities by themselves, and humiliate the enemy in the fashion of the infantry! No more was the artillery a lowly thing dragged behind the lines, or saddled with the thankless defense of worthless camps and fortresses. Now in this age of maneuver, the innocent artillery that fired unknowingly into the sky, could itself know blood and fire!

All he had to do was watch the Vishap as it crept toward the city, and await victory.

Now that was progress he could agree with.

Von Fennec walked back toward the tall dunes surrounding his camp.

“Sherry, I shall be in my command tent, tell those cowards to get back in line–”

Moments after he turned his back, as the firestorm died down on the bridge and the Vishap’s gate-smashing shells once more became the loudest presence on the field of battle, Von Fennec felt a trembling moving from the floor to his legs, up his bones.

He shuddered, and turned once more toward the city.

He saw trails of smoke stretching over the sky like black lances.

And the speartip was a trio of glowing-red shells like stars being shot into space.

From the back of the peep truck, Sherry stared at him with terror in her eyes.

“General, the Prajnas have been fired! We’ve got three shells, south-bound!”

Von Fennec sighed deeply with great relief.

“Not my problem then! We’re attacking from the east. Tell my men to keep fighting.”

Safe knowing he was not the target of those monstrous guns, Von Fennec once more turned his back on the truck and the city and ambled away, his gait irregular from horse-back injuries sustained long ago. He had a bottle of wine in a personal icebox on his command vehicle. He could see his HQ already, near the Vishap’s old container. A tank transporter with what resembled a little house on the bed instead of a vehicle.

Several minutes later and sopping wet with sweat, he put his fist to the HQ’s door.

Finally, time for a well-earned rest and maybe a bit of drunkenness.

Von Drachen was out there somewhere, he could do the commanding–

Von Fennec then heard the beeping of a horn, and turned to see the Peep rushing close.

Confused, he watched silently as it pulled sharply up in front of him.

Sherry was in a panic in the back. She was waving her arms with every word said.

Her glasses practically fell off, and her professional-looking hair bun was out of sorts.

“General!” She cried out, short of breath.

Von Fennec turned back around and reached for the door, hoping to ignore her.

“Corps is calling an immediate retreat out of Prajna range!”

Von Fennec stopped and abruptly turned sharply over his shoulder.

“They’ve sustained casualties as high as the divisional level. Our southern thrust is broken, we’re practically fighting alone, and we’re closest to the city.” Sherry said.

Von Fennec blinked.

To retreat would mean–

“We can’t abandon the Vishap! My career will be over!” Von Fennec said.

He turned his head sharply every which way, looking for that uppity mutt.

“Where is Aatto?! Get that bitch out here! We need to extract the Vishap immediately!”

Von Fennec was losing his sun-addled mind entirely.

Demure and white as a ghost, Sherry mumbled, “Sir, um, about that–”

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The 3rd Superweapon (69.4)

This scene contains violence and death.

On the road leading to the eastern gate sixteen trucks and tractors assembled, each of them supporting via metal scaffolds a bed of 132mm rockets. They assembled in a formation that took up much of the clay road between a pair of evacuated shops and restaurants at the edge of the city. Each driver, accompanied by a small gunnery team, exited the vehicles. Together the teams began to adjust the angle of the rocket launchers. There were at least twelve rockets per truck, and around eight rockets to a tractor.

Madiha Nakar watched the so-called “Guards Heavy Mortar” teams setting up Ayvarta’s secret weapons. She helped them adjust the elevation of the launchers via short-range hand-radio, feeding them the distance and coordinates to the approaching Vishap.

Once all the trucks and tractors were situated and their rockets ready, Madiha left them.

She turned around and ran to the opposite end of the ramparts, fixing her gaze back to the Conqueror’s Way, whenever she heard the Vishap fire its main gun. She guessed the weapon must have been at least 150mm caliber for all the damage it was doing, and loaded with anti-concrete explosives. From her high vantage, directly in line with the bridge, it was hard to see, but she knew the massive vehicle, surrounded by infantrymen, had punched neatly through the first gate. She saw the smoke and some of the rubble go flying into the water in pieces. Now the ruins of the Second Gate obstructed her view.

“Parinita, stay here on the main radio, I’m running farther up the wall!” Madiha shouted.

Parinita nodded her acknolwedgment, and the General took off running. She kept her eyes on the bridge, and as she got an angle on it from the wall, she could see around the rubble of the gates, and spotted the Vishap trundling toward the second gate. Its machine guns were firing at all sides, and the main gun fired an explosive shell the second she caught a glimpse of it. A horrid green fireball launched from the front of the tank and struck the rubble of the second gate and instantly reduced to dust a substantial amount.

Her troops around that ruined gate had taken blocking positions. Small caliber anti-tank guns, the only sort that could be hidden around the rubble, shot little red shells of 45mm caliber at the Vishap that ricocheted off its armor and exploded harmlessly on its bulldozer blades. There were six or seven shots Madiha saw flying out, but the Vishap hardly slowed, charging into the blasts confidently. Its frontal machine guns swept over her troops’ firing positions, covering the ruins of the second gate in automatic fire.

