Approximately 700 Kilometers West of Giadian Borders

April 11th, Stellar Year 2142

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Rei's heart was a slow, thundering drum. Its beat rolled through his whole body, strong enough to make his eyes vibrate in their sockets with every pulse. Although he did concede that could have also had to do with the Vanagandr's badly decayed shock-absorbers. Regardless, the rhythm of his heart was potent. Just listening to it made him feel alive. Curious. Here he marched toward those seven Legion shadows in the falling snow, one of which would surely be his death, and more than anything he felt alive.

It wasn't the first time he'd had this thought. It was a revelation he came to often, especially in the last month, but it was somehow still a surprise. It always was.

He found himself smiling. He blinked and in that instant saw the liquid red of his cranium as it caved beneath a fallen metal beam. He blinked and his mind's eye flashed with an image of his chest split open by an errant bullet. He blinked and envisioned the wet, warm heat that would plaster him in and out, up and down, spilling out from the deepest parts of him as he shuddered to his death. He saw his ending in a thousand ways as Freki Five continued its onward march.

And yet he found himself smiling.

He'd learned at many places in this war that when it came time to face death, death made its presence known. It seeped into the brain, the senses. Fingers would twitch with fatal throes they had yet to experience and the mind could conjure images in the hundreds. Thoughts in the thousands.

And yet Rei's focus was silent.

He was left utterly without distraction, as if his brain had divided itself in two hemispheres, one afraid and the other ready, but the fearful half was powerless and fleeting. The images came and then they went, and when they left he felt all the more at peace. Like his fears had taken the last of his uncertainties with them before they died. Before he would die.

Somehow it was always a surprise to realize he had overcome death; shattered any fear it could hold over him.

".:Hold fire until you're sure you won't miss, Sergeant. We have to make every shell count:."

He could sense the Sergeant rolling his eyes, his annoyance conveyed through the Para-RAID.

".:Yep:." he said simply. Shorthand for, 'yeah I already knew that.'

The shadows came closer, silhouettes solidifying in the snow. Rei tensed his fingers on the drive-stick. They really didn't look like any Legion he'd ever seen. Too spindly at the limbs and too slow by far. Even a Lowe could have cleared this distance in half the time it took these things.

He looked around for cover or dips in the terrain, but saw only more flat fields of snow as far as the eye could see. In the end, the fight would come down to piloting skill alone. He supposed that was fitting. Pure, somehow.

Freki Five tensed its legs, knees locking in a position that braced the turret for stability while keeping the joints ready for a burst of movement, jumping or sprinting. An ideal posture for shooting and moving. It was almost certainly a futile maneuver, considering the Vanagandr's collapsing state.

Rei watched his screens with an unblinking stare. He waited. The shadows got firmer, their outlines growing crisp and clear.

".:Now, Sergeant. Fire!:."

His own voice rang exceptionally clear even to himself, despite the rattle and whine of all the machinery around him. There was no way the Sergeant hadn't heard.

But the cannons stayed cold.

".:Hang on, Cap, I don't think these are Legion:."

".:What? How can you tell?:."

".:Bearing 270. Watch that one:."

Rei turned the Vanagandr's body in that direction, scanning his screens. All he saw was a spider-like shape coming closer, different from any Legion drones he knew of, but not a design that would sit wholly out of place among their ranks.

".:Just keep looking, Cap. Your optics got busted, so they don't zoom as far as mine:."

So he did. And he watched as the shape came closer and the color of its hull became apparent through the snow, a dull tannish-brown unlike the Legion's typical blue and silver. Soon enough he realized it wasn't a drone at all, but some kind of Feldress. The evidence of that became rapidly apparent.

Legion didn't typically have women standing on top of their canopies.

Within thirty meters he could make out rough features. She was a tall girl in desert-tan fatigues, jet-black hair going down past her waist, whipping furiously in the wind. She stood on top of the Feldress' cannon mount, legs straddling the gunbarrel. There was a wide smile on her face. She had her hand stretched high above her head, waving it frantically at their Vanagandr. Rei's ears prickled as Freki Five picked up her voice on the audio sensor.

"You!" the girl shouted at them. "You, in the machine! You're human, right?!"

Rei stared at his viewscreen. His hands had frozen up, and so had his thoughts. He expected a lot of things, but not this.

