Thanks to Ridersofrowan, CajunBear73, TheDeathlyRider2287, OechsnerC, and everyone else for their reviews and input. This chapter is a rather bleak one.
=O=
Chapter 34: Lost
Fourteen years earlier
Wuhan, Hubei Province, Joint Government of the Pacific
Astrid led her family down the blacked-out street, a bag of groceries cradled in each little pair of arms. Even with the partial evacuation, the ration lines had been extra-long today, what with news of the big Japanese offensive underway. The air raids had gotten worse – so bad, in fact, that school had been cancelled. The Headmistress had sent everyone home with carbines, antitank rockets, and submachine guns.
The Hoffersons weren't leaving just yet. The Ford plant, with its huge piles of steel and coal, wasn't going to close until the Japanese, "parked a tank in the production hall", as her mother put it, and they had decided as a family that sticking together would be a preferable alternative to being scattered to the four winds.
Every day, the remaining newspapers carried lists, horrible lists of thousands of evacuated children, their paperwork lost in the chaos of war, desperately trying to find their families. And there had been false alarms before. The Japanese had tried to take Wuhan twice, and twice they had been beaten back. Astrid had no intention of waiting for days in a stuffy train station for delayed evacuation trains, their priority listings useless, their trains stuck amongst critical military traffic – and there appeared to be a lot of that these days.
"BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"
The air raid siren blared to life. Astrid swore. The boys sniggered, and Kara looked at her inquisitively.
"Eric, Kirk. Knock it off." She turned to Kara. "I just said something very mean that nobody should say, okay, Kara?"
The boys laughed, and Kara giggled as Astrid racked her memory of the neighborhood for an air raid shelter.
This had been a bad day for a ration run, and an even worse day to bring the twins and Kara along for some extra hands and fresh (kinda) air. But they'd been stuck indoors since school had been cancelled, and the boys had been getting restless.
There were four concrete foxhole shelters on the street. Astrid pulled the manhole-like cover off the first, and gagged at the stench of rotting garbage and old rainwater. Okay, mark that down as a last resort.
She found the illuminated sign of the air raid shelter just as flak began to pour skywards – but oddly, no antiaircraft missiles.
"Get in! Get in!"
Interceptors roared overhead as she ushered the boys and Kara inside.
She looked around the tiny bunker, lit by a single electric light. A smattering of industrial workers rubbed elbows with housewives and four steel-pot-helmeted militiamen, the insignia of the 152nd Wuhan Battalion emblazoned on their olive-green fatigues.
The watchman turned off the electric light, and they sat together in darkness.
Kara buried herself in Astrid's jacket.
"Could we turn on the light, please?" Astrid asked. "My sister's scared of the dark."
The watchman shook his head. "Battery's limited, miss."
"Kara, you're a good girl. A brave girl. Big sis loves you. We're safe here." This seemed to placate Kara. Her littlest sister really had gotten a lot braver over the past year, and had adjusted well to moving in with their neighbors – much moreso than the boys, who had taken to making trouble in the Zhou household.
"Another air raid? They attacked just this morning!" Someone hissed.
"Well, they are trying to capture Wuhan. They need to soften it up first. I heard they've been attacking our air defenses a lot lately." Another opined.
Someone – probably one of the militiamen – laughed. "Haven't you heard?! The Japanese broke through our lines this afternoon! Japanese tanks are rolling down the Interstate as we speak!"
Everybody gasped. "What?!"
The militiaman nodded. "They could be here in a matter of days."
"I thought they were attacking Nanjing!"
"Must have been a feint!"
"Either way, they'll take the Yangtze! And the railways! We won't be able to ship goods up and down the river! We'll lose Shanghai!"
Kara began sobbing as panic filled the room. "Shhh. Shhh."
A dull ping reverberated off the roof of the bunker.
"What was that?!"
"Antiaircraft shell."
"Here?"
Astrid looked up in worry as more pings ricocheted off the bunker. If they were firing flak over the residential district, that meant there were bombers overhead.
They sat together in silence, broken only by the occasional plink of an antiaircraft shell.
"Where are all the bombs? I don't hear any bombs." Astrid frowned. Air raids had never been like this. The all-clear should have sounded by now.
The militiaman spoke. "She's right."
The pinging seemed to stop. "Saddle up, boys. We're going out to investigate."