Under this assault, and all too aware of the approaching hulk, her troops retreated.

Madiha raised the hand radio to her lips. “Ready a creeping barrage, fifty across.”

Below the walls, in the city at her back, the rocket teams prepared their payloads.

“We’re golden, General!” replied the men on the radio.

“Acknowledged! Salamander 132mm rocket barrage, fire!” Madiha shouted back.

Organized in their staggered ranks, rows of trucks and tractors unleashed their rockets.

Dozens flew at a time with an unearthly sound, a haunting, howling noise. Arcing over the wall, they left trails of fire in the sky. Even the Ayvartan troops turned their heads up to watch the explosives cut across the firmament. Neat lines of bright orange flame drew overhead, past the second gate, and fell directly into the bridge. In quick succession the rockets crashed and violently exploded, setting off a series of deafeningly loud blasts. One after another, great fires bloomed from the earth around the advancing Vishap, churning up the top of the bridge, casting geysers of smoke and stone into the air.

Madiha watched the carnage unfold below, and she licked her lips absentmindedly.

Most of the rockets smashed into the bridge in front of or around the Vishap. One rocket struck the Vishap directly in its bulldozer blades and blew off a section in the top-left; two rockets struck the top center of the Vishap and left fleeting fires burning atop the locked-down cupola. When the fire cleared the thick cupola was deformed and stuck.

But the machine relentlessly ground forward through the smoke. Its top armor was thicker than Madiha had thought. Then again, the rockets weren’t armor-piercing.

No, she had a different target. Her lips curled into a fleeting but wicked smile as she heard the wailing and howling behind her. She thought she felt the heat as the rockets ascended the heavens from behind her back, soaring just over the wall and descending sharply into the bridge once more. This time the payload landed right behind the Vishap.

The Cissean and Nochtish infantry on the bridge had halted their charge after the first rocket barrage. They shrank back from the Vishap, afraid of the fire and shrapnel, and stood paralyzed, a dense mass concentrated around using the remaining rubble for cover, with the Vishap pulling farther ahead of them. They stared, dumbfounded, as the second rocket barrage overshot the Vishap entirely and came down upon them instead.

“You’ll enter this city as ash on the wind, imperialist scum.” Madiha whispered solemnly.

She raised her binoculars and watched with morbid curiosity and a strange sense of duty as the rockets started coming down. Every line of rockets crept deeper and deeper into the enemy formation. Each descent resulted in a torrent of fire spreading and rising, and a column of smoke and rubble following in its wake. Men were thrown about like stones skipped over water, flying whole or in pieces or aflame in every direction. When the fiery explosions didn’t dismember their bodies, or failed to set their equipment and uniforms aflame and condemn them to a slow death, the concussive forces felt even at the far edge of the blast jerked the soldiers in awful directions. Men struck the stones, and flew against the concrete barrier, and tripped and tumbled brutally over rubble.

There was chaos and panic all behind the Vishap, and every man condemned to stand on the bridge was on fire or crushed to a pulp or both. Then came the final series of rockets, that reached as far as the desert, and even the rearmost ranks of the enemy felt some punishment. The farther the rockets reached, the more the lines spread, and several rockets were landing off the bridge, in the water, on the concrete barriers. Behind the Vishap, a long, awful line of butchered men and ephemeral fires, perhaps numbering a low hundreds dead, stretched out to the desert. There were more men coming, but they were paused at the edge of the bridge with fear, and when they moved they did so tremulously, inching their way and watching the skies in anxiety and disbelief.

This was the Salamander, Ayvarta’s howling demon of flames. It was a weapon of fear.

Madiha had succeeded. The Vishap was isolated. There was no man alive to aid it.

She turned from the horror at the bridge and ran back to Parinita and the gunners.

There was a familiar face waiting there alongside her secretary. Long, silky dark hair, dark eyes, an impassive face. A young woman of unremarkable stature, wearing a big pair of goggles and the padded suit and thick gloves of an engineer. Sergeant Agni.

She raised a hand without an expression on her face, and said, “Hujambo, General.”

“I’m glad to see you Agni. How soon until the drawbridge descends?” Madiha asked.

The bridge part itself was no longer needed. Conqueror’s Way had for at least a hundred years now become a fully stone and steel bridge connecting both ends of the river. However, the drawbridge was kept as a gate. There was even space for it atop the bridge so horses and trucks could move seamlessly over it. And so the troublesome raising and lowering was still necessary: and currently, a major issue, owing to its malfunction.

Sergeant Agni shook her head, while fidgeting a little with her goggles.

“It will not be down in time. We need to source a very specific motor in low production.”

Madiha sighed. “Are the climbing troops prepared for action?”

“We have a dearth of climbing gear, but we’re almost there.” Agni said.

“We need to make greater haste.” Madiha said, a hint of frustration creeping in.

