Gabe Jones's first concern was being separated. Unlike most of the soldiers around him, he'd read all the documents and rules of international warfare. They were prisoners of war now. There was no doubt about that. Question was who had captured them and if this power was a signatory of the Geneva Convention. If they were, there was a chance that he could be pulled from the group and detained somewhere else. If they weren't…Well, if they weren't a signatory of the Geneva Convention, then separation might not be the worst possibility on the table.

The thought gnawed on his nerves, never far from the front of his mind as they marched north. Gabe watched the realisation dawn on Sergeant Barnes's face two days into their northward march. Sergeant Barnes wasn't Gabe's sergeant, not really. They weren't even in the same division. Strictly speaking, they weren't even supposed to be serving on the same front. But both of their divisions and a few companies from a handful of different outfits had been cut off from their own lines together. Been unfortunate enough to all be in the wrong place at the wrong time. If they hadn't worked together, they would have been slaughtered by the Germans in Azzano. They'd been cut off from support long enough to really start to feel it. Every last scrap of supplies and ammunition was being used conservatively.

Somehow no one that Gabe knew really went without any worse than the rest. No one was hoarding supplies and leaving the others out to dry. If someone used up too much ammunition trying to keep away a German advance, the supplies were redistributed among the entire line to balance things out. It was no secret among them that Sergeant Barnes had everything to do with that. He had a way with speaking to the COs of each of their hodgepodge of units that got them to see sense and work together better. Gabe only knew this since the other COs weren't the most cooperative with his own CO, Major Freeman.

A lot of the 107th Infantry Division, Sergeant Barnes's unit, had either been KIA during the initial offensive that cut them off, or they escaped back behind better-fortified lines. He was among the highest-ranking that were left. And since the 107th was stationed right next to Gabe's 92nd Division, Major Freeman coordinated with him a lot. As far as Gabe could tell, Sergeant Barnes deferred to Major Freeman on every call, and he treated all of the 92nd no different than his own men in the 107th. And that hadn't always been Gabe's experience so far in life.

He hadn't even thought much of it when the 107th lost their machine gunner, and Major Freeman assigned Gabe to a 107th-owned embankment with Sergeant Barnes and a corporal called Dugan. The three of them worked like a well-oiled machine, their respective divisions effectively fully integrated by then. The three of them took turns sleeping on top of each other in that foxhole and passing cigarettes among themselves. Barnes even handed over one of his spare socks to Gabe when his gloves were unfortunate collateral damage during a German shelling.

"You sure?" Gabe had asked him. "These things are like gold out here."

"Trust me," Sergeant Barnes had said. "You're gonna need it more than me."

"How come you never gave me a sock, eh, Sarge?" Dugan had complained.

Barnes had given him a once-over before snorting in amusement. He had offered no reply beyond that.

They held that line for a long time, considering they had no contact with their own allies. No incoming food or munitions.

Alas, they did run out of supplies. In the middle of a battle. Trying to fend off not run-of-the-mill Germans but something else. They'd had no choice but to surrender. The highest-ranking officer among all of their divisions had to be the one to make the decision to surrender. He'd been disappeared not thirty minutes into their march northward.

And that was Gabe's first hint that maybe these people weren't going to be strictly observing the Geneva Contention of 1929. But there was something inexplicably German about them. The style of their uniforms, the rhythm of their march. But they'd outright attacked both Allied and Axis troopers. They'd ridden on impossible tanks and armoured trucks the likes of which none of them had ever seen. And the tanks were massive. They shot some otherworldly blue light that just vanished people. Gabe had seen Major Freeman shouting orders from beyond his foxhole with Barnes and Dugan one moment, and, next thing he knew, there was a flash of searing light that simply consumed the major. And he was gone. Gone. Not even like when a guy took a direct hit from a mortar. Not even a pair of boots left smoking. There was nothing left to prove that Major Freeman had ever existed here.

And that scared Gabe more than he'd be willing to admit. He couldn't even conceive of a weapon that could do that – just vaporise people like that. It was impossible. And that's who they had surrendered to: the impossible unknown. A group of black-clad soldiers that carried strange weapons hooked up to what Gabe could only describe as battery packs that pulsed with white-blue light – if they carried these guns around so casually, what else did they have? Where were they taking everyone? What would happen to them when they got to wherever they were going?

Gabe didn't miss the way Sergeant Barnes changed his pace until he was at Gabe's side. They walked step-for-step for an hour before one of them finally spoke.

"Any idea who they are?" Sergeant Barnes asked. His eyes were casually directed toward the nearest enemy soldier walking along the edge of their column.

Gabe shrugged. "They speak German. I didn't stay in the program long enough to tell you where their accents come from."

The sergeant folded his face into a duck-like frown. "Hmm."

"Can't say I recognise their insignia either."

"I was just thinking that. Looks like some sort of octopus. Are they navy?"

Gabe pulled a face. "A navy with tanks?"

Sergeant Barnes smirked and shrugged. "Sure. A navy with tanks that shoot lasers. Just as weird as an infantry that used a sea monster as their insignia."

