<blockquote>
The scourge of a broken heart manifests in Frederica Jaine a vexatious depression.
Frederica Jaine''s multifaceted depressions manifest as a psychosomatic sensitivity towards others'' emotions.
- Incunabulum Manifold Tag #3078-2701-00000569
</blockquote>
First Battalion, First Companyspacetime inversion
Military Auxiliary (abbrev. MA)
Green Book Risk Assessment Formhigh
Regardless, the work began in earnest and proceeded patiently according to the MA Xau''s instructions, completing in four hours and fifty minutes rather than the originally estimated five hours.
29,308th time in the 30,294-day sidereal year.
It was not fifteen minutes from the completion of the rescue operation that a barrage of missiles fell like the hammer of God through that veil of smog which lidded Liberation''s Reach, screaming banshee-like and erupting into a monolithic curtain of fire at the distant reaches of the settlement. The impacts shook the surroundings violently, causing the much-feared subsidence and burying the space which the rescuees had not so long ago been trapped within.
Never been so close to Super-Katyusha impactsIt is not much. Just Katyushas but more super.
The second barrage of missiles had just begun in earnest when a dull tone informed Cacliocos that a private comms channel had been established. He raised himself to his feet and poked his head absentmindedly around the holobus chassis he had been leaning against.
coycom
"Yes, sir, Subaltern Cacliocos speaking," Cacliocos replied. The sound of distant gunfire, though cloaked by the rumble of artillery, had not abated, and his eyes sensed movement where the remainder of Section Five were convalescing near a rubble outcropping stabbing out where a residential block once stood.
It was Betelgeuse, expressionless, eking a winding path across the street toward the immense concavity which had been substituted for the square. The area had been reported as secured, but it was still a breach of tactical discipline pursuant to Green Book regulations to move around without crouching. Not that Cacliocos had any intention of taking him to task.
"Report strength," Lieutenant-Colonel Brexar transmitted.
Third Company, RAF
He traced Betelgeuse'' slow walk back toward the caved-in entrance, saw that pale face pass from shadow to shadow, and then watched him halt and stare solemnly into space.
Betelgeuse had been the one to communicate Frederica''s last wish to Cacliocos. She wanted to be buried underground, he said, and this had been confirmed by Thete and Douglas, as if by some tacit understanding Betelgeuse was made the keeper of Federica''s legacy.
"Sir, there''s something else. We saw something in the Labcent, some kind of spliced creature we had to kill."
spliced
"Like a hybrid… like a human-Chimera splice, is the best I can describe it. I could only assess it for rudimentary intelligence in the circumstances, but it had keen combat awareness."
"We''ll get the cleaners up there. Remember to submit all relevant blackboxes once the operation is done," Brexar sounded. A sense of uneasiness had crept into his tone.
fertilize
Cacliocos heard some shuffling on the other side of the line, and perhaps some crinkling of paper.
anyoneManifold DMSsecret
Clearance level secretdirect
confidentialsecret
"Of course, sir."
"... Oh yes, one more thing. I know you''d transmitted this already via Staff Sergeant Entuban, but Brigade-Com asked for another confirmation of the survivors'' names. Said the request came from command. Can you enumerate?" Brexar requested. The distinct sound of rapidfire mouse clicks filtered through the comms.
"PLP Sergeant Thete Jutson, PLP Voke Thatcher, PLP Betegeuse Sakar, PLP Douglas McKay. And myself, Subaltern Tenzhian Cacliocos."
you went over my head, yes, but it was a sound tactical decisionYou''re a good soldier.
"Thank you, sir. ... Second Company secured the northwestern quadrant?"
"Yes. Heavy casualties, but not as heavy as Third Company''s. Your brother''s alive. I confirmed it with his commanding officer."
thank you
"It''s what I should do," Brexar sighed, and Cacliocos detected in all that weary resignation the hidden edge of bitterness and indignation.
"I should ask sir… has… Major Storr been located?"
"He was counted amongst the first casualties. Tenzhian, I''ll not skirt the fact that his mistake was very grave. You can be sure I''ll lodge a formal complaint."
"Sir, it''s a breach of the Green—"
mustTAF Green Book doesn''t care one whit about the guys on the ground.PDF
Cacliocos opened his mouth, then closed it again. He scanned his surroundings. By now Betelgeuse had returned to his section. Why was Thete giving him such a strange look?
"Anyway, I got to wrap this up," Brexar sounded. "What''s the unit closest to you right now? The one with Staff Entuban?"
Tzevtao-retrieval
"Yes, yes. Captain Kelokrill''s… a right pity to lose him. I''d heard he was good. Tenzhian, you will take command of First Battalion, First Company and assemble at the entrance to the in-settlement mine, SB… what was it, ah…"
SB-two-nine-sixHigh urgency
LTCsecret
"Just one, sir. Does First Battalion, First Company have any other surviving officers?"
"No."
An uncomfortable silence interspersed.
