With the Winter Solstice three days ago, we had only a week to deliver on Coin's threat to defeat the Capitol by the end of the year. If it were easy, it wouldn't have to be done. Any such great action came with great difficulties, and must be faced with great courage. We would take trains into the Capitol, for a multitude of reasons. The full Army was far too massive to deploy by hovercraft, as opposed to detachments for a particular mission in the districts. We needed all our infantry in the field, and the whole Air Force dedicated to precision bombing. Some craft were certainly being loaded with my delayed action weapons or special incendiaries in addition to or instead of straightforward explosives. Our aircrew would have enough to worry about from the Capitol air defenses without trying to land troops. Surface-to-air weapons were a major military strength of the city, and troop trains would largely bypass it.
The Mellarks were busy with the last-minute distribution of ration packs; we were provisioned for at least a few days of battle. This was the first time we had seen Ingrid in her Casualty Aide uniform; the medics would obvious go in after the infantry, so we would soon separate. "We ought to join you in a free Panem by the end of the year, but…," I said to our families, leaving the obvious fear left unsaid, "…stay strong, Little Man."
"You too, Little Duck," Katniss added.
"Vanguard to the trains!" an intercom roared. A few cars would carry Victor Squad, other elements of the 1st Battalion, and the 12th Battalion. This order was to nearly a thousand men and women, with five times as many following in infantry alone.
The last District Twelve people we saw were the Castle men, putting away supplies after participating in last-minute repairs of the train tracks. I must say, the Builder Detachment ensured the Capitol missile attacks would delay our timetable.
Victor Squad occupied the first two rows of the front car, right behind the locomotive. Appropriately, the first fireteam had the four District One folks. Chrome commanded his daughter and oldest son. Sitting next to Katniss on the rough bench, I understood the value of comrades they had such close experience working with. Their group was rounded out by Sapphire. Brutus and Cato were the only two District two victors following Lyme into battle, and they were in the 2nd group. Finnick and Regina were with them. Wiress and Johanna were with me and Catnip.
Sapphire and Cato had prevailed upon Lyme to carry their blades as sidearms, but our commander had ordered Sapphire to cover up Amazon's hilt in camouflage tape. Admittedly, I saw the value in silent hand-to-hand weapons to complement our loud long-ranged guns, patting the handle of my knife as the thought crossed my mind.
Our track ran through the ghost town of Twelve and the north of Eleven before traveling through Nine and then the outskirts of the Capitol in One. The few hovercraft screening our lightning march westward cleared the obstacles the Capitol had placed on the tracks. Losing light in the tunnels beneath the Capitol brought back bittersweet memories of the spark that had started this rebellion as Katniss and I rode in under far different circumstances.
We were relatively blinded by the re-emergence in the gleaming marble of the Capitol train station. The sentries were as attentive as a commander could wish for. Cray was first off the train, now in Thirteen winter gray instead of Capitol white. I don't know how he wasn't hit in the hail of bullets that soon engulfed the station. The doors were in the middle of the cars. At least these elite squads maintained order in the chaos of disembarking. However, we were still impatient to join the battle. Cato busted open the window on his side and we started shooting through that one of the newly created jagged holes in the side of the train.
The thirteen of us were some of the best fighters in the rebellion, to be sure. In a way, we were the most needed in the field, but rebel command also understood the importance of protecting us. The mass of Peacekeepers had thinned by the time we emerged into the open. They had put their lesser soldiers at the very front to meet our best, with disastrous results. Their experienced reserves came pouring into the station right after initial contact, but it was too late, as we had already gained our footing. We were decimated; that word came off as a disaster, yet it really meant to lose one in ten, a favorable result for this initial engagement.
Most of what little remained of the first day was spent securing the later arrivals. If we had charged into the Capitol too quickly, our initial force could have been surrounded. Executing that classic military maneuver could have been a successful last ditch attempt to maintain the power of Snow's Capitol.
As it was, we slept on the floor of the station. I shot a grenadier during the third fireteam's watch as dawn was breaking. That gunshot, one amongst many, helped bring the camp to stirring for the day. Cato had operated more silently, hiding behind a pillar and stabbing an infiltrator. Many of us posted during the night had reported assorted largely unsuccessful attempts to retake the station.
We finally separated from the main force as the District Thirteen Army left the station that morning. We were the only ones in the field who knew about the arena-style traps and our mission was to safely disable them. Hidden spiked floors, razorwire nets, reservoirs of poisonous gas, tracker jacker hives – all that and more could have been disastrous to us and our fellow rebel soldiers.
