86th District, Eastern Ward
August 3rd, Stellar Year 2146
Waking up in a bed felt weird. Waking up warm felt weird too. Shiden threw the covers off and sat up. For a little bit, she thought this must have been some kinda dream. When she stood up she'd wake up again, and then she'd be back in that shitty, crumbling house on the edge of ruins, covered in dirt and clenching her teeth to keep them from chattering against the early-morning cold.
She didn't, and she wasn't. This was real.
She sat on the bottom mattress of a bunk-bed. There was a corrugated metal wall on her right side, painted a dull olive green. She was in a barracks. There were more bunks were lined up ahead of her and across from her, about ten on each side, until the building ended in a flat semi-circle wall with a door and two windows. Morning sunlight streamed through cheap shutters.
There were no bunks behind her. When she and Kaie were taken in, she made sure they got a bed at the very far corner of the room. That way she'd only have to watch one angle while they slept. They were surrounded by Alba now, after all, and there were plenty of chances for the white pigs to make bad decisions regarding her and her friend if she wasn't careful. The back-door being close by was a nice touch too.
"What, do you think my soldiers are savages or something? Do you not trust us?" Lucius had asked, frowning severely.
"That a trick question? Of fucking course I don't."
"I'll be putting you up in the women's dorm. You will be fine."
"Doesn't matter what equipment you've got. Anyone can be a bastard. Especially when you're white pigs. Ain't much I'm asking for. Just a bed by the back-wall, and to keep me and Kaie together. Can you do that or not?"
"Tch. You're receiving charity. Do you even realize that, you fucking gorilla? CHARITY. You're in no position to make demands."
"No. It's not fucking charity. You offered us help. That doesn't mean I have to take it whatever way you please. If I wanna put conditions on how you help us, I damn well can. I don't have to take your help, you don't have to give it either."
"Can you really afford to dicker right now, woman?"
"Maybe. Or maybe I don't really give a fuck. Look pig, the way I see it, you've got three options. You can either let me have what I'm askin' for, you can let me walk away, or you can kill me. I don't have all day, so just pick one and be fucking done with it."
After yesterday, it was clear enough that she and Kaie needed a safer place to rest than a ruined house in the middle of Legion-occupied territory. A Squadron of Alba probably wasn't much better, and Shiden was already starting to regret her decision, but at least she wouldn't have to go fighting Legion on foot to keep her friend safe.
No, but you might have to fight pigs instead, she thought. Lucius might have promised them safety, but Shiden would have to be braindead before she'd take a white pig at their word.
You also have to be braindead to take help from people you don't trust.
She frowned. That was probably true, but… what choice did she have?
Across from her bunk, on the other side of the barracks, an Alba girl in a black uniform was smoothing out the covers of her bed. Her back was to Shiden, so she couldn't see her face, only the a long silver ponytail going halfway to her waist, swaying slightly as she worked.
Alba on the battlefield. And here I thought I'd already seen it all.
When Lucius popped out the canopy of his Juggernaut, Shiden had a long moment to wonder if maybe the explosion really had killed her, and she was seeing some kind of crazed dream in the final moments before her brain shut down. An Alba in a Juggernaut? No fucking way. Sure, she'd heard bits and pieces from the reports Shin sent in, and there were some occasional mentions of student Alba in the combat divisions. Plus, of course, he was disguised as one. But that had to just be for show, right?
Then she looked at his Juggernaut, equipped with high-frequency blades still dripping with the Legion's mercury blood, scorched at one side from the residual heat of a cannon-shot, and she looked at the other Juggernauts up and down the street and saw more of the same, damage and signs, and it was all just a little too realistic to be a front. The realization was slow but strong, like a sledgehammer winding back before the blow: there were Alba who actually fought in their own war.
Wonders never fucking ceased.
Ponytail girl looked back over her shoulder and accidentally made eye contact with Shiden, who now sat at the edge of her bed, still fully dressed in her battle-stained fatigues. She had not stripped down for bed the night before, in case she had to grab Kaie and run.
They looked at each other for a moment before the girl ripped her eyes away, standing up from her bed and turning to leave.
"Wait," Shiden called. As ordered, the girl waited, stopping stiffly like the words had frozen her. "Tell me your name."
She said nothing for a few seconds. Just turned at Shiden with a wide, nervous, deer-in-the-headlights expression. Shiden sneered.
"What, you don't know how to talk or something? Your name. Ain't hard. I'm Shiden. And you are?"
"T-Tera," she stammered. "Um. Nice to meet you?"
"Nah, not even a little. Sit down, Tera."
Tera sat, knees pressed together, hands clasping them tightly. Her face was two parts nervousness and one part outright fear. Shiden wondered at that, leaning forward to look more closely, and Tera looked away from her scrutiny. It was almost like the white pig was afraid of her. An Alba afraid of an 86? The idea was ridiculous. But the idea also seemed to be the truth.
"Why're you here, Tera?" Shiden asked, frowning. "In a barracks, outside your fancy wall, piloting Juggernauts when you could be sitting pretty with your tea and cakes or whatever."
Tera looked sharply back at her. Instantly, all the fear was gone, like she'd up and forgotten it. She stared at Shiden and in a tight whisper of a voice, asked,
"You think I want to be here?"
Shiden rolled her eyes. "Well you are here, aren't you?"
The Alba looked mutely at her. She had a young-looking face - once. Her cheeks looked like they'd been rounder a long time ago, but the cheekbones now jutted out sharply. Her face was all angles now. Her mouth was a hard line, lips pressed together into a pale, flat edge.