"... I see. That''s all, then," Cacliocos nodded to nobody in particular,
"Okay. LTC Pilix will fill you in on the Company''s schedule and relevant Plan Modifications. I don''t expect any further Charlie Mike, but don''t take me at my word, okay?"
"Yes, sir."
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
"… I probably shouldn''t say this, but something strange is happening between command and the Brigade-coms," Brexar was muttering, half to himself and half to Cacliocos, "they made the Jegorich Second and Third Brigade head the left pincer''s offensive, and I heard casualties there were unaccountably high as well…
"… Sir?" Cacliocos sounded, not knowing what to say.
"Ah, dammit. Tenzhian, please remember to get support to scrub your blackbox. Anyway, passing you over now…"
<hr>
presto
The most recent barrage had just melted away into pollen clouds of spangling phosphorus blooms when Cacliocos and Entuban called for the muster, and that band of thirty or less, beaten and tired, went through the dead streets like dead things themselves. Mounds of rubble flanked them, residential blocks turned to sordid cairns overlooking their cautious progress.
The pounding resumed, and when Betelgeuse raised his head he saw flashes of orange fade to beige under the curtain of fog and realized that the artillery fire had begun triangulating further away. Cacliocos transmitted that they were passing into the manufacturing district, and First Company stepped into a cloud of smog and then out of it, and before them was a flattish field of concrete rubble centered by an enormous ziggurat pluming smoke into the sky.
A special dread gripped Betelgeuse'' heart. His steps faltered. His right hand found its way to his chestpiece and pressed, and he felt digging into his pectorals the edges of what he knew was Frederica''s Incunabulum stacked below his own. Somebody nudged him from behind and he turned to see Douglas motioning forward with his elbow., his expression uncharacteristically grim.
faces
They must have been naked when they died. A mountain of corpses set afire.
The Chimerae were an intelligent race, perhaps. What reason, if any, did they have to kill on such a scale?
"Staff Entuban, you don''t need to check it?" Cacliocos transmitted through the comms, looking up at that towering cake of charred flesh when they were almost close enough to touch.
Second Company
"Good. Wouldn''t fancy doing it myself," Cacliocos said, bowing his head momentarily to the dead. "We turn right then along the commissary street west."
And so that procession made a hard right and passed, at the end of that field, between two imposing stone promontories that were enshadowed and tortured and like Scylla and Charybdis; and as they passed through into the dimly-lit beyond Betelgeuse'' eyes could not help but widen, as flesh-mound after flesh-mound was revealed to them in all their lurid glory.
God…
The voice was female and unfamiliar to Betelgeuse. One of Entuban''s entourage. But its sentiment was shared amongst all, because few could be unmoved by the scale of death. The street was flanked on both sides by buildings flattened into the ground, and atop the rubble thereof were mountains of corpses all smoking. The human roasts followed the road all the way through that cauterized desolation. Death upon death, a stairway to hell.
And there was no escaping the sight, for the flesh-mounds had each been tipped by a bulbous lamp shining whitely and left behind by the Allied Forces'' Incunabula-retrieval parties.
Passing by the first mound, Betelgeuse thought he saw a gnome-like figure at the apex, small as a cherub but flayed by the heat into a vertical crust, the bulbous lamp hanging by a long and curved metal handle over the crown of that toddler''s head. The sockets of that child were gaping and its jaw was hungry and open and the lamp looked to have been positioned so that bulb hung like an oversized, glowing testicle
This is what passes for humor.
They trekked down the street, some averting their eyes by looking at their fellows'' feet, some uncannily fascinated by the ritualistic pyres winding down and up, the lights drawing a grim path overland toward a rockface materializing in the distance. The whole population of Liberation''s Reach looked as if they had been jam-packed into that one place and then processed by the Chimerae into dead flesh.
"The guys here sure keep the commissary stocked," someone said, breaking a full fifteen minutes of silence.
Sergeant Belekov,
They resumed their march and the route eventually took them past the last flesh-mound and through an undulating path and then straight into the side of an embankment peaking three stories high. The wall of the embankment ran on both sides into the darkness further than they could see, perhaps all the way to the tattered walls of Liberation''s Reach, and several hundred meters to their right a billowing gout of smoke rose darkly, its source obscured by the night.
Where the road ended perpendicularly to that rustred cliff of rock was an immense steel door bent and scorched in places, and beside it wound a cylindrical jut so that the panel-face tipping the end of that metallic snake aimed at any would-be entrant.
No sooner had Cacliocos gone up close when that panel-face flashed to life, projecting a rectangular wall of light which passed over his form from sole to head.
tableaux
Good Evening, T-A-F Officer. Please input your Ninsei Ingress security code to Mining Settlement L-R, Subterranean Borehole Number two-nine-six—
"Let me, sir. LTC Pilix is saying to use First Battalion, First Company''s code," Entuban raised his arm, motioning at Cacliocos.
"Okay, go ahead," Cacliocos nodded, taking several steps sideways to make space for that man''s inhuman width.
