Y'all can just consider this one a bonus.
This chapter is really short, and I've managed to write myself a decent-sized backlog, so I'm just gonna post this one early. There'll still be an update on Saturday, of course - and it's gonna be a big one. Almost seven thousand words, because sometimes I go on long midnight roadtrips to nowhere in particular, and sometimes I get inspiration, and sometimes I have no chill. And sometimes I find abandoned warehouses on Connecticut shorelines and decide to poke around in them at half-past 2AM, but that's unrelated.
Approximately 700 Kilometers West of Giadian Borders
April 11th, Stellar Year 2142
"You see that, Cap?"
Bernholdt stood on the top of their last Vanagandr with a pair of binoculars to his bandaged face. Swaddled in wrappings, his outline blurred by a haze of dense snowfall, he looked like some species of winterized mummy. Albeit a very powerfully built mummy.
"Hard to see much from back here, Sergeant. What is it?" Shourei replied evenly from his seat in the cargo-canister, affixed by towing-wire to the back of Freki Five.
"Hard to tell with all the snow, but it looks like movement far ahead. I think something's coming toward us."
"More Legion?"
There was an odd levity in Rei's voice. Some variant of humor or acceptance that was difficult to describe. A lightness. He supposed it was natural enough. A symptom of living beneath an inevitable death for so long was that eventually death stopped being fearsome. It became one in many other basic fixtures of life, like the sun or the sky, like the food they ate. At times it even became something to laugh about.
"Probably. The outline seems different, though. Might be a new unit."
At that, a few in their diminished band of soldiers stiffened. By this point, they had all come to terms with their fate, and they had no regrets. Truly none at all. But the thought that they might see a new form of Legion - and die before they could have the chance to warn their families back home - was a thoroughly unpleasant one.
"Just one?"
"Yea-" he started. "No. There's more coming from behind. Five… six. Seven."
"Hah!" hollered one of the soldiers beside Rei. "Sending so many just for one half-broken Vanagandr. I'm flattered."
Another slapped his hand across his knee, grinning savagely. "Guess we've been a real pain in the ass for those scrapheaps, huh?"
"They can mark it on our gravestones if they ever find us. 'Kicked Legion ass til the very fuckin end!'"
""""""Hoorah!""""""
Rei closed his eyes, smiling with a confused mix of amusement, pride, grief. Despite the Sergeant's words nine days prior, there was a part of him that never stopped feeling ashamed at the decision he'd made to bring them here. At not having died at what must have been the right time and place. But it was a smaller part than it used to be, and most of the time, in most other ways, he was at peace with himself.
"So who's gonna fight 'em?" Bernholdt asked, lowering his binoculars. It did not need to be said that whoever took a chair inside the Vanagandr would be sacrificing themselves for the others. And likely in vain, given the size of the enemy force.
Six hands instantly flew up, accounting for every last member of Freki squadron except its captain and sergeant. An instant later those hands went down, became fists instead and engaged in violent debate.
"Fuck you man, my machine got taken down right at the start! I deserve this one!"
"Like hell you do. You're a shit pilot! Wouldn't have gotten your rig smashed if you weren't."
"No, this one's all mine. I scored the most kills in that last skirmish, so I should get it."
Rei wore that same mixed smile as he listened to their exchange. He thought about what Bernholdt had said to him, that not all Vargus were blood-crazed, battle-frenzied maniacs rushing to their deaths, and wondered if the sergeant might have been lying through his teeth the whole time.
Except he wasn't, of course. Rei knew these men a little better now after fighting with them for two year - and for the last month of it, facing a signed-in-stone death alongside them. By now he knew this was their way of trying to give back to their comrades. Each wanted to be the one to die so that the others might live. Even if it was only for another day. Even if only for an extra hour or a mere minute, every last one of them wanted to give that gift to their brothers in arms.
With that in mind, Rei couldn't help but feel somewhat selfish as he stood up from his seat.
"I'm taking the pilot's chair. Captain's privilege."
The soldiers stopped in their arguing for a moment, looking between one another. Eventually they seemed to come to an agreement on that, if an uneasy one, and raised no argument.
"Well if we're pullin rank, that means I get gunner," Bernholdt said, the impression of a grin showing through his bandages.
At this an annoyed sigh rose up from the gathered soldiers.
"C'mon Sarge, can you even shoot straight when you're all burned up like that?"
"Yeah, shouldn't you leave that to one of us?"
Bernholdt stomped his foot on the hard hull of the Vanagandr, and the reverberating thud was louder than any shout. Silence spread.
"Chair's mine. I could have both my arms chopped at the elbows and my eyes poked out, and I'd still shoot better than any of you louts."
He added thoughtfully, after a moment, "Get fucked."
Some glares were shot back and there was much grumbling, but in the end there were no further arguments. All had no choice but to agree. The Sergeant was speaking the truth, after all.
Shourei and Bernholdt climbed into the weary, battle-worn cockpit of Freki Five. Rei noted the distinct, tired stench of a month's worth of body odors soaked into his chair. It was mixed with the bitter and oily tang of dilapidated machinery, the sharp sting of fatigued metal. One of Rei's view-screens flickered distractingly. The perspective it offered was only barely visible enough to justify not turning it off altogether. He detached the cargo container off its hitch, and there was an unhappy whine from the hull, the crack and snap of a screw somewhere. The clutch trembled violently as he pushed the drive-stick forward. An unpleasant grinding sound filled the cockpit whenever the rear legs touched the ground.
He'd consider it a victory if he managed even one kill with the Vanagandr in this state.
".:Sergeant Brent Bernholdt, beginning pre-flight inspection:."
Rei was not surprised that the Sergeant would adhere to this regulation even now. For all that he could curse like a sailor and had a tendency to forgo even the slightest pretense of manners, for all that he had the face and bearing of the werewolf some believed him to be, Bernholdt was a career soldier through and through. Rain, shine, or pouring magma, he stuck to protocol.
What was surprising was the eminent, irreverent sarcasm in his voice. He spoke not with pride, not with tragedy, not with fatal abandon. Just a laughing smile woven in his words whose joy Rei could have felt even without the Para-RAID.
".:Acknowledged, Sergeant:."
".:Drive systems… fucked six ways 'til Sunday:.
".:Armaments, ditto, with a grand fortune of five cannon shells left:.
".:Heat sinks… bad. All systems, red as the devil's dick:."
Shourei grinned and found he didn't have to force it at all. There was no fear left in him at this point, just as there was no fear left in the soldiers slowly shrinking behind them. No sadness. No pain at all, and to his surprise, no regrets either in spite of all the guilt he'd felt before now. They'd gotten this far. At the very least that was something to laugh about.
".:How about the operators, Sergeant?:."
".:They're a couple of dumbasses who don't deserve the people they're leavin behind:."
Rei's grin faded to something kinder, more solemn.
".:No… they really don't:."