Danev
"So where the hell are they?"
A question voiced by Mykezia, but one that we all shared.
We'd been told what to expect–a fight, four thousand Earth Kingdom soldiers waiting for us, and here we were, on what was set to be the site of our first battle, met with nothing but rain and wet mud beneath our feet, and only a few miles away, a pitch black wall that hid all light of the night away from us.
"Reports said they were here just three days ago, yeah?" questioned Mahung.
And that the reports had said. Four thousand Earth Kingdom soldiers positioned here, waiting for us apparently. In spite of that though, there was no sign of them, no sign of fortifications, of a camp, of anything.
"Think the 32nd took 'em out?" Shozi asked foolishly.
"If so," I responded. "Then where are they? And where are the bodies?"
And of course, there was no answer to that, because nobody knew. We'd come marching in the expectation to be met immediately with a hostile force, but there were none where we'd expected to find them, nor another couple of miles closer to the wall, nor past there as well. We were alone.
"We sure we at the right place, sir?" Jame decided to ask lieutenant Aozon who immediately picked up the defensive.
"Of course we're at the right position!" he said. "The Earth Kingdom must have heard of our advance and fled. Cowards!" I didn't even read it to be a defense of his own honor at the moment. It wasn't his reputation at stake if he'd been wrong, but he seemed actually intent on the belief that, much like he believed himself, the command above him was infallible.
But it didn't make sense for the Earth Kingdom to leave. Sure, we outnumbered him by a few thousand, but numbers like that meant nothing when you were fortified. I remembered early in the days of the Hornets needed to protect the Hive from a street riot. We'd only been fifteen strong at the time and had held off over five dozen slumdogs trying to break down our walls. The disparity in numbers shouldn't have been nearly enough to make the Earth Kingdom leave, and I was starting to think that even lieutenant Aozon realized that. Vocal though he was in his command's defense, there was doubt there.
It truly was an odd predicament we found ourselves in, and hardly made any better when Captain Yuzeh, commander of the 114th, finally made himself known to us, riding to our position on ostrich horseback.
Naturally, lieutenant Aozon was the first to greet his arrival with a haste that indicated he clearly wished to have the conversation that was coming further away from his men, but the captain did not afford him that luxury.
The lieutenant looked back at the his soldiers of Dragon platoon while some of the other platoon lieutenants closed the distance in time for Aozon to decide it wasn't worth waiting for us to scatter, and ask, "Any word from command, sir?"
"According to the General, Earth Kingdom's gone and run off back to their wall."
But why?
The question was hardly mine alone. I could see it in the eyes of plenty of other soldiers that gathered around, including even some of the lieutenants such as Rulaan who'd been more than willing to allow his men to hear the captain's words as opposed to Aozon who had tried to prevent just that, to little avail.
"Our orders are to entrench ourselves," the captain resumed. "Infantry companies will dig trench lines and set up fortifications. Assign your troops as you see fit, but see to it that a continuous line is constructed from your position to that of the 122nd to North Northeast and the 54th West SouthWest."
"The colonel's orders?" lieutenant Rulaan asked, clearly wishing to gauge just how far up the order went, and by the captain's next orders, all the way.
"The general's," Captain Yuzeh answered before speeding off on his mouth towards the southwest, likely to deliver these very orders to the next company down the line.
So they were General Deming's orders then, from the top of the division. And it seemed that we were spending the night.
I wasn't sure to be happy with the way the lieutenants ended up drawing straws or disappointed, but Dragon and Bat were on trench duty. Ant and Cat platoons were fortifying and establishing the camp and Elephant was responsible for the latrines. I would have pitied Elephant more if I didn't know that they actually had a commander who would be right down in the muck with them preparing a steady trail of tunnels and pits to siphon our shit and piss into.
It certainly was hardly the same case for us. While Dragon company dug themselves into a slowly deepening trench in a fierce rainfall that caved in the unsupported walls every few minutes, lieutenant Aozon watched from above, judging us from beneath a crimson poncho that shone the color of blood in the faint moonlight.
