It wasn't meant to happen this way. None of it was. I'm sick of it, the whole damn thing. I'm done. It's just hard to realize that the Commander is gone. I mean, it was routine. We would have been fine, mostly. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.
Okay, I'm probably not making much sense. Here's what happened. We're all going down into the valley, we know they're down there, and we're ready for them. It's just a whole bunch of animals. The king was right; yes, there was a rebellion being planned, and yes, his son was at the head of it, and yes, he wants them all dead, but that doesn't really mean much to me. I'm an Askari. Point me at the enemy, and stay out of my way.
So we rush down there, and even though they weren't expecting us, they put up a good fight. But we kill them all, and still don't lose a single one of us. We work together, they don't. We're all brothers, they aren't.
We decide to take a quick rest after the killing's done. In other words, the Commander said, "Hold here." We're all hyped up; we don't need any extra distractions. Yes, we may lose that fighting edge we gained for those few moments by waiting, but we're more careful this way. Then a half-grown cheetah cub comes out of hiding. You can tell just by looking at him that he's not the brightest one around.
"Aka sibu!" he said. I had no idea what the words were. They spoke only Royal around here. We needed a translator for everything. Luckily the king spoke common, so that helped. But the cub's words are just another point of his stupidity. He can't even conjugate. I'm not really one to talk, though. I don't speak a word of Royal. I had Myrn tell me what it meant later. But there the cub is, just yelling at us. I actually felt sorry for the poor guy, now. "Aka sibu!"
Myrn went to him accompanied by Junra, both smiling, Myrn understanding fully what the cub is saying. "What?" Myrn said.
"Aka sibu!"
"I'm sorry, I can't understand you."
"Aka sibu! Aka sibu!"
"Sorry!" Myrn leapt on him with Junra, both of them making short work of the cub.
When they finally back off of him, Junra turned to Myrn and asked, "What'd he say?"
"Look, you missed one!" Myrn laughed.
The Commander watched both of them, stone-faced. He normally didn't allow this kind of behavior. But the king had made it clear he wanted the rebels cleared out, in the most brutal fashion possible. Even his son. The Commander didn't approve of that. But the king had offered us a place in his kingdom temporarily, and we took it. We do as he asks. But the Commander had had enough for now.
"Alright, on your paws and move it! Now!"
We all shift it. We're all concerned by the tone in his voice. I look on the hills of the valley and I see why. It turns out the rebellion is a whole lot bigger than we thought.
"Move it! Move it!"
We all start running, the roars of the rebellion coming down after us. We have no place to run but down the center of the valley. They start coming down the sides, and we slice through the ones in our way by reflex. It's all by reflex. And we all keep in mind the Commander's strictest order, the one he pounds into our head every job we take. No heroics. We can see the valley leveling out, but they're practically on top of us. But we could have made it. I'm sure we could have.
The Commander didn't think so.
He spurred us on with one final "Move!" I turned to look at him, the last thing he intended anyone to do. He had turned around and was going to actually try to face all of them to buy us time. There was no way for him to survive that.
"Sir!" I yelled.
Myrn clipped me on the shoulder. "You heard the Commander, move!"
I moved, hating it every step of the way. "No heroics" my ass. If he had lived, the Commander would have given himself a strict talking-to, given himself a beating he would have remembered, and would have put himself on recon for the next three jobs. He loved that rule, he lived by it. We all did. But there he was, trying to turn back the entire tide of animals.
We ran. We waited when we were done. He didn't come. We all had our little ways of dealing with it. I went by myself and wept. I loved the Commander. We all did. He was our brother. But I had lost something they never had. He was my brother. I loved my little brother.