Rumbling out from the machine below her feet came the voice of a rather perturbed young man. "[Alice can you please get off my Juggernaut?]" he said, with the distinct intonation of someone who was well-used to these kinds of antics, past the point of annoyance and on straight to weariness.

"Don't worry, don't worry, my head's pretty thick, so it's no problem if you drop me!"

"[That's not why I'm asking.]"

Shourei looked over at Sergeant Bernholdt. He found they both shared the same expression: stupefied amazement.

".:Should we answer them?:." Rei asked. He was genuinely unsure.

".:Do we have a choice? Those guns look tiny, but a stiff breeze would blow out our armor right now:."

".:You think they'd shoot us? Sounds like they're just kids:."

Bernholdt offered a one-shouldered shrug. ".:Kids can kill too:." he said simply.

"Hell-looooo! Anyone home?" the girl shouted, hands on her hips.

The other Feldress had gathered in position, six of them (the seventh, Rei surmised was probably the girl's, and sitting empty somewhere nearby) poised in a semi-circle surrounding the Vanagandr. Their cannons were aimed and ready.

".:That's definitely a uniform she's wearing:." Rei said. ".:I'm surprised there's any countries still standing after all this time. I thought the Legion would have destroyed them all by now:."

".:She's probably even more surprised than we are. Would explain why they haven't shot us on sight:."

".:Why would they do that in the first place?:."

In response, Bernholdt simply pointed out the patch on the shoulder of his flight suit, which bore the flag of Imperial Giad. It was the same insignia Shourei had worked tirelessly to plaster all over every last one of their Vanagandrs at the start of this journey. Most likely it had been years since the other nations had even seen an Imperial soldier, but by no means would they have forgotten which country unleashed the Legion on them.

"If you're worried we're gonna capture or kill you or something, then, um, don't be!" the girl said very persuasively. "No offense, but you don't exactly look like an invader."

The voice from the Feldress below her feet offered an unbelievably tired sick-of-your-shit groan.

".:Well, I'm convinced." Sergeant Bernholdt said dryly. ".:How about you, Cap?:."

Shourei was still in a mild state of shock. For all his preparation and reflection and coming-to-peace, this was what he had come to? Not swift, sheer death but a teenage girl doing some kind of comedy routine on top of a rickety Feldress? He couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity.

".:Sure, why the hell not:." Rei said, and flipped the switch on his external speaker.

—

Three Hours Later

"Are you sure piloting this thing is… safe?"

Standing in the fluorescent light of Halberd squadron's hangar, Shourei cast a dubious look at the cheap, emaciated limbs of the Feldress, gaze drifting up to a rickety fuselage painted an unsightly brownish-tan and scattered with rust. The canopy wasn't even armored - it was paper-thin aluminum plating. Never mind protecting against cannon shells, this thing couldn't even stop shrapnel. Even handgun rounds would penetrate at the right angle.

"Safe?" Alice asked? "Not even a little. This thing is dark, cramped, noisy, and has about as much padding as Kaie over there." She pointed at a slender Orienta girl in her early teens, boarding an identical Feldress (right down to the rust patterns) in a farther corner of the hangar. "We have to fill our combat helmets with cotton, otherwise our own Juggernauts would kill us before we even got to the enemy. We'd crack our skulls in half."

"Right…" Shourei didn't really know what to say to that. Doubly so because Alice seemed to take a perverse pride in just how dangerous her machine was to its own operator. Like it meant something more to her than just an indication of her military's neglect.

If he were being diplomatic, Rei would call it unorthodox that the Republic not only relegated their entire defense strategy exclusively onto the shoulders of their ethnic minorities, but also deprived them of the tools and supplies necessary for warfare.

If he were being honest, he would call it abhorrent.

To say nothing of what it would be like to actually share in their experiences, it made him physically ill just to think about what life was like for Alice and her comrades. The '86,' as their country dubbed them, were made to endure a constant war without artillery, without logistical support, without even basic accommodations like personal armaments and medical supplies, all because they'd not been born with an Alba's silver features. Those who had, it seemed, enjoyed a cushy life behind the massive walls of the Gran Mur, replete with hedonistic pleasures.

"What about yours?" Alice asked, idly pushing a strand of long black hair behind her ear.

"What?"