We knew we would be at this for hours, likely all throughout the night, but all the same, we struck our shovels into the ground with haste in the hopes that the sooner we did, the sooner day would come, and perhaps after, a night where we would actually get some rest. Perhaps if we were even quick enough, we might be able to even catch some shuteye in the trenches we'd have dug before day came.
That much was a fever dream. Even in the haste we worked in, half of us trying to erect support beams as the other half dug before the trench walls could cave in on us, we still were hardly able to keep up with the raging storm. This was even with Mano's help, hardly able to be everywhere at once as we worked.
That was, of course, given that Mano was hardly in the best state of mind.
Granted, all of us were put in a state of general unease by the lack of recognition of the situation we'd been thrown into, but the discomfort Mano felt far exceeded anything of our own.
At some point or another, he'd begun trying to get our attention by quietly saying, "Guys, guys," barely audible over the rain until he'd had to shout and hold up a hand for us to be quiet. It was more our curiosity that obliged all of us in the vicinity to pay attention to our earthbending comrade with a disturbed look on his face.
"I think I feel something," he said. "Underground."
Underground?
I looked down at my feet and the few foot deep hole of my own making that I was standing in. What, did he mean us? I wondered. I never could know just how that 'feeling' ability of his worked. He'd mentioned it was something with the vibrations in the Earth, but that hardly seemed an accurate way of telling what was where.
But even as we all stood still, he said to elaborate, "It's moving."
What in spirits' name?
Lieutenant Aozon noticed that those in our immediate area weren't moving, but more importantly, not working, and so marched his way over to demand an explanation, asking, "What's going on here?"
My first thought was to tell the truth and say what Mano had felt, clearly something worth knowing, but in consideration of the fact that it was Mano, and Aozon would view it more as him being a nuisance rather than pointing out anything of use, I held my tongue, trying to quickly think of something else to say. Inevitably though, as I couldn't think quite quick enough, Mano spoke up on his own behalf, saying, "I feel something moving underground, sir."
"So you can feel the bugs and worms," Aozon said. "Congratulations. So why did you demand the rest of my platoon stop?"
"Lieutenant, I don't think it's-"
"I don't give a damn what you think! The platoon has orders to entrench, and so you will entrench. I thought having an earthbender along would make this easier, but right now, you're only slowing my division down. Are you understanding me?"
Mano gulped and nodded.
"Are all of you understanding me?" Though he clearly was searching for more than a simple nod, we could hardly respond with enthusiasm and vigor, and only a few scattered, "sir yes sir," would be heard from his platoon.
His message had been heard however, and so we proceeded to do as was demanded of us, and dug.
We made progress too at what I wanted to think was a good enough rate considering everything.
It was at some time when the clouds hid the moon that my shovel struck against something hard that clanged at the touch. Naturally, the first expectation was that it was little more than a rock, but as I shoved into the surrounding dirt to find someplace to dislodge, it proved to be of a size and shape certainly not characteristic of a simple stone.
What the hell?
I shoved my dirt into the ground again, and was met with a squelch that wasn't just from the mud. I set the shovel down for the moment, reaching down to get an improved grip. It was heavy, whatever it was.
"Tosa!" I called out over the pouring rain to the comrade nearest me. "Give me a hand with this!"
The private obliged, glad to do anything that wasn't mindless shoveling and joined by side, finding a grip soon enough, and with similar a strange reaction.
"Hell is this?" he asked.
"Don't know! Just help me get it loose!"
So we pulled, and to little avail, only managing to pry the thing loose a few inches at a time before submerging itself right back again into the mud.
Tosa retrieved his shovel, and began digging at the surrounding dirt to get it loose before I realized we would continue to work to no avail without at least a sense of what we were digging out. And besides. Something was wrong. The thing we were trying to move was hard in places, soft in others.
Something was very wrong.
