A/N: Huge thanks to Huhn for Beta-Reading this story.


Chapter 1

When I arrived at the scene of the firefight, all I could think about was my mother. "Salinas," she'd written me in the first letter I received from her after joining the Militia, "I know better than anyone the Hell you raise. Listen to your superiors and follow their orders. I'll always be your mother, but I'll let them play the role for the time being. It'll bring you home safe." I wondered if she would have sent me that letter if she could have seen the killzone.

Blood washes away in the rain. Body bags don't. There were three of them lined up along the side of the road, and rain pounded down on their outer linings. I had always loved rainstorms. As a kid I'd stayed up half the night listening to the drops pattering on the roof of my family's small home in Montdam before finally drifting off to sleep. My little sister hated it. The noise terrified her. I never understood how the sound could have brought so much fear until I heard the same pattering against the body bags.

It had been raining for three days, and from what I had been told it was going to rain for at least three more. My poncho kept me dry, but it didn't protect morale. The scene in front of me wasn't helping with that either.

One hundred meters beyond the road stood three tiny houses clustered around a well. Small arms fire had chipped away at the mortar siding of the building on the far right. From what we'd gathered, the enemy had used it as a firing point. A troop transport from the 112th Infantry Division had been ambushed passing by. Without cover, three of them had been killed in the attack. They had a tank with them, but couldn't use its main gun for fear of destroying the houses. Three men had died so that shit-stack of mortar and brick they called a building could stand.

"Hey." Sergeant Coren's hand fell on my shoulder. The impact knocked me out of my trance. "Look sharp, Milton."

"Yeah," I muttered. Shaking my head, I fell in step behind her. Juno was our Platoon Sergeant. She hadn't seemed cut out for the military when the Squad first came together – she was too pretty, and far too gentle – but by the time we'd shipped out for Kloden I knew that if there was any non-commissioned officer in Squad 7 who would stick her neck out for me it was her.

"Are you doing alright?" she asked me as we stepped off of the road. "I don't think I've ever seen you shaken like that."

"I'm fine," I said. I felt like throwing up. "I just don't like what I'm seeing here."

My boots sank into the mud as we walked to the buildings. They called Barious a desert, but that wasn't technically correct. Nobody knew what to call it for sure. Wasteland probably fit best. Hell could have been a close second. "Would it help if you shut your eyes?" she asked.

"It just might," I said, smiling slightly. There were times when I forgot she was younger than I was. She certainly acted older than me.

"Well then at least let me point you in the right direction before you start pulling your trigger," she said with a laugh. Juno had toughened up over the past few months, but her laugh was still as light as the day she'd walked into the barracks. "I get what you're saying though," she continued. "I don't like it either."

Up close the buildings looked even more rundown than they had from the road. I couldn't imagine they'd looked welcoming even when they'd first been built. Their stone siding was crumbling away, and dozens of bullet holes had imprinted themselves in the outer wall. "They were fighting rifle to rifle?" I asked.

"That's right," Juno said.

The tank was still parked on the road, and sat behind what was left of the transport truck. Most of the transport vehicle's frame was still intact, but the engine compartment had been blown out, and the large canvass flap that covered the bed was riddled with holes. The tank's unused main gun was still aimed at the hamlet. "Fuck that," I said.

Juno nodded. "Took the words right out of my mouth."

I hadn't – Juno never swore. The sentiment translated well though.

"It gets better," she continued as she stepped through the building's door. "Come check it out."

The inside of the building wasn't in much better shape than the outside. The interior walls were made of the same mortar as the exterior, and while the floor was covered with rugs it felt like cement. It was dark. There wasn't any electricity running through the area. The only light came from oil lamps and candles placed throughout the rooms. It reminded me of when I was a kid. Our family hadn't had access to electricity until I was ten.

Juno led me up to the second story. I'd have trusted her through anything the Imps could have thrown our way, but I had to question her judgment when we reached the top of the stairs. 'It gets better' would not have been how I would have described the scene.