"Your Juggernaut. Your Vana-ray or whatever you called it. I had a look inside after we got back, and it doesn't seem much better than ours. That seat was a tight fit even in my fatigues. It must be hella uncomfy when you're all decked out." She shrugged her hand at Rei's armored exoskeleton.

"A Vanagandr isn't comfortable at all, but it's not unsafe. You won't die just from piloting it."

"You might if you go into battle," Alice pointed out.

"Well, obviously."

She flashed a quick smile over her shoulder, then spun on her heel to face him.

"So how about it? Ready to go get your boys?"

Alice Araish was tall. So was Rei, but that only stood her an inch below him. Her Jet-black eyes were more or less level with his own, a look to them like childish excitement alloyed with deep-set steel, a perplexing appearance made complete by the smug smile she perpetually wore.

"In one of these rickety things? Not in the slightest." He mirrored the edge of deep amusement in her expression, his eyes crinkling at the corners with the warmth of a grin. "But let's do it anyway."

"Music to my ears."

Rei climbed into the stiff polyurethane chair of the Juggernaut and did his best to settle in as the canopy closed around him, locking him in a coffin-like space that was dark save only for the glow of three view-screens to his left, right, and center. He took the drive-stick in his hand and found it stiff. He put his foot on the gas and found it clunky. He had to stomp the pedal just to get the Feldress moving.

Alice led the way. Rei's Juggernaut stumbled on each step. Walking on four narrow legs - compared to the Vanagandr's eight thick ones - meant there was a much higher proportion of weight coming down with every step, even if the Juggernaut was lighter overall. It put more stress on each limb, and made keeping balancing roughly twice as difficult. He figured these things had to be hell on rough terrain.

And yet even in the short travel from the hangar to the doors leading outside, Rei couldn't help but notice how Alice's Juggernaut carried itself with an uncanny grace, all economic motion and martial presence. He was sure they were driving the same model (every Juggernaut he saw appeared to have been mass-produced) yet she was able to operate hers with an effortless grace. Meanwhile it was all Rei could do just to keep from falling over.

"[They really are walking aluminum coffins, Rei,]" Alice said with chipper consolation, her voice carrying a note of static through her Juggernaut's external speakers.

It was standard for Processors (that was the 86 word for Feldress operators) to communicate solely through external speakers, meaning they could only speak to one another while in short distances of each other. They did have wireless headsets, but even in ideal conditions every word sounded indistinct and fuzzy through them. Rei, who had grown used to the crystal-clear comms of his Para-RAID, found the headsets basically unusable. Not to mention that once the Eintagsfliege took to the air, those hordes of metal butterflies that flapped through the skies with their wave-jamming wings, the headsets would shut down entirely.

It was small wonder how the 86 managed to communicate at all. Maybe they simple didn't once things got bad enough. It would explain their doctrine of operating in independent platoons, relying on neither commanders nor rear-guard support.

Alice's Juggernaut turned its red-eyed sensor back at Rei's, noting the stumbling, awkward quality of its gait. "[Don't get too hung up about it,]" she said. "[It takes a long time to get used to these things.]"

"[But Processors don't get very much time, do they?]" Rei remarked.

He hadn't been in this country long. He hadn't even seen the inside of the Gran Mur - those enormous stone walls the Alba lived behind, neatly separated in their 85 districts from the 86th beyond - but what he had been shown in this short time was enough to convince him of a great many things. The least of all being the absolute misery inflicted on these people. It was pain he could relate to in some ways, given his own status as a tainted child. And yet in so many others it was something he'd never be able to understand, no matter how hard he tried.

There was a pause before Alice replied. One that seemed to last slightly too long. In it, Rei got the sense that her perpetual smile had faded, dipping at the corners for a moment like a stalwart ship might dip beneath the rock of storm waves before it broke through again into breathable air.

"[No, we don't,]" she said simply.

Sergeant Bernholdt was waiting for them outside in a Juggernaut of his own. He was accompanied by a few other members of Halberd squadron. One of them sat on the narrow leg of her Feldress, kicking her feet idly and waving lazily at Rei and Alice as they approached. After coming closer (and getting acquainted enough with the controls for him to move without his shaky maneuvers reducing his viewscreens to colorful blurs) he noticed it was Kaie, the younger teen girl who'd been in the hangar with them. She must have set out while he and Alice were having their conversation.

