(Before we begin, some quick notes... Firstly, thanks to Kakashi-tan in Norway for his name suggestions. Secondly, readers might want to revisit Arctic Artemis and Despair, Rage, Envy for context before reading this installment. Thirdly, since people keep asking me about this, I'm going to go ahead and confirm that Hagino/Ekaril will be appearing in the story in more than just memories and flashbacks, though for obvious reasons I can't yet reveal how or when that will happen.)

Interlude II: Vinterkriget

Kaliningrad, Russia
Second Universal Layer
Two years ago

"You found me at a good time," Pavel Filatov remarked, pushing open the door without breaking his purposeful stride. "I was about to begin packing."

Frigid air, laden with hostility, greeted Phil Darwin as he exited the warehouse-cum-headquarters. "They're shippin' you out, too?"

Filatov cared nothing for the cold wind and cloudy sky over his balding head. "Not gladly, I assure you. I leave so much work unfinished." A repurposed aircraft tractor overtook the two men, towing a trailer with a pair of anti-aircraft guns on it. The doctor let the machine pass before he spoke again. "Who is today's patient?"

"A boomin' Betty." Phil pulled down the side flaps of his ushanka, covering his ears. "We picked 'er up on Leninskiy Prospekt, near the Portovaya intersection."

"Not one of ours?"

"No, from the last drop."

"Three days' exposure," Filatov noted clinically. "So – dehydration, hypothermia, possible frostbite?"

"Worse." The Australian's hand clenched, tight enough to wrinkle the strips of tape coiled around his carbine's cracked handguard. "Enemy scouts got to 'er first, hurt her bad."

"Then I pray our opponents are at least still taking care to prevent sexual infections."

"It's not loike 'at," Phil corrected, though he knew all too well why the Russian would assume so. "It's 'er face, not... not down there. They cut her up."

"I see... What care has the victim received?"

"Uh, we gave 'er some water an' put 'er in Marjatta's sleepin' bag."

"Insulation alone is not adequate in cases of severe heat loss, Filip Alanovich."

"Yeah, we know." A group of soldiers came jogging down the lane in a loose cluster, Free Europe regulars running for the boat which would take them to Finland. Enjoy the ride, you fade-away A-Jays, Phil thought contemptuously. "Marjatta said she 'ad an idea about that."

Filatov said no more, but the span of his paces lengthened. Likewise for Phil, whose trigger finger was starting to recover the nervous twitch he'd been fighting to suppress ever since Aalborg. He controlled the tic with a grimace, mashing the pad of the errant digit against the side of the Diemaco's scuffed and scratched alloy receiver. The duo proceeded eastwards, neither following the other: both knew where their destination lay, just inside the first defensive line.

Two of Phil's fellow fo-vo's were standing watch at the door to the guardhouse when he and Filatov arrived: Tommy van der Merwe, Pretorian exchange student baptized by fire when the first ships appeared over London, and Konrad 'no relation' Kant, escaped conscript from the collaborator armies. The trenches, sandbags and machine gun emplacements began twenty meters past the house, and beyond those, across the killing fields strewn with rusting barbed wire and improvised obstacles, was the hunting ground, a concrete jungle marked on the tacticians' maps as mertvyy gorod – the dead city.

"She's awake," said Tommy, not waiting for Phil to inquire. "Marjatta is warming her up."

"Okay... Errol come back yet?"

"No, not yet."

Phil didn't like that. He and his brother had gone to the command block together, him to fetch the doctor and Errol to report the unit's findings. Since the other Darwin hadn't already returned, nor caught up with them on the way, Phil feared a holdup of the worst sort – bureaucratic.

Filatov marched straight to the guardhouse door. "Come," said he. "Let us begin."

Phil followed, slinging his weapon, while Tommy and Konrad stood fast. The rest of the Darwins' section were inside, huddled in the anemic glow of the stove. Warm up while you can, lads. Tomorrow it might be a cold grave for all of us.

Filatov went around them and knelt beside the watchmen's bunks on the far wall. "Hello, little one."

Phil blinked. His eyes went from the bunk to the leotard and full set of winter battle dress draped over the field pack and PLCE webbing heaped in the corner, then back to the bunk. Marjatta Tikkanen, the team's stony-hearted huntress, lay entwined with the rescued gosta inside her rumpled sleeping bag, the unmarred side of the naked girl's face nestled under her chin. The other half of that angelic visage was a ghastly mess of sticky gray blood, clumps of it adhering to her swirling, snowy hair.

"She's timid," Marjatta warned, stroking the creature's trembling head. "Don't startle her."

Filatov knew that, of course, but it was a warning worth repetition. Taming a gosta was like defusing a bomb – a frightened, emotional bomb with a fragile trigger. To win their trust, one couldn't be either too eager or too apathetic... and never forceful. Like Shipley, Phil reminisced. Whom we couldn't find more than bits of.