There were two people waiting in the room we entered. They were both from my own section – Wavy, my section leader, and Freesia, who was kneeling next to the window. The room itself was in worse condition than the rest of the house. The bullet holes that had decorated the outside of the building had also left their mark on the back wall. Rain poured into the room. It splattered and pooled on the floor below the window frame. The rain wasn't the only liquid on the floor. Blood. Most of it had soaked into the wooden floorboards or mixed in with the rainwater drenching the ground, but the dark stains it left behind were unmistakable.

"This was the firing point," Juno said. She let one of her gloved fingers probe a bullet hole in the wall. "One of them was waiting outside with a Lance round. After he immobilized the truck his buddies opened fire."

There wasn't anything to take cover behind between the hamlet and the road. After first contact it would have been a scramble to get behind the tank or one of the truck's wheel wells, and after that would have come the firefight. Three of them hadn't made it. "There's no body," I said, looking around the room.

"Nope," Juno said. "It was a quick ambush. Hit and run. The fight lasted about ten minutes before they packed up and left. Took everything with them. Casualty included."

I couldn't imagine where they had run to. For the most part I didn't care. The question tearing through my head wasn't where the shooters had gone, but who they had been. Intelligence placed the closest Imperial unit nearly seventy miles to the North. "So who did it?" I asked.

"Here," Freesia said. With a light toss she threw something across the room to me. In the dim light it was difficult to see, and it bounced off of my chest before falling into my hand. "Take a look at that."

It was an empty casing. I rolled it around in my palm before flipping it over and checking the rim. I'd seen many like it before. '.30-06' was etched into the bottom, with the letters 'GA' engraved at the top. It stood for 'Gallian Arms', the company that manufactured Gallia's military load cartridges. They were restricted for anyone but military personnel. "Did you pick this up from the road?" I asked.

Freesia shook her head. "Here by the window."

The floor of the room was littered with shells like the one in my hand. Whoever was shooting had been well supplied. Looking at the markings on the casing made my head spin. The lettering brought more questions with it than real answers. It was like reading those old Yggdist texts my father made me wade through when I was a kid. "You're saying it was friendly fire?"

Nobody spoke. Freesia's eyes were glued to the floor. She looked more uncomfortable than I ever remembered seeing her. "Not exactly," she said, finally breaking the silence.

"There's a settlement about five klicks east of here," Wavy said. The words seemed to come reluctantly, like he was choosing them carefully before he spoke. He was watching Freesia out of the corner of his eye. "It's a Romani village."

Freesia and I had been a part of Squad 7 since it formed the December before the war began, and we always made sure to look out for one another. We had a system. When we hit the bars back in Randgriz we always walked in together. Guys watching felt like they were bigger men if they could steal her away from me, and when women saw me with a lady they figured that if one woman could stand me I couldn't have been all that bad. We made great wingmen, and everyone went home happy. Frees was my best friend in the Squad. She was also Romani.

Ignoring Freesia, Juno walked towards the window. "We're not positive they came from the village," she said, "but there isn't anywhere else they could have gone from here." She glanced towards Freesia, who still looked as if the world had ceased turning. "Whatever the case, that's where we're headed."

I was torn between the two women in the room. It was difficult trying to focus on Juno's words while Freesia was having the floor ripped out from under her. My first thought was that I should have said something to her. That faded when I looked around the room. Frees was my best friend, but she was also extremely independent. She wouldn't have forgiven me for pitying her in front of Juno or Wavy. "They're sending us?" I asked Juno.

She nodded. "We're the closest unit at full strength."

Juno was a master at putting things delicately. What she meant was that we didn't have three bodies to take care of. "Where'd the shooters get the weapons?" I asked. "They had a Lance round and military rifle cartridges. Aren't those regulated by the government?"

"Do you want the official story," Juno asked, "or the scuttlebutt?"