"Hey Captain," Kaie chirped. "And hello, Empire-soldier-man. Hope you're having a better time than your friend over here."

She gestured at Bernholdt's Juggernaut, which he appeared to have tilted over and gotten stuck in the snow. One sand-colored leg scrabbled frantically at the ground, accomplishing the construction of a truly impressive pile of snow around itself. At getting itself free, however, its efforts could only be described as an abject failure.

"[These things are garbage, Cap,]" the Sergeant complained. "[I think they're even slower than our Vanagandr.]"

Rei whistled appreciatively. Slower than a Feldress five times its weight? That was saying something.

"It's not about what you got, but how you use it," Kaie quipped sagely.

Bernholdt did not sound amused. "[And how exactly are you supposed to use this piece of garbage? It's slow as hell, has no armor, tiny guns, and handles like a damn fridge.]"

"Oooh, the big man's angry. How scary!" Kaie said, looking more or less the opposite of scared. "Hey Captain, why don't you let me take these guys on patrol tomorrow? I'll show them how a real Processor handles a Juggernaut."

"[That's a good idea! I'll be the one to take them out, though.]"

"Oh come on! It's my idea!"

"[And since I'm the Captain, it's my decision,]" she said. "[Maybe you'll be ready to take on newbies when you get a Personal Name of your own, Kaie.]"

"Tch."

Rei really wasn't sure how his Juggernaut's audio sensors managed to pick up as small a noise as a click of the tongue, but somehow they had. Actually, maybe he'd just imagined it. That seemed more plausible.

"Roooger," Kaie said in a tone of slight annoyance. She stood and leaped agilely from the leg of her Feldress into her pilot's chair, and the canopy slid closed over top of her. "[But I'll remember that the next time you ask me for a favor, Captain.]"

"[When do I ever ask you for favors?!]"

Coming through her loudspeaker, Kaie's voice sounded both mushy and muffled, but her disdain was clearer than ever.

"[Oh just last night it was, 'Kaie, can you do the cooking for me tonight?' The day before, 'Kaie, help me with this paperwork.' And the day before that: 'Kaie, help me scavenge for beer.' And I helped you do that even though not only am I underage, but so are you.]"

"[Eh? Didn't I turn eighteen last month?]"

"[No, that was Faye's birthday. Yours is next month - and you'll be seventeen, not eighteen. How do you even forget your own age?]"

Alice's Juggernaut gave an actual shrug, dipping on the joints of its legs and bowing the cannon above the cockpit in a shallow nod.

"[Who cares about the drinking age anyway? It's not like the Republic is going to bust us or anything.]"

"[Public morals. Think of the children, Captain!]"

"[But we're children.]"

"[Exactly.]" Kaie tilted her Juggernaut's head in a nod that dripped with excessive self-satisfaction.

From its self-dug hole in the snow, Bernholdt's Juggernaut turned its sensor toward Shourei's, as if the Feldress were sharing a sidelong glance with its companion.

".:You think they're always like this?:." the Sergeant asked dryly.

".:It wouldn't surprise me. They're kids, after all:." Shourei replied. ".:Do you want help getting unstuck?:."

".:Yes please:."

While Alice continued to argue (to great comedic effect) with her subordinate, Rei puzzled over the controls in his cockpit. Eventually he found the triggers for the wire-anchors, as well as the button to their right that put them in winch mode, allowing them to function as towing wires. They had to be attached by hand from that point, however; trying to fire them into another Juggernaut would be damaging at best, possibly lethal if the anchors punched through the wrong section of the cockpit.

Rei popped open the canopy and hopped down to the snow and took the wires in his hands. The Juggernaut's cockpit was a smoothly curved surface without any given space for tow-wires, and the legs looked far too thin for the job. Rei made do though, eventually hooking the cables around the machine-gun mounts. He gave the fuselage a conciliatory smack, hollow sound of ringing metal, before climbing back into his Feldress.

".:Ready?:." Rei asked.

".:Do it:."

Shourei braced his Juggernaut's legs, joints locking tight, metal squealing, rattling before it solidified. Vibration racked through steel actuators. Narrow legs began to tremble, and the engine picked up with a trembling roar as he pulled back on the wire. Bernholdt's Juggernaut began to shift, pulling out of its self-dug hole by wire like some strange metal infant, folded legs and curled posture.

