Chapter CIV: Vindication of the Fool

31 Oct 2116 KST

Seongnam, South Korea

The 4th and their new allies came racing into Seongnam while most of those who they had left behind had already gone to sleep. They passed the watch section and parked alongside the street next to the hotel which served as the field hospital for the 4th Korea.

At the same time as Bremer's troops arrived two flatbed trucks carrying parts of broken mechs covered with black tarps to conceal them rolled into camp from the north. They went and parked next to a grove of trees just past an empty restaurant building that had been converted into the 4th Korea's workshop. Around the back patio of the restaurant they had even set up a small scale foundry for processing the mech metal into useful items like bullets or stock for making bayonets. Later on the mech parts would be broken down and repurposed. Some would find use here while others would be sent to the research facility at Seongnam Station Bravo.

Bremer, Min-ho and their lieutenants began shouting orders to their men to get the wounded offloaded and brought into the hospital on the double. All the commotion outside woke Lyndsey who had fallen asleep in her chair during her vigil over the Major. Lyndsey came out of the ambulance and seeing what was happening, she went about helping Bremer with the wounded.

"So how did the meeting go?" she asked upon seeing him.

"He's going to come after us." Bremer coldly replied.

"That bad huh?" Lyndsey remarked.

"You don't know the half of it sister." Bremer said.

Bremer went around to a badly wounded man laid out on the back of a pickup truck. He directed Lyndsey around to the other side of the man and they got ready to carefully pick the man up.

"On three." he told her.

Following a quick three count Bremer lifted the shoulders of the man, resting the man's head against his chest while Lyndsey took hold of the feet. Together they carried the wounded man towards the hospital along with a gaggle of other soldiers also carrying more of the wounded. On the way to the hotel Lyndsey noticed the bullet holes, broken windows and scorch marks on several of the vehicles.

"How many of my vehicles did you lose?" asked Sobieski, mildly scolding Bremer for his perceived recklessness.

"Don't worry about that; it's not as bad as you think. Let's focus on the people first." Bremer replied.

They got to the hotel and two soldiers ran ahead and opened the doors for Bremer and the others to carry the wounded inside.

"Well fuck it! We gave peace a chance." Bremer announced as he and Sobieski came through the hotel doors.

"I take it the talks didn't go too well." Tae-yon said.

"That's an understatement." Bremer cynically remarked as he and Lyndsey laid the man they were carrying onto a stretcher set up in the lobby.

Christina Bryar rolled off the couch she was sleeping on and rubbed her eyes when the wounded began pouring in. She grabbed a glass of water off one of the coffee tables and drank it down before standing up. She clapped her hands together loudly to wake up the medical volunteers for what looked to be the roughest night since the 4th had first settled into this location and certainly the busiest she had seen the place in the short time she had been with them.

"Alright everyone, get up and get to it!" Bryar shouted, rousing the sleepy medics to the ready.

"Rooms 131 through 153 are open on the first floor for those you don't want to move up the stairs." Tae-yon told Bremer and Lyndsey as they passed by her.

"Right on. I'll be back in a bit." Bremer replied before he and Lyndsey took the man accompanied by one of the volunteer medical staff.

When they came back Bryar and Tae-yon were examining those that had come in to determine the order of priority for treatment. The field hospital had gone from a slothful slumber to bustling with energy in a matter of minutes.

"We've got more wounded coming in. Be ready." Bremer told Tae-yon.

Bremer and Lyndsey took the stretcher out of the lobby and rolled it out the hotel and went to the bus where the severely wounded had been gathered after the pit stop prior to the final stretch home. They were approached at the back of the bus by a woman wearing rubber gloves whose shirt and pants above the knees were soaked in blood.

"Take this one first, he's lost a lot of blood." the de facto onboard field medic said as she pointed out a man to Bremer and Lyndsey.

They carefully moved the man onto the stretcher and hastily carried him inside where Tae-yon took over from them, Lyndsey and Bremer helped Tae-yon get the wounded man onto a clean bed and took the empty stretcher back outside with them. Lyndsey went with another couple soldiers back to the bus while Bremer broke off and pulled aside the oncoming patrol section.

"Sir." acknowledged the section leader as they were about to take muster before heading off on their patrol route.