“Madiha,” Parinita called out from the floor.

Madiha crouched down behind the rampart stones to confer with her lover.

“Status?” She asked. She tried to put on a gentle face for Parinita.

Parinita was tougher than anyone gave her credit for; she didn’t need it.

“Everything’s a mess, but listen,” Parinita started, her face dripping sweat, and her breathing clearly affected, but with a resolute look in her eyes, “Regiment has just scrounged up a 152mm gun from the battery that got destroyed a few days ago at Sadr. It’s been repaired enough to work again, the shocks and carriage aren’t great, but it’ll shoot if it’s assembled. They’re coming in with a truck, ETA two or three minutes.”

Any additional heavy gun was useful in this situation, but it was a long shot.

“The Vishap’s roof might be too strong.” Madiha said. “And we’d need to immobilize it.”

“I have an idea.” Parinita said. “Madiha, what’s the heaviest thing you’ve ever lifted?”

Madiha looked at her own arm and flexed it a little with a quizzical expression.

“Lifted? I’m reasonably fit, Parinita, you know this, but I don’t think–”

“Lifted,” Parinita said again, with a wink this time.

Madiha blinked, and she understood immediately what Parinita was thinking.

She turned to Sergeant Agni and looked at her with haste and intensity in her eyes.

Sergeant Agni, inexpressive as always, seemed to understand the urgency.

“It’ll take a miracle to get a shot over the wall without it killing you.” Agni said.

“I’ll show you a miracle.” Madiha said.

“Please, trust her, Agni.” Parinita added.

Sergeant Agni nodded. She replied in a dispassionate voice, but with a hint of curiosity.

“Then if the General shows me a miracle, it is only fair I show a miracle in kind. I can assemble it enough to shoot in a few minutes if you can bring it up here for me.”

Madiha embraced Parinita, kissed her on the cheek, and bolted back onto her feet.

She rushed to the wall, and spotted a truck cutting in between the rocket launchers.

On the back, tied up under a tarp, were the pieces of the refurbished heavy gun.

Madiha reached out with her hand, focused on one of the recoil tubes sticking out.

She felt a tiny pinprick of hurt in her brain as she pulled on the object.

In the next instant, the recoil tube went flying out of the bundle as if kicked away.

It soared like a Nochtish football over the ramparts, twisting and turning.

Parinita and Agni both gasped all at once as the object came flying at them.

“I can catch it!”

Madiha quickly pushed on the object, and in a blink, countered its spin and stopped it dead in the air, preventing it from smashing her fingers off as she caught it in hand.

It was very heavy, and nearly pulled her arm to the ground in a second.

But she brought it up the wall, and she caught it.

The General shouted with girlish excitement, reminiscent of her childhood days.

Agni stared at the tube, at Madiha’s arm, and then at Madiha.

Parinita sighed. “Remind me to never ask you to do things again.”

Madiha smiled. “Oh, don’t worry, you won’t have to. This will be my idea from now on if you don’t.” She said, deftly twirling a bullet in the empty air with nothing but her mind.

Far below her, the ground crew was stupefied with the disappearance of the recoil tube.

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The 3rd Superweapon (69.1)

This scene contains violence and objectionable bodily fluids.

56th of the Hazel’s Frost, 2030

Undisclosed Location — Newly-Founded Republic of Ayvarta

Furnishing an underground conference room in Ayvarta on a short notice was an ardous task. Nochtish girls in support staff uniform crawled around the ruins of a nearby university, and procured the chairs, the tables, a projector. The Meeting would be held in the command bunker of a set of old coastal guns. During the Solstice War, the guns saw no use. There was no enemy navy in the Southeast Ayvartan Sea. There still wasn’t any; the communists had wrecked the ports and their submarines made long patrols deadly.

Allied flags, banners and symbols were furnished for the meeting room, lights were installed, carpeting, everything that could bring to mind the propriety and comfort of an actual military headquarters. There was an attempt made to sew a banner for the Republic of Ayvarta’s flag, an eagle superimposed over a sun and carrying a sword, the eagle black, the sun red, the backdrop gold. Nobody could get one made in time, and the Republic went unrepresented among the flags of Nocht, Hanwa and Lubon in the room.

At the appointed date and time, the meeting room filled with top generals from the three allied countries. There were Hanwans with their ceremonial swords and dark brown uniforms, and Lubonin officers in their green parade uniforms, never seen on the battlefield, and Nochtish generals all wearing the dour, utilitarian gray common to all soldiers in their army. At the head of the meeting, atop a stage and podium constructed for the purpose, stood Field Marshal Dietrich Haus, a man looking younger than he was, soft-faced, imposingly tall, strong-shouldered, with hair almost to the shoulder now.

He stood before everyone, and behind him, a projector displayed many aerial images of a city, surrounded by walls, vast, larger than any city on any of their continents, able perhaps to hold all of their capitals in one plot of land. On a blackboard, Haus began to write. Across the silent room reverberated the sound of chalk striking board. In a few moments he had several figures up on the board. Then, he turned back to the room.