Lying in the embrace of a warm female body seemed to have a calming effect on the girl, who offered no complaint when the man of medicine methodically inspected her lacerations. "Well, Doc?" the marksman prompted.

"I have no miracles in my little aptechka," Filatov answered gravely. "I can fix her up, but there will remain scars."

One of the fo-vo's on the floor spoke out: "Shouldn't we move her to the medical section?"

"It is in chaos," the Russian sighed, taking out his personal aid kit, "and I do not think the little one wants to move... I can do the preliminary work here, at least."

"Mmf." Phil caught the eyes of the others. "Put the kettle on and we'll – "

He was cut short by the door being opened with great force. "Darwin!"

The gosta whimpered and the Australian's finger twitched anew. The intruder was Captain Nowak, a scowling, squinting apparatchik whose presence on the threshold was as unwelcome as an enemy sortie. Phil hustled back outside before he could launch into a real rant, all but shoving Nowak ahead of himself. "You got a death wish, mate?" the Aussie demanded, latching the door behind himself. "Know 'oo we've got in there?"

Nowak looked as if he wanted to push his way back inside, even with Phil physically blocking the door. "This is not permitted," he intoned stiffly. "Why did you bring her back?"

Phil folded his arms. "Well you see, we 'ave this thing in Australia called human decency..."

Nowak bared his teeth, but it was an impotent threat. Unlike Phil, he'd never served pre-invasion. His nominal rank was bestowed as a reward for producing results (and skillful arse kissing) in the struggle against the Arume, a formality which gave him little meaningful power over the brothers Darwin so long as they too produced results. "We do not have resources to waste on your... frivolities," he huffed. "You should have ended her pain and continued your mission."

"Thought you Catholics didn't go in fer that," said Phil pointedly.

Nowak avoided the accusing glare. "These are extraordinary circumstances... She would not be saved in any case."

"That's noice." Normally Phil wouldn't be quite so flippant, but he was mad as hell and he knew Tommy and Konrad would back him up. "You come all the way out 'ere just to break the news?"

The captain quivered, like a pot about to boil over. "Sometimes, Darwin, I wonder why you are here." His eyes darted to the portal through which he could not pass. "The registry is closed, I will make no exceptions."

"Oh, you are a stingy bastard, aren't you? Go on, then." Phil jerked his head in the direction of headquarters. "Fuck off back to yer cozy desk and 'ave a good kip, you pogo!"

Whatever his other flaws, Nowak at least recognized when he'd lost. "This will be subtracted from your points," he snapped, turning away. "I expect a complete account of her expenses."

I'll show YOU expenses. Phil's eyes bored into the officer's back as he stomped off. Bloody oxygen thief!

The Foreign Volunteers consisted mostly of two sorts of people: those who crossed half the world to join it, and those who were shunted into it because they came from the same parts of Europe as those with whom they were exchanging bullets. Nowak fell into the latter category because Poland, whose people once prided themselves on not collaborating with the legions of evil incarnate, was the third largest supplier of manpower to the puppet army now attacking Kaliningrad.

There were thousands of others in the same predicament, who nevertheless carried themselves with determination and dignity. Others like Konrad, standing right here, or like Henri de Gautet, whose tenacious defense of the anti-air battery at Lesnaya gavan' bought the evacuating defenders precious time... That an arsewipe like Nowak got promoted over such stalwarts was a travesty, no two ways about it.

Phil was diverted from his brooding by the arrival of his twin, a supply sack under one arm and five and a half kilograms of Fabrique Nationale steel and plastic under the other. "How's Nikka?" asked the second Darwin.

"Nikka?"

"They wanted a name fer the papers," said Errol. "Didn't know 'er number, so now she's Nikka Dilligaf."

"The doc's lookin' at her," Phil informed him. "Why Nikka?"

"I wos thirsty." The culprit displayed absolutely no shame for his motive. "Dilligaf's okay?"

"Yeah, that's foine."

"Fair 'nuff." Errol glanced behind himself. "Wot did Nowak want?"

"Oh, he came 'round to tell us the good lord's mercy doesn't reach as far's those 'oo fall from heaven... Also that we're payin' Nikka's costs ourselves."

"Ain't so bad." Errol cocked his head. "We gonna stand 'ere all noight?"

"Sorry." Phil opened the door for his brother and entered after him, motioning for Tommy and Konrad to come in from the cold as well. "How goes, Doc?"

Filatov didn't look up. "The outburst distressed her greatly. Don't let it happen again."

"If he comes back," promised Phil, "I'll break 'is teeth." He pulled off his gloves and held his hands over the stove as Errol unloaded the sack. "Whooooo..."

Why are you here?