Capitol citizens, bathed in the most obscene comforts since the day they were born, were fleeing the chaos, those who hadn't already been evacuated to account for the city's final defensive preparations. I saw hordes of brightly colored people scurrying away like ants.
A few of them approached us, though. I saw a Capitol boy run out shouting "I surrender!"
I decided to humor this rich version of Vick. "Identify yourself."
He did. "Remus Alighieri."
"Well, hand over your weapon" He kept playing the game, kneeling down to present his toy sword.
Cato joined in to joke about his lack of swordsmanship. "Don't grip it by the edges. Pretend it's real."
"You aren't getting this back until the end of the battle," I said, taking it and clipping it next to some real weaponry.
That night, December 25th, we were holed up in an apartment slightly back from the front line. Cato said, "Can you believe it's been four months?"
"Yeah, since the six of us had that big wedding. But also four years since six men died in the District Twelve mines."
"Joy or sorrow, you're in luck," Brutus announced from the kitchen. "because we have alcohol." The refrigerator had a shelf full of short bottles. The District Nine seal was prominent on the front of them. "Platte beer, quite good for how cheap it is," he explained. Something to wash down our canned food with.
Lyme allowed this with "If anyone needs to take the edge off, it's us, but no getting Haymitched." I twisted open a '12 Car Lager' bottle and took a swig. Not bad, not bad at all.
Cato grabbed two red ales and joked "My wife has to eat for two. I get to drink for two." He passed a handful of creamy lagers to Finnick to emphasize the point.
Katniss and Wiress split a Music Chip Brew. Looking over her shoulder at the bottle, I read 'no audio equipment was harmed in the production of this beverage'.
We emerged frankly refreshed by the night of Capitol luxury, but it was time to lie low yet again. We ran to a nearby shop for cover, which happened to be a jewelry store. I don't know why the hell anyone or anything was still there, but there was. The shopkeeper immediately recognized us, which wasn't surprising since we're some of the most recognizable faces in the country. "I bet the new Mrs. Adams wants quite the stone." He wants to do business rather than report us. Fine by me. Finnick and Johanna stayed on lookout.
Catnip interrupted Cato's response. "The still Ms. Everdeen thinks even a gold band is more than enough." Nice one.
"In Twelve, they can't afford to even think of such things." Good. You better have gotten the message by now. "In Two, we're ruthlessly practical – I probably would have shared titanium with a woman who's a good genetic match rather than gold with one I loved. So I'm OK too. But yeah, my Glim wants a big ol' rock."
They settled on something cut in a shape resembling an upside down pyramid. "Cato, three point six carats? That's ridiculous." This was a far cry from haggling over squirrel at the Hob, but I still know how the game is played: we got the thing cheap because Macmillan understood it was priceless for a victor to be seen wearing his product, and as we inched closer to victory, he recognized it was prudent to be on the new regime's good side. Cato had barely pocketed the box when Mason barked, "Okay, this shopping trip's over – the coast is clear."
It was as clear as it was going to get, Johanna meant. We all knew that as we made a break for it. None of us saw the shot or the shooter that felled Gloss. Chrome with a dead son and Cashmere with a dead brother raged. We zigzagged across the street, seeing more bullets, these ending in puffs of stone instead of blood. Now knowing the angle the shots were coming from, Lyme called in an airstrike, which was quickly granted. The bomb looked to be a standard high explosive.
When the hovercraft had dropped its invisibility shield, I noticed a barely dressed woman painted on the nosecone. Some wiseguy back at base had probably researched that ancient military tradition, as it were. Well, I knew at least two female aircrew who wouldn't mind.
We were far into Capitol territory, but we weren't clear on how much of the rest of the battle was going. Even if any light pierced through the fog of war, we were still on limited communications. We had learned that the rearguard has split into thirds, plowing paths through the Capitol behind us.
Wiress wasn't the most clearheaded person at even the best of times. I understood – worn down by her arena, something that hadn't had time to sink in for us. Annie was like that too, and Finnick said she had been different even before she entered the arena. However, Mrs. Odair wasn't on a battlefield, and Wiress was, cracking under the additional pressure. One false step of hers triggered another one of the arena-style traps. Metal darts, likely poisoned, cut through her armor. Chrome put himself in the way of the rest of the stream, shielding not only his daughter but also her nine surviving comrades.
I hoped for at least Facet's sake back home that Cashmere managed to survive this battle. The same could be said for Shine, wherever he was, if he wasn't already lying cold on the ground too.
The morning brought victory closer, but still not within our firm grasp quite yet. We didn't even see the next Warmaker to snipe another one of our squadmates. Regina had been one of the last victors. May she be one of the last freedom fighters to fall.