"Just lay it on me," I said. That meant the scuttlebutt. It only took me through our third day in Vassel to realize the official story was always bullshit.

"They were a gift from Damon."

Juno's words made as much sense to me as Cherry's did when she told me she thought she was 'heavy'. "I'm sorry," I said. "What?"

"Barious is loaded with Ragnite, right?"

That figured. Everything boiled down to Ragnite. The war, sure, but even before then my life had been defined by the wonder ore everybody was so ready to kill for. Even in times of peace its price was still paid in blood. Nobody cares when a father is killed in a mine collapse if profits are still on the rise. "Yeah," I said. Before he died, Dad had spent a year working a mine in the region.

"Well," Juno said, "the Army is spread thin trying to hold the northern front, and the Militia is doing everything it can to fortify the few cities we have left. Besides us, that doesn't leave much of a force to defend Barious."

The Empire could have taken the Hellhole for all I cared. There wasn't a single thing I liked about the place. As far as I was concerned, Freesia was the only worthwhile resource the region had ever produced – Ragnite be damned. "So we gave the locals weapons?"

"That's the story," Juno said. "Randgriz figured our enemy's enemies were our friends. Turns out they aren't."

Anybody who had been through a basic Gallian history class could have told them that. The Romani hadn't settled in Barious by choice. They'd been driven there over the past two-hundred years by a series of pogroms. Many of them didn't even consider themselves Gallian anymore. I didn't blame them. "And now they're killing us with our own weapons. That figures."

Juno merely shrugged. Freesia, who had been kneeling since I walked into the room, finally stood. It had to have been a difficult conversation to listen in on. "We're not all like that," she said. Her words were addressed to everyone, but she was looking at me.

"I know," I said. Freesia wasn't one to take things too personally. Every so often, though, something would strike a chord in her, and when it did it hit her deep. I could already tell this one had struck hard. With one ambush, Barious had turned into be a balancing act of doing my duty as a Militiaman and doing my duty as Frees's friend. I had a feeling they were going to be mutually exclusive. "So what are we going to do?" I asked.

"We're taking the weapons back," Juno said. "Stark's gathering the platoon outside. I'll be giving a briefing in five. In the meantime I need to contact the Lieutenant. Wavy, make sure your Section is in order and ready to move."

Wavy gave a slight nod as Juno walked out of the room. It was almost imperceptible, but he gave another to Freesia before he walked out himself. Anyone else would have struggled to see it, but the movement would have been clear as day to Frees. It also meant more than anything I could have said to her. Wavy was Darcsen. His family had been through the pogroms too.

When only the two of us were left in the room, I walked over to Freesia and put my hand on her shoulder. "How's it going?" I asked.

"It's fine," she said, flashing a smile that told me it wasn't.

Freesia could melt hearts with her smile. I'd seen it done enough to know that if I didn't consciously guard myself against it I would end up a puddle on the floor. "Alright," I said. Calling her bluff would have sent her into a fury. Trying to comfort Frees was like walking through a minefield, but I had to risk at least one step. "You got anything you want to say, I'm free."

When her arm rose I thought she was going to slap me. Instead, her hand came down on my bicep. "Yeah," she said, giving a squeeze. "I know."

I couldn't follow her when she walked out. She would have seen it as stepping on her toes. I wondered what it would have been like to wake up next to her in the morning – how long it would have been before she kicked me out of the bed. Sighing, I walked to the window. The rain still poured in.


Juno's briefing ran longer than usual, but before I knew it we were marching. I couldn't concentrate. My mind was stuck somewhere between the body bags that had been lying on the side of the road and the extensive list of restrictions Juno had laid out when she'd addressed the platoon. No firing unless fired upon first. No explosives within one-hundred meters of any civilian structure. The Edelweiss was just above useless. Its armor plating still made for great cover, and the .30 caliber machinegun mounted on the cupola could still throw a lot of lead downrange, but the main gun had been muzzled. It was a Goddamn crime. If we were going to be doing any fighting, it was going to be rifle to rifle.

