Chapter V: Olaf's War

The black pavement abruptly gave way to a thin gravel pathway, the large chunks of sable rock replaced by pebbles of granite. A cacophony of explosions and gunfire still rung in Olaf's ears, as he and the girl continued to run down the pathway, leaving the vast conflagration behind them.

The harsh gusts chilled his body to the core, but he found himself caring less and less about the sensations of his body, eventually numbing the pain. His mind had care for physical discomfort, not when his mind was racing.

What had happened to him? It was, at most, an hour after he had awoken from the deep slumber. The world had been altered, from a soldier to a fugitive, in such a short amount of time that he had no time to make the mental transition. As he thought about what he was going to do next, he thought that he might succumb to insanity.

He looked to his side to see that the girl was no longer with him. He halted his running and pivoted to see her, slowly running and then collapsing into the ground.

She drew in a large gasp of breath, and tried to pull herself to her feet. Olaf ran back to her, reaching his hand out to help her.

She looked up at him, and for the first time he saw how beatiful she was. Her fair skin shown through the dirt and blood on her face, and her deep, sapphire eyes radiated with an indescribable allure.

She grabbed onto his hand, and pulled herself to her feet. Her body still trembled, an she seemed ready to fall again. Olaf put his arm around her and supported her, walking her the rest of the way down the hill.

"Thank you," She said, her voice still staggered, but recovering. She took another breath. "My name is Stasia, by the way," She said finally, in a clear and smooth voice.

"Olaf," He said simply.

They walked in silence for a few moments, until Stasia spoke again. "Thank you for saving me. You're in the Blue Moon Militia, right?"

Olaf scoffed at this. "There is no Blue Moon Militia. It's gone forever," He said, livid.

Stasia was somewhat entertained by his sudden emotion. She wondered, why was he so angry about the Blue Moon Militia? It may have been true that it ended, she had no concept of the internal affairs of the Orange Star Army. But his petulance seemed to suggest that he may have been involved in it. The notion of standing next to a man that could very well be an important figure within the army was intoxicating.

Nevertheless, she decided not to prod any further. She had already pushed him to anger with her statement, any more discussion might very well change his mind on what to do with her.

So instead, she said, "Oh."

Olaf now seemed confused by this simple statement, as if he expected her to say something more, to say something that might enrage him, push him over the edge. An interesting man he was, not the typical soldier, who only knew how to shoot and take orders. But she supposed that was what would happen, if they were taken out of the entire population. If they were merely recruited, as they had been in Orange Star, one would expect that they would all be similar. But here, the soldiers ranged from fools to men of extraordinary intellect.

He stopped, looking around the horizon, and then up into the zenith of the sky. She could see in his eyes that he was making an calculation of some sort. "Do you know where we are?" He asked.

"No idea. They took me out of a different city."

More calculations raced through his mind. He held his arm out, and rotated it around him, his shirt sleeve flapping in the wind. Then he stopped his arm, and the shirt was suspended, held erect by the wind. He nodded his head, and turn to his left.

"You know where we are?" Stasia asked.

"Kind of," he responded. "I'll know in the morning." He said, and again scanned the horizon.

"We'll sleep in that house over there."

"Aren't we a little close to the battlefield?"

"Yeah. But we're not in it. The soldiers will be inside the city, though. There's no tactical reason to back out to here, we've already come down the hills, if they came down here to retreat, they'd be losing the high ground. Not a good idea seeing as there's a better way out." He explained.

Satisfied by his explanation, she continued to walk him him, into what she hoped would be safety, at least for the time being.

------

Olaf kicked open the door, and drew his gun, looking around to see if anyone was around. It didn't look like anyone was home, they had probably been taken into the city. Orange Star could not risk people living across the countryside, as they could easily start a revolution or aid any insurgency. Orange Star wanted to make sure that Blue Moon would forever remain in their hands.

