Code Geass: Resist and Bite
Chapter 7: Relationships and Rations
When the war began nearly half a decade ago, young Greek female soldiers were turned into hardened crack fighters. The guns of the first day's offensive were silent, and the troops were talking amongst themselves. Greeks and Canadians were getting along smoothly as Captain Kadri Koliodromos and Colonel Noemi Lobeaux were observing, "You seem interested in the Japanese" Noemi noted to the captain, doing the kind thing and not using the term 'eleven' to describe the Japanese as Britannia did years ago.
Kadri shook her head, "No...not in that sort of way, Colonel, but she has proven herself well in action," She replied, Noemi lightly nodded and smiled to herself. Among the soldiers, one of the things they passed around were rations. The Canadians and Greeks began receiving food aid in the from of RCIRs from the French two days after the armies took the 'red' line. The allied forces had another two miles before they reach the dug-in fortress. For now, the allied soldiers had time to rest up, eat, and socialize.
After it finished cooking, Kadri opened up her RCIR of braised ham with haricot beans and sat down with Kallen. With the threat of being shot by a sniper if she put her head up, Kallen made a sitting salute to the officer which Kadri nodded as a way of accepting her greeting, "You learn quickly, Private," Kadri complimented sitting next to her.
"What can I say? I had a good teacher," Kallen replied, looking at her ready meal of tartiflette, and from the taste it seemed the wise words of Napoleon were true that an army does march on it's stomach, "speaking for the soldiers, If we had to eat anymore Spam, I think the ladies would've mutinied," Kadri lightly chuckled at Kallen's humor.
Kallen shifted an eye at the older captain, and looked back at her food, "Captain...if you don't mind me asking, what was home to you?" Kallen asked, wanting to get to the soul under the uniform that was leading the infantry into battle. Captain Koliodromos and Captain Kakos were the rock in the empire's boots, and with their resistance, they are a pair of constant and twisting thorns in the side of the Holy Empire of Britannia. Captain Koliodromos looked at Kallen, and back at the setting sun far off in the distance.
"Home is a village called Kastori," Kadri replied lightly smiling at the memories that came with the thought of her village, "my mother is making Kofta for supper, my father is helping me with my studies, my sister is gathering water from the well, she is very smart...very bright, will I ever get to see them again? Not in this life, until reconstruction can begin, I have nowhere to go home to, and these soldiers are my family," she closed her eyes at the memory of trying to wake up her dead mother as her village burned.
"I'm sorry for your loss," Kallen said, thinking of her brother. Every soldier both Greek and Canadian had their reasons to fight. The black sashes on the sides of their berets and officer's caps were tribute to the fallen Evzone guards. These Greeks were all that was left of the army to fight Britannia due to the empire's tactics of killing village men.
"There was something my mother told, something she taught me that I never forgot," Kadri said, looking into Kallen's blue-green eyes, "your heart has a voice, a voice only you can hear, let your heart guide you, I will always be with you...in spirit," Kadri recalled, she was eight years old when her mother died during the sacking of Kastori by the Britannians, "those were the last words she said to me...before she died," Kadri looked up at a blue sky and smiled lightly, "I can feel her spirit...watching me...guiding me,"
Kadri gently held Kallen's hand, and placed I where her heart would be, "Listen to your heart, Kallen, you maybe...just maybe...you may find what you are looking for, it may take time, a lifetime so be it, but you will find it," the Captain patted the soldier a couple times on the shoulder. Kallen saluted her superior, and Captain Kadri saluted back.
When the Britannians tried to diminish Greece's man power, it was then that women who took up arms against the Empire, thus the Britannian-Hellenic War became known as the 'Women's War'. Such bravery prompted the Canadians to join the fight against their neighbors to the south. The captain nodded to Kallen, and went to see Noemi.
Colonel Lobeaux was finishing her meal, and enjoying her coffee in one of the many foxholes that dotted the Argos Valley due the constant shelling of the Britannian artillery. The valley was as much an enemy as the Greek and Canadian forces. When Knightmare Frames put their wheels down on the rough terrain, the wheel mechanisms either broke down on the jagged rocks or became clogged with mud. Thus they became sitting ducks for self-propelled guns, anti-tank missiles, and tank gun fire from the Greeks.
"Coffee?" Noemi offered to the captain, but she turned it down in favor of tea. The colonel nodded to the captain's taste, "you've seen your fair share of war, oui?" Noemi asked the commander of the Greek ground forces. She nodded, the same went for Captain Kakos, and her tank crews, "Hence, we will not say that Greeks fight like heroes, but that heroes fight like Greeks." Kadri smiled lightly at the words of encouragement from the French-Canadian colonel. She knew exactly whose words those belonged to.
"Sir Winston Churchill," Kadri replied, Noemi nodded to say she was correct. Kadri sipped at her tea, and looked at the dug-in fortress looming a few miles off in the distance, "so...what is home to you, Colonel? If you don't mind me asking," Kadri asked Colonel Lobeaux, one commanding officer to another. Noemi smirked a light smile in response.
"Home is a village called Gatineau on the Ottawa River, I used to spend my time after my college classes training on the oval ice track," Noemi said to a nodding Kadri whom was listening to her story, "I'm a speedskater, well..was until the war broke out, I have a gold and two silver medals under my belt," Kadri remembered watching her on TV.
"I've since retired, I've done all I can on the ice, and there is still more I can do for my country," Noemi said as she ducked when a lone artillery shell hit near her foxhole and it started lightly raining dirt and mud, "shit-fuck," she cursed lightly to herself, the captain understood the colonel's feelings. Although she is not a former professional athlete like Noemi, Captain Koliodromos is an accomplished swimmer. She saluted the colonel, and went back to her foxhole, and rolling into the foxhole where Kallen Kozuki waited.
Soldiers have lives away from the battlefield. With the war still raging in the north, it meant that, in the end, they would have to rebuild their lives just like cities such as Athens and Thessaloniki. Captain Koliodromos closed her eyes, and remembered the day her mother died. She was wounded by a Britannian bayonet, but still managed to get her youngest daughter out of a building before it crumbled to the ground. Kadri's big sister had been raped the day before, and shot in the head by a Britannian soldier.
"Captain?" Kallen asked, but her voice sounded like an echo to Kadri's ears, "Captain...?" she asked again. Captain Koliodromos lightly quivered at the sound of Kallen's voice as she was brought back to reality, "Captain...is something wrong?" asked the private whom was soon to make corporal. Kadri turned to her, and lightly shook her head 'no'.
"It is nothing to concern yourself with, I was just thinking," Kadri replied, checking her equipment and checking her rifle sights knowing the Britannians might attack, "keep your eyes open and your head down, the Britannians will sometimes send stray shells into the lines," she instructed and went to see the Canadians setting up FN BRG-15 machine guns, a weapon that the Canadians nicknamed the 'Jackhammer'. Kallen nodded in understanding, but knew there was more to the captain than just an old uniform.