"Mykezia!" I called out to wherever she may be, hopefully not too far off. "Need a light here!"
It took a few more yells and some other soldiers passing my request down the line for her to come. In the time I waited, it was impossible not to notice a growing odor in the trench. Something foul and rotten.
Did somebody shit themselves? It was impossible during the wait not to notice it all the more, and so I was grateful for when Mykezia eventually did arrive with a questioning look on her face, but no doubt glad to have an excuse to quit shoveling for the moment.
"Light here," I repeated again, indicating the segment of the trench wall requiring excavating.
She knelt down, and with some difficulty given our surroundings, started a spark of light in the palm of her hand, something still amazing to me, and allowed it to grow. The glow spread to the wall, glinting off of whatever it was we were trying to pull out until it revealed itself in the extent of what it was.
What we were looking at and had been trying to dig out hadn't been a stone or fossil, but a corpse, and by the looks of it, Fire Nation. In specific, their upper left torso, what I'd been shoveling at having been their chest piece and shoulder guards.
"Gah, fuck!" Tosa exclaimed, immediately pushing himself back from the shock, dropping his shovel in the process.
He was hardly alone in that as both Mykezia and I pulled back as well at the sight of the dead man, an extra step in the direction of figuring out what the hell had happened here.
Tosa's exclamation had drawn the neighboring attention of a few other soldiers of Dragon platoon as well as even its commanding lieutenant who approached us from where he stood 6 feet above us, watching down below at the sight that transpired before his eyes.
"Is that-?" Mykezia began to ask, not quite finishing her question as she didn't need to. I had the selfsame one, the answer to which would be hanging around the man's neck, just barely made available past the part of the dirt wall that he was embedded into.
I reached forward, forcing myself to ignore the stench as I grabbed hold of his nametag, turning it to face me as Mykezia drew closer to give me a light to read by.
'6432163B27'
I nodded, my heart dropping.
"Yeah." I said. "It's the 32nd."
Colonel Eemusan
There was no noise between Deming and I as we huddled around the deployment map but for the sound of the rain pattering against the tarpaulin ceiling of the crimson red command tent.
We had set position in the right place, at least if the map and our surroundings were any indication, but the only problem was that there was nobody waiting for us. We'd marched for the last day prepared for battle not knowing if and when the Earth Kingdom may send skirmishers to try and slow us down.
Instead, not a drop of blood had been shed as we marched, and we now arrived on what was supposed to be a battlefield, where Colonel Raijo of the 32nd had agreed to send a contingent of his men to distract the enemy.
We'd been ready to expect a number of things: a total 32nd defeat and an Earth Kingdom position at full strength, a battle in the making, and even a complete victory for our allies, waiting patiently for us.
None of that had happened, and we were alone out here as far as we knew.
"We're in the right place," Deming said without being prompted.
"I never said we were, sir."
"The looks you're giving me say it all."
That wasn't what the looks had meant. Far from it, it was the fact that we were exactly where we were supposed to be that worried me the most.
"That, sir, is the look of somebody who thinks that something is seriously wrong."
"What's wrong about it? Earth Kingdom turned tail and ran. Saw both us and the 32nd coming at them and decided to ditch."
"So where's the 32nd?"
"Must have gone back to the others, I don't know. Whatever it was, Raijo will hear about it. Unprofessional."
"You would think he'd have sent us word by messenger hawk if his men had already verified the Earth Kingdom was gone."
"As I said," Deming said as little more than a grunt. "Unprofessional."
He turned his attention back to the map, saying, "Whatever the case, we're here, and we should dig in. As soon as fortifications are up and trenches are dug, we'll begin scouting the wall's perimeter and ensuring everything between here and the sea is secure."
He was thinking ahead. I would give him that. At the very least because he knew that doing so would grant his men easier access to naval provisions as well as the claim to having secured the final stretch needed for the siege to come into full fruition. It wasn't nothing, sure, but it was too much, and too soon, especially when so much else seemed wrong.