Despite this precautionary measure, they had lost on that front. It was injudicious of them to think that a revolution would not be started. The old Blue Moon Militia would be the leaders, and would throw this country into a deeper war than had ever been seen before.

Stasia stepped into the house behind him, now able to walk without help. It was baren, except for a cot in the corner of the room. Only one room, no basement, no cellar. A stone circle in the middle of the room held a tripod, with a bowl suspended from a thin rope. Ash filled the middle of the circle.

Olaf stepped back outside, and returned with a few logs and some twigs. He dropped them straight into the firepit, and dug into his pockets, pulling out a small matchbox.

"Do soldiers have everything they need inside some pocket?" Stasia wondered, knowing that Olaf had somehow made it through the compound having been a prisoner, and that he had somehow figured out their location.

"Pretty much. We always prepared for any outcome," He cast the torrid match into the pile of twigs. They slowly ignited, and he sat idly while the fire took.

"Never thought I'd get out of the army alive. Now here I am. Outside, ready to go home. Ready to let go of all of that stuff."

"And the country," Stasia said quietly, but intentionally loud enough for Olaf to hear. He was in a sullen mood, so she no longer feared to excavate his past.

"Maybe. I don't know."

"What do you mean? The militia dissolved, the rest of us are..."

"The militia dissolved to become something else."

Stasia realized then that she was not remembering the events that brought her here correctly. There was that newspaper... they had dissolved into a rebel army.

But that brought a new question to her mind. Why did Olaf not join them? He obviously had no qualms with killing Orange Star soldiers. Why wouldn't he fight for freedom?

"So why aren't you with them? Why aren't you apart of the rebel army?"

Olaf was taken aback that she knew so much about the situation. "I did't agree with them. I thought that we should fight with Orange Star. That there was no point in fighting a revolution, that it was going to fail in the end."

"They must have not liked that."

Olaf thought back to Vlad. "No... I should have listened to him... what point is there in living if we can't have our freedom? Even if it does kill us, it's better than standing by and watching our country be destroyed. Better than living in their slave cities."

"But not everyone would agree with it. There would still be those that want the security."

"Security of what? Orange Star is just killing every man left in this country, then they'll rape the women and call it their own."

"I guess. But maybe that's only because they don't trust us."

"They don't trust us to stay quiet while our country is taken."

"No. They trust you to make a lot of noise and get yourselves shot."

Olaf was thrown by this statement. She had certainly analyzed the situation quite a bit.

"You said you thought that we should work with Orange Star at first, right?" Her voice was now thick with a strange assertiveness that he had never seen before in a woman.

"Yes," Olaf spoke passively.

"You were right. We shouldn't."

"But then we'll be destroyed in the end."

"There's a world of difference between suicide and being complacent," She was livid.

Olaf didn't know what to say to this. She was right. He used to be right, but had sacrificed what he knew to be true to fit in with what he had been told was loyalty to his country.

Stasia calmed down, and spoke again with a soft voice. "You have to do what is best for the country. You know what that is, don't you?"

"That's the problem. I don't."

------------

Stasia went to bed on the cot, next to the fire. Olaf kept himself awake, unable to sleep. He kept himself awake by asking her question again and again in his mind. He knew it would not be an easy question, not easy to come upon, nor to execute alone.

But for now, he would watch the sky through the open window. He needed to know for sure when the sun would rise. A small ebony clock in the background showed him the time. It was not correct, but it would tell him the length of time that had passed.

Through that length, he could determine his latitude. From the direction of the wind, he could determine how close he was to the coast. And from there, he could know where he was. The next city. If his suspicions were correct, he was not far from the center of the country.

Not far from home.

He turned his attention to Stasia, who slept peacefully on the cot, her arms curled to retain the heat that the fire could provide. She was beautiful. Through all of his days, he had never met a woman who looked anything like her.

But it was more than just her physical appearance that intrigued him. Behind her rousing appearance was an equally rousing personality. She had figured out so much about his own mind in such a little amount of time. He had no idea how she had managed to figure out all that she had about the war, having only a limited viewpoint from the propaganda that Orange Star gave them.