He must have heard that question hundreds of times, and not because of his nationality. Gay men could live the good life under the alien regime, with those who pledged loyalty to the Arume enjoying privileges far beyond the meager allotments of their heterosexual peers... Court eunuchs, that was how Phil scornfully thought of them. It was an opportunity he wanted no part of, not after witnessing the invaders' crimes against his own kin – against Aunt Molly, Cousin Nellie, Cousin Frank...

Out of all his extended family, it was Frank Witton's fate which weighed most heavily on Phil's mind. Arume propaganda proclaimed that this world's new masters would liberate its peoples from the shackles of patriarchy and prejudice... But the moment there was T&A at stake, they proved themselves a viciously phobic bunch. The young bartender's only crime was to catch the roving eye of an off-duty garrison commander, but for that he was thrown into the reeducation camp at Coffs Harbour. 'Frances Witton' emerged broken and servile sixteen months later, cured of her inconvenient identity disorder and reshaped into the ideal mate for her new mistress.

Phil and Errol were in Tarcoola by the time the news reached them, guerillas fully employed in fighting the occupation as it encroached inland from the urban coastal strongholds. To think how easy they'd had it back then, when the Arume were reluctant to pursue them into the bush! One only needed a swift horse, a stout Lithgow and a box of POF .303 to raise hell in the enemy's forward outposts. The old rules of engagement were simpler as well, commonsense stuff about not shooting at mums or kids, minimizing collateral damage, and none of this indirect threat assessment or permissible non-combatant interdiction bollocks.

Strategic self-restraint paid off pretty well for a while – well enough that sympathizers among the subjugated would leave out supplies in easily reached places, occasionally slipping in reports of Arume troop movement and the like. Sometimes even the alien settlers let the raiders pass unopposed, so long as they knew their own lives weren't being threatened. Sadly this mutual pragmatism was not appreciated by the admirals on high, whose only experience of the insurgency down under was a stream of casualty lists gushing across their desks. First the invaders tried to conceal soldiers among the farmers and ranchers, and when that didn't work they substituted gosta...

"Ah..!"

Filatov had not only good bedside manners, but also knees of steel. "I'm sorry, little one," he murmured reassuringly, in exactly the same position he'd taken before Phil went out to confront Nowak. "I will be more careful."

Something nudged Phil's arm. "Cuppa?"

"Oh... Yeah, thanks." It took some work to disentangle the battered sheet-metal mug from the rest of the mismatched mess kit. Errol took it, poured a measure of ersatz tea, and replaced the kettle atop the stove. "Thanks," Phil repeated absently, his eyes still on Filatov, Marjatta and Nikka.

Why do they do it?

Phil saw nothing wrong with honoring those who had the courage, the strength, to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the greater good... But the Arume – to grow hundreds of thousands of clones and program them with the full template of their makers' culture, doing it for the sole and explicit purpose of scattering these feeling, thinking beings over the heads of their enemies, condemning them to a brief glimpse of life and then mandated annihilation – all this for an ideal the Arume themselves could never live up to if it were their own flesh and blood they were throwing away...

Why the fuck do they do it?

He'd asked that question so many times over the last ten-odd years, putting it to every Arume prisoner who crossed his path. Most of them looked away, or spat, or cursed. The ones who did answer always said the same thing: forime can't understand.

"Someone's at the door, Phil."

"Eh?" Listening for a moment, he heard the faint rat-tat-tat as it came again. "If it's Nowak, I'll murder 'im."

"He wouldn't knock," Marjatta pointed out. "Ask for the password."

"Yeah, yeah... Wot's the word, mate?"

"Bird is the word," the woman outside replied. "May I come in?"

Phil relaxed out of his fling-tea-at-intruder stance. "Sure you can."

The door was swung aside with none of the violence done upon it prior. "Hello, everyone."

"G'day, Liz." Errol raised the spoon with which he had been stirring the stew in the decommissioned ammo can beside the kettle. "Stand back, the tucker fucker's knockin' up some bubble an' squeak."

"Smells good," the visitor remarked, carefully removing her woolen headwear. She called herself Elizabeth Chen, and the only things Phil knew for certain about her were that her given identity was bogus and that she was a professional spook. Her features were Asian, like Marjatta's, and she was the icy sniper's only confidant outside the unit.

Phil set his untouched tea on the nearest shelf and went back to the stove. "So wot's up?"

"Fifth Company had contact with the enemy at the Chaykovskoye line," Chen sighed. "They're badly under-strength and need a rest. Do you think you could stand in for them on third watch tonight?"

"'Course we can," said Errol. "Raise yer 'and if you've got a motorbike loicense, chums!"

The others affirmed their willingness without hesitation, a sight which made Phil's insides warm with pride. For sticking it to The Woman, this little band came second to none. "I'll lead the watch," he offered. "Eat up whoile you can, mates. Don't count on getting more 'n a dingo's breakfast after this!"

