There was no southern border for the Iota Republic; no fence, no walls, only supply stations situated every few hundred kilometers, a few tank squads patrolling in between them, and a seemingly boundless snow plain. Further down south was the ice cap, beyond which was Antarctica, where all life went to die. Humanity’s border was the trail drawn by their tank’s convey belt, subjected to a constant state of flux as each tank squad drew different lines in the snow every patrol, transitory in nature as the drawn line inevitably get buried by the incessant snow and wind.

The storm had struck. The temperature plunged well below minus forty degree Celsius (-40 Fahrenheit), and with a minus two point six on the sunlight, the outside had become a freezing hell. The rumbling in the clouds had only grown louder and more frequent as the time went on.

“No? Nothing?” Wuvalis asked while driving.

“No…” Atyla had his headphones in, listening to the radio, “nothing came through. The station should be just up ahead, ten kilometers (6 miles) maximum.”

“I don’t like this. Call them again.”

Atyla picked up the speaker, “C-6, this is the Second Regiment of Border Patrol, Lemon X-2 three-men patrol squad, approaching your station in T-minus one hour. Acknowledge if you could receive this transmission, over.”

“...” white noise, and the sound of wind and snow.

A small beeping sound echoed inside the tank, Atyla took off his headphone to check the source only to be met with Umsil’s soft but definitive voice, “lightning.”

“What?” Wuvalis immediately pulled the brake, “how fast?”

“It went above two thousand in seconds,” Umsil extricated himself from the seat and started to switch off every electronic equipment around him, “the storm cloud is right above us.”

Darkness befell them as they shut off the lights. Atyla looked into the peripheral periscope and saw a cold black void outside; the wind and the thunder was so loud, that the noise was borderline unbearable even inside the tank. Something solid struck the side of their tank, must be a piece of hail.

Suddenly, the void was lit pale white by a strip of lightning splitting the sky asunder. For the briefest moment, the charcoal black firmament was torn into infinitely fractured pieces, illuminating every furrow and crease of the clouds as though it was high noon; even the ground quivered in fear before Tempest’s rancor. A specific streak of the forking pathways, discontent with staying in the sky, broke off from all its siblings and dived right onto the earth, striking a patch of snow just a few paces away from the tank, instantly igniting it. The essentia in the snow chemically reacted with the floating particles of heavy metal delivered by the lightning, giving the evanescent flame a purplish hue.

“One million,” Umsil whispered, his angular face lit by the weak green glow of the lightning detector, “it maxed out. The strike was just next to us.”

“No kidding, corporal…” Atyla muttered to himself, continually looking into the periscope.

“This is not good.” Wuvalis said, her contour completely obscured in darkness, “We are delayed enough as it is. This storm is going to set us back for hours.”

Luckily, heaven calmed down just forty minutes later. The snowstorm, however, actually started to pick up after the lightning. When moments later Atyla was tagged back into the driver’s seat, he could barely see the ground two meters (6.5 feet) ahead of him in the front viewing periscope. Several times Atyla thought he was going to run into something that turned out to only be a dark patch of snow on the ground.

Wuvalis had taken over the gunner’s responsibility which also included wireless communication. Her way of fiddling the radio was snappy and ruthless, utterly ignoring any potential damage she might inflict to the poor machine; the sergeant was an avid humanist, outside of her tank, she had very little attachment with any unconscious objects.

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“C-6, this is the Second Regiment of Border Patrol, Lemon X-2 three-men patrol squad, I’m sergeant Wuvalis of Second Division, Eleventh Battalion, Company 3. Please acknowledge if you receive this transmission…”

I would bet ten thousand tours at the border -- nay, at the Eastern front! -- that the fucking corporal was either asleep or wiping down his gun again, absolute loony. Atyla could feel his eyelids getting heavier; he hadn’t gotten a proper sleep since Ersulp’s death. At least the station was just ahead of them.

A small and blurry adumbration emerged on the horizon; at first Atyla thought it was just a piece of rock or the shadow of some small hills afar, but as he turned the roller wheel to zoom in with the periscope, he saw a person-like figure standing amidst the rising blizzard. It gave Atyla such a start he almost jumped out of his seat.