"I didn't have a choice," she said.
"Bullshit."
She clenched her fists. "What would you know? You don't know what the Republic is like. You don't know anything about us."
Shiden rolled her eyes. "I know fuckin' plenty, pig. You're the ones with the power, the money… If you weren't, then how did you shuffle off all the fighting onto us for half a damn decade?"
Tera stared at her.
"Not all Alba are born equal," she said, and broke eye contact with a forceful turn of her head. She didn't say anything else as she hurried out the door.
Shiden watched her leave and decided she hated her.
Didn't have a choice, huh? she thought. Fat fucking chance. You're from the goddamn Republic. They have everything there. If you're sayin' you got thrown out here, well, that's probably your own damn fault for not being able to manage what they already gave you. Don't talk to me about choice. You weren't raised in a fucking internment camp.
She got out of bed scowling. Looking briefly back at the mess of her covers, she thought for a second about smoothing it out. She realized that she'd be doing the same thing as Ponytail, and decided to leave it messy out of spite.
There was a ringing knock on the bunk's upper railing. Shiden looked up and saw Kaie looking down at her. Her expression was impassive. The black kitten she was holding in her hands, however, was not. At pawed in Shiden's direction, trying to reach for her. It meowed impatiently when it couldn't, its forelegs a little too short. Shiden scowled a little less.
"Mornin' Kaie," she said, reaching out and rubbing the top of the kitten's head with the tip of her finger. The kitten meowed contentedly. Kaie gave a thumb's up.
"Doing good today?" she asked, speaking slowly, enunciating the words on her lips so Kaie could read them.
Kaie added a second thumbs up right next to the first.
Shiden grinned. "Then I'm doin' good too. How about finding some breakfast?"
Kaie gave a nod and shuffled over to her bunk's ladder. She climbed down with the kitten cradled against her chest. Kaie moved slowly, and stumblingly, like she was re-learning every motion from the ground up. But at least she could move. That alone was a big improvement over yesterday.
Physically speaking, Kaie could still talk out loud if she wanted to. But all night, since they came to this base, she hadn't said a word. Before that, actually. She hadn't spoken at all when Shiden returned to their hideout with the Alba soldiers at her back. She didn't press too hard for a reason. She could guess why someone might not want to talk out loud when they could no longer hear their own voice. She wasn't completely insensitive, and screw whoever said otherwise.
Still. She did wonder a little which it was: if Kaie went mute because it was generally uncomfortable to talk at all, or if it was just because they were in a new place surrounded by people they couldn't trust. Would she start to talk again if they left? If it was just the two of them again?
When, she reminded herself. Not if. When. We're not staying with these white pigs any longer than we absolutely have to.
As soon as Kaie was strong and healthy again… as soon as Shiden figured out where the fuck they were, and as soon as they had some way of getting across the ruins without getting their heads chopped off, they'd be gone.
Gone to where? a different thought countered. Where can you even go? What can you do?
She could go back to Halberd base, couldn't she?
There's nobody left there. The only members of Halberd you left behind were the kids, and they would've been reabsorbed into some other Squadron by now. All your shit's probably gone too. There's nothing but strangers sleeping in those rooms. It's not your home anymore.
Shiden frowned at the thought. If Halberd base wasn't her home anymore, then what was?
Nothing, and nowhere. You have nothing left.
No. That just wasn't true. She had Kaie, didn't she?
For how long?
What the hell did that even mean, 'how long?' Kaie was right there, wasn't she? She wasn't about to wink out of fucking existence or something.
Right?
Shiden felt a tug on the sleeve of her jacket. She realized she had just been standing there, stock-still for… however long she'd been lost in thought. She shook her head, looked around, and Kaie was there, standing in front of her with the still-nameless kitten cradled in the crook of her elbow. She tugged again at Shiden's jacket, urging her forward. Shiden nodded.
"Yeah yeah, you're still my Captain. Order me around all you want."
Kaie gave her a wan smile as they left the barracks.
The base consisted of four corrugated sheetmetal quonset huts, a hanger bay for the Juggernauts, and a bunch of mobile base units - trailers basically - for all the logistical shit. The 'cafeteria' was ten tables set up under a bunch of canvas awnings with a nearby kitchen trailer, puffing out white smoke from a steel chimney.
The cafeteria was set up behind the hangar bay, so that the massive steel wall blocked line of sight for anyone at the tables, preventing them from seeing Shiden approaching. As she walked the path, Kaie behind her by about two paces, Shiden picked up bits and pieces of conversation filtering from around the corner.
"-the rumors are true after all, huh? They really are just…"
"I can't believe the Captain is making us shelter those two."
"-obligated to, he says. It's our duty to take care of those who are…"
"Bullshit. You heard what she said yesterday. Cutting them loose would be a-"
Shiden walked around the corner. All conversation stopped. Shiden felt a dozen pairs of eyes fall onto her and Kaie, still trailing behind her as silent as a shadow. Shiden ignored this. She marched to the kitchen trailer and grabbed two steel bowls and spoons. She went to the hot stand and ladled two healthy servings of what was in the pot. Some kind of cream chowder if she had to guess. It smelled okay.
The two of them sat at the only empty table, in the far corner of the awning. The hard plastic surface was still slick with morning dew, the chairs still wet. They sat anyway, and the Alba soldiers all around them continued to stay silent.