Hours passed by, and Olaf finally looked out the window to see that the night sky was fading into a dark turquoise blue, and the faint outlines of the trees became bold silhouttes. It wasn't long before the sun itself peaked up from behind the Earth, and a new day had begun.

Olaf checked the clock. He added the numbers in his head, and he came upon the answer that he had been waiting for. He was home.

His ebullience at the notion of returning home was cut short by the all too familiar sound of a gun shot. He clutched his pistol and bolted out the door.

There were no follow up shots. His leg shook in fear as he searched the horizon. He could faintly make out a small, black figure in the middle of the golden sun.

"Stasia! Wake up!" He shouted, and wasted no time in running up the hill and towards the mysterious figure.

"Stop!" He heard a faint voice yell.

Olaf stopped in his tracks, and caught his breath. He looked back and saw Stasia running up the hill.

The black figure moved down the hill and towards Olaf, and was followed by hundreds of other black figures that lined across the horizon.

Stasia caught up to Olaf, and whispered into his ear, her voice still panting, "Who are they?"

"I don't know. But they're our pathway out of here."

The lone soldier continued to march, and slowly his features became more visible. He wore a long, umber coat, leather straps holding it to his figure. The neck of his uniform was long, covering his neck. As he came even closer, two red stripes could be seen on the arms of his uniform, enclosing a third, blue stripe. A militia uniform.

Soon enough, Olaf could make out the man's countenance, and was surprised to see a familiar face. Reidar.

"Olaf? I thought you were..." Reidar looked somewhat shocked, contrasting with his usual bland expression.

"Dead? I thought so too," Olaf responded, half with a laugh.

"They said they had you executed. How did you get out? What happened?"

"I don't know. It happened so fast I can barely even remember what I did. All I know is that I killed them all. They must have been confused and under a lot of pressure. Yellow Comet came into the city giving us a chance to get out of there."

"Speaking of 'us'," Reidar said, now fully satisfied with Olaf's explanation. "Who's the broad?"

Stasia seemed ready to walk up to Reidar and slap him, but Olaf spoke in time to stop her.

"This is Stasia. I saved her inside the interrogatoon building, hoping to take her somewhere safe."

"Safe, right. Good luck with that. You go back anywhere you'll be an outlaw. And if they took her to the switch room, she's one too." His voice smacked of cynicism.

"Where are you going?"

"To Sundsvall. We're surrendering to the Orange Star general there."

"Surrendering?"

"Yeah. Vlad started the rebel army after you left, we took out the Orange Star troops in our area. Killed some more, then split. I told him I wasn't gonna deal with his crap. He said okay, let me have my own army. But I'm not about to commit suicide. I'd rather be a criminal than a traitor. They torture the traitors. I figured we'd get off nice, eh?"

"You haven't surrendered yet?"

"Nope."

"Don't do it." Olaf asserted.

"What? Now you wanna be a revolutionary?" Reidar was now pissed off, he looked ready to just leave Olaf there.

"No. There's a world of difference between suicide and complacency."

-------

Olaf kicked open the door and Reidar jumped straight in. The soldiers in the back fired shots as they came to the broken door to defend.

"What the hell?" It was the Orange Star commander, sitting across a desk from Olaf. The man they had come to see.

Olaf aimed his pistol towards the soldier to his right, and Reidar trained his rifle on the man to the left. The commander sat in the middle of this, visibly unsure of what to do.

"Put your hands, up, commander," Olaf said firmly. "Or this guy gets his head blown off."

The commander complied, raising his hands from below the desk.

"Now can you please tell me what the hell you think you're doing here? Who are you anyway?"

"Olaf. That's all you need to know. I'm here to give you an offer."

"An offer? You're giving an offer to the commander of all Orange Star troops in the next hundred miles, with a gun to my head?" The commander laughed. "Throw down your weapons before my boys come in and destroy you. I might let you die quick."