Having the Edelweiss around was still comforting though. Even if it was effectively crippled, the tank wasn't completely useless offensively. As soon as he arrived, Welkin put Walter Nash behind the Edelweiss's .30, with Jann Walker riding shotgun on the vehicle's armor plating. Jann told me that it was to establish dominance – to show we were the alpha male. Looking at the two behemoths riding the tank it would have been difficult to argue otherwise. Given the choice, though, I'd have done things differently. In the space the two muscle men took up, I could have fit Freesia, Ramona, Catherine, and Edy. Wrap that up in a nice bow and put a Cherry on top, and not a man alive could have fired on that tank. Not even Jann.

I was glad to have them up there when we reached the village. The rain left a haze hanging in the air, and the settlement was surrounded by the only trees I'd seen in Barious. They lined a series of aqueducts flowing into the crossroads. I was on point, and I didn't see the men step out until they were nearly on top of us. There were five of them blocking the narrow dirt road into the village. All of them were armed, and their guns were aimed at me.

My first instinct was to raise my Mags. The closest man was in my sight picture before I realized it was wrong – and not just because Juno had given us orders not to open fire. I'd been through Vasel and Kloden with the Squad. That was five days of intense urban combat, followed by two weeks out in the forests. I hadn't shot anybody through any of it.

The man I was aiming at was wearing a white button down shirt and a pair of blue jeans. It didn't look much different than what many civilians wore throughout the rest of Gallia. The only difference was his skin, which had the same dark tone as Freesia's. "Gallian Militia!" I yelled. "We're friendly! Drop your weapons!"

My bid for peace felt insincere while I was pointing a gun at the men I was addressing. They didn't believe it either. I could see into the bore of the man's rifle. Not one of them had lowered their aim. I didn't know if I was cleared to open fire. Juno had told us that we were still allowed to take down any threat. She'd also told us we weren't allowed to fire unless fired upon first. I wasn't sure which of the two took priority.

Edy was next to me in an instant. Her weapon was raised as well. "Hey!" she yelled when the men didn't move. "We said drop your weapons! Drop them now or we'll open fire!"

I saw a few of the men share a quick glance out of the corner of my eye. The man I had zeroed in on didn't budge. Boots trampled the dirt behind me. Even with an entire platoon at my back he was going to fight. He was ready to kill.

My thumb pressed against my Mags's safety catch, and I could feel it digging into my skin through the glove. I already had my finger on the trigger. No matter how hard I pressed though, I wasn't strong enough to disengage the safety. I was terrified of dying – of ending up in a body bag lying on the side of a road. I was even more afraid of shooting the man. It wasn't rational, and I knew it. I'd seen enough combat to realize I wasn't going to make it home if I didn't fight to kill.

I had finally mustered the courage to disengage my safety when Freesia ran across my field of fire, and I nearly toppled over when her frame crossed into my sight picture. I was already putting three and a half pounds of pressure on a four pound trigger pull. If I had been squeezing any harder she would have been dead. "Atch!" she yelled, waving her arms.

When the men lowered their rifles, I risked taking my eyes off of them for a split second to shoot Edy a glance. She hadn't lowered her Mags, but she looked just as confused as me. Freesia was still shouting. I couldn't understand a word of what she was saying.

Edy's boots sloshed in the mud as she sidestepped closer to me. "What on Earth does that girl think she's doing?" she asked when she was nearly standing on my toes.

Frees had stopped waving her arms, but she was still yelling at the men in her strange language. Running forward in front of a firing squad was stupid. Running between two was beyond that. "I have no idea," I said.

"I almost shot her." Edy's low growl was surprisingly intimidating.

"Yeah, me too."

Another set of footsteps approached from behind, and a second later I felt Juno's hand pat me on the shoulder before she ran past. She at least still had the sense to let me know before she stepped into my line of fire. "Hey," Edy said when Juno began talking with Freesia. "Should we lower our weapons?"