“The City of the Solstice is the strongest defensive position on the planet, gentlemen. Its air defense network alone comprises 10,000 guns in the city, most of 76mm caliber, many on the wall ramparts. Several of these guns can be used to attack ground targets as well. In terms of raw ground fire artillery, we’re looking at over 30,000 additional barrels. Solstice alone contains the 100,000 strong Revolutionary Guards army, as well as 300,000 reservists. Over 2000 tanks are at their disposal, likely including many of these new types that have gotten the better of us. In the air, we’re looking at at least 1000 fighter aircraft alone, with many hundreds of ground attack planes in support. Judging by the pace at which the enemy has been reorganizing, these numbers will only grow the longer we wait. You can bet that by the time we arrive at the city walls, there will be at least a million frontline personnel, if not more, defending Solstice. Never has a military force of mere men faced such an obstacle. Solstice has never fallen from without; nevermind the name and legend of the Conqueror’s Way. This city has never been taken in a fight.”

“Well,”

There was a lone other voice, sounding above the crowd otherwise entranced by the Field Marshal. One hand rose into the air, as if in a school. Haus followed the hand, the length of the arm, and saw a youthful, grinning face, like a fox. Short dark-blond hair, combed and slicked, and severe, sharp cheekbones accentuated that face, which could not be mistaken, and that detestable voice. It was Gaul Von Drachen of Cissea.

“One person took the city in a fight.” Von Drachen said. “Well, a few really, but one–”

“You mean Madiha Nakar, the mediocre general whom you can’t seem to overcome.”

“You’d do well not to underestimate her.” Von Drachen said. “That girl has, a kind of secret factor, you could say. She will surprise you. Mark my words, friend Haus.”

“I am not your friend, Von Drachen. Shut up, and don’t interrupt me again.”

Several heads in the room turned to glare at Von Drachen, who seemed far too comfortable and satisfied with himself despite everything that transpired.

Haus raised his fist. At the back of the room, his beautiful and unflappable assistant Cathrin Habich switched the images in the projector, from a reel of photographs of Solstice, to a reel that began with a map of Ayvarta. As the reel progressed, more of Ayvarta turned from red to blue. There were dates accompanying each color shift.

“We began this war on the 18th of the Aster’s Gloom. Our primary goal was regime change. The communist Socialist Dominance of Solstice has for years been a sponsor of revolutionary territorism and a dealer in arms to foreign threats to democracy. We carefully built up forces in the two independent nations in the continental Ayvarta, Cissea and Mamlakha, both of whom were sympathetic to our cause. Striking with swift pincer movements, we overran and destroyed many Ayvartan defenses, starting in the states of Adjar and Shaila, and then moving to Dbagbo and Tambwe. Over the the past 100 days we have captured over half the territory of the Ayvartan union. I will not mince words: our losses have been great. Our logistics are in tatters, resupply is slow and ardous and expensive thanks to the lack of suitable port facilities and to deficiencies in our Navy and merchant marine. But we have set foot in the red sand, Gentlemen.”

Cathrin switched the reels once more. Now instead of maps of Ayvarta, there were images of Nochtish and Ayvartan equipment. Photographs, schematics, planning documents, shipping manifests, tables of organization. Cathrin scrolled the images at the slightest signal from Haus, as he addressed the room again with renewed fervor.

“Gentlemen, I want anyone daunted by what you’ve seen and heard to leave this room, and never speak to me again! If you are not energized by this challenge, you are unworthy! We will bring the light of God to the godless communists! Solstice’s walls, dozens of meters towards the heavens, will fall before our might! Even as we speak, the Nocht Federation is preparing 10 weapons known as the ‘Wall-Breaking Potentials’ that will grant us access to the invincible city, where we will end this war. Feast your eyes!”

Again the reel was switched; images of weapons scrolled one after the other, larger than anyone in the room save perhaps Haus himself. Technical specifications on a new explosive, C-10. An ultra-long-range cannon on a super heavy battleship dubbed “Jormungandr.” A massive bomber dubbed “Thor,” and its rockets, “Mjolnir.” A super heavy tank, “Vishap.” An eerie cube shaped material for many experimental uses, “Lehnerite.” Weapon after weapon, fully unveiled with schematics and top secret information. It was awe-inspiring. Everyone in attendance was agape at them.

It was quickly evident this meeting was not simply about unity against the communist scourge. It was about the power of Nocht, about their prestige, ingenuity, wealth.

Ayvarta was a stepping stone, an example.

These weapons could cover any territory. The power to destroy a wall of Solstice could easily become the power to destroy Palladi or Edo. That was the assumption all foreign generals in the room immediately made and Haus did nothing to reassure them.

“You are witnessing the twilight of communism, gentlemen. The end of Revolution. No more will chaos triumph over the order of the world. Nothing and nobody can stand against these powers. Protected by these swords, peace will finally reign on Aer!”