Fine by her. And Kaie was deaf anyway, although she did keep looking up and around at the soldiers, who stared at them from the corners of their eyes whenever they thought they could get away with it. Shiden reached out and tapped the back of her friend's hand. Kaie looked up at her, and Shiden mouthed the words, 'don't worry about them.'
Kaie gave a small nod. They kept eating.
"Doesn't seem like you're fitting in all that well, huh?"
Or at least they tried to.
Shiden looked up at the unfamiliar voice. There was a boy a few years older than her, walking up their table, holding a tray. He had a rounded, simple-looking face with a broad, simple-looking smile. An Alba of course, with tightly cropped silver hair. He froze for a moment when she looked at him, like her stare was something physical. Then he kept walking up anyway, setting down his tray on the wet plastic table.
"Fuck do I care if I fit in or not?" Shiden said, annoyed.
"Well, we're, um… We're helping you, aren't we?"
Shiden considered that. Yesterday's memories were washed out in a blur of adrenaline and gunpowder, but she could remember the reason she agreed to come to this place. It was sitting right next to her. Shiden might not care that much if she lived or died. As far as she was concerned, the Greenway was where she should have bit it. Everything after was just borrowed time. But Kaie was different.
She was here to give Kaie a place to rest safer than some ruined house in the middle of Legion-occupied territory. She didn't think it was much safer, considering the company they shared, but that was what Shiden was here for. She could crack skulls if need be. Or run like the fucking wind.
Shiden sighed. "Yeah. I guess you are. Still doesn't mean I have to get all buddy-buddy with you all."
The Alba shrugged. "I guess not. But…" His voice trailed. He stirred his spoon idly around his bowl of chowder, a look of deep thought painted across his broad face.
"My name's Cedric," he settled on.
"Shiden," Shiden said.
"You hate us, don't you?"
She glanced at Kaie. She was trying hard to follow along with the conversation by reading their lips.
"Don't you hate me?" she asked.
"I don't. Maybe some of the others do. But I don't."
Shiden made a noncommittal sound somewhere between a hum and a grunt.
"I used to not think that much about it, you know? The difference between Colorata and Alba, I mean. I spent most of my childhood on a farm. It was just me and my family, and I never even met a Colorata before the government started telling us… all that stuff. So I guess just accepted it. I don't think I hated y'all. I just went with what they told us."
Shiden said nothing. She ate without looking at him.
"But, when I was goin' through boot camp, I made friends with a very nice, very strong, very smart person.
"We kept talking after we graduated, and she would always insist that Colorata were people too. She told me they were just like us, and everything the government said about them being pigs was wrong. Not just morally, but factually too.
"And, well, I guess it was, 'cause a year later, they started taking it all back and burnin' all the old books and stuff. And that's when the Republic started taking y'all in behind the wall, and I got a chance to meet a few of you in school, and… yeah. I learned that Lena was right the whole time. You're just folks like any other."
Shiden had begun to get angry. Contrary to popular belief, Shiden was not actually someone who got angry very easily. Her outward flares of shouting, bluster, and violence were not true anger. That was irritation at most. Her anger was like dense metal; it heated low and slow, but once it became red-hot, it would not cool until it was quenched.
Shiden felt the heat begin to set in about halfway through the spiel. If she had not been angry, she might have caught the name he mentioned. But she was angry, and she did not.
"How fucking noble of you," she sneered.
She pushed her bowl aside.
"I'll tell you something."
She made eye contact and held it.
"I do hate you. I hate every last one of you. And I don't give a flying fuck if you're one of the 'good ones' or not. I don't give a rat's ass what you do or don't believe, and I could not give a single solitary shit if it was propaganda that made you believe it.
"You think you're some kind of saint? You think it'll make me happy to know you 'accept' me or whatever the fuck? Fuck you. I'm never gonna care if you live or die, white pig, but if you wanna avoid annoying the everliving Christ outta me, be like those assholes over there."
She jabbed her thumb at the other tables, all filled with Alba soldiers pointedly, purposefully ignoring the conversation.
"They don't try to get in my face and tell me all about how good a person they are. They just ignore me, and I ignore them, and you know what? I like that a hell of a lot more."
Cedric looked away.
Shiden had nothing more to add. She pulled her bowl back in front of her and kept on eating. She'd be damned if she was going to miss a meal on account of a self-righteous white pig.
After a long, tense few seconds, Cedric picked up his tray and began to leave. Shiden smirked, satisfied.
Then Kaie reached out her hand and clasped his forearm. Both she and Cedric were surprised, turning to look at her.
"It's okay," Kaie said in her off-tone voice. "Don't listen to her. You're a good person."
Shiden balked. Cedric stared at her with wide, stupid eyes. He froze for a solid three seconds until Kaie gave him one last pat on the arm, and somehow that seemed to release him. The Alba soldier muttered an awkward thanks, turned stiffly and left. He clattered into a chair he didn't see, stumbling before he caught himself, steadied the tray in his hands again, then kept walking. He didn't even go to another table. He just walked away.
Shiden gaped at her friend, who looked levelly back at her. Kaie didn't say anything, but her glare spoke volumes. You went too far.
Shiden grit her teeth, but she didn't reply. Not here.
They ate quickly. Shiden quicker than Kaie, mostly because Kaie took frequent breaks to feed the kitten. When the bowls were empty and left in the sink, Shiden caught Kaie's eye, nodded for her to follow, and set off back toward the barracks. Back toward their bunkbed. There wasn't much else to do with the day other than to keep resting. Shiden was sure she was gonna get bored out of her skull, but Kaie needed time more than anything, so she could put up with it.
