A knock on the apartment door woke me. The sharp pain that throbbed through my head, informed me that I needed more sleep, so I indulged it by rolling over and attempting to clamp my eyes shut.

The knocking came again, rapping more insistently this time.

“Enough already,” Kuwta growled loudly, putting voice to my thoughts as I pulled myself upright. We were guests here. Surely their meal schedule wasn’t this strict?

When I opened the door Sasi stood peering up at me. “What is it?” I asked grumpily.

“Zahn needs to see you, now!” Her eyes were wide and she was fidgeting as if standing on a hot-tin roof.

Reaching out with my Extra Sensory Perception I let my senses trickle into her mind. A whirl of emotions flooded into me, fear and excitement at the forefront. There was a threat of some kind not to her, but to the entire village.

“Guys, we need to roll out, double-time. Something is going down.”

Kuwta stopped complaining and was suddenly all business as she donned her fatigues.

Buzz simply stood and shrugged, one of the advantages of being a giant bug was that you didn’t have to worry about getting dressed.

Sasi hustled us quickly through the strangely quiet village to the bunker we’d entered through. Zahn looked every bit a military leader as he stood overlooking the wall flanked by the other men of the village defense corp. A pair of binoculars were dangling around his neck as he pressed the transmit button and spoke into a radio in a precise clipped tone.

“Now you listen to me Lieutenant, this is an independent village and you do not have jurisdiction in this area. Withdraw your troops peacefully and I will turn a blind eye to your illegal attempt at intimidation.”

The radio crackled slightly as a strident voice echoed out of it. “With all due respect, you don’t understand the situation. We have reason to suspect that someone from your village was salvaging Scrael technology from a recent skirmish. This is illegal and in order to dissuade further incidents, an example must be made of them.”

Zahn nodded to us and sighed as he tucked the radio into a pocket, “We’ve been going back and like this for nearly half an hour. I don’t think I’ll be able to stall him much longer.”

“Then what?” Kuwta asked, cutting to the thick of things with her customary lack of tact.

Zahn lifted an eyebrow at her insubordination.

I sighed, “We have a somewhat informal chain of command.” That means, of course, that I was well aware that the Orc warrior could break me in two.

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The bastard smirked openly at me, “Of course, your squad, your rules.” He pointed towards the horizon. There on the crest of the hill overlooking the village, a platoon of soldiers could be seen. That was worrying enough, but silhouetted behind, the fifty or so men, was a large tank. Not dissimilar to the wreck that the command processor had been taken from.

“They look like they mean business,” I stated absentmindedly as my brain plotted our best and fastest way out of this village. It’s not that I’m a coward, but knowing the way to safety is never a bad idea, especially when the enemy looks to have a numerical advantage and better weapons.

“What is our situation, unit composition and options?” Kuwta was all business when shit hit the fan. A while back I’d wondered why she’d never seemed interested in being the squad leader. The answer she’d given, that ‘officers get shot first,’ hadn’t been particularly reassuring.

“There are some hundred or so souls in the village. We’re the only ones with military training, but a dozen or so are decent shots with a rifle. Another forty or so will fight, but likely be little more than a distraction to the enemy.”

“So a stand-up fight is out of the question, we’re outnumbered and out-gunned.” I stated simply. “Will your shield hold?”

“I doubt it,” Zahn stated, “but it won’t need to. I’m going to go out to speak to them and surrender myself. I sent the children out to scavenge and I need to take responsibility.” The man spoke as if he was reminding himself that what he was doing was right. There was no doubt that the consequences would be severe, probably fatal.

I on the other hand definitely did. “You do realize that they’ll probably kill you?”

Zahn fixed me with a steely stare, “I’ve faced death before, then I didn’t do the right thing. This time I will.”

“All right then, I had to ask.” He had my grudging respect. The man was a hero, however there was a reason that people read about brave heroes instead of meeting them. Most of them were dead. “When are you planning to commit suicide?”

Zahn glared at me, “I was waiting for you guys to show up. If things go South then try and keep people alive, alright?”

The tank loomed ominously large on the horizon. I calculated the odds of our survival when things went south. A fair fight would see the enemy roll over us. So we needed something to balance the odds a little.

“If it doesn’t involve suicide. Is there a way out of here that doesn’t involve going through the front door?” I asked.

He pointed to a building, “There’s a tunnel in the basement, heads a few hundred yards south, comes up within the remains of a farmhouse.”

I nodded, thankful for small mercies. That increased our options. If things continued to improve then there was a slim chance that we might live through today.

Slim chances are better than nothing, but there might be a way to tip the scales further in our favor. I pulled my remaining four fusion grenades from my belt, flicking the remote detonation catch on one as I passed them over. “Take these with you, you know what they are?”

“Fusion grenades. They’ll turn anyone in a ten foot radius into a distant memory.” Zahn carefully placed the grenades inside a wide spouted water flask and screwed its top back on.

I flashed a rueful smile, “At least if things go South, you’ll take some of them with you.”

Zahn threw me a walkie-talkie. “It’s time to go. I’ll be on channel five, the militia is on four,” he flashed a grin as he walked away. “If I wait much longer, then I’ll lose my nerve.”

I nodded and watched as he walked away.

“Good luck.” I muttered, “The stupid bastard is going to need it.”

The villagers around me bristled at my insulting their hero, but I refused to take the words back. I wasn’t going to glorify Zahn’s decision. If I started doing that then the next thing I knew I’d be acting brave myself. That conflicted with my intent of dying in bed, dishonorable but ancient, rather than in the field, young and noble.