No one dared ask who’s peace, or what kind, or where it would reign, or for how long. Nobody dared say a word, or even allowed themselves a loud breath. Eyes cast cautiously about the room as if looking for commonality. At least Haus was careful not to mention Democracy too much. There were monarchists and imperial theocrats in the room who were uncomfortable enough at the upstart democracy and its boldness.

“In the next few days, we will chart out a path to this peace, together. For now–”

“Ah, wait up! One more thing!”

A familiar voice rose in the back of the room, and a most familiar man walked down the aisle that split up the seating arrangements for the various delegations. Slick blond hair, a sharp suit, boyish good looks and a winning smile: it was none other than Nochtish president Achim Lehner, making his first ever appearance in the Ayvartan continent. Everyone was aghast; even Haus was surprised. His eyes drew wide open, and a smile crept up. He charged off the stage and ran up to Lehner, and took him in arms.

“You should have told me you were coming!” Haus said excitedly.

Lehner did not return the embrace, but did smile at his friend. “It was short notice.”

“Short notice? It’s a week-long voyage. God in heaven.” Haus smiled, and laughed.

Lehner stood back a step from Haus, extricating himself, and the two, once separated once more by propriety, made their way down to the stage. Lehner took the podium. At the other end of the room Cathrin stood in calm, collected confusion, not having any reels prepared for this. Haus motioned for her to cut off the projector, and turn the lights on the stage. Properly shone upon, Lehner began to speak to the crowd himself.

“Hey there, listen, friends, colleagues. A hundred days ago we embarked upon this amazing project together, and it’s been quite an experience. We’ve experienced a hell of a lot. I wanted to be here to see off the next step in the journey to a freer, better, stronger world. Part and parcel of that, is, letting go of old attitudes, old beliefs. Embracing the new. We’ve got all kinds of new. Weapons, tactics. I wanted to be here, personally, to introduce something else new, that I would like all of you to know that we have.”

He gestured to the back of the room again, where the door once more opened up.

“This information doesn’t leave this room, by the way! None of it does, of course, we’ll discuss that, but this especially. This especially does not leave this room, okay?”

Heads turned toward the back, where, perhaps most surprising of all, it was a woman walking down the aisle now. A pair of women; one was tall, slender, fit, with skin the color of molasses and long, dark hair in a messy ponytail, beneath a cap emblazoned with a silver eagle. Her nose was sleek, slender, sharp, her cheekbones high, and her face had a condescending expression. Her uniform was all black, and it was patterned after frontline soldiers, unlike that of her companion, who clearly wore a secretary’s coat and skirt. One was clearly a soldier, or intended as one, while the other was shorter, meeker, blond-haired and blue-eyed and a little bit plump. She would have been fairly typically Nochtish had it not been that she wasn’t: because both women had furry ears and tails.

“Please allow me to introduce you to 2nd. Lieutenant Aatto Jarvi Stormyweather of the Vorkampfer Corps, our first woman combat soldier. Times are a-changing, gentlemen!”

There was no applause. As Aatto took the stage, she shot the crowd a disdainful look, while her companion followed behind her with her tail literally between her legs, and looked utterly terrified. Around the room there were faces, some curious, others perplexed, and several furious. Among the Hanwans in particular, who had some interesting cultural notions toward women, this move did not inspire confidence.

Near the front of the crowd, a man with an old-style Nochtish cavalry uniform and a very geometric mustache stood in consternation and singled out President Lehner. He spoke in a rabid voice, as if he had been ready to snap and this was what broke him.

“Mr. President, you have asked us to conduct this war without materiel, with green men, overseas, against unknown foes, for months, with nary drill nor preparation for jungle warfare, for river warfare, for desert warfare; that, we did honorably, and that, I did grudgingly, for my country. But this, I simply will not stand! I will not stand for this army, already on the brink, to be filled with every two-meter trollop you deem erotic enough–”

From the stage, Aatto glared his way, and the gentleman instantly seized up.

His last words choked up, and he gripped his own throat in confusion, and he stared at Aatto, and at Lehner, and at Haus, and his legs shook as his words continued to fail him, as breath failed to enter him. Lehner looked toward the 2nd Lieutenant: without confusion, as would be expected, but instead with open nervousness. As Aatto’s mouth curled upward in a sadistic grin, the General below seemed to choke more violently.

“Aatto, please.” said the girl beside her, tugging on her sleeve.

“Uh, Stormyweather, that’s good enough, I think this misogynist learned his lesson eh?”

Lehner tried to be affable, and Aatto shot him a glance.

Sighing, she turned her head away.

At once, the old General breathed again in a terrible, raspy gasp.

His knees buckled, and he fell to the ground, and openly expelled blood, and vomit.

It fell out of him like slush, like melting snow. He was coughing up bloody ice.

“As you wish, Mr. President.” Aatto said.

Lehner clapped his hands together. “Uh, thanks, doll. Appreciate you and all you do.”