There were two bookcases in the women's barracks. One of them had novels, magazines, even newspapers. The other one had boardgames and playing cards, dice sets and dominoes, things like that. The top shelf on that one was filled with empty notebooks and boxes of cheap pens. While Kaie scooped up all the romance novels she could find, Shiden grabbed a notebook. Also a fantasy comic with a barbarian on the front cover, because it reminded her a little bit about the comic Shana had used when she was teaching Shiden how to read.
In their bunks again, Kaie and the still-unnamed kitten on the top level, and Shiden down below, she tried unsuccessfully to read the comic. The Fortress of Eternity it was called. The first scene put the barbarian in a whorehouse, and she thought that would be interesting, but it really wasn't, and Shiden found her focus drifting more and more back to what Kaie said back in that cafeteria.
'A good person.'
Just thinking about it annoyed her. A self-righteous person was all he was. It was all anyone of them could be. She had heard God-only-knew how many self-proclaimed saints over the fiber-optic terminals back when the Republic's 'redemption' was in full swing. Pigs with egos the size of Saturn claiming they'd seen the light - 'I don't see you as subhuman. I'll help you. I'll be your friend. Don't worry, I can save you, you poor thing.'
It made her sick. The fact that Kaie didn't seem to see that made her even sicker.
She flipped the page of her comic book and saw a stretching vista of desert dunes the color of an old, off-white sock, and realized she could not remember what had happened the page before, or the one before that. She threw the comic book aside and grabbed the notebook, ripped the cap off the pen with her teeth, and started writing.
what the hell were you talking about
She wrote in harsh, jagged script. She thrust the notebook up past the side of Kaie's mattress. Kaie grabbed it. Shiden heard the brief sound of a pen on paper, and then it came back down with a one-word reply written just below her message.
What?
Shiden rolled her eyes.
you know what. the alba. you called him a good person
The notebook went back up, and then back down again.
He was.
no he wasn't. he's just another lying wannabe saint trying to puff up his own ego
She practically threw the notebook up at her this time. It was a long time before it came back down, but the text was short, asking only one question.
Would you prefer it if he was like the guards at the internment camp instead?
Shiden read and re-read that short line several times. Her fingers gripped the edges of the notebook, harder and harder until they left imprints in the cheap cardboard cover.
why are you taking their side?
I'm not taking anybody's side Shiden. I'm just giving them a chance.
they don't deserve it
They saved our lives.
Shiden snapped the pen in her hand. She didn't mean to. She got out of bed and grabbed another one from the bookcase.
Kaie, it seemed, had her own notebook. By the time she'd walked back, there was a scrap of paper dropped over the disheveled covers of Shiden's bunk.
Your distraction plan was suicide and you know it. If this Squadron hadn't been here, you would be dead, and I would have died not much later. Do you really think I could have made it on my own? It takes all the strength I have just to walk around for a few minutes. And I wouldn't even be rested enough to do that if I had still been sleeping on the floor of that drafty attic last night.
Shiden read and reread that scrap of paper over and over. Long enough for another one to come fluttering down from Kaie's bunk. Shiden snatched it out of the air.
Let them prove themselves Shiden.
She replied quickly this time.
they'll prove you wrong
If you keep acting like this, you'll force them to.
Something in that combination of words sparked a violent, vivid memory. The metal took heat. The second pen begin to creak under the strain of her clenched hand. Shiden tried to relax her grip, couldn't, and put it down instead. Her fingernails dug crescents into her palms.
She breathed sharply in, held the breath, let it go. Her head clarified and the metal cooled. Blissfully, the memory went away. She picked up her notebook and scratched out quick, messy sentences.
they raped us before we were old enough to know what rape was. me and Shana and every other woman and kid in that fucking camp. they had systems for it Kaie. a lottery. The warden handed people out to guards like prize turkeys. rewards for good work
She didn't even look at what she wrote. She was barely aware of what was she was writing to begin with. The words didn't seem to come from her thoughts, but straight from her hand to the pen, bypassing her brain altogether. Maybe that was better. If she had to think about it, she would remember it too. And with it, she'd remember the drinking to forget, and then the drinking just to drink. The drugs. Shana's death, and the long, empty months after.
She thrust the notebook up to Kaie's bunk. She waited a long time for the reply to come back.
In our camp, the guards would make groups every night. Half would stay on duty. The other half would take whoever they wanted and bring them to the guardhouse. Usually they let them go the next morning.
Usually. Usually. Shiden's eyes lingered on that word. She felt the metal take heat again. She made no effort to cool it down this time.
then why the fuck should we give them a chance? we already know they're bastards
No, we don't. These aren't the same people that hurt us.
This time Shiden did snap the pen. When she went back to the bookcase, she grabbed a handful.
there were thirty different guards at my camp and they all acted the exact same way. every last one. that's proof as far as I'm concerned. all alba are white pigs. these ones won't be any different
These ones aren't in charge of a camp, Shiden. They're soldiers.
what's the difference?
I don't know. But you won't see it if you don't open your eyes to it.
the fuck does that mean
These people haven't done anything to us yet. They've only tried to help.
Shiden didn't have a response to that. But Kaie was still writing. After a few seconds, she tore off another scrap of paper and dropped it down for Shiden to catch. There were only two words written on it, underlined.
Play nice.
Shiden did have a response this time.
so what, you think I should just spread my legs for them? take whatever they give me and not think twice about it? just sleep with my back to em like a nice, weak little sheep?
Kaie passed the notebook back.