"I think they're Axis," Gabe decided. "The way they move and the uniforms kind of make it seem like that. Just can't explain why they shot their own guys back there."

Barnes nodded. "I see what you mean." He looked at the nearest guard harder, eyes squinting. "Kind of looks like gears."

"Huh?"

He gestured toward the patch on the guard. "The tentacles. Or whatever they're supposed to be. Kind of looks like teeth on a gear, doesn't it?"

"Now that you mention it," Gabe said. He gave it a long look through this new lens. "So maybe they're a new mechanic division? Trying to mobilise the forces on more than horses?"

"Could be," said Barnes. "Explains the trucks and tanks. Never seen their design before. Wasn't in any of the handbooks."

"So maybe they're research and development?" Gabe suggested, his mind spinning and mouth saying the first thoughts that occurred to him.

"That could make sense with why we've never seen them in the field before. You wouldn't see the laboratory types in the field, would you?"

Gabe shook his head. "Supposing that is the case, what the hell were they doing out in the field now? And what do they want with us?"

Barnes exhaled heavily and clenched his jaw. "Stay close, OK?" he said and clapped a hand on Gabe's shoulder.

"Yes, sir."

He went and sidled up to a stumbling private from another unit then. Gabe kept on marching and tried not to worry too much about being separated, stuck near the middle of the column. He stayed relatively close to Barnes's shadow, but the guy was sliding all over their loose formation and checking in with everyone. At one point, when they were all stopped to relieve themselves, Dugan complained to Gabe that Barnes had given another of his socks to some fellow who needed a bandage.

"And he was wearing that one," Dugan said.

Gabe made a face and turned toward the scene. "What? He's giving away the socks he's wearing?"

"Kid's so fuckin' stupid." Dugan's moustache fluttered on a heavy sigh. "Who promoted him in the first place?"

They watched Barnes lace up his boot over a bare foot.

"Gonna get trench foot, Jimmy, I swear," Dugan said when he joined the two of them as the group got moving again.

"Don't call me that," Barnes said. "And I'll be fine."

"Blisters at least," said Gabe. "Who knows how much longer we'll be walking for?"

He shrugged. "I'll deal with that when I get there. Guy's already got wounds. Needs patching up more than I need to prevent a possible blister in the future."

They kept moving, slowly. They lost a few of the wounded men on the way. Gabe had a hard time looking away from it all and keeping his feet moving. Those men deserved to have their bodies buried, their graves marked. They shouldn't be bodies left like bread crumbs along this trail into an unknown wood. He made meaningful eye contact with Barnes the third time it happened. A silent conversation passed between them, and Gabe got it. Really, he did. But it didn't make it any easier. He took the weight of each of those fallen men, folded it up, and tucked it inside his heart. He promised their bodies he'd think about them. Pray for them, if that's what they needed. Even if he didn't know them, he wouldn't let them be completely forgotten there.

Dugan didn't share the same mentality. When they were sitting down for one of their rare breaks along this trail, he realised a soldier had died. Sat down with exhaustion and wasn't going to be getting up again. He stripped the guy of supplies without batting an eye. Tossed one of the socks to Barnes.

"Don't tell me you don't need it," Dugan said.

Barnes frowned at the sock in his hands, and then looked up at Gabe with a guilty look on his face. "Thanks," he said softly and then began to pluck at the laces of his boot.

It got colder the longer they marched; they were headed toward the Alps. The men began to shiver and march a little closer together. They hadn't exactly been outfitted with their winter gear at the time that they'd lost contact with their supply lines. Illness began to spread through their ranks. Little coughs and unnatural sweats.

"Gotta be nearly there by now," Dugan said. "Can't just be sending us on a death march for the hell of it."

"We're headed pretty deep into Axis territory," Gabe said. He tried to visualise the map in his head. It was hard to think straight after so many days exposed to the elements with little rest and less food. "Gotta be in Austria by now."

"Austria! We been marching that far? Jesus!" Dugan rubbed at his temples.

"Prisoners of war shouldn't be kept near active combat zones," Barnes said. "At least we know they're not committing any war crimes with us."

"Ha!" Dugan shouted. "Not that war crime. Who knows what other ones they have planned."

"Keep being so loud and they'll single you out," said Gabe.

Barnes smiled at him. "Yeah, I'd hate for them to confiscate your precious bowler."

"I'd like to see them try." Dugan tried to puff his chest out. The gesture lost its effect, unfortunately, since he'd lost weight. Not quite so impressive right now.

Gabe and Barnes laughed for him anyway. Barnes's ended in a string of coughs. Dugan caught Gabe's eye, and they shared a private agreement. It was something for Gabe to worry about besides the possibility of being separated, whenever they got where they were going.

Which turned out to be in the next day and a half. Their column walked through tall barbed wire gates and onto the grounds of what looked like a factory. It was tall. Huge. Gabe's neck cracked when he traced the line of one of the structures up to its top. They were herded like cattle toward a garage-looking door. Presumably, the loading bay. Dugan and Barnes each gripped a fold of Gabe's uniform. And that pressure reassured him that, whatever this was, he wouldn't be facing it alone.

Note: This is a direct prequel to The Argonauts. May be read as a stand alone.