“What do we do now?” Benvodon asks, lowering his head with his ruff fanned in deference.

I stand straight and ruffle my own feathers to settle them properly. A minute of repositioning is enough to buy me the necessary time to recompose myself and contemplate options. Obviously there’s not any going back into the destroyed fortress. That leaves few places we can get to on foot and fewer that would be safe.

“Do you have a communications device upon you?” I ask, with hope but not certainty.

“No sir,” Benvodon answers, “I had time to grab my rifle or my tablet, but not both.”

I sigh, struggling to keep my chin lifted with feigned confidence.

“In that case we should make an effort to gather other survivors and make haste to the nearest dispatch center.”

Benvodon nods agreement, and then turns so that we can watch the blaze. There is no way we can fight our way into it to pull out any who still live. But for truth we cannot be the only ones to have made it out of the doomed walls.

It is still burning several hours later. We trek around the perimeter, finding several large chunks of the exterior wall that had been thrown a good distance by the explosions. We have not yet found any other survivors when we finally arrive at the wreckage of the gate complex.

It appears that the enemy had driven a large tracked vehicle through the barbed wire and fences before destroying the gates themselves and then exited through the same hole they created. The depth to which this vehicle had penetrated the lines of defense all on its own are fairly telling of how incredibly deficient our security measures had been from the start. It it an embarrassment of a strategic defeat. While I am not the sole responsible party for this failure, I feel the weight of it settling across the ridge of my spine.

My posture sags forward and my tail droops with the oppressive heaviness of unearned guilt.

And here, where the blast was directed by the open hole in the blast gates we find the only other survivors as well as the first visible corpses. It is my first in-person experience with death that is unfiltered through the camera’s eyes. Flashes of red blood spill against the white dust of crumbled cement. The smell of burnt feathers taints the air. I watch as one of our subservient humans walks through the spilled blood without even seeing it. Their eyes are so weak. His lavender uniform has been stained black with soot and sprinkled with white dust like a perfectly clear starfield.

The urge to regurgitate consumes my attention and I fight it by stretching my long neck to its fullest length and clutching the drone controllers tight against my chest. After several long minutes of fighting the urge, I push the headset over my eyes once more and take control of my drones. I cannot do much, but they can be put to use.

With the electronics as a filter, I can focus on searching the rubble where the fires have died. Maybe I will be able to find someone. Maybe I will be of use.

The first thing I find is a flash of red feathers under a twisted piece of the exterior fence. There are only a few reds stationed at this forward base. I find myself deeply worried that it may be someone I know.

One drone signals Benvodon to this location while another moves smaller debris out of the way with a wobbly flight path. I keep looking with the rest of the flock and find additional grays in less dire conditions huddling behind a twisted and broken piece of the destroyed wall. I lead them to safety as best as I can.

My knees ache from kneeling on the broken cement for so long and the battery for the controls sings a long continuous peep of warning at me. I know I do not have much longer before I will have to face reality again.

Listening through the headset tunes out the ambient noise around my physical location. It’s only when my electronics abruptly die, forcing all of the drones into an immediate emergency return, that I finally hear the unmistakable sound of an approaching copter. The thump of its rotors matches the soft wind against my back, but I cannot turn to face it yet. I must compose myself for I do not know the rank of whoever may be approaching and it would be most inappropriate for me to be so disassembled in front of someone of higher rank than myself. Or of significant lower rank, as that would belittle my own high station.

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It is only among my peers that I may show weakness.

With my tail lowered and its fan flattened into an appropriate line I turn as the electric motors on the copter wind down. Stepping clear of the large medical copter is the last person I honestly expected to see this morning.

It is easy to recognize my own mother. Her sapphire blue feathers have gone to dark oilslick black across her shoulders and in a long line down the crown of her head. She stands erect, with a forceful sense of personality that her bright white eyes cannot contain. A tiny crown of thin black display feathers marks her caste as my better, and she wears immaculate silver robes.

But her expression softens when her white eyes lock upon my blue ones. Were she not my own mother, who I know so very well, I would not have been able to interpret the tiny quiver of relief that shakes those thin display feathers. She is not angry to see me. She was worried about me?

“Distribute the supplies,” she commands to the general air. Two humans in pristine violet uniforms climb out of the copter in her wake to begin removing crates of medical supplies from the rear of the vehicle. Other medical staff with red and green feathers quickly disperse from the machine behind her to attend to the injured who are in most grievous need.

Mother’s tail stays low to the ground as she walks carefully toward me, but never does a single one of her near-navy feathers disturb the least bit of dust. Her silver gilt claws darken as they sink into the soft black soot that has slowly fallen from the sky. She does not break in front of anyone. I would not recognize her if she did.

When she reaches me, Mother gently cups my face with one taloned hand.

“I was so sure you would be dead,” she says by way of greeting. “It is most excellent that you are unharmed.” I cannot meet her eyes as they quickly look me over for damage and take in the missing feathers around my tail where Benvodon held tight while we jumped off of the high wall. “Certainly you will tell me of how you survived this catastrophe when we have retired to a private location. For now, I need you to give a brief report of the events.”

I swallow back the tide of emotion that threatens to engulf me. The desire to cling to my mother and bury my face in the soft down of her neck is strong, but I am an adult in full blue and such behavior is only appropriate for child still in their white pinfeathers. My drones begin to arrive and settle in the debris around me. Their little grasping claws give them perches on any free space.

The summary of events I relate to her is as abbreviated as I can tell it. But the telling takes long enough that the pink sky warns of the coming dawn.

As we speak, Benvodon brings the familiar red-feathered woman out of the rubble and she picks up one of my drones to inspect it with caution. A ring of white feathers around her eyes tells of her youth and inexperience. I recognize Trosaline, who I have long admired from afar.

At the end of my abbreviated version of the long chain of events, my mother places a gentle taloned hand on my shoulder again. She inclines her head toward me in a subtle gesture similar to the deference shown by the grays. The feathers under my collar prickle against the fabric as they flutter unbidden in barely controlled amazement.

“My dear Tromeo,” mother says in a clipped whisper, “I can let nothing happen to you. It is a miracle that you have survived this tragedy and have in turn made your survival a boon to others who are under your authority as well. Were all your siblings as possessed of such inner fortitude we would have completed the reconquest of our homeworld without any delay.”

I fan my tail and dip my head toward her in the expected manner of deference to one’s parent.

“Lady Trontague,” a high-pitched voice chirps from the shadows nearby. My tail fan snaps closed as I pivot my head toward the newcomer in surprise. “Our bastion of safety has been defeated. Where are we to retreat to now?”

It is Trosaline who speaks, and I see that her limbs have been bound with bandages and her uniform has been ripped in an almost artful way to reveal additional medical care.

Mother’s display plumage lifts higher as she straightens her neck and makes herself tall enough to take in the tableau of the surroundings.

Red and green feathered medics stop their work to look in the direction of their leader. The humans in their purple uniforms continue to work in silence. Injured survivors cease their keening, which I had failed to notice in the fugue of my own tasks, and turn attention to the lady in their midst.

“You will come with me,” my mother answers the query with supreme confidence. “The war fares not well, but my protection extends to every one of you and you will find shelter in my own home until her royalty locates a suitable new location for settling.”

And with five words I now have a more clear idea of our desperate situation than I have had in months. We fight not for conquest but survival on a world that was our own and should have been ours again. The mammals are winning once more.