No. You need to stay on guard. I need you to stay on guard. Maybe they really will prove me wrong, and I'll look like an idiot for ever thinking they could be better. But if you're ready for when that happens, we can run, hide, fight. Whatever we have to do. But in the meantime, stop being such a bitch.
Another pause. Another falling scrap of paper.
Do it for me, okay? If you get us kicked out right now, I won't make it out there.
Shiden gave a harsh, grating sigh that only she could hear. Oddly, she felt momentarily glad that Kaie could only talk like this, through messages on paper. She probably would have started screaming by now if they were speaking out loud. The pauses between thinking about what she wanted to say and writing it out gave her time for the metal to cool.
okay
She sent the notebook up. Kaie sent it back down a moment later. Nothing further was written on it, but Kaie leaned over the side of her railing, hanging upside down to see Shiden's face as she gave her a thumbs-up. Shiden returned it. Kaie smiled.
They didn't do much else that day. An hour later Shiden replaced Kaie's bandages and cleaned the wounds. The infection was receding quickly. Her strength was coming back. She was still thin as hell, ribs pressing against her skin, cheeks gaunt, but Shiden was hopeful. After that they went back to reading, playing board games, passing time. She laundered their uniforms. They had second, then third meals; eating more food in one day than they'd had in the entire week since the Greenway. Alba soldiers went in and out of the barracks. Some of them spared second glances at the two layabouts on their bunks. Most just ignored them.
Shiden was right: all this nothing was boring as hell. But since excitement was the last thing Kaie needed, she could probably put up with it.
—
It must have caught up with her.
Since even before that final battle, Shiden's nerves had been a wire stretched taut. She had been keyed up on the march down the highway, with those green valleys on both sides, fuck-off tall and looming over her. She was keyed up for the fight. Had to be, to kill two Lowes and God-only-knew how many other small fries. And she was keyed up every second she was dragging Kaie in that travois back to the city ruins, because if she ever wasn't she'd probably have fallen over and died right beside her.
Shiden knew she was tough. She wasn't modest about it. It took nerves of steel to do the shit she'd done, and a titanium backbone to stay upright the whole time she did it. But she still had limits, and a real tendency to ignore them.
At some point she wasn't just dozing anymore with one eye cracked open.
She had fallen asleep.
And she dreamed. She saw Michihi, who looked like a younger Kaie; also a small, slender Orienta girl with a placid face. Michihi had a guitar in her hands. If Shiden were more lucid she probably would have thought it was weird, considering she had never played a guitar. But she didn't think of that. She was only relieved to see her alive again. She strummed out a lonely, haunting melody, the sound resonant in her ears. Shiden looked around and saw that they were back on Halberd base, in the courtyard, on that shitty grass strewn with rocks and lumps that they'd tried a million times to smooth out and never succeeded.
"I will wait… I will wait… I will wait for you," Michihi sung. "As long as I need to, as long as I have to, I will wait for you."
Shiden looked around again and saw the rest of her Squadron crowding around in a circle, surrounding the two of them. Their eyes glowed a cold, bright blue. Shiden felt a shiver run through her. Michihi continued to strum. The music grew louder. Her fingers danced on the strings faster and faster, but the increasing intensity only made that lonely, haunting melody become even more so.
"I don't know why you left! I can't know where you flew! But I will wait for you!"
Michihi had been staring down at her strings, but now she looked up and met Shiden's gaze. Her eyes also glowed that same sharp shade of blue. The rest of her Squadron stepped closer, tightening the circle into a wall of bodies. Another shiver pulsed through Shiden's body. She wanted to reach out to them, but her hands were frozen at her sides.
Michihi took five steps forward, one hand exploding up and down the strings while the other danced furiously along the frets.
"AS LONG AS I HAVE TO." Michihi screamed, mouth dropping in a rictus. Her teeth were very white in the odd light. "AS LONG AS I NEED TO."
She was within arm's reach. Shiden tried to run away, fear clenching her heart like a vice, but her back hit something behind her, and she looked, and one of her squadmates was standing over her. He reached around her and gripped her by the shoulders. She struggled and thrashed, but could not get away.
Michihi threw the guitar aside. The music continued. She extended her arms toward Shiden, and Shiden could not get away.
"I WILL WAIT FOR YOU."
She felt the fingers on her face.
Then the hands on her legs.
Shiden's eyes snapped open as she was thrown hard to the floor. Pain detonated in her back as her spine struck the tiles. A scream bubbled out of her, but a callused, sweaty palm slammed over her mouth and the scream stoppered up against it. Her eyes flitted up. A pale face hung over her. Bloodshot silver eyes. Buzzcut hair, white in the darkness. A weight pressed down against her hips. She was straddled, pinned against the floor.
"Quiet, bitch!" the Alba hissed.
Shiden thrashed, bucking furiously, throwing her weight against the body holding her down.
Bright red pain exploded in her right eye. A fist withdrew. Shiden hissed. She thrashed even harder. Another blow came down. Her nose crunched. Blood spouted hot over the man's palm, dripping between his fingers and into her mouth. It tasted like metal.
"Quiet!" he stressed. His breath was so thick with the stench of alcohol she could taste that too.
Shiden opened her mouth wider. The taste of warm sweat joined the other two, making her stomach swirl nauseously. She ignored it. She bucked her head forward and bit down on his hand. Bit hard. Blood squirted over her tongue. The man screamed. He tried to hit her again. She twisted her head, dodging the blow. Her teeth were still buried in his hand as she turned her head. A mass of gristle pulled from the pad of his palm. He screamed even louder. At the same time she heard the crack of his fist hitting his tiles. She hoped the fucker broke something.