"Belay the patrols tonight Corporal. I need for you guys to send for everyone that can be spared from the other units. Head over to Seongnam Bravo first and Charlie if it's still operating. Seoul had already been cleared out for the most part before we went to meet that asshole and Gwanju probably won't be able to assist so you can bypass them and finish off your day in Yongin. Get some rest and be back here before 0500 tomorrow with everyone Yongin can muster with you. Our Yongin detail is about as out of the way as you can get, they should be safe while we hit this Imperial asshole back." Bremer instructed the troops.

The night watch did not participate in the day's grueling affairs with the Empire so it wouldn't be too much to ask of them to rally together the forces overnight. They would all be hurting by morning; that was how things were during war.

"I'll meet you at HQ when you get back in the morning, don't be late." Bremer told the troops before hurrying back to ferry the remaining wounded to Tae-yon.

From there Bremer caught back up with Lyndsey who had just come out of the hospital with the empty stretcher after running another injured soldier to a bed. He relieved Lyndsey's new helped and went with her to get their next patient.

"Lyndsey, once you finish getting the wounded over to Tae-yon I need you, our new friends and the rest of the senior staff in the war room pronto!" Bremer instructed her.

"Sir, from the looks of it they've just been through hell. Shouldn't we get some sleep first and then plan this out with clear heads in the morning?" Lyndsey asked.

"No. We've got to set this up now so we still have a chance to hit them while they're down. I want to attack at dawn." Bremer adamantly replied.

"What kind of strategy are you going to come up with in your state?" Lyndsey asked Bremer noticing he too was as beaten down as the rest of his soldiers.

"I've still got the adrenaline pumping. That'll get me through what we need to do. Kang has probably been napping all day. He's a smart fellow and has been around the block more than I, so he'll fill in the wisdom where I'm lacking." Bremer remarked.

"I doubt we'd be any better off in the morning if we put this off. We have to have at least a general idea of what we are doing before we can call it a night. If we don't I for one will be lying awake all night thinking about it." Bremer mentioned as they came to the back of the bus.

There were only two more people here that needed moved left in the bus, a man with severe abdominal lacerations from a skitter attack and a woman with gunshot wounds to both legs. Both had been stabilized on the fly but the man was in worse shape according to the de facto medic who had patched them up. The sight of some of his intestines hanging out of the open wound before applying the body wrap to contain them was what particularly concerned her about this man. While the field medic had done an admirable job saving the man's life it was a hasty operation, hence this one was the next one to get inside.

"We're going to take care of the wounded first. We'll wait til Chico gets back before we bother walking old man Kang up. Give him a couple more hours and then I want everyone in the war room ready to go." Bremer told Lyndsey as they hefted another man onto a stretcher.

"Will do sir." Lyndsey replied as they carried the man into the hospital.

Along the way Bremer ordered some of the soldiers to fill in for the night watch for a little while until he found fresh troops to relieve them.

"I'll see you there." Bremer said after handing off the injured man at the door then splitting off by himself leaving Lyndsey and the others to finish the job of moving the wounded by themselves.

"Where are you going sir?" Lyndsey asked.

"I've got some more business to attend to." Bremer replied.

Bremer took a lantern and a flashlight and went back to see Jin-shil. The guard unlocked the door and allowed Bremer entry when he say Bremer approaching. Inside Jin-shil was slouched over beside her bedroll reading a book by the flickering light of a lantern. She was free to move about now but up til now couldn't leave the room. Upon hearing the door open Jin-shil looked up at Bremer.

"So was he everything I told you he would be?" asked Jin-shil turning back towards her book.

"Yeah he was a can of grade A cockmeat." Bremer replied.

"I told you." Jin-shil said as she turned a page.

"You were right. That's why I'm going to allow you to move about the complex freely, under escort of course. I would just let you go but there's still a lot of people out there that want justice for the Major and aren't so quick to forgive. Your imprisonment is the best I can give them until the Major comes out of his coma. Managing this place is a balancing act; I hope you can understand that." Bremer told her.

"I'm not going to leave now anyways." Jin-shil said feigning disinterest while turning another page.

"Well that doesn't sound like you at all." Bremer remarked.

"You're not the kind of people I thought you were." she replied.

"Nice to see trust is a two way street here." Bremer quipped.

Jin-shil closed her book, set it down and stood up facing Bremer. "I want to help you take him down." Jin-shil told him plainly.

"What makes you think we're going to take him down?" Bremer asked.

"You met the man right?" Jin-shil asked in return.

"Yeah." Bremer said.

"Then you know why." Jin-shil replied.