Aatto rolled her eyes, her tail slowly swishing behind her.

“Whatever.”

Lehner turned back to the room.

Another man was standing.

Gaul Von Drachen was giving a standing ovation, clapping, staring at Aatto in awe.

He seemed entirely too emotional about what had transpired.

Lehner ignored him and addressed the room again.

“Gentlemen, we have a lot to discuss. You see, God has smiled a smile that is only smiled once in a millennia, and he has smiled it on the Federation of Northern States. And on its enemies, he has cast a bolt of lightning that the world hasn’t seen since ages gone by. If you thought Nocht was starting to run out of steam: well, you ain’t seen a damn thing.”

There was chatter, confusion, and a restrained fear, all around the room.

“Gentlemen, who here has heard of magic? None of this leaves the room, by the way.”

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Storm The Castle (68.3)

Solstice, Eastern Wall Defensive Line

“Yuck. It reminds me of the final scene in The Last Dragoon. I can’t stand to look.”

Parinita Maharani, Chief Warrant Officer for the 1st Guards Mechanized Division, put down the binoculars and averted her eyes from over the ramparts with disgust.

At her side, Brigadier General Madiha Nakar of the selfsame unit gently touched the woman’s shoulder, comforting her with her presence as best as she could just then.

Madiha held out her hand and her lover gave her the binoculars, and she looked herself at the battlefield. From the ramparts they could see the entire desert unfold before them, a desolate expanse of swirling ruddy sand. But it was hard to see anything around what remained of the First Gate of the Conqueror’s Way, kilometers away. There was so much rubble piled so high and the ramparts viewed the bridge at such an angle that it blocked the vantage. However, though they could not see the death directly around the bridge, on the edge of the desert they saw enough corpses and blood to confirm the slaughter.

“I have never seen that film, but I guess I can imagine what it must be like.” Madiha said.

Parinita got excitable and started to gesticulate wildly as she spoke. “They packed hunks of pork and tomatoes bound in gelatin into uniforms to resemble gore, for the aftermath of the fated charge into the machine guns. It was really gross! I think it just didn’t look like what you think a human being should, even in death, so it was really shocking!”

“I see. Well, death isn’t very pretty, you know? Not in any form, not even in action film.”

Madiha put down the binoculars. Her eyes felt a little heavy from what she had seen in the battlefield, even those little hints from that far way. It never got any easier to see bodies. One learned to not see them, to avoid acknowledging them after a fight. When forced to see the butchery for what it was, Madiha found her stomach unsettled by it all.

Parinita raised a hand to her hair and wrapped long, wavy strawberry locks around a finger. She looked a little embarassed and ashamed of her previous enthusiasm.

“Hey, I’m sorry Madiha. I was being glib, but seriously. I needed to do that to process it.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I’m always happy to hear you talk film, remember?” Madiha replied.

She smiled at Parinita, her lover, confidante, and primary support personnel.

It was a hard smile to hold up, but it was worth it for her. Anything was.

“Right. I get carried away sometimes, though. But, anyway! It looks like the coast is clear.”

Parinita waved a hand over the desert. Madiha smiled and nodded at her lover.

They were dozens of meters above the ground, standing a few meters removed from the edge barriers of the Eastern Wall ramparts. Solstice’s heat bore down on them, it was past midday. Madiha could vaguely hear, even off in a great distance, the firing of the rampart guns on the Southern Wall of the city, which also under attack. Nocht had finally pushed far enough ahead, and slashed through enough of the defenses (or in this case at least, bolted past them), to besiege Solstice directly. Madiha had been put in charge of the defense of the Conqueror’s Way, though she had her own intentions for it.

Conqueror’s Way was so named because it was the route taken into Solstice by several conquering kings in antiquity. It used to be a rocky wasteland. It was said that whoever crossed the Conqueror’s Way, and then left the city victorious and paraded down the Way once more, and survived both journeys, would bless their rule to last a lifetime.

In modernity, it was a massive bridge, its length in the thousands of meters of stone and concrete and steel, suspended just shy of the rushing waters of the great Qural river. Once upon a time it boasted many fortifications; all of which had been pounded to rubble by repeated high-altitude bombardment during the preceding months.

Conqueror’s Way was as close as bombers could get to Solstice before the defenses got them, and as such presented the safest place to bomb where Solstice could heard it.

For a few weeks it had been a topic of great terror how Conqueror’s Way was destroyed.

Madiha intended to ride out through this bridge, or what was left of it, a hero herself.

But not yet; now was not the right time.

For now, she trusted the defenders on the remaining walls, and focused on her own.

“I have to wonder why they thought they could cross Conqueror’s Way with a company.”

Parinita turned to face Madiha with a quizzical expression. Madiha crossed her arms.

“I wager we have succeeded in hiding our numbers from aerial reconnaissance. They must have thought we left the bridge undefended after overflying and bombing it so much and seeing nobody there. Without troops on the bridge, they could walk to the very gate. Likely they intended to absorb the casualties inflicted by the rampart gunners, using those sacrifices as a means to attack the gate itself and ultimately breach the wall.”