She bucked again against his weight, and this time threw him off. He stumbled to the side, falling over, and Shiden threw herself on top of him. She crushed her knee into his stomach. She pinned down one of his arms with one hand and curled the other in a fist, and in the dark she found his face, and she punched him once in the eye like he'd done to her, and again in the nose, and a third time and fourth. Blood coated her hand in an uneven sheen.
And then there was motion all around her. People getting up. Weapons being grabbed. Lights flipping on, momentarily blinding, and Shiden felt small hands - women's hands grabbing her by the underarms, two on each shoulder, pulling her away. She struggled against them. She threw one of them off, but another took its place and she was pinned, held down by two or three people, and all she could do was struggle.
Her right eye squinted shut, throbbing with pain. The left was locked on the Alba soldier, big and bulky, getting to his feet. His face was a red ruin. He turned and spat blood.
"Oh you fucking bitch," he hissed. He charged toward her. None of the woman made any move to stop him.
But they hadn't grabbed her legs. Big mistake.
She swung out her legs and kicked him in the stomach with both feet, using the arms grappling her like a gymnast's barre, keeping herself upright. Before anyone could react she swung out again, even higher this time as he hunched over, grabbing at his stomach. Her booted feet connected hard with the tip of his jaw.
His head snapped up. He fell tumbling onto the ground. Two of the hands grappling her dropped away from her right arm to grab her legs, and Shiden immediately swung out a blind elbow. She connected with something. A neck maybe. She heard a body fall. She swung the same arm to the left side and punched an Alba girl with long messy hair square between the eyes, right on the bridge of the nose where it was weakest. She felt it crack.
The hands fell away and she was free. Shiden ducked forward before someone else could grab her.
"STOP!" Someone screamed.
Shiden turned and saw three rifles pointed at her. The bores glared at her like oil-black eyes.
The man began to stir, struggling to sit up. Shiden whirled and took a step toward him.
The steel rattle of a bolt being racked was very loud in the closed space of the barracks.
"I SAID STOP!"
Shiden glared at the guns. She barely even saw the Alba behind the muzzles. Adrenline tightened her vision into pinprick tunnels. She saw only black shapes promising death. She stopped. The man finally sat up.
The pain throbbed in her eye and nose. She stood utterly still.
The front door slammed open.
"Put those down," a stern voice ordered.
She saw a tall young man wearing only pajama bottoms, carrying a noble's smallsword by the sheath in one hand. Disheveled shoulder-length silver hair bounced back and forth as he strode into the barracks.
"What the everliving fuck is going on here?" Lucius demanded, pushing past the three gun-wielding soldiers.
In the silence that followed, the beads of blood that dripped off Shiden's broken nose and shattered against the floor made a crisp, clear sound.
"Well?"
"Captain, sir!" piped up one of the female Alba. Shiden recognized her vaguely. Sharp cheeks. Hard eyes. The girl she talked to yesterday morning. "We're not sure, we just heard them fighting and woke up, and we… restrained her, to prevent her from…" Her voice trailed. She looked between Shiden and the man, who was grabbing at his jaw and groaning. It hung off its hinge. It looked broken.
"You restrained her, but not the man who was trespassing in the women's barracks?" Lucius asked. He took another step forward.
"Sir, we-"
Lucius ignored her. He went to the man. He crouched down to be at eye level with him. But if that was supposed to comfort him, it wasn't working. Lucius' eyes were so cold they could have froze the sea. The man tried to shuffle back. Lucius grabbed him and pulled him to an inch of his face, which was hard and very still, like granite.
"Private Bell, what the flying fuck were you doing here?"
Private Bell was speechless. His mouth was stuck open. He made little 'ah ah ah' sounds, but no words.
Lucius slapped him across his broken jaw.
"Answer."
"Thir," he slurred, his voice lisping. She'd probably broken in his front teeth with that kick. Shiden found the thought satisfying. "I wath, she wath-"
"Don't lie to me Private."
The Private swallowed nervously.
"Wath jutht gonna thcare her. That'th all."
"Scare her?" He frowned.
"Make her leave," he clarified.
Lucius sniffed the air. He crinkled his nose in distaste.
"Have you been drinking?"
Private Bell looked away. It was all the answer needed.
Lucius considered it. He stood up. Private Bell practically flattened in relief, shoulders dropping like a string-cut puppet.
Half-naked, wearing only his bright blue pajama bottoms, Lucius shouldn't have looked very imposing. But he was. All eyes were locked on him with total attention - and with a fuck-ton of fear too. Maybe it was the sword. He looked back at the first girl he'd spoken to. Dazedly, Shiden finally managed to remember her name.
Tera was worrying at her hair with one hand, but as soon as Lucius looked at her she froze up, hand and all.
"When you chose to restrain her, did any of you do the same for Private Bell?"
"Um, we tried to but-"
Lucius tapped the hilt of his sword with his free hand, fingers closing gently around it.
"No sir," she admitted.
"Why not?"
Tera looked over at Shiden. Shiden looked back, and did not look away.
"I- I don't know, sir."
A long pause. Another small, wet red drip hitting the floor. Shiden tried to wipe the blood off her face, then stopped when her fingers brushed against her broken nose and the pain reasserted itself.
"I see," Lucius said.
At last, he turned to Shiden, looking at her for the first time.
"Tell me your side."