“Arky! Fuck, madam! There is someone standing just ahead of us.” Atyla shouted as he pulled the break, “Can’t tell how far away he is! Maybe a hundred meters (320 feet), the storm is obscuring!”

Immediately, Umsil climbed up from the loader’s seat with his sniper and opened the hatch door. A gust of freezing cold wind immediately swarmed the tank’s interior. “Twelve o’clock!” This was the first time Atyla heard Umsil shouting, “one individual! Approaching! Visually obscured, but I have them in my sight!”

“The individual right ahead of us!” Wuvalis spoke into a mic, and the loudspeaker hanging on the side of the tank’s turret magnified her commanding voice against the snow storm, “stop your advance immediately. Identify yourself through the radio or we will open fire!”

But the shadow was still growing bigger, and it was failing its arms around. Atyla saw a pattern: o, u, r, r, a, d…

“Stop your advance or we will open fire. I repeat, stop your advance at once and identify yourself…”

“Madam,” Atyla let out a sigh of relief, his tone deflated significantly, “it’s the guard at C-6. Their radios are broken.”

“I’m so sorry,” the guard said with a shivering voice as he led the three into the watchtower. The warm carbon filament bulb above their head emitting a weak orange glow made the room feel a lot warmer than it actually was. A desk in the corner stacked with files and cartridges, and the panoramic window provided a great view of the surrounding darkness. The small beacon on top of the tower struggled against the immense darkness. “That storm the other day knocked the antenna down. Our machines were fucking fried, mate. Can’t say or hear a fucking bleep from it. Thank Arky you are here or we will be strained for god knows how many more days, our supplies are running low…”

“Sergeant Wuvalis,” the supervisor of the station, a light-skinned woman in her mid thirties, saluted Wuvalis with the salutation of Scientism: left hand raised to the height of one’s cheek, all fingers curled and relaxed, little and ring fingers pointed to the ground while the other three pointed upward, symbolic of π. “Good health. Hope the lightning storm didn’t do you any damage.”

“Luckily, we got out unscathed.” Wuvalis returned the salute, “we would like to refuel as soon as possible and be on our way before midnight. The storm has delayed us long enough.”

“I’m afraid that will not be possible,” the female supervisor said, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of her coat, “We are running dangerously low on fuel ourselves. If they can’t send some men out here the next two days, we're gonna need that fuel returning inland.”

“Comrade, with no disrespect,” Wuvalis’s voice toughened, “why did the fuel management falter so abhorrent? Tank squads need supply stations to restock on resources. It is your duty to ensure that happens. We cannot continue to C-7 if you do not provide us with the fuel we need…”

“Sergeant,” the female supervisor, with a slightly derisive smile, interrupted, “we have more than enough sustenance for you and your men to stay for a few days. If you don’t have enough fuel, you are more than welcome to wait for the convoy here with us, they will bring you the fuel you need to do your job. Just don’t tell me how to do mine, ok?” She offered Wuvalis a cigarette, “we do need your men to radio for the convoy, though.”

Wuvalis pondered for a moment before accepting the offer, “private. Return to our tank and radio for backup.”

Atyla took a glance at the storm outside, “madam, I just got in here and I have to get back out again?”

“You have any other ideas?” Wuvalis gave him a side eye.

Fuck! Atyla could feel the frost on his hood just starting to melt. God fucking damn it! Why the fuck does Umsil get to stay in the warmth? Just because I’m a private and he is the corporal? Yeah, right, the guy was less than a year my senior, just because he sustained mental damage from Tutut? Look at the guy! He is taunting me! The smug on his face is enough to grease tank engines! He loves watching other people suffer, doesn’t he? What a sick man…

“You too, corporal,” Wuvalis added, “the radio center might need a higher rank personnel to authorize the message.”

Umsil visibly scowled, and Atyla almost let loose a burst of laughter. Serves you well, you smug piece of work. “Well, corporal,” Atyla remarked as he opened the door, “after you, sir.”

“How considerate and democratic of you.” Umsil gave him a strangely heartfelt smile, as though the corporal was enjoying all the back and forth thus far. The man put on his coat and walked head first into the howling wind.