The bunker door opened, and the militiamen, carbines at the ready and disposable antitank rocket launchers slung over their shoulders, went out into the night.
Astrid weighed her options, and snapped her fingers. "Boys, stay here and look after Kara and the groceries. I'm going to see if it's safe to go home."
Astrid stepped into the cool, smog-drenched night air, and turned her eyes briefly skyward. A full moon graced the celestial vault, bathing the blacked-out streets in dim moonlight. She sighed, and took in the constellations, counting them off as she scanned the heavens. Big dipper. Little Dipper. Draco…
No flak, no missiles.
Something big and green drifted across the sky. What was that?
The crack-crack-crack of small arms fire drove her to the ground.
Astrid looked up, and watched in horror as a man, suspended from a huge green parachute, drifted to the ground not thirty meters down the street.
An Imperial Japanese paratrooper, a banzai headband wrapped around his cropped bell-shaped helmet, emerged from beneath the nylon canopy, a short assault rifle at the ready.
"Japanese paratroopers! Japanese paratroopers!"
The paratrooper ditched his chute, dived to the side, and began shooting. The militiawoman closest to Astrid went down. Astrid rushed to her side, and, using all her strength, dragged the skinny woman into a side alley. She tried to shake her awake, and wetted her hands on her blood-soaked uniform. Astrid tried to find her neck… and found instead a jagged mess.
She thanked the darkness. If it had been bright enough to see the mess in detail, she would have thrown up on the spot.
She rifled through the militiawoman's pockets for ammunition, and picked up the carbine. She tugged at the disposable rocket launcher, but it wouldn't budge.
Shouts came from the street, and she abandoned the effort.
Across the street, a dead paratrooper lay sprawled on a rooftop, still tangled in his parachute. Evidently, he had landed on the sloping roof and gotten stuck.
But on the street were three paratroopers – still locked in a gun battle with a surviving militiaman.
She took aim. Through the night, she saw the lanky young paratrooper move to reload his weapon.
She hesitated. The handy, familiar carbine felt slick in her hands, and the usually rock-steady sight trembled.
The paratroopers charged forward, and gunned down the militaman.
They moved down the street… towards the air raid shelter.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
Astrid watched as the paratroopers seemed to crumple up as her rounds made contact. Someone screamed, and Astrid barreled into the dark alley as fast as her legs would carry her. Bullets pinged off the brickwork, but the paratroopers didn't follow.
I just shot someone I just shot someone I just shot someone...
What were paratroopers doing here? There were no factories here! Were they after the Interstate? The big bridge across the Yangtze? The airport? Those were miles away!
It never quite occurred to Astrid that the vaunted Imperial Japanese Army, like all armies, could and did screw up... frequently.
Astrid wound her way along side streets and back alleys, heading back to the air raid shelter, back to the boys and Kara. Please be okay please be okay please be okay.
One grenade in the shelter and her family would be mincemeat.
To reach the boys. To reach Kara.
Please be okay please be okay please be okay.
She reached the shelter, and swung the heavy door open.
"Big sis!" Kara squealed.
"What's happening out there! I heard gunfire!" Eric asked.
"Japanese paratroopers! They're all over the neighborhood!" Astrid exclaimed.
Kirk picked up a bag of rice. "Do we ditch the groceries?"
Astrid gritted her teeth. "No. We keep them as long as possible."
Who knows when we'll get rations again?
"We should all stay put. The paratroopers won't be here long, one way or another." One of the housewives piqued.
A man rose to leave. "My house is five minutes away. The battle could last weeks! I'm taking my chances before the tanks show up!" His eyes flickered to Astrid's carbine.
Astrid hefted the carbine, her finger on the trigger. The man raised his arms, and backed out of the bunker.
Kara began to sob. "Where's mommy?" Astrid gulped as her brothers turned to her, the question clearly having resonated.
"She'll… have to take care of herself. She can't possibly come home with that going on outside." She inhaled sharply. "If it comes to it… we'll… leave a note or something. And if we get separated, we meet in Wuhan after the war, and if we end up evacuated overseas, we find Uncle Ralph in Detroit."
She motioned to Kara and the boys. "Come here." She extended her shaking arms, and wrapped them all in a crushing hug. "I love you guys so much. We have to be brave now, okay? Let's go home."