"Hear, hear!" Errol removed the stew can from the stove. "Present plates!"

"...Rol."

"Quiet!" Filatov commanded, hushing the fighters in an instant. "What was that, little one?"

"Er-rol." Nikka stumbled over the word, trying to pronounce it like an Arume name. "Good... person."

"Yes." Marjatta started to caress the gosta's hair once more. "Yes, he is."

Fort Ullsten
Umeå, Sweden
Present day

"Nikka, I'm back."

The retrofitted deadbolt was withdrawn with a dull scrape. "Welcome back," Nikka intoned, opening the door. "Elizabeth Chen is here."

Chen rose from her place on the bottom of the double bunk, there being nowhere else to sit. Her black hair was starting to show streaks of premature gray. "Hello, Phil."

Nikka stood aside impassively as Phil limped into the narrow room, formerly a closet of some kind. "It's been a whoile," he remarked, sliding a long, cloth-wrapped bundle off his shoulder and laying it atop the hardwood chest wedged in the corner. "You just get 'ere?"

The woman nodded and sat down again. "How's your leg?"

"Hurts." Phil removed his submachine gun from where it hung, per orders, under his arm, and laid it across his pillow. "But I can walk, that's wot matters."

"Nikka said you went to the orphanage. Did you find what you wanted?"

They called it 'the orphanage' because 'scrapyard' was a little too depressing, a word that implied there was no future for the things which lay within. The orphanage was a desolate row of sheds, hidden behind the fortress armory, where all the unusable equipment was stored, everything from small arms to tanks: wrecks damaged beyond repair awaiting transfer to the smelter, non-standard models grounded by lack of replacement parts, and leftovers from units already stripped for spares. Phil had gone over there in search of something to replace the battle rifle he'd turned in when he left Finland – something that wasn't government property, that he could tailor to his style.

"Yeah," he said, sitting beside his guest, "I reckon I did... So, wot's up?"

"Can we talk privately?"

Phil honestly wasn't surprised by the request, not after what happened in Rovaniemi. Nor was Nikka. "I'll go to the mess," she announced, picking up her white outer tunic. The click of the latch was as soft as the gosta's voice, and the footfalls of her little boots faded fast.

"Bless 'er heart, she's a good kid." Phil flexed his recuperating limb and grimaced. "It's been really rough for her, losing Marjatta an' all."

That was putting it mildly. Nikka had met and overcome every hardship with a resolute stoicism, from Errol's death to the old squad's disbanding, from the bitter cold outside to the caustic tongues of her so-called betters. Now Marjatta was no more, Phil and Nikka had been uprooted from their uncomfortable but familiar environment, and recently the girl had suffered menstrual cramps on top of everything else. She never complained, never slackened and never gave up, but the pain slipped through the cracks in her facade sometimes, when she thought no one was looking.

"Me too," Chen confided. "I know it's been almost a month, but I – there's a part of me that still doesn't want to believe she's gone. A little longer and I would have been able to see her..."

"Yeah," Phil agreed solemnly. "Gone without a trace, just loike that." His gut clenched as he remembered the vicious evening when everything unraveled. "Did the new guy make it? I never 'eard."

"MacFarlane?" Her tone shifted to one of pity. "The damage to his spine couldn't be repaired. He'll probably be given a desk assignment."

"Bloody unfair. He wos good, they were all good... Erkki, Yelena..."

"It is unfair," Chen concurred, "but there's nothing we can do about that now... Phil, do you know why you were transferred here?"

The sharpshooter shrugged. "Figured it wos fer me bad behavior."

"No." The spook stood again without warning, as if she were an animal pacing about in its cage. "I know this is sudden, but I have a job for you. It's highly important and I think you're uniquely qualified for it."

A job, just like that? At best Phil had assumed he would be sent back to the front once his leg was healed, shipped across the narrow neck of the gulf to the Vaasa pocket so that he could do in the ravaged fields of Ostrobothnia what he'd done so well in Lapland's wilderness. Wouldn't be a bad assignment, really: the no-man's land had been quiet for the last couple of weeks, with Arume high command distracted by a joint offensive from the Siberian free army and Chinese resistance. "Wot kind of job?"

"Training personnel for a mission, probably not long, but with very specific needs." She paused, gauging his reaction.

Phil played it noncommittal. "Go on."

"We need fifty men to be fitted out as Gurkhas of the Indian Army, circa nineteen-twenty. Absolute accuracy isn't required, but the general impression should be correct."

Now that was something novel. "Wot's it for, some kind of costume parade?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"Hum." The skin of the wounded leg was starting to itch under its bandage, but he didn't dare scratch it. "Why me? Not really an expert on that stuff..."