"If you trust me and you've seen the kind of man that Kwang-su is you will know that all the things I've been telling you are true. Your people want justice, so do I." Jin-shil asserted.

Bremer nodded silently. Jin-shil had every reason to want revenge though Bremer had to temper what he could use her for. She could provide insight, information maybe that she had left out from their earlier discussions but he wasn't going to take her on the offensive with him; not until Major Han took a turn for one direction or another. It would be too hard a sell for his people to accept her fighting alongside them just like that.

"So what did he say to you?" asked Jin-shil

"A lot of blathering bullshit, He basically preaches communism but practices feudalism; both of which are abhorrent in the modern day and age but regardless I was seeking peace at all cost but no. No matter what I said to try and reason with the man he seems so damned determined to destroy us. I tried to appease him, to look the other way on his crimes and misdeeds but still he would not listen. He is so blinded by his ideology and his desire to come out on top when this is all over that he is willing to risk extinction rather than to not be the one who rules over the remnant that remains. He'd rather rule over a burnt out pile of shit than stand alongside us as equals in a world worth living in. I honestly believe he despises us more than the aliens." Bremer answered.

"So in short an all-around piece of shit just like I said." Jin-shil remarked.

"Basically." Bremer replied.

"Honestly, I think he does despise you more than the aliens. He has no love for the military and hates the US even more." Jin-shil mentioned.

"I gathered that much from when he said he made it clear he wanted to exterminate me and my kind off the face of the Earth." Bremer said.

"Not if you kill him first." Jin-shil said.

"He seemed certain that if I did that someone worse would rise up and take his place. From what we've heard from people on the inside he's got a lot of committed believers to his cause that could step into the same role. We've got to kill the role as much as we have to bring down the man." Bremer replied.

"You don't have to kill all of them. I can count the ones that you have to worry about on my fingers." Jin-shil commented.

"Say what? You know who's who among them?" Bremer asked.

Even the defectors that had come into their ranks only had limited knowledge of the de facto chain of command within Kwang-su's organization. They knew who Kwang-su was and whatever goon came down to deliver his decrees to the rank and file but the upper echelons of his leadership remained a mystery. If these fighters didn't know the inner workings of the Empire why would a lowly girl who was essentially a sex slave know all of their secrets?

"Being passed around among the top ranked lords and ladies of Kwang-su's court has its advantages for a time such as now. You get to learn things. Being what I am to them they don't take me seriously at all. I'm the equivalent to a houseplant in their minds and why would you hold your tongue around a houseplant?" Jin-shil elucidated.

"So which ones are the proverbial heads of the hydra? Who do I have to lop off to bring the whole beast down?" Bremer asked.

"As far as I know the ones who share his ideology are his "Prince" Cheon Dong-won, his "Queen" Ji-min, "Baroness" Vu Jung-ja, "Duke" Joon-gi the Shin brothers and two others I can't remember the names of right now but I could point them out if I saw them." Jin-shil informed Bremer.

"I can't take you with us so I'm going to need you to give a description of each and tell me where I can find them?" Bremer

"Dong-won, the Shin brothers and Ji-min usually stay with the Emperor when they aren't on the offensive. The others may be harder to find." Jin-shil told him.

"Do you know where the Emperor would be now?" Bremer asked.

"No. They were moving their headquarters when I escaped and probably have done so several times since then. They like to go back and forth between the same places at times though." Jin-shil replied.

"Well then we'll just have to go over all the places you've known them to haunt around." Bremer said folding his arms in front of his chest.

"After we're done here I'll get some paper if you can draw their faces for me. I'll post them up for everyone to see like an old fashioned "Wanted: Dead or Alive" poster, except I really don't want them alive this time." Bremer told Jin-shil.

So Jin-shil told Bremer what she knew about the Imperial hideouts she had been to or heard of and he brought her pencil and paper to provide rough sketches of their prime targets. Her revenge could be the key to the 4th Korea's victory over the human renegades. Even with foreknowledge Bremer knew it wouldn't be an easy fight; he had seen the armaments of his foe. Victory would still require much grit and determination on their part. As much as he despised having to kill his fellow man when other solutions could still exist he couldn't ignore the problem the Empire posed or put it off any longer. Much to the delight of Jin-shil, Bremer had come around to the necessity of eliminating Kwang-su and his minions. For her honesty Jin-shil had earned her vindication in Bremer's eyes and her vengeance would be settled by the removal of this roadblock in the struggle between human and alien kind.