=O=
Astrid's heart raced as her family crept through blacked-out streets. Once familiar, the narrow lanes, steel-grate doors, clotheslines, and pagoda-roofed row houses now seemed hostile, alien. They ducked behind the garbage can where Kirk had found a dead rat, hid behind the metal gate the dumpling place always never locked properly, and crouched by the gutter along which Astrid and Eric had raced paper boats with the neighborhood kids.
Astrid stopped at another corner, gingerly poked her head forward... and froze.
On the opposite street corner – barely a stone's throw away - stood a trio of Japanese paratroopers. Their gazes – and rifles - seemed to wander from rooftop to rooftop, as if they were trying to gain their bearings. One paratrooper, using his rifle as a makeshift crutch, struggled to stand as he tried to examine his fellow's torchlit map.
They're lost.
Astrid gulped as she turned the safety off.
No hesitations this time. The last time she had hesitated, someone had gotten killed.
But there were three of them. Could she get them all before they returned fire?
She had barely gotten one of them last time. But she had done it at school, right? And last time was practice. She could do it. She could do it.
Her carbine shook as memories of the crumpled-up Japanese paratrooper and the bloodsoaked militiawoman flashed before her eyes.
She lowered her carbine. Could they sneak past? Or was shooting them a better option?
Kara began to sob. Astrid clamped a hand firmly over Kara's mouth, and shook her head.
She certainly couldn't shoot with one hand.
She motioned to Eric and Kirk to be quiet, and pointed at the street opposite. They picked up the groceries.
The paratroopers were all looking at the map - perfectly distracted for four kids to make their escape.
It's now or never.
Carrying Kara firmly in her hands, and avoiding the moonlight like the plague, she slithered across the street.
She made it.
Eric was right behind them.
He made it. Astrid gave him a reassuring squeeze as he slid in position behind herself and Kara, his back against the wall, trembling in fear.
Kirk began his sprint…
...and one of his cans chose that moment to come loose with an awful, awful clatter.
The Japanese troops turned around, bayonets at the ready, and began to chatter in Japanese. One man roughly shoved his bayonet before Kirk's face, and pointed at a map. In the moonlight, Astrid could make out that the map was heavily annotated – covered in scribbles, circles and arrows.
Kirk trembled as the paratroopers pointed to the map again, refusing to say a word and pointedly avoiding Astrid's tear-filled gaze.
To look back would draw attention to his family, so he looked straight ahead. He pointed vaguely at the map, and shrugged.
Astrid tried to thrust Kara into Eric's arms, but Kara was still on the verge of crying. She abandoned the effort.
Just cooperate. Let him go. Let him go, please. Please.
He pointed more forcefully at the map, which seemed to satisfy the Japanese. Kirk backed away towards the alley from which he had come.
Good boy, Kirk. Take another route home.
A paratrooper raised his rifle and shot Kirk in the head.
Kirk crumpled onto the ground, landing headfirst with a hard thwack.
Mutters were exchanged between the paratroopers, now scanning the block nervously for unwanted attention, as Astrid looked on in shock. Kirk's killer made a dismissive gesture at the thing on the ground.
She glanced at her carbine, and then Kara, still cradled in her arms, and Eric. What was more important to her? Vengeance for one family member, or the survival of the rest?
Get a grip. Do the logical thing.
The choice was almost too easy.
As the paratroopers disappeared down the street, Astrid slowly led Eric and Kara away, leaving Kirk's body to cool in the night.
They got home, and collapsed, bawling and wailing, in front of the cage shelter.
Between sobs, Astrid alternated between glaring at Kara and staring at her hands – with still a little bit of blood under the nails.
She wanted to scream – at Kara, at herself, at the Japanese.
It was Kara's fault for crying. It was her fault for chickening out. It was her fault for deciding they go home with groceries. It was her fault for not giving Kara to Kirk or Eric to handle in the first place. It was the Japanese's fault for invading. It was the paratrooper's fault for shooting my little brother who couldn't even read Japanese!
How was she going to explain this to mother?
Victory meant saving as many of us as I could. I won.
By the time the counteroffensive rolled around and it became safe to go back, Kirk's body was gone.
=O=
Author's note: I had two endings mapped out for this chapter, and picked the one which seemed to better fit Astrid's arc. Rest assured that Chap 34 will be substantially lighter and happier (to a degree, of course).