“I guess after all that bombing they did, they must have been ready to believe it paid off.”

“That’s precisely why I allowed them the chance. It wound up helping us.” Madiha said.

In truth, there would’ve been a remote possibility of defending the bridge against air attacks. Madiha had calculated that scenario as well. Solstice’s anti-air defenses were strongest at the walls and within the city, and they were focused almost singularly on preventing overflight of the walls. It was possible, like with any artillery, to extend its cover beyond its typical range, to reorganize and retrain the shooters, and thereby extend a thin cover from the Eastern Wall’s dedicated Anti-Air to cover the Way.

It would’ve been bloody.

Conqueror’s Way was far more exposed than any part of Solstice.

Therefore, sacrificing expert anti-air gunners for the task did not sit right with Madiha, especially when the bridge could be so much more useful as a pile of rubble. Nobody understood it except her. The symbolic Conqueror’s Way, bombed out, empty. It was an enticing target, and the enemy took the bait. She had rebuffed a Company-sized attack and destroyed likely the entire enemy unit without casualties using only her recon troops. All because of deception and concealment. She found herself feeling oddly clever and elated, thinking to herself now that her deception had saved lives and killed foes.

“You got the first after-action reports in, right? What do you think?” Madiha asked.

“Gulab and Charvi were just a touch more reckless than they should’ve been.” Parinita said. “It feels like every time you give them an inch they want to fight it all themselves.”

“I will have words with them later.” Madiha replied gently.

“You should, they’re officers, and officers need to mind the back more in this army.”

Madiha nodded. “Well, right now, Chief Warrant Officer, our Kajari and Chadgura–”

Parinita grinned and laid her hands on her hips. “–Jeez, Madiha, you’re so formal–”

“–managed to produce a result,” Madiha continued, unimpeded by her lover’s teasing.

“I know!” Parinita said. “They have it harder than us. Still, it pays to be careful.”

Madiha nodded again. Sometimes she wondered how they did it.

Madiha had been an officer almost all of her career. She had fought on the front several times, and endangered her life plenty; but she could count the number of times she had been in danger at the head of an attack. For a grunt, it was every day, until the days were indeterminate. People like Gulab and Chadgura had volunteered to face death every day. Madiha was always called back to her headquarters. She was far safer than any of them.

She had to play disciplinarian, but a certain guilt tempered her response to recklessness.

“I’ll reacquaint them with the value of their lives.” Madiha said, half-jokingly.

As the desert wind blew away the scent of war, the two of them continued to watch the desert. Defense was not glamorous, and wars of defense even less so. All tales of great wars told of massive offenses and glorious charges and sweeping encirclements. Cunning was sang of when paired with initiative, and forgotten if not. So far, the Golden Army had strengthened itself and proven a tenacious defender, but Nocht kept coming, and they were driven to their last wall. All they could do was wait for an enemy to show up to fight. There was no means for them to launch effective attacks right now.

Sitting idle like this, awaiting battle on the enemy’s initiative, took a toll. On the soldiers, absolutely. But also on Madiha, who felt keenly the weight of her decisions every day.

Every defense had a cost. Today’s defenses, so far, had been free. This would change.

Madiha felt exhausted.

She could hardly believe she was still moving fluidly and standing tall.

Parinita hid it well, behind that pretty face and charming smile. But she was hurting too.

It had been a hellish, evil year, 2031.

“I think in Psychology they call it The Uncanny. You know?” Parinita said suddenly.

She had a finger on her cherry-red painted lips, and was staring off in thought.

“What are you talking about?” Madiha asked.

“Oh, um, sorry, I mean the thing from before. About how unsettling the fake corpses were in The Last Dragoon. I remember some papers on film psychology I read about that. It’s because of the unreality of it, you know? We expect things to be a certain way, but war just feels unreal to experience. At least, that’s what I believe. This violence, and all.”

Parinita shifted a little nervously on her feet. Her tongue was starting to slip from her.

Madiha nodded her head. She had understood; and she especially understood having a thought and having it turned to molten cheese in your brain by your own neuroses.

“I agree. We have an idea of what death should look like. And none of this feels right.”

“I feel it’s more that we don’t know how to think about any of it, even now.”

Parinita put her back to one of the rampart barriers and crossed her arms.

Next to her, a 76mm gun stood sentinel. It was unmanned, because the gunners were ready to rotate, and had gone on a little break. Solstice’s heat, especially on the walls, could easily reach 40 degrees or worse, and would cook one’s brain on a full shift. All essential personnel in Solstice’s defense had to be redundant, and consistently rotated.