I was glad that Deming's fantasies about the near future would be cut short however. One of the guards who kept post outside of our tent, Josaik I think his name was, poked his head inside for a moment to ensure he wasn't interrupting. I caught sight of him from the entrance and ushered him inside to say whatever it was he clearly had to say.
"Report from the communications unit, sirs," he began, the extra 's' at the end hastily added in light of how it would not usually be two commanders present in such a place. How much longer does the general plan on overstaying his welcome?
"Speak," major general Deming said, taking it upon himself to do so in full indulgence of his superior rank.
"There's word from the infantry, commanders. They've dug up bodies belonging to soldiers of the 32nd. 163rd and 42nd companies."
And my heart froze.
Damnit.
I looked over to Deming, attempting to keep himself from grimacing at the thought. 2 companies sent out, dead now. That was roughly five-hundred men assuming no survivors. And where would the survivors be?
More importantly however, where are the men who killed them?
They certainly weren't dead. So where?
Where?
"We should pull back," I said without thinking to consider whether it was something best proposed in the company of a mere guard.
"Absolutely not," Deming responded.
"The 32nd just lost 500 men!" I said.
"We don't have the casualty numbers!"
"So where are the rest, general?" I turned to the guard again, wondering about a certain piece of information that would be of some relevance. "Are the infantry reporting Earth Kingdom bodies as well?"
The guard stammered, clearly not having been prepared to get caught in such a confrontation.
"The uhh…infantry reports a few. Not nearly as many of ours."
I turned back to Deming. "Doesn't sound like our men won, did they? We never should have called for this attack."
"What's done is done, colonel. You'd do well to remember this is war, and men die."
"And thousands more will die if we stay here, sir! The Earth Kingdom didn't pull back because the 32nd died heroically whittling them down to the last man! They're regrouping, and they're waiting to strike."
"All the more reason to dig in and shore up our defenses."
"All the more reason not to dig ourselves in a foxhile dead center in a minefield!"
There was a moment of silence, enough to make me believe that I was finally getting through to him, and so I pushed.
"Our men are exposed here. We're deployed ourselves in a situation we are not ready for. We should pull back, regroup, get in contact with the rest of the 29th division, and find a way to approach this carefully."
The silence persisted. Even Deming was capable of realizing when he'd made a lapse in judgment, and was capable of making amends and reconsiderations when such times happened. Unfortunately for us, however, it was rare for him to acknowledge such. He was as stubborn as the pack animals that'd drawn our supply train here, and so he persisted.
"The siege is relying on us to do our part," he said. "If we give the Earth Kingdom an inch, they'll take a yard. We can't pull back. We'll dig in, increase the watch, and run armed patrols first thing in the morning. And colonel, if you're so concerned about the men, then order them to stay in the trenches for the night."
"With the dead they've just dug out?"
Morale will plummet.
"The order's yours to give," he said, and like that, he turned back to the map. It was settled.
Damnit, I thought as I looked at the same guard who still stood there, dumbfounded. I'll have to replace him, I already knew, but for now, I had bigger priorities.
I had orders to give.
Danev
I was trying to fall asleep eye to eye with a dead man.
It would've been nice if he'd been a firebender. Maybe then his face would've been hidden behind that skull-like facemask they wore to protect themselves from the flames they bent, but no, he was just a common infantryman, no different than me.
His dog tags read that he was Joreh, serial number 6432163C42. He was a corporal if the stripes on his shoulder pad were any indication, and he was dead, half of his face blown off from what could have been any number of things: a club, axe, boulder, blast of fire in the confusion, anything.
I felt bad for him in truth. Judging by his name, he wasn't an islander, but most likely a colonial drafted into the war, little different than me. He'd been given orders that didn't make sense, to attack a group of men much larger than his own, and he'd suffered for it. I pitied him.
But all the same, I really would have preferred if he'd stop looking at me with his one remaining eye.