He didn't say it so much as ordered it, really, and for a moment Shiden felt the urge to curse the white pig out for having the gall to talk to her like she had any obligation to obey him.
Then she glanced over her shoulder and saw Kaie sitting upright, hands on the railing of her upper bunk. Her eyes were wide and watching. Shiden recalled an image in her minds-eye of two words written and underlined on a cheap piece of notebook paper.
Play nice.
Shiden sighed.
"I was sleeping. Woke up to see this asshole throwing me out of bed. He climbed on top of me. Told me to be quiet. I struggled. He hit me. I hit him back. Everyone else woke up and grabbed me. I got a few more hits in anyway."
She crossed her arms and stared at him defiantly. They stood at about the same height.
Lucius looked placidly back. His expression didn't give much away.
"You're supposed to be under my protection," he said.
Shiden snorted. Then she decided not to do that again, ever until her nose was fixed. It fucking hurt.
"So much for that," she said blithely, pretending to ignore the pain.
Lucius nodded. He turned to Bell. "And you, Private, are supposed to follow my orders. Which were to leave them be."
"But thir, they're…"
"Subhuman?" Lucius finished. "Pigs? Is that why you took it upon yourself to assault a guest under our protection? Or was it because you think she's ungrateful and rude. Or is it both? You tell me, Private Bell."
But he didn't. Private Bell fell completely silent.
"Rape is an offense punishable by death, Private."
His eyes widened, nearly bugging out of his skull. "Thir, I wathn't, that'th- I wath jutht-"
"I am a Du Frencia. I hail from one of the oldest and most powerful noble families of the Republic. My lineage stretches fifteen generations." He slid his sword two inches from its sheathe. The steel gleamed in the light. "You, Private Amitas Bell, are from the 84th District. You are the second son of a poverty-stricken family that had no other option than to send their child to war. Your family has no influence. They have no money. I could kill you right here, and they could do nothing about it. Nobody would be able to stop me."
The Private shuffled back on the tiles. He didn't look where he was going. He only tried to put distance between them. Lucius did not allow this. He took two swift steps and stomped his bare foot into the Private's shoulder and pushed him down against the ground. He drew the sword fully, holding the sheathe in one hand at his side and the hilt of the sword in the other, pointing the blade tip-first at the Private's throat.
"Do you believe me?" Lucius asked.
Bell's eyes were wide and shocked. He opened his mouth soundlessly.
"Do you understand the divide between us, Private? I could kill you. I could torture you. I could flay you limb from bloody limb for disobeying my orders, and my family would ensure I never suffer so much as a day in court for it. Does that make sense to you?"
"Y-yeth!" Bell screamed.
Lucius nodded.
The barracks was silent. Shiden looked. More people had filtered in, all watching with a kind of silent horror. Men hovered around the doorway. Other female soldiers sat awake at their bunks, staring wide-eyed.
"Cedric!"
"Uh, yes sir."
"Get my whip."
"Yessir."
Lucius sheathed the sword, but he didn't lift his foot from Bell's shoulder. He crouched down over him instead, glaring into his eyes. Bell tried to look away, and Lucius ground his foot in a circle, wrenching the joint, and Bell had no choice but to hold eye contact.
"I won't kill you, Private. Though I am a Du Frencia, I am yet a soldier. We all are soldiers, and we are sworn to the codes of conduct all soldiers must abide by. I don't have the right to kill you, because only a military court can ordain an execution. Having the ability to escape consequence does not give you the right to it. Do you understand?"
Bell nodded.
Lucius decided this wasn't enough. He crushed his foot into his shoulder again.
"Yeth!" Bell cried.
"However, corporal punishment is within my rights. It is, in fact, my responsibility as your captain. For breaking my orders and assaulting a civilian, you are to be removed from duty - and punished with fifteen lashes."
Bell went pale. He opened his mouth, but didn't or maybe couldn't say anything.
Shiden, who wondered why nobody was asking the obvious question, decided to do it herself.
"You have a whip?" she asked incredulously.
Lucius glanced at her. He gave her a small, sardonic smirk.
"We all need to have hobbies, don't we?"
Shiden thought to laugh, but nobody else did, and honestly, the way he said it didn't even sound like a joke.
Cedric returned with the object in question a minute later. Lucius took it, thanked him, looked appreciatively at the coiled length of leather with its braided handle, and removed his foot from Bell's shoulder.
"You, and you," he said, pointing at Tera and another female soldier. "Pick him up and follow me." He looked at Shiden. "You and your friend might as well come too. In fact - all of you come."
Shiden gave a signal for Kaie to follow.
Lucius led them on a long walk through the dark, past the tall dark shapes of the quonset huts and the trailers. He headed straight for the Juggernaut hangar. At first Bell tried to resist by going limp, making himself as heavy and hard to carry as he could. Lucius, without saying a word, smashed him upside the head with his sheathed sword. The sound was a brutal crack. The impact split skin and a rivulet of fresh blood poured down the soldier's face, cutting a path through the blood that had already dried and caked there. Bell walked normally after that.
It was a long, silent five minutes.
Cerberus was the only Juggernaut in the hangar equipped with high-frequency blades. In fact, it was the only Juggernaut Shiden had ever seen that chose to use those suicidal things, unless she was counting Shin's Reginleif. Its Personal Mark was a black three-headed hound, sharp teeth bared. It was Lucius' Juggernaut.