“I go on my day to day treating it like a job, or like a favor that I’m doing for my girlfriend. When I’m alone, and I have time to myself, and there’s all the reports in front of me and all that. But looking at it like this, being confronted by it, its so eerie. I vacillate from thinking of it like a math problem. I think about stupid essay questions. ‘A train leaves the station carrying 100 tons of ammunition’ and so on.” Parinita continued, raising a finger into the air. “I am good at those. I also think of it like film sometimes. Prologue, act one, act two, climax; and the actors working tirelessly. But that’s not what it is. Just like tomatoes and pork set into jelly aren’t really a murdered human body.”

Madiha remembered what she said before. Parinita was trying to process it. She had to; to try to rationalize the unreality of everything. To try to find a way to live sanely with what they were all doing. That was Parinita. Madiha tried to shove things out of the way of her mind, the same way that same mind pushed physical things with its power.

Reaching out a hand idly, Madiha pushed on a stone on the wall and levitated it.

Parinita followed the stone around with her eyes, like a cat watching a toy.

It was odd that the most unreal thing among them was the easiest one to accept.

“Well. You’re more normal than I am I think. I think of war as a game.” Madiha said.

She was instantly ashamed of it, but she said it.

It helped at least that Parinita did not look disgusted or judging.

She smiled warmly at Madiha, catching the levitated stone out of the air in her fist.

“I learned to strategize via Academy war games. To me, its chess, except, I’m good at it.”

Madiha looked out over the desert and sighed.

It put her in a foul mood to think of it like that.

All those corpses on the desert.

Those misbegotten fools whom she hated; and yet they died because, she was better? Because she had outplayed them? Gambled and won? Any number of metaphors, they were all wrong. They all made the conflict out to be a game, or a film, or a story. There was no way to capture what had happened that wasn’t completely, utterly insane.

“Like I said before, we have to do it to process. We have to do something to understand and to carry on with the fight. We’re the victims here, after all.” Parinita replied. As soon as she said it, she seemed frustrated with herself. “I don’t even know why I’m thinking about this, to be honest. Maybe I am going insane now. It’d be inconvenient as hell.”

“You’re not insane. You’re tired. I’m tired.” Madiha said. “I haven’t slept in a week.”

“I’ve slept poorly. Maybe we need to get in bed together.” Parinita said, beaming cheekily.

“We’ve done plenty of that.” Madiha replied.

“Hah, look who’s lewd now? And you say I’m the minx here. I meant nothing erotic by it.”

Parinita put on a little grin and pretended to be innocent, circling her finger over head as if to suggest there was an angelic halo in the space over it, and not devilish little horns.

“I know you too well.” Madiha replied, grinning herself.

“Say I was being lewd, what would you do about it?”

Parinita took a few steps forward with hands behind her back and leaned into Madiha.

With a gloved finger, she pulled a little on the neck and collar of her shirt and winked.

“I’d sort you out and make you proper again.” Madiha replied.

She turned briefly toward Parinita and slipped her own finger down her coat and the neck of her shirt to grip on it and give it a teasing little tug. Parinita tittered happily.

Madiha was so glad for the shift in the conversation, even if it was a little out there.

“Let’s calm down for right now though. It’s too hot out and the gunners return soon.”

“Hey, I’m a paragon of self-control.” Parinita replied, pressing a hand against her breast.

“Right. Anyway, get the map, we’ll do one last check to make sure we report everything–”

Still feeling jovial, Madiha lifted the binoculars back up to her eyes.

There were the corpses, some of her own soldiers in parts of the bridge where she could see them, such as atop the mounds of rubble that once were gates. There was a sizeable amount of sand, and the Khamsin blowing in from the southeast was turning the air just a touch dusty and yellow, even over the Qural river. Satisfied, Madiha looked farther out.

Parinita returned and pressed herself close to the General.

“I got the map here, so what do you want to–”

Madiha spied something in the desert sand, something– uncanny.

Something large, something difficult to place. Something that shouldn’t have been there.

“Parinita, call back the rampart gunners, now. Right now!” Madiha shouted.

Observers on the eastern wall, such as General Nakar, and even those along the ground with the recon troops on Conqueror’s Way, finally spotted the enemy that now made itself known amid rising and falling dunes of the red desert. It had been carefully crawling in the distance, taking whatever path put the most geometry between itself and the walls. It had come close enough now; nothing could disguise its size, the smoke, the men around it, the vehicles that supported it. This was a battalion-sized formation.

But it was all concentrated around a single, monstrously large entity.

A massive series of camouflage nets shed from its bulk, and sand sifted off its surfaces as if it had risen from the desert like a whale from water. It had traversed the desert on the backs of several tracked tank transporters. Scopes and spyglasses could see letters on the side of the massive, metallic conveyance that held the weapon in its place for travel.

RKPX-003 VISHAP.

Around it, men in yellow and ash-gray uniforms unlocked the crate, and its lid came crashing down like a ramp. Inside, an engine roared to life, loud as a howling dragon.

Around the side of the great machine, two men watched the unfolding deployment.

“Well, General, I believe I have successfully infiltrated your weapon past enemy lines.”

One of the men sighed and patted down his own cap against his head.

“Oh, shut up, Von Drachen.”

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