I would have love to have been able to drag his body out of the trench, bring it somewhere proper for burial, but in the process of doing so with just the first batch of bodies we'd found, now ranking in the dozens, we'd been ordered with a fierce yell from our company captain to return to our drenches.
We'd been forced to drop the bodies there, and now could only huddle inside as the rain still came down on top of us, granted lighter than before.
Nobody beside me was content, lieutenant Aozon least of all. There was no stretch of the trench line that wasn't polluted by the bodies of our predecessors. I wondered how far their mass grave extended. When our trench had finally been connected to the 122nd, we'd received verification of the exact same there–scores of dead buried beneath the dirt.
And though the news of such hadn't been bad enough as it already was, Mano, from where he sat next to me in our trench, said, "I know what I felt underground when we got here."
I turned my head to look at him, waiting for what answer might come, and he looked back.
"It was the 32nd," he said. "They were trying to dig themselves out."
They'd been alive, I realized. Up until an hour or even less before we'd arrived, some still even as we dug. And we hadn't recovered a single survivor. 500 men of the 32nd were dead, and those that'd killed them were still out there somewhere, very much alive.
Needless to slay, I wouldn't do too much sleeping that night. The closest I would come to sleeping would be fading in and out of consciousness enough times that the sun was eventually back out, and the rain had finally stopped.
Very few in the same trenchline as me had managed to get any sleep. We were still sitting and lying there, as still as the dead men next to us, wondering when some change might come about. None of us knew what that change may be: new orders from command, an enemy attack, or for perhaps the dead to rise from their slumber and rise from the dirt.
What came instead after possibly an hour of sunlight passed was the rumbling of engines. Our engines. We hardly paid them much mind until the sound of them came closer, coming to a halt just feet away from our trench. None of us knew what the deal was nor were very keen on moving to find out, still holding to some misillusion that if we stayed still long enough, sleep would finally come.
Instead though, something better had come.
"You the 114th?" a voice came from above our trench. I craned my head back to get a look at who was doing the talking–some Fire Nation soldier I didn't recognize in an engineer's attire, looking down at us with a curious glance.
None of the others answering, much less our lieutenant who seemed frankly out of it, I nodded my head and barely was able to say, "Yeah."
"Good," the soldier responded. "We're here to collect the dead."
And not too soon either. If ever there was an announcement to get our attention, it was that we were finally being relieved of our more quiet trenchmates. The process of removing the bodies was hardly an enthusiastic one, but honestly quite somber. It probably wouldn't have been so bad too if we hadn't been forced to spend the duration of the night with them and their dog tags that spoke of their life stories in full view.
But so it seemed that such was our curse, and so it was finally that I helped to lift private Joreh from the 6 feet hole he'd been buried in only to eventually be burned to ashes. Mano suggested that, on account of his more Earth Kingdom background, he be buried as he would have been had it been the opposing side to find his remains, but the uniform Joreh had worn in life would determine the fate he would meet in death.
When Joreh's body was finally loaded, it was among dozens others with dozens more to go. At the very least, I wasn't alone in my endeavors. All of Dragon platoon worked as one to clear the trench that would be our home for however long this siege would take of its prior inhabitants. Even lieutenant Aozon pulled a fraction of his own weight which was something compared to none.
I would be getting some more unexpected help soon enough as well.
The trucks we loaded the dead into hadn't come alone, but instead with an armored escort of tanks that I imagined we dispatched so as to ensure the Earth Kingdom, if still lurking around as we feared they might be, wouldn't be able to so easily claim the jump on us.
I hadn't thought to ask what armored unit it was that'd come to escort us, not thinking much of it until I noticed a familiar figure atop one of the tanks, his eyes set on the artificial horizon as created by Ba Sing Se's wall. Though he wore his helmet, I was able to identify some key features immediately, namely his shorter stature compared to his comrades on account of his age, and the way his uniform fit poorly to his physique.