Freesia was acting as a translator for Juno. I couldn't hear what they were saying to one another. "No," I said, remembering the Lieutenant's order to put Walter and Jann on the Edelweiss. The firefight seemed to have been averted, but we still had a mission to complete. That meant showing them we had power. "Just look tough," I continued, reengaging the safety.

Juno and Freesia spoke with the men for another five minutes, with Juno relaying the conversation back to Lieutenant Gunther through a radio. Four of the five men who had stopped us had relaxed. The one I had aimed down still looked like trouble though. He wasn't paying attention to the conversation they were having – he was glaring at me.

The man didn't look older than twenty, and he was easily the youngest of them. None of the men looked happy about our showing up, but the others didn't look angry. If anything they looked worried.

When their conversation ended and the men finally departed, Juno spoke to her section leaders and gave the call for us to assemble back into our units. I didn't get a chance to ask Freesia about the encounter before Wavy called us to order. "Here's the deal," he said. He'd been a teacher before the war. It was easy to see when he was addressing the section. "The village is just ahead. We're following Sergeant Coren in. Once we clear the place for Lance rounds the Lieutenant will move the Edelweiss in and we'll start our search. We're looking for restricted weapons and ammunition. We can't confiscate anything else, so don't bother grabbing any other weapons you find."

Edy and I shared another quick glance. Legal or not, I didn't want anyone pointing another rifle at me. "Even after they nearly gunned us down?" I asked. "Doesn't that seem a bit lenient? They can kill us with standard loads just as easily as they can restricted ones."

There were a couple of nods from the rest of the unit. Even Musaad gave a quick shake of his head. "Every town has the right to a town watch," Wavy said. "These guys are no different."

"Yeah," Edy said, "but they don't even consider themselves Gallian."

"We do." Wavy adjusted his glasses as if that settled the matter. I had a teacher back in high school who did the same thing. Whenever the glasses shifted it meant the dispute was finished, and he'd won. "York," Wavy continued, "you're acting translator. Everyone else, teams of two. And remember, these people aren't Imperials. I don't want to have to tag any bodies today – ours or theirs. Get it done."

I watched Freesia break off from the rest of the group and walk over to where the Lieutenant had parked the Edelweiss. She was the expert on body language, not me, but it didn't take a master to tell that she wasn't happy with the way our mission was turning out. Her shoulders were sunk so low I was afraid they were going to drop off. I was about to run off and check on her when I felt someone's fist slam into the back of my shoulder. I didn't have to look to know that it was Edy. "Everything dandy?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said as Freesia disappeared behind the tank. Out of sight, out of mind. At least, I tried to think like that. It never worked.

"Well, quit putzing around then."

The village itself was another five-hundred meters from where their town watch had stopped us. It was small, but it was still large enough that it would take the Squad a couple of hours to search. There were twenty-six buildings, and it was home to just over seventy people. That was seventy too many. With Imperials I knew who wanted to kill me. The men who had stopped us before looked like ordinary citizens.

Edy and I followed Wavy to the edge of town. Before we entered the village, Sergeant Coren stopped us and contacted First Sergeant Melchiott on the radio. I could see Alicia with Staff Sergeant O'Hara preparing their entrance from the other side of the village. O'Hara's 2nd Platoon was a support unit – she supervised Corporal Linton's weapon's section. That left most of their platoon supporting the Squad's .30 instead of running searches, but if it meant having the machinegun providing overwatch over half the town while we went door to door I was happy to do the extra work.

When we finally advanced down the road, I couldn't help but think about how similar the buildings in the village were to the ones I'd seen earlier. The buildings in town didn't have bullet holes decorating their façades, but they weren't in much better condition. At least they were dry inside. While storming buildings wasn't my idea of a perfect day, I was looking forward to getting out of the rain.