Reidar waited no more than a second after the commander finished his threat to kill the soldier his gun was aimed at. He turned and aimed towards the man on the right. Olaf brought his own gun squarely against the commander's head.

"See, inow/i there's a gun to your head. If I hear any shots, I'm taking you out. And believe me, we have more where this is coming from."

The commander sat as if a statue. As slowly as he could, he reached for his radio.

"All men stay where you are. Don't do anything."

The room was still after he put the radio down. Olaf stared into his cold, charnel eyes.

"What's your offer?" He finally asked, breaking the silence.

"There are over a thousand Blue Moon troops heading this way, they'll be here by tomorrow. You don't have the troop strength to beat them. They'll massacre you, take over this city, and the revolution will begin. I'm going to help you stop that."

The commander was shocked, and thinking over what he was going to do about it. "What are you going to do about that?"

"I'm going to stop it. I will hold this city."

"With what army? How many men do you have?"

"I have as many men as there are people in this city. If you agree to my terms, of course."

"What are they?" The commander was now interested in this proposition.

"To annex this city. Bring it into Orange Star, and treat these people as full citizens."

"You can't be serious!" the commander protested. "I don't have the authority to do that in any case..."

"Make the call," Olaf said coldly, and picked up the phone on his desk. "What's the number for the President of Orange Star?"

"This is madness."

"It's exactly what you're here to do, commander. That's the mission plan, isn't it? Assimilate Blue Moon, turn Orange Star into the greatest superpower the world has ever known?" Olaf said loudly, so that the soldier's outside the room could hear.

"Isn't that what you're here for? That's the purpose of the old Blue Moon militia, that's the purpose of these ghettos, isn't it? So why not do it, commander? Assmilate the entire country without bloodshed."

The commander just sat there, staring at Olaf.

"If the mission isn't enough for you, what about yourself? When this is all over, would you rather be remembered, as a dead commander that got killed out of his own stupidity from the beginning of the Blue Moon Revolution? Or would you like to go back home as a hero. The man who held off the insurgency single-handedly, and finished the entire war with one fell swoop."

The commander was in deep thought. Olaf had gotten through to him.

"Be that man. Be the one that finished this war. You know well as I do that we don't need any more of this killing."

"Give me the phone."

---------

The town was awoken early that morning, not by the usual drone of the soldiers telling them to get to work, but by a new voice. Or rather, an old one, one that they hadn't heard in nearly a year.

It was only minutes before the dreary eyed citizens came out of their apartments and flowed into the town square. In the center of it all was Olaf, holding the megaphone.

"Wake up, citizens. The Orange Star Army has an announcement."

The square was filling with people now, people from across the city. they looked at him, intently, waiting to know the news that this old face had brought them. Olaf looked out into the crowd, and saw his father, with a tear in his eye. Olaf waved at him, trying to hold back his own emotions.

"Former citizens of Blue Moon, I have come to make this announcement to you. For two years we have seen this war unfold, we have seen our brothers die in defense of our nation, and our sons stripped away from us to die for that same cause. We have seen the transformation of this country by war. We have all sacrficed everything, and waited, waited too long for this war to end. But I say to you, my brothers, my sisters, it was not for nothing.

"I have come back from the battlefield that I was sent to conquer, returned from the horrors that we have prayed we would never have to face, and now I am here again, here to put up that one last fight.

"On the other side of these hills that surround us, lies a new threat. It is not Yellow Comet, nor is it Orange Star. It is not the threats that we know all too well. They will come here soon, and they will say that they are liberators. They are the Blue Moon Revolutionary Army, led by my brothers in arms.

The people began talking amongst themselves.

"But," Olaf said, his voice louder than ever. "These are lies. They have not come to liberate us, but to throw us back into war once again. They will tell you that they fight for freedom. They will tell you that these soldiers of Orange Star are tyrants, that these are our enemies that we must rise to defeat."

"Down with Orange Star!" a man in the crowd shouted. The people began shouting, and were thrown by that single statement into a revolutionary zeal that Olaf had hoped to avoid.

"Wait! Wait!" Olaf shouted. "These people are wrong. The revolutionary army does not serve you. It serves it's own interests, and if they succeed, we will all lose! Orange Star has done it's evil deeds, but we cannot counter this with more war. If we rise up, what will happen?"

The mob quieted down a little. No one had an answer.

"What will happen to all of us if we fight back? Is it better to die holding on to a hopeless dream, or to continue living, to keep working towards that dream?

"Some may say that we may not obtain that dream of freedom while under Orange Star. I say, if we do not work for that dream under Orange Star, we will inever/i obtain that dream! You may say to yourselves that dying for your country is honourable, but I say it is cowardice. To die when you can continue fighting as a living man is not heroic, it is the opposite. He who can so easily sacrifice himself when there is still a battle to finish is not worthy of such a title as hero! He is not worthy to be described as a man of honor, for he lacks the courage to suffer and fight. This is not the man I will become. This is not the kind of men you should become either!"

He had taken back the mob. They were listening intently again, under his control again.

"When these so called revolutionaries go into battle, they are ready to die. They are not ready to put up the struggle that is needed to win us our freedom! So I ask of all of you, every last one of you, to fight with me! Fight for our freedom in life, not for our freedom in death! No one will stop us from obtaining our freedom! Not the revolutionaries, not Yellow Comet, not even Orange Star! Our future is in our hands, not theirs!"

One by one, the crowd began to clap, to cheer. Olaf knew that they were not just cheering for him, but cheering for Blue Moon. It was today that he would remember for the rest of his life as the day they would earn back their freedom.

"Who here is ready to fight for their freedom?"

Hands shot up out of the crowd.

"Then go back to your homes. Get shovels. We're going to put up the biggest fight of our lives."

----------

"Shovels?" The commander asked, clearly puzzled.

"We aren't going to win this battle with raw firepower, sir. The only way to win is to limit their mobility and maximize our own," Olaf responded.

"And shovels are going to do that?"

"Vlad and his revolutionaries are going to capitalize on Orange Star's key weakness, and that's their lack of mobility. What we're going to need to do is to maximize it. There's snow coming later today. I can feel it. We need to take advantage of it." Olaf thought to himself for a moment. "Do we have any snowplows here?"

"Just the normal civilian ones."

"We need to weld some onto our recons, then."

"We need those for combat."

"The combat isn't going to be done with recons. The terrain is all wrong for that. They'll be slow and indecisive. What we need to do is to prevent his troops from moving around quickly. So we plow the snow into his path, then ambush him when he tries to move around."

"Do they have their own heavy vehicles?"

Reidar stood up. "Yes, they have their own tanks, stolen from Orange Star in their first few battles. They'll have just as much firepower as we do."

"The snow will slow them down. When they try to get through these massive snowbanks, they'll be wasting fuel. If we can take out their supply lines, their heavy units will be stranded."

The commander clasped his hands together. "It looks like we have a plan now. We had better hope this works, boys."

"Is our deal still on, commander?" Olaf asked.

"The Commander in-Chief has approved of it. So long as we win this battle, your people will have citizenship."

Olaf nodded, and stepped to the door.

"I'll go get tell the people the plans," Olaf said as he opened the door, but he was stopped by the commander's voice.

"Olaf, if this all works out, I'd be obliged to offer you and Reidar a position in the army."

Olaf paused, and looked down to the floor. "I can't keep fighting, sir."

"I think you underestimate yourself, soldier. You've shown an advanced understanding of this battlefield, one that I never would have figured out myself. I'm not just offering you a job as a soldier. I'm offering you a position as an officer."

Olaf looked back at him. "An officer in the Orange Star Army?"

"You've done smarter things than most people that I've offered the position to. With proper training, you would become a fine commander."

"I'd be honored, sir," Olaf stepped out the door again.

"Good luck, officer."