"Fluke?" I called out questioningly as soon as I had finished loading another body with the help of Mykezia.
And sure enough, the boy turned. His face was hidden by the firebender's white facemask, but his reaction time was all the proof I needed.
What of him was still hidden inside the tank was now unveiled as he pulled himself out, met with the questioning demands of his crewmates within to which I could just barely hear him reply, "Going to help load the bodies."
A lame excuse, but I was hardly about to deny myself the help. And the company.
He pulled his helmet off as we approached, rather safe in consideration of the circle of tanks that encompassed the scene, and now there was no mistaking that it was him. It'd been almost a month since the march began that I'd last seen him. His hair had grown somewhat longer, naturally, from the bare stubble that'd he'd elected to reduce his hair too before marching. He was hardly the same shaggy boy from the slums and now sported a far shorter cut that was far more Fire Nation though he assured me it was just for the sake of convenience. I, on the other hand, had chosen to keep mine, but the last month of marching had made me begin to regret it as it now tickled the back of my neck and got in my eyes from time to time even beneath my helmet, but especially as I took it off to even the playing field with Fluke.
The distance closed between us, we clasped arms in greeting before closing the last foot of a gap to hug one another. Sure, it would have been more customary for our adopted culture to bow, but just because they'd taken us off of the streets, it hadn't taken the streets out of us.
"Wasn't expecting to see you this far up close to where the action is," I teased.
"Action, eh?" Fluke responded, turning his eyes towards the truck of friendly dead that would be ashes by next morning. I wondered what poor sods in logistics would have to do the identifying before burning them in order to maintain proper records.
"More than what you got going on."
"Won't argue there."
Mykezia caught up to me now, perhaps expectantly to get me back to work. I would be there shortly, I would assure, but needed to do some catching up first.
Fluke noticed her arrival as well, made all the more prominent by her taking the moment to remove her helmet as well, freeing her many locks of hair that were far more impressive than our own to wipe the sweat from her brow.
It was a valiant effort of Fluke's to hide the way his face flushed at the sight of her, and I imagined was something he'd had a good few months of practicing, but by the looks of it, was far from mastering.
"Mykezia," was all he proved capable of saying, accompanied by a courteous nod.
She returned the favor, a smile on her face that at least indicated she held the boy in a higher regard than a vast majority of other soldiers across the 114th who'd made their desires a bit less subtly known. "Fluke," she said in response. "Armored treating you well?"
"Can't complain," he responded with a shrug. "Can get away with sleeping on duty far easier than you guys can, so…"
Mykezia chuckled, shaking her head in amusement before placing her helmet on again. Damn shame. "I'll leave you boys to it, but try to get some work done at least," she said before parting ways with us.
"Yes, ma'am," I responded in spite of my staff sergeant rank being somewhat greater than hers, simply a sergeant. All the same though, it was a matter of truth and respect, and she was right. We would pull our weight. Soon. First, I had some teasing to do, especially as Fluke made it more than easy to do as he wistfully watched her leave into the distance before hopping back into the trench.
I nudged him with my elbow, our armor clanging against each other as I said, "I know that look."
"Oh shut up," Fluke responded as he got to walking back towards a different stretch of trenchline where there were still bodies needing removing. I chuckled at his response, but didn't bother answering immediately. He would on his own. And sure enough, he got started. "I'm too young for her anyway," he said. "Besides. We're in different units. I wouldn't even get the chance."
"Yeah, you're probably right."
He turned to look at me, an almost hurt expression on his face.
"What?" I shrugged. "You said it, not me."
"Yeah, but you didn't have to agree so easily."
I chuckled. He was still a kid in more ways than one. Hell, we all were, even back in the muck and mud of our trench, retrieving the body of another Fire Nation casualty, armor still in good enough condition that it'd be easy to carry him as well as for logistics to repurpose it.