The streets were mostly empty, which made clearing the way in easy. After we'd checked the main road and cleared the first few buildings along the route, Welkin rolled the tank into the village. Walter looked like a madman behind the mounted .30. Putting him up there had been the right decision.

For the next hour the search went off without a hitch. We were the targets of dirty looks and foreign curses from the residents, but with the Edelweiss sitting in the town's southern entrance and Ramona's machinegun section holding the fort in the north, nobody gave us any real trouble. A couple of kids banded together at one point to throw some rocks at the tank, but when Walter shot them a scowl they scattered like a bunch of packrats. The man I'd stared down with the town watch was nowhere to be seen.

The third and final building we were tasked to search was just like any other in the village. Edy gave the door a knock, and we waited for an answer. When nobody came, she slammed her fist into the wood near the frame. "Open the door!" she screamed. "Militia! Let us in or we'll ram it down!"

I was glad Edy was my clearing partner. She was a tough woman and pretty easy going once you got used to her style. It was difficult to tell while she was wearing the Militia utilities, but she also had a great ass. The only thing I had to watch out for was her singing – the girl was tone-deaf. Her voice did come in handy when trying to get people to follow orders, though, and before she could give the door another hit it slid open.

The woman who answered looked to be in her fifties, and strands of grey stood out in her black hair. She was scared witless. It was probably a natural reaction after the beating Edy had given her front door, but I gripped my Mags a little tighter anyway. The woman was babbling in her language, and made motions like she was trying to shoo us away.

"Av abri," I said. "Kanav." Freesia had given us a few words to work with to make dealing with the locals easier. Of course, I hadn't gotten the words from her – Frees had been running back and forth across town giving translations for the better part of the day since we'd entered town, and she made a point not to make eye contact with me whenever she passed. They'd been relayed to us by Musaad. He told us they meant 'come out'.

The woman didn't step out immediately, but after Edy gave the doorframe another light smack she stumbled forward. Two little boys followed her through the entryway. "Keep an eye on them," I told Edy. Turning towards the woman, I asked her if there was anybody else inside. I didn't know how to say it in her language, so I asked in Gallian. Either she didn't understand, or she pretended not to.

I gave one final shout into the building before stepping in. Nobody responded. The woman's hesitation had me on edge. She clearly didn't want us going inside her house. I wouldn't have wanted armed men walking through my front door either, but her fear seemed to go beyond that.

When I stepped up to the third door on the first floor I found out why. It was locked. Before I could leave to get the key I heard a cough from the other side.

My Mags was raised and aimed before it stopped. "Open up!" I yelled, keeping my weapon steady with one hand and pounding on the door with the other. Edy stepped into place next to me. I could tell by the way she was gritting her teeth that she wasn't looking to talk. "Come on, let's go!" I yelled again. My adrenaline was surging. I could already feel the shakes setting in, and I couldn't remember any of the words Freesia had given us. I improvised. "Open the fucking door!"

It took Edy's boot to get it open. I stepped in first as the doorframe splintered and the door swung on its hinges. The room was small, with only enough space for a bed and a small chair. Both were occupied.

The man in the bed was unconscious. There were bloody bandages strewn throughout the room, and a few of them lay on the bed. I couldn't see where he was injured under the blanket that covered him, but I could tell he wasn't going to survive on the care he was getting.

After clearing the man, I turned towards the woman Edy had pinned to the floor. She was young – no older than twenty. Her dark hair was cut at the shoulders, and she could have easily passed as Freesia's cousin. The woman had been acting as a nurse for the man in the bed. It hurt to see Edy strong-arming her down on the ground. "Let her up," I said.

Edy shot me a look that told me I was thinking with the wrong head. I wasn't. The nurse looked like Freesia, but as I helped her to her feet, all I could think about was how much she reminded me of my little sister, Clair. They looked about the same age. Clair was working in a hospital just outside of Vassel as well. I had taken the job working down in the mines to help pay her way through medical school, and when that didn't cover the bills I joined the Militia. Being a doctor was keeping her off of the front lines. If I was grateful for one thing in the world it was that.