"We've recruited some Gurkhas from the British corps," Chen replied, "and we have other soldiers who can look the part... What we need is your experience. You fought in Australia and India using the same equipment they'll be carrying."

How does she figure that? wondered Phil. They hardly needed him to show them how to wear khakis and slouch hats, so... Wait one bloody minute. "Liz, they're not gonna be shooting whoile in costume..?"

"They are." Chen crossed her arms. "You won't need to worry about when and where."

The ceiling light dimmed and flickered as an additional load was switched in somewhere along its host circuit, giving the room's atmosphere a contrived ominousness. "I got some other questions before I agree to anything."

"Yes?"

Phil picked up the war-worn Shpagin, Marjatta's final gift to Mickey MacFarlane, and laid it across his knees. "That gunship attack wasn't random," he said bluntly. "They were after us, only us, and the crew weren't even told wot for."

The light went out completely, and in the darkness Phil recalled the pivotal scene with faultless fidelity: the Arume survivor huddled in the corner of the lurching BTR's hull, babbling in a blind panic while the others raced to save Mickey. The truth came out mixed up with a jumble of familiar pleas and excuses, just-following-orders and think-of-my-family, the same old story over and over again...

"Very strange," said Chen passively. "Even for the aliens."

"Don't act so bloody clever!" Light returned, letting the man give his visitor a frustrated glare. "I knew them, Chen... Aimo, Erkki, Yelena – I know where they came from, 'ow they served, and none of 'em were big enough fer the Arume to take that risk. Mickey wos good, but he wasn't worth it either. Marjatta, though... Marjatta's a mystery, ain't she? She came from the east, she 'ad few friends, an' she loiked killin' aliens. Past that, 'oo knows?" Phil got up, pushing off with his hand to lessen the strain on his leg. "But you do know, don't you?" he continued venomously. "You came 'ere together and you knew her better 'n any – "

Elizabeth raised her hands in placation. "Phil, please don't do this. I understand you're upset, so am I, but speculation and accusation won't bring Marjatta back." Sensing that her welcome was wearing out, she began edging towards the door. "Listen, I'll be in Fort Ullsten for another couple of days. If you do want the assignment, drop me a note."

The poorly camouflaged evasiveness inspired no enthusiasm. "I'll think about it."

"I'd really appreciate it... Tell Nikka I'm sorry I couldn't stay."

She stepped out, as quietly as the gosta before her, and Phil slumped back onto the squeaking, creaking mattress in a cloud of pent-up malcontent. Chen was hiding something, he was certain about that, but he didn't have enough evidence to work out the what and why...

He was still brooding over it when Nikka came back, carrying a pair of small packages wrapped in paper. "The Russians are celebrating their Victory Day," she announced, giving one to Phil. "They shared these with me."

"That wos noice of 'em."

"Yes." Nikka sat at the other end of the bunk. "Pauline is dead."

Living with this girl for two years had thoroughly inoculated Phil against being shocked by her candid statements. "Pauline," he echoed, visualizing a shy gosta with a lisp who worked in the fort's mess hall. "Wot 'appened?"

"They said she hung herself. I saw them take away her body."

Nikka didn't elaborate, and Phil didn't ask. For the gosta, deaths among their own kind were an especially private matter: they handled all the funeral arrangements themselves, and outsiders were rarely allowed. Not that it mattered, because cruel experience had shown Phil that few would deign to participate anyway.

Bloody ingrates, all of them.

He glanced at her as she ate in silence. Nikka had always worn her hair long on the left as a curtain to hide her scars, and from where he sat her face was fully veiled by the white screen. Phil decided to give her space and not bring up his mistrust of Chen just yet. Better to sleep on that and have another go at it in the morning...

Tunk-tunk-tunk-tunk-tunk!

Phil rolled over and instinctively reached for the PPSh. It wasn't there.

Tunk-tunk-tunk-tunk-tunk-tunk-tunk!

"Ol'roight," he groaned, sitting up and pulling the stainless .357 out from under his lumped-up pillow, "'m comin'..."

Phil's sense of alarm didn't kick in until after he switched on the light. The submachine gun was gone completely, ditto its magazine pouches and the Swedish naval bayonet which belonged with it. So was Nikka, the empty top bunk made up with her characteristic neatness. Casting about the cramped room, the Australian also noticed that the bundle on the chest had been tampered with. He made a rapid inspection, finding his new objet de guerre – a Steyr-Mannlicher which survived two world wars only to fall out of a truck and have its muzzle run over – unmolested. Being useless without a new barrel, the thief-apparent had passed it by.

Tunktunktunktunk –

"I'm coming, damn you!" Gritting his teeth, Phil about-faced and strode to the door. He kept his guard up as he opened it, holding the pistol close to himself just in case there was an enemy on the other side.