Lucius grabbed a length of chain off a nearby workbench. He took Bell by the forearm and dragged him over to the Juggernaut. Bell tried to resist again. He shouted and screamed, thrashed around. It didn't do anything. Lucius barely seemed to notice. He shoved him to the ground and pressed his foot into the hollow of his knee, forcing him to kneel. He stripped off the Private's jacket and shirt as he struggled, quickly and easily like he'd done it a hundred times before. He tied one end of the chain around the joint of Cerberus' leg, wrapped the other around Bell's forearms, and cinched it taut.
"Two more lashes for struggling makes it seventeen, Bell," he said coldly. "Would you like to make it eighteen? Twenty? Thirty?"
Bell went still. He was knelt on his knees, his back to the crowd, his arms high over his head. Shiden heard a muted muttering, moaning sound, and realized the soldier was crying.
Shiden was an adventurous girl, and she'd been around a lot of weirdos in her life, but despite that, she'd never seen someone get flogged before. The experience was surprisingly disturbing.
No one turned on the lights. They stood in the dark, the entire Squadron in a loose semicircle. Shiden thought that she didn't want to see this. To hear or smell it either. The crack of the whip that echoed through the empty hangar as it came down. The red score it gouged through Bell's back, hard enough to break skin, to draw blood. The smell of the blood mixing with the smells of oil, steel and rust. She thought she didn't want to experience any of it. But she couldn't look away.
It took Lucius five minutes to get through all seventeen lashes. Shiden wasn't sure if it was mercy or torture to give Bell a pause between each blow. By the fifth lash, Bell stopped screaming. He knelt silently, his muscles corded with tension, his arms flexed, his spine stiffened. He shivered when the next blow came down. He bled. By the tenth, his back looked like a slab of raw, chewed meat. By the time it ended, there was more blood to it than skin.
Lucius' breathing was hard and labored. Bell had slumped over. For a bit, Shiden thought he'd passed out. Maybe even died. But, no, he was still breathing, and his eyes were wide open.
"We are soldiers," Lucius said. Like the crack of the whip, his voice echoed all around them. Those three words repeated themselves over and over again. "Tonight you breached the oaths you swore, Private Bell. You have disgraced our five-colored flag and the nation we fight for."
Private Bell did not reply.
"And yet, I am your Captain. Your failure belongs as much to me as it does to you."
Lucius knelt.
"Cedric," he said, and dropped the whip at his feet. "Seventeen lashes."
Shiden stared. Everyone stared. No one breathed.
"What?" Cedric's voice was stunned and small.
"His failure is mine, and so is the punishment. You're my second-in-command. The responsibility falls to you."
"Sir, I- I can't-"
"You can and you will. Hurry up."
Cedric tried to go easy. Lucius reprimanded him for it and increased the count to twenty, and Shiden thought the round-faced Alba was going to cry. He flinched every time he swung the whip, and his eyes watered like it hurt him more than it did Lucius. But that was physically impossible. Cedric was built like an ox. Farmer's son and all that, and Lucius made him put every ounce of muscle into each hit.
And when it was finished, Shiden thought he got the far worse end of the deal. Lucius hadn't held back on Bell, but he had pushed Cedric to swing harder each time. By the end his unclothed back looked more like badly butchered steak than anything. More blood had come out of him than it seemed could ever have been in him to begin with. But he stood up anyway, straining with the effort, and he turned to Shiden with an eerily steady look on his face, like the injuries meant ten percent less than nothing to him.
"I'm going to wake up the doctor. Will you come with me?"
The question was so unexpected Shiden just didn't have an answer. She said nothing. Just stared at him.
"Your nose is going to look very unsightly if you don't get it properly set, you know."
Shiden agreed more out of shock than anything. She motioned for Kaie to follow, and they left the hangar behind, the rest of the Squadron staring after them, stunned and motionless.
"You haven't seen our doctor yet, have you?" Lucius asked, after they had left earshot of the hangar.
Shiden shook her head.
"Because you don't trust us."
She nodded.
Lucius gave a small, tight smile. "Nor should you I suppose, after what happened tonight."
"Right," Shiden agreed.
A cold wind blew, loud and somehow lonely.
"I have no special love for your kind," Lucius told her. "I stood above you before the Republic repealed its stance of racial superiority, and I continue to stand above you now. I am a Du Frencia, after all."
Shiden didn't respond.
"Regardless, I abide by the code of war, and the code of my family's noblesse oblige. I promised you protection. Every promise I make, I fulfill."
He tapped his shoulder meaningfully, where one of Cedric's lashes had gone high and cut a red welt into the muscle there, breaking the skin and drawing blood.
"You and your friend spent a long time out in the ruins. She's injured to boot, and she still hasn't seen a doctor for her infection. I understand you've been treating her yourself. Do you think that's enough?"
Again, she didn't answer.
"I won't ask you to trust me."
"Good."
"Once your friend is healthy again, you plan to leave, don't you?"
"Yeah."
Lucius gave the same, small smile.
"Speaking frankly, that would be for the best. The Squadron would sooner see you gone, and what they want, I want too. For that reason the doctor will not harm you or your friend. You want to leave. I want you to leave. The sooner she's healthy, the sooner that can happen.
"Can you trust in that, at least?"
Shiden nodded.
"Good."
Hey guys, this is gonna be the last update for awhile.
Yeah, I haven't been able to write for the last few weeks unfortunately. I chalk it up to a mix of burnout and changing life circumstances. I'll still finish this story in time. I've left a lot of projects unfinished in my lifetime, and frankly, I'm a little done with it. But the muse isn't there right now, and I don't think I can work on this until it comes back. Thank you everyone who's followed the project until now. Have a happy Saturday!