"Hey Edy," I said, guiding the Romani nurse back into her chair. "I'll cover everything here. Go report what we've found and call for a medic."

Edy glared again. She had never been able to hide her anger. "You do realize this is probably the guy that got shot ambushing that Army convoy, right?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"And you want me to bring him a medic?"

I'd gotten the nurse back into her seat, but she hadn't gotten over the shock of our entrance. "Yeah," I said.

For a few seconds nobody moved. Then, Edy shook her head and walked out. "If he turns out to be the guy, I'll be furious," she said through a clenched jaw as she disappeared around the frame.

It was a crappy deal, but there wasn't anything I could do about it. The man in the bed was probably one of the triggermen. As far as we were concerned, though, he was still a Gallian citizen, insurgent or not.

I tried talking to the nurse. It was a one way conversation. Even if she could have understood me, she wasn't talking. After a few minutes of rejection, I gave up and started searching the room. The place was mostly empty except for a stash of bandages and a couple of extra blankets. I'd nearly called it quits when I saw the sleeve of the man's jacket sticking out from between a set of spare sheets.

The nurse didn't react when I pulled it out. I was glad – it meant that she hadn't hidden it. There was a rifle round inside the breast pocket. The Gallian Arms signature was stamped on its rim.

Edy came back a few minutes later with Freesia, Fina, Juno, and Lieutenant Gunther. I passed off the bullet before excusing myself. I wanted to talk to Freesia, but she had her hands full interrogating the nurse, and I didn't want to distract her.

The rain was pouring outside, but my poncho kept me dry. It was still miserable. I had nowhere to go, so I stood guard next to the front door. It was mind numbing, but that was exactly what I needed.

Edy walked out with Juno and the Lieutenant about half an hour later. Freesia wasn't far behind them. I stopped her as she walked past. "What was that about?" I asked.

"Hunting accident," she said. After she'd been avoiding me I wasn't expecting her to want to stick around, but to my surprise she rested her back against the wall next to me. "At least, that's their story."

"You believe them?"

Freesia shrugged. "It's possible," she said, "but that bullet you found doesn't help their case. Whatever happened, they've got the weapons we're looking for somewhere around here. I don't see why they wouldn't comply if they hadn't shot up that transport."

"I guess so." Fina was still inside treating the man. I didn't care what happened to him, but I was still worried about the woman. If she was involved she would have been put up for treason. Suddenly I was imagining my sister standing in front of a firing squad. I had to shake the thought from my mind. "Hey, Frees," I said, looking to change the subject, "what was that language you were speaking?"

I was surprised again when she chuckled. "It's a pidgin," she said. "Just a trade language." Although she'd been laughing, she sounded embarrassed. "It can't convey a whole lot, but it gets the job done."

Nodding, I wiped away a small puddle of rain that had pooled up in my hood. "Why did you start avoiding me after you started speaking it?"

She laughed again. It was a guilty laugh. "Don't be so full of yourself," she said, hitting me on the arm. "I wasn't exactly avoiding you."

We'd both been busy since being stopped by the town watch – her especially. Still, when my friends wouldn't even look in my direction I took notice. "Maybe not, but you were keeping your distance."

"Yeah," she admitted.

"So?"

Freesia crossed her arms and let out a breath. "I've gotten a lot of shit for who I am, you know? I didn't want to hear it from you."

"And you think I would have given it to you?"

"I don't know," she said. Freesia wasn't just my best friend in the Squad. In the past few months she'd become my best friend period. I wouldn't have given her shit about anything. I also knew that wasn't what she'd meant. She didn't want to hear me talking about the villagers. I didn't know if I could promise her that.

"Anyway," she continued as she pushed herself off of the wall, "you might as well get comfortable. The Lieutenant was talking to the Captain on the radio in there. We're going to be sticking around for a while." With a wink and a wave, she walked away.

I waited until she was out of earshot before I groaned.