The mood became something serious rather quickly as the soldier's dog tags glinted in the sunlight, a shining beacon reminding us that we were transporting somebody hardly any different than us after dying on account of ridiculous orders. And though he looked nothing like the boy I had on my mind now, the circumstances were enough to return my mind to another topic that I'd been meaning to talk to Fluke about.
Once the body was on the lip of the trench, and I'd helped Fluke up, I asked him as we lifted the body up again, "Hey Fluke?"
"Hrm?"
"Something been needing to tell you about." There was hardly an easy way to put it. I wondered how to phrase it in a way where he wouldn't blame himself, see himself as responsible. And though I didn't blame Fluke for it in the slightest, I could find no way where his mind, me knowing how it was, wouldn't automatically assign blame to himself. "Got word from down the line. Back in Citadel, Aden…" I was still searching for words. "Aden-"
"Killed himself," Fluke finished.
What?
"I know," he finished.
Damnit. Somebody had told him before I could, but who?
"How did you hear?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Saw it. Threw himself from the wall as we the 29th was leaving."
So he'd seen it himself. Shit.
"Fluke," I started.
"Danev," he cut me off. "I know. It's fine. He did what he did. Maybe because of me, maybe not, but-"
"It's not because of that."
"Maybe it is," Fluke responded. "Why wouldn't it be? Saw no other way to leave, learned nothing was waiting for him in the slums, so…" His voice trailed off, the conclusion in his own constructed narrative obvious.
I didn't know what there was to say that Fluke would find a mental rebuke for. He'd assigned himself the blame, much as he made it seem as though it was still in the air. But I couldn't just leave it there. Not indefinitely at least. Not as long as Fluke would still beat himself up over it without end. But I had to know a lost battle when it came, and so could only say for now, "Just try not to think about it."
Fluke nodded.
I had to change the subject. Find something to at least lighten the mood and improve the atmosphere without making it too obvious. For his own sake more than mine.
"Things going alright in armored?" I asked, forgetting that Mykezia had already asked this, but at the very least, Fluke seemed just as willing to change the subject as I, and so went into more deal in saying, "Our tank commander, Dojai, still pisses grass, but at least knows how to order us around right which is what I guess makes him commander."
"A common trend with Fire Nation commanders," I pointed out.
Fluke nodded. He was trying. He really was. I never should have brought Aden up.
"So where's the 62nd positioned?" I asked in regard to his own unit.
"Here right now," Fluke said. "But we're set to take position near the rear by the artillery. Half of us have already given orders to begin scouting sortees by the wall. Rest of us are escort for the hearses. "
"Well, we appreciate the company." We sure as hell hadn't been expecting any. The way our orders had been phrased to us last night, we were being cursed to lie amongst the dead for days to come. There were the reckless orders that'd placed us here, the overprotective ones that kept us in our trench, and now this, the closest thing to balance. Something odd was happening with our command. That much was obvious.
"Once this is done though," Fluke continued as we loaded the body into the back of the truck, "Lieutenant Colonel Chaasa thinks we're more likely to stay on patrols around the camp than by the wall. Guess we'll find out."
"Well, seeing as how you'll be sticking around, if you ever find yourself near our trench line, feel free to pay a visit."
The boy scoffed, now face to face again with our "trench" that was little more than a glorified grave given the dead still inside.
"So what do you think of it all?" I asked Fluke as we picked up yet another body of the fallen. "What do you think happened here?"
There was a moment of pause, left for him to think as we carried the body to the edge of the trench to lift it up, until he answered.
"Want me to answer honestly?" he asked.
"Wouldn't have asked otherwise."
"Remember the Hive?" he asked. "The trap we set for the Rats all that time ago?"
All that time ago. No more than half a year had passed, but still, it could have been centuries. But still, I could remember it as clear as day, the wait of angst as they flooded inside, then warmth of the fire against my face as the blasting jelly had been ignited. All of it. I nodded.
He looked at me as we set the body down on the lip of the trench, looked at it, then back at me, and said more seriously than anything I could remember him saying in a good while, "We just walked right into it."