"Hrnh. Fingers too big," Entuban frowned. Indeed, the tips of his fingers were so wide that they bound three digital keys at once.
Snickering through the comms.
Betelgeuse turned back, and saw, behind Thete and her crimson pupil, behind gray, leather-faced soldiers, the twin rows of flesh-mounds stretching into the darkness. There must have been a breeze, for the globy lights were swaying lazily.
"I type, you say," Cacliocos sighed, taking over.
No sooner had the code been keyed in when the doors juddered and started cranking themselves open in fits, knocking off loose bits of gravel from the sedimentary material abovehead.
Welcome, <Emergency> personnel, have a—have—*krrshk*
They entered into dark, metal hallways devoid of light save for red fisheyes staring out the corners of the ceiling, turned one bend, two, then found the exit—another set of doors, these ones shimmying open smoothly.
An open space awash in light and frenetic activity, its contours evocative of something circular, greeted their eyes. To their left, far to the edge of that large space, idled rows of walkers huge and gray and spewing exhaust into the air. Legions of exosuited soldiers, so many people that Betelgeuse suffered momentary disorientation, were scuttling about like ants, loading crates by the wagon-full into columns of tanks crusted with sediment and scoured matte-black and droning sepulchrally into the night air.
And in the middle of the space was a terrace of slopes descending into a hole wide enough to swallow Saltilla''s megalithic State University whole, a chasm which dwarfed even the teeming might of the Allied Forces in Desert.
To right of that chasm sat the largest flesh-mound they had encountered yet, still smoldering, still raging faintly. Whole companies of soldiers were dismantling that terrifying sculpture under the aegis of a floodlight, and bereft of its habit of shadows that hecatomb rose misshapen and lopsided like some twisted aiguille.
"Lieutenant-Colonel Brexar said the Medicae tent''s at the SB-296 entrance," Cacliocos transmitted.
shack
HrnhAMMUNITION
"Ya think I can get my hands on a fresh ZWEN?" Douglas croaked, transmitting via Section Five comms-link, his eyes following the jump of the resup trucks, his arm stump wagging sporadically from an uncomfortable dose of phantom itch.
"We''ll all get a chance to resup," responded Thete, her voice uncharacteristically soft. When Betelgeuse turned to regard her, he thought he detected in her lineaments a tacit glumness, but then wondered if by some unknown operation of his mind he had projected a subconscious artifact upon her face.
"Maybe they can resup my arm," Douglas said, turning, and corners of his lips curled in a strange mix of pain and mirth.
"Douglas, once we get to the Medicae unit you will have priority," Thete sighed. The troop had begun moving again, and one of the Jegorichians, abnormally short even by Desertian standards, had raised one of his unusually long arms and deigned to slap Douglas'' on his back where the exosuit''s clavicle carapace fused to the plastic articulations around neck.
"Don''t mind if I do…"
<hr>
As they came closer to the ''shack'' the lie of its smallness was revealed and its charred eaves came to loom over them and the churning moil of soldiers all about them. They became entangled in the infectious headiness of that mix and jostle, and somehow Cacliocos managed to navigate through those whirlpools of incessant human activity and lead them before that quonset structure of metal and glass.
Ninsei Factotum
They were asked to remove their helmets, and Betelgeuse tasted dust and mold anew. He was led with the others between rows upon rows of beds upon which half-men and limbless women convalesced, oily-skinned and smelling of iodoform and being waited on by harried field surgeons brandishing gore-stained bonesaws and crusted cauterizers. They were halfway through that field hospital, having passed a portable room divider hung with red curtains and then another room divider with yellow curtains, when the lean and large-eared Support Company personnel leading them pointed forward to curtains colored deep orange.
Less Urgent
Urgents
"What? We hadn''t received any manifest—"
plastic-poisoning
"... O–okay," the man stuttered, a host of expressions flashing across his face as Cacliocos exerted more pressure upon his shoulder. "I''ll take him to the surgeons…"
"Not only him," Entuban rumbled, jostling past Betelgeuse and then seven or eight Jegorichians to come up beside Cacliocos. "We are needing oxygen for the three C-O poisonings. Eight splints. Maybe give us ten. We have broken bones."
Cacliocos released his hand, leaving a dark, grimy imprint upon that man''s overalls. "The medical manifest should have come through. LTC Brexar? LTC Pilix?"
Colonel Bincollan
LTC Pilix
redeployed
"That''s enough. Get him some attention," Cacliocos commanded, gesturing with his chin back toward the yellow curtains. The man gave a sheepish smile and made to scratch the nape of his neck, before he arrested himself, brought his arm back down, scowled, and then scurried away with Douglas in tow.
"I do not like this," Entuban muttered loudly, his wide face twitching.
Cacliocos'' fine, dark eyebrows scrunched together. His upper lip curled over his scar. Once Douglas and the Support Company man disappeared from his view, he turned, stalking wordlessly down toward the orange curtains.