And then Rei's Juggernaut got stuck.

All at once, with the most horrible crunching-cracking sound Rei had ever heard, all four legs of his Feldress punched through the upper crust of the snow and into the softer powder underneath. Like Bernholdt, Rei tried scrambling his limbs upward, trying to find traction or stable ground, to claw his way back up to the firmer snow above. And like Bernholdt, he failed completely.

At the sound of breaking snow, Alice and Kaie cut off their comedy routine, both turning their Feldresses in Rei's direction. There was a moment of silence as the machines regarded his predicament. And then, laughter.

"[Seriously?]" Kaie said in a wondering, awestruck tone. "[Both of you?]"

"[Oh man oh man oh man, I'm gonna have so much fun with this. I'm sorry Rei, but your men are never going to be able to look you in the eyes again when I'm done telling this story to them."

"[Please don't do that, Alice.]"

Alice only laughed.

—

It wasn't long ago that Shourei had tread this same path. He'd been going in the opposite direction, and on eight legs instead of four, but it was still the same. He could see the footsteps left by his Vanagandr, half-filled by falling snow. He treaded through them now alongside Bernholdt and Halberd Squadron, multi-ton legs pounding the imprints into an indistinct carpet of smashed snow.

He thought, then, on all the things that had crossed his mind on that journey onward, toward what he was sure, absolutely certain, would be his death. He remembered all that had flashed across his mind's eye. The thoughts, the thousands of thoughts. He remembered the peace he'd come to, that glorious wholeness, that utter equilibrium.

He remembered the disappointment when he realized he would live.

He wondered what his men would feel when they realized it wasn't Legion coming for them, as he had thought as he watched the shadows in the snowfall come closer. Not Legion, but rescue. Would they feel relieved? Elated? Would they take it in stride as just one more miracle in the string of fortunes that had brought them this far?

Surely they wouldn't feel like he had.

How many times had it been in his life? Three? Four, five… ten times or more, that he had felt that overwhelming peace that was the result of from coming before death and knowing beyond doubt it would take him. The sensation was freedom like no other, the release of all ties from everything earthly. A recognition of transcendence. The future was so vast when it stretched out before him, like floating on a plank of wood on the open ocean and being expected to paddle his way to the shore.

Death meant absolution from that burden.

Death, Rei realized, was addictive.

There was something in him that called to it. For its final balance. He wondered if that was madness. If maybe that made him sick and twisted and wrong. He wondered where it came from, but did not have to wonder for very long. The answer was obvious enough. It had all started on that day three years ago, when he felt that sterile coldness rip into his body, that sudden breach in a place somewhere between his mind, his soul, and his heart. That moment when he felt his mother die. Ever since then, a part of him had been relentlessly fascinated by the idea of his own ending.

He could think of Shin. The brother he left behind; the brother he had a duty to come home to. He could think of the men he was charged with leading, and he could think of all he'd yet to see in life, and if he did all these things then the fascination could dim somewhat. But the calling would remain.

Maybe it would always be there.

These thoughts came easily in the claustrophobic dimness of the Juggernaut's cockpit, completely dark save for the anemic glow of the viewscreens. Shourei sighed. He was being pathetic. He shrugged his shoulders and tensed his fingers on the drive-stick, shook his head to clear it out. Wouldn't be long before they reached the other survivors of Freki Squadron. When he stepped out of the cockpit he'd prefer to show them a good, strong face. A leader's face. Not whatever he was wearing now.

He made himself remember Sergeant Bernholdt's words. Three extra weeks of life. That was the gift he'd given to the six soldiers left under his command, to the Sergeant, and to himself. He knew they were grateful. Hell, he was grateful. Some cold part of him was still searching for an end to things, but that part was not all of him, not even most of him.

He could keep moving. And he could keep looking forward.

That's what he told himself.

Happy Saturday folks!

Hope y'all are enjoying the day and/or night. Where I'm at right now, the sky is as white as milk (or ashes) and everything feels gray and gross. But such is life in Maine. Yesterday was gorgeous, and tomorrow might be too, but some days the weather just sucks and there's really not much you can do about it. Except stay inside and write, I suppose.

Make sure to stay hydrated and well-rested. Or don't. Your physical wellbeing is of no consequence to me. :)

-Verbosity