The uniformed man in the hallway was no enemy. "Phillip Darwin? Lieutenant Berglund, Umeå Guards. You are in possession of a gosta orderly?"

They always did that, always assumed that Nikka was somehow the Aussie's property. "I 'ave a companion 'oo is a gosta," he grumbled, holstering the Grizzly. "Why?"

"She has killed four men." Berglund took precisely two steps backward. "Please follow me."

The fortress wasn't formally on alert, but there was a palpable tension in the air as the ell-tee led Phil through the winding tunnels and trenches which snaked across the former university grounds. They emerged into one of the regular barracks, a dormitory shored up to withstand moderate bombardment. Phil knew they'd arrived when he saw the group in the hallway, clustered around a man whose whiskers and shoulder boards alone placed him high in the pecking order. "Aha!" Whiskers & Shoulder Boards barked. "Here's the man we want!"

Fuck me, thought Phil. They've even got pommie brass here.

"Have a look," the English officer invited, gesturing towards the open doorway on the left. "Nothing has been disturbed."

After squinting at the pips and crowns for a moment, Phil concluded that he faced an irate lieutenant colonel. "Roight away, sir," he said flatly. If this is another dog-and-pony show, I'm pissing right off.

These were luxury quarters, compared to his cubbyhole. There were two beds placed against each long wall, a dead man in every one. All of them displayed wounds to both the chest and the head. One victim was huddled with his arm dangling over the side, slain while reaching for his rifle. The PPSh sat upright in the center of the floor with the bayonet affixed, its long blade blackened by carbon fouling. Errol's old Husqvarna Browning lay nearby, slide locked back on an empty magazine. Spent casings were scattered all around.

Whiskers & Shoulder Boards sneaked up from the rear as Phil was assessing the damage. "Quite thorough, your little girl. A burst to disable each man, shots in the head to dispatch them... Where did she learn to do that?"

"No idea," Phil replied evenly, picking up the Browning. "Where's Nikka?"

"In custody, where she belongs."

The enduring Darwin retrieved his third-hand Shpagin next, deliberately keeping his back turned. "She's never been violent," he mused. "I wonder wot drove 'er to it."

He'd gauged Whiskers & Shoulder Boards for the same breed of REMF as the late but not lamented Captain Nowak, only with less bluster and more sleaze, but he was proven partly wrong when the man suddenly exploded: "Don't play games with me, Darwin! Four men have been murdered in their beds! Heroes! By your god-damned gosta!"

"Heroes?" Phil gingerly looked over what was left of the fatalities' faces. "'Oo were they?"

"What? Good god, man, have you never heard of Tore Olsen? Ylli Kolkka? Andersen and Anderson?"

Time for a dramatic shrug. "I've 'eard of an Olsen. Shat 'is pants at Kouvola."

Whiskers & Shoulder Boards did not react positively. "Would you rather face a tribunal?" he threatened. "I'll have you hauled up before one if you don't stop this tomfoolery and answer me straight! Who taught Nikka Della... Dilly... Who made her a killer?"

To Phil it seemed perfectly plausible that Nikka learned by simple observation, having had ample opportunity to watch her surrogate family engage in cleaning, inspection and practice, but he knew that idea wouldn't satisfy the inquisition. They wanted to roll this up and stuff it in the closet, and for that they needed a scapegoat. "I s'pose it wos Marjatta..."

"A friend of yours, then? Come on, out with it!"

"Marjatta Tikkanen... Canny scout, crack shot, dinkum comrade." Phil waited a beat and then added, "MIA in Rovaniemi, twelfth of April."

The credential-drop might not shut up Whiskers & Shoulder Boards – and having devised that wonderful moniker, Phil saw no reason to actually look at his antagonist's name tag – but it ought to win favor with the spectators. Rovaniemi was the tip of the finger, where the enemy's bullish advance through the center of Finland had finally been pummeled to a bloody halt. If being a part of that didn't entitle some respect, what did?

"Meaning there's nobody for us to question," the Briton rumbled. "How convenient." He moved closer, coming near enough for his breath to fall on Phil's back. "But you still have serious disciplinary infractions to answer for, Darwin... Total disregard for soldierly conduct, unauthorized modifying of weapons, letting that... that basket case run loose – "

Oh no you fucking don't!

Phil turned around so suddenly that Whiskers & Shoulder Boards very nearly became just Shoulder Boards. "For the record, sir, there are no parade grounds in Rovaniemi. Further, this is a captured weapon registered to myself and modified according to Foreign Volunteer standards. Lastly, I'll thank you not to insinuate that our little girl is a psychopath." Striking while the shock was fresh, he ducked past the obstreperous walrus and out the door. "Lieutenant, where is Nikka now?"

Berglund was caught off guard no less than the others when Phil suddenly dropped his habitually broad and comically exaggerated accent and began speaking in a voice which was clear, authoritative and had only a mild touch of the antipodean. "Er, fifth door on the left..."

"Darwin! Where the devil do you think you're going?"

"Thought I'd pop down to the Q-store an' beg some sangers," Phil shot back, putting on speed. "Anyone want chokkie?"

The larrikin's mask was back in place, but behind it the ANZAC spirit seethed. That half-baked half-colonel was determined to rake Phil and the reputation of the fo-vo corps over the coals. Phil had seen the attempted entrapment coming from a klick away, but the depths to which the shoddy excuse for an officer was willing to sink infuriated him. That bit about unauthorized modding was especially rich, since all he'd done was weld a bayonet lug, an unused Carl Gustafs carbine nosecap cut to size, onto the underside of the submachine gun's barrel shroud...

He made a sharp turn at the designated door and rammed it open without stopping to knock. Inside this other bedroom was a scene from a thousand adventure novels: Nikka tied to a chair in the center, blood oozing from the corner of her mouth, while a disheveled young soldier stood guard. The ammo she'd taken was heaped on the chest of drawers at the head of the room, between the barred and blacked out windows. It was a dog-and-pony show after all, and Whiskers & Shoulder Boards was breaking at least two regulations by keeping the prisoner here when he should have sent her to the stockade.

Thought he could whip her out as a punchline, the bastard!

The startled guard weakly brandished his shotgun. "What are you doing?" he stammered, his accent betraying a childhood in the shadow of the post-Soviet world. "You're not allowed..!"

Courage failed him as Phil noticed the streak of white smeared on his sleeve and made a frontal invasion of his personal space. "Get out."

"I... I have orders – "

"GEDDOWT!"

The guard fled with a whimper, leaving Phil and Nikka alone for the moment. "Why'd you kill those men?" Phil asked, pulling the empty drum from the PPSh and adding it to the pile.

"Kolkka and Olsen killed Pauline. The others helped move the body."

"It wasn't suicide? You're sure?"

Nikka shook her head emphatically. "I saw bruises on her neck – finger marks, not from a cord."

"'Ow d'you know 'oo did it?"

"We knew it was Kolkka and Olsen by the scents on the body. There was semen in her mouth and – "

"Wait," Phil interrupted, "go back fer a second. 'Oo else knew about this?"

"All of us know," the girl replied. "All of us in the fortress. By tomorrow night all the gosta in Umeå will know as well." A thousand adventure novels would run those lines as a sinister hook for a plot twist or a profitable sequel, but she spoke them with no malice or menace of any kind. "Anderson and Andersen were seen coming away after placing the body. I also saw Olsen loitering close by when Pauline was carried out."

Phil glanced towards the door and saw Berglund, the Russian kid and several others watching from the hallway. "Did you tell that lot?" he prompted.

Nikka nodded. "They called me a liar and hit me."

"Wonderful," the ex-digger muttered. "And Brigadier Smith-Smythe-Smith back there serves me tea 'n' sticky buns."

"If you mean Lieutenant Colonel Philpott, that is understandable. Kolkka and Andersen were the most highly decorated men in his battalion. Olsen and Anderson were also well regarded... You did not know this?"

"Nope." Phil threw a dirty look at the onlookers. "Reckon they were too busy coverin' their own arses to tell me... Go on," he added, "quit standin' around wi' yer thumbs up yer bums an' go get the em-pees so we can 'ave a proper investigation."

"Are you mad?" challenged one of the soldiers hidden at the back. "Why are you trusting that half-face after what she's done?"

"I'm very mad," Phil retorted, doing the accent switch again, "but Nikka's been with me since we gave up Kaliningrad and she's never lied to me once. Now where's that pommie gone off to?"

"He's not your problem any more."

Suddenly, Elizabeth Chen. Where the hell did she come from?

"What are you men standing around for? If you're on duty, get back to your posts. If you're not, go to bed."

And lo, the crowd did disperse and go unto their nightly places, amen.

"Are you all right?"

"I am fine," Nikka declared, "although my cheek hurts."

"Thank goodness," Chen breathed, shutting the door. "Phil, you haven't stabbed anyone, have you?"

Phil watched warily as she approached the bound girl with none of the others' trepidation and revulsion. "No."

"You haven't threatened to stab anyone... have you?"

"Not yet." Phil returned to the chest, swinging the PPSh up and laying it against his shoulder. "Don't tell me you were in on this."

"I had nothing to do with it." Chen circled around to the back of the chair, withdrawing a pocketknife. "Nikka, hold still. I'm going to cut the ropes... If you're wondering why I arrived so quickly, some gosta heard the disturbance and came to get me." She patted Nikka's head affectionately. "You have some very loyal friends."

"Good thing somebody around here does." The Australian reloaded his burp gun, set it aside and picked up a Browning magazine. "How much do you know?"

"Two men were accused of rape and murder, two more accused of aiding them, all dead before they could be questioned." A length of cord dropped to the floor, its severed ends slightly frayed. "Nikka, why didn't you tell someone about this?"

"It would not have made a difference." The alien's voice cooled as she pulled her arms free. "Their friends would defend them whether they were alive or not. At least they cannot hurt anyone else when they are dead." She inspected her wrists and began to rub them. "What will happen to me now?"

"I've arranged to have you placed in the custody of Directorate Security for the time being," Chen explained. "It's for your own safety, Nikka. I know you believe you did the right thing, but the men won't see it that way."

"You don't say," Phil interjected sarcastically. "It's our word against the light-colonel's unless we can get hard evidence off the bodies." He emphasized the point by slamming the magazine upwards into the Husqvarna's butt. "And a man who can make that rank while being an utter blobhead has got to have friends in high places."

"I'll see to the evidence," the spook assured him. "Just stay out of danger, all right?"

"Don't worry about me." The slide ran forwards into battery with a sharp shachak. "Worry about what's going to happen to all the other gosta once word gets out."

"I know," Chen sighed. "It's distasteful, but if you'll settle for a small win then I think we can turn Philpott's scheme against him. It's not hard to see what he's after, is it? You're an outsider with a reputation for trouble and Nikka is much more independent than the gosta here. He wants to play the martyr card for his dead soldiers and blame everything on your presumed negligence in controlling her, isn't that right?"

"Sure looks that way to me," Phil admitted. "What are you thinking?"

"What Philpott probably wants is for Nikka to be executed and you to be packed off to the front. He's trying to preserve the comfortable status quo in his own domain, so he'll want it done quietly, without anybody asking awkward questions." A calculating gleam appeared in her eyes. "Suppose I have both of you transferred away from here, to give him the illusion of victory. Once you're gone he won't need to threaten you or make reprisals, and if he does we'll still have the proof of his own subordinates' crimes... How about it?" she finished, facing Nikka. "Is that acceptable?"

Nikka rose slowly. "I would prefer that the truth about Pauline's death be known," she said. "But if this way will protect the others from being punished for what I have done, it is acceptable."

"I'm glad you understand." Chen raised her voice. "Come in."

Phil took the Shpagin and surreptitiously cocked it, keeping his guard up as four members of the Free European Joint Intelligence Directorate's internal security force entered, identified by their identical gray uniforms and balaclavas. Nice pals you've got, Liz.

"Please escort her back to the office," Chen instructed. "I'll catch up with you shortly."

"Yes, ma'am." The one at the front saluted smartly. "Right away."

Nikka stepped placidly into the middle of the formation. "See you later, Phil."

"Yeah..." Phil locked eyes with the leader of the men to whom he was reluctantly entrusting his companion. "You keep her safe, mate. No accidents."

"Affirmative." The leader flashed a hand signal and his group seemed to flow out of the room, leaving Phil alone with Chen.

"This," the Aussie opined, "has been a really weird night."

"Yes." The woman regarded him thoughtfully for a few seconds. "How do you feel about it? About what she did?"

"Honestly?" Phil contemplated the empty chair as he formed his response. "Am I supposed to feel shocked? Horrified? Do they think I don't care what goes on behind the lines?" He would have spat on the ground, were he not indoors. "Maybe I should be proud that she had it in her, to stand up for her own... That's what it comes down to, isn't it? She did what I should have done in the bloody first place."

"It's what we should all have done," Chen agreed, "instead of looking the other way and letting things come to this."

"I'm done with looking away." Taking a deep breath and a moment to compose himself, Phil swallowed his pride. "When do I start?"

"Start..?"

"Training your Gurkhas. Isn't that what you wanted?"

Chen shook her head. "I don't want you to feel that you owe me for this, Phil. If you're going to take the assignment, take it for Mari's sake."

"Mari?"

"That's right," the other confirmed. "Her real name was Mari. The Arume wanted her dead because she knew the truth about a certain incident, something they've tried to keep secret for more than twenty years."

A low whistle escaped Phil's lips. "No wonder she hated them."

"Not for that," Chen corrected. "She was in love with the commander of one of their ships, who was betrayed and killed by her own people." She waved towards the door, not waiting for a reply. "Get some rest. I'll have your papers ready in the morning... Nikka's too."

"Okay." Phil quickly gathered up the remainder of his errant belongings. "Well... thanks for saving our skins, Liz."

"Yuko."

When Phil turned back, he saw her looking at him with the same deep sorrow he no longer allowed himself to feel. "Yuko," she repeated. "I was Mari's teacher